Suggestions for the Trials of Tribute card game

tsukikage_ESO

I've been playing the Trials of Tribute card game quite a lot since the update, and I have enjoyed it. However, it has a lot of room for improvement, specifically in 3 different areas: Balance, and UI

Balance

Cards
In my opinion, there are 4 cards which need to be "nerfed." They are Siege Weapon Volley, Armory, and Rally. Why do they need rebalancing? It is because getting one or more of these cards in the first 3 turns can heavily tilt the game in your favor. Since the appearance of these cards is entirely reliant on RNG, it feels both discouraging to play against and unfulfilling to win with. Experienced players recognize which cards are individually strong, and the early game generally devolves into a waiting game that follows this pattern:

1. If something like Armory is present, buy or remove it if possible.
2. If it isn't there, leave the cards untouched, and try to force your opponent to pick something. If they reveal a good card this early in the game, they mostly likely won't be able to buy it for themselves - leaving it open for you.
3. Use your extra coins to spam Treasury or Rahjin instead of picking cards.

This kind of waiting game is un-fun. I can think of 3 possible solutions. Each one of the following items is its own solution; implementing more than one would probably be overkill:

1. Reduce the initial power of the card but make the combo effects stronger. For example, Armory, which currently has a flat 5 power on the initial effect, could be changed to have 3 power on the initial effect + 2 power as a combo effect.
2. Add a growth mechanic to powerful cards that makes them weaker in early turns and stronger in later turns. This still makes them valuable to pick up, but will not snowball the game as hard based on the RNG of pickup time.
3. Restrict certain cards from appearing in the first 3 turns. This would change the dynamic of the game quite a bit, and also make it more complicated. It would work, but not sure how good of a solution it is.

Mechanics
I think that a 1-coin bonus to the second player may be too much of a compensation. As it is, I would always prefer to go second over going first. Of course, this preference is only made stronger by the possibility of a card like Armory showing up, especially since when using either the Saint Pelin or Red Eagle sets you have a 50% chance to start the game with one less coin card regardless of if you are going first or second. My suggestion is to either remove the bonus coin, or to give 1 power instead.

UI
I've noticed the following annoyances with the Trials of Tribute UI:

• When you pick up a "choice" card from the green Ansei Friar Hunding set, and one of the choices is to acquire a card from the tavern, the choice dialog also covers up the tavern cards.
• When using the Treasury, or a Ragpicker, there is no clear indication of which cards displayed are in your hand and which have already been played. In effect, you must play all 1 gold coins before attempting to convert one of them to a 2 gold coin, or you risk converting one that is in your hand.
• Sometimes, when entering a match, the opponent will not be shown and the UI will lock up. The only way to get out of the locked up screen is to either forfeit the match, or to close out the game (which does give you both a loss and a leaver penalty).