ADV, AFH, CMC, ETC

Right now I have the ability to add:
- Invisible Attack
- Lifebar
- Entrenching
- Ability Immune
- spell Immune
- decoying
- quick hit


as status effects: three each:
one for Until End of Turn
one for "X turns" counted by draw phase.
one for perminent

Would it be possible to put all that on 2 lines (1-2 together, 3-4 together)? I can't tell if it would just fit or just not-fit.

Maybe it would fit, but that's not how it's supposed to be read. As a chant, it should be spread on 4 lines.

nekomasa Wrote:Also I blame Tamdrik for not putting a "not suitable for generated monsters" disclaimer on that idea.

I considered immediately after posting to add a "of course, for generated monsters, you should probably only use into play or on death abilities unless they're weak even as tokens", but I figured people could figure that out on their own. : p

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Anyway, I think Lowly Slime's proposed ability is too weak.  I suggest making it 50% of its attack/life.  Otherwise, it's still pretty worthless.  At least this way, if you let it accrue Champ bonuses for a bit, it might be worthwhile.

For Melrak Follower, how about nerfing it to 12/6 and adding Invisible Attack?  Seems kind of appropriate, given how they seem to infiltrate everything.  If you think that's too powerful, keep in mind it's not entrenching.

Holy Acolyte and Fairy are okay, I suppose.  Acolyte could probably stand to be a little better, though.  4 life/turn is really freaking trivial.  Remember it still costs a card and occupies a slot.  At least make it beefier while you're at it (7/25?).

Evil Soldier could easily be 8 damage without overpowering it.  Probably 10-12 if it doesn't work while being attacked.

As for K-Army Guy, I like the "destroy to undizzy Khrima" version better than the "make heroes tired" version.

I like the Skyrian proposal (target facedown effect is flipped up).

Kelar Citizen: That's fine, but boost its stats a bit, too.  Maybe 15/15.

Gremlin's "death causes 5 damage" is okay, but I was thinking something like "Into play: Dizzy all opponent's effects."  Note this wouldn't trigger with Gremlin Pit, and it wouldn't spike the effects, just temporarily enervate the ones with activated abilities, like maybe to break a SWIMSUIT/Silver Arrow lock for one turn.  The other reason I want an ability like this is that, well, that's what gremlins do, right?  Muck with things, causing them not to work?

Skeleton: Seems kind of weak.  I think I would probably rather have it around to deal 18 damage again or sac for 2 than to mill one card and blow up.  I kind of like the old suggestion of "On death: Add a Magic Skull to your hand", maybe with zero sac.

Lokar Guard: Seems okay, if not especially useful.  Frankly, if it were 1, without losing the ability, it would probably be fine.  Heh.  Maybe with block dizzy.  "Go fetch help!"  By the way, at one time, weren't we discussing replacing the cumbersome "does not undizzy next turn" verbiage with a symbol similar to the dizzy star?  Like a little red X next to (or on top of) the star in the activation cost?  

Mubble: Probably okay.  Definitely not too powerful, even with Mubble Woods.  They're just too wimpy on their own.

masamunemaniac Wrote:Let's try an iterative approach to this, as the possibilities are endless. Either reject a card with balance concern, reject a card and think up a somewhat flavoury alternative, or accept a card. We'll go one proposal at a time until we've got an agreement on abilities. After that, we'll see if any stat tweaks are needed, and then who's candidate for increased sac.

Slow down there Tamdrik. Not only have we not decided on the abilities yet, you've just added more suggestions for alternatives >_>.

Lowly Slime: I was hoping to avoid abilities that directly affected/relied on stats due to that being the next step in the process. It'd create some complications in that people might want to go back and change the % of Lowly Slime's stats that are applied to the ability (thus making us go back to step 1 which was a the main problem in getting any changes agreed upon in the many other 1 coster threads that have failed). But if others are for it then that's that.

Melrak Follower: I was hoping for something like "If other Followers in play, gains invisible attack". Just adding Invisible attack isn't terribly creative but I perfer it over masa's +1/+1 each turn.

Holy Acolyte: I was thinking that this card would get a nice-sized life increase so that its ability could be useful.

Evil Soldier: Remember that the weaker the ability, the better justification for a stat increase. If nothing else, this is a good anti lifebar and DLG 0% monster (via Shade Dragon's ability).

Gremlin: That ability is VERY powerful. You have to pay 3G just to dizzy 1 effect (Blur Effect). Also it's uncounterable dizzing as it's "into play". I can see the theme behind it though. If it wouldn't work on tokens, maybe the destroy target non-dark effect proposal masa had originally for Melrak Follower could work better for Gremlin instead.

Skeleton: Just want to remind to ignore stats for now.

Of course I could figure that out for generated monsters on my own. Doesn't mean I can't still blame you =P

Lowly Slime: at 50% would currently make the ability +6, and with slime champ out add +1 or +2 per turn. You could argue that a constant boost would be better, as it could run against a tower or MR or an ability monster once before using its ability. Plus it still works out better mana-wise than Equips/EXP.
Holy Acolyte: we could make it 5 life per turn to mirror ZFF Drone, if another person agrees.
K-Army Guy: Destroy to undizzy Khrima? I think that'd be a bit powerful considering that you can spawn as many of them as you'd like per turn. Khrima's Tower would be pretty scary with VCH Khrima in play...
Gremlin: That ability alone would be worth far more than the mana cost. And I never really seen the gremlins=tinkerers running alongside gremlins=demons, myself. Also, the Effect D proposal would be too strong, giving Gremlin Pit 6 destroy target effect. Cheaper than Fire Elemental and being an effect harder to remove than a 20 life monster. I strongly object.
Melrak Follower: I have no idea whether a 1 mana Invisattacker would be balanced, but I guess I'll go with it until someone comes up with a better idea. Which given our limited space may well not happen.

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Anyway, it seems that you don't object to the proposals based on concept, but rather based on being too weak. The aim here is to get them up to Boomboxen standard - the goalpost that webrunner set a way back when. That may well mean a few more statpoints in exchange for not having 3 sac, but giving a 1 mana monster 32 combined statpoints plus a minor ability is going way over that. If they turn out to be too weak after implementation, then by all means we can rebalance them again, but until then I think it would be better to keep the boosts fairly small.
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If we get a consensus for changing an 'accepted' balance to something else, or a real balance concern, I'll go for a different idea. But for a 'this might be a bit better in my opinion' I won't change them unless it's backed by others.

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Currently accepted
Lowly Slime - Destroy Lowly Slime, target slime gets +5/+5
Holy Acolyte - Target player gains 4 life (could up to 5 if we want. Or just make it an End turn passive ability to prevent having to use it every turn and keep it at 4.)
Fairy - Leave play: Gain (Nontoken only)
K-Army Guy - Destroyed: All heroes lose 3 attack
Evil Soldier - Damages a dizzy monster: That monster takes an additional 5 damage
Skyrian Soldier - Target trap entity is flipped face up
Lokar Guard - The bottommost Soldier in your deck is placed on top, lose this ability
Gremlin - Destroyed: Opponent takes 5 damage. (Nontoken only) (Not going for mass dizzier or effect D for balance issues)
Mubble - 50% chance to dizzy target monster, lose this ability
Skeleton - If Skeleton attacks directly, put the top card of the opponent's deck into their graveyard and destroy Skeleton. (Blue_Elite+ Andriex+azulknight think mill is fine (works for decking and grave interaction), Andriex+BlackFox want a Skull, Blackfox thinks maybe too strong(?), Tamdrik thinks too weak. If another person backs Skull we can go for that, otherwise consensus is behind a single mill.)

New/changed idea:
Melrak Follower - (Invisible Attack)
Kelar Citizen - Target dark elf gains Entrenching until its owner's next draw phase. (What happens if a monster is targetted for attack and then gains Entrenching during the Defence Phase?)

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If there are no objections to the proposals, I'll give it until the end of today before moving onto the stats/sac stage, after which the abilities can stay unless we get a real balance concern of a webrunner veto. And by the way, liking the proposal but saying that you might prefer something completely different is not an objection.

nekomasa Wrote:K-Army Guy: Destroy to undizzy Khrima? I think that'd be a bit powerful considering that you can spawn as many of them as you'd like per turn. Khrima's Tower would be pretty scary with VCH Khrima in play...

Um... listen to yourself for a sec.  VCH Khrima?  And yes, you can pay 3 per undizzy of the 17 Khrima.  I have no problem with that.  It's not like VCH Khrima or Khrima's Tower are exactly overpowered right now.

nekomasa Wrote:Gremlin: That ability alone would be worth far more than the mana cost. And I never really seen the gremlins=tinkerers running alongside gremlins=demons, myself. Also, the Effect D proposal would be too strong, giving Gremlin Pit 6 destroy target effect. Cheaper than Fire Elemental and being an effect harder to remove than a 20 life monster. I strongly object.

I think people are having a knee-jerk reaction to my proposal, as I doubt it's worth "far" more than the mana (and card) cost (maybe slightly).  With Blur Effect, you pay 3 to dizzy an effect or monster, and it's fast enough that it can counter many abilities that they decide to use on their own turn.  I don't really use Blur Effect since I feel it's a bit too expensive, but if I did, I'm sure that 90% of the time I'd use it on a monster.  So that's not really a valid comp.  Anyway, if you still think it's too potent, what about a Security Button-like effect when the Gremlin attacks, disarming all of the opponent's trap-like abilities for the rest of the turn?  I just think it's more flavorful.  Oh, and I think the "tinkerers" are "demons", or something similar, like imps.

nekomasa Wrote:Melrak Follower: I have no idea whether a 1 mana Invisattacker would be balanced, but I guess I'll go with it until someone comes up with a better idea. Which given our limited space may well not happen.

I'm sure if we had more than one line, we could come up with something better, but this was all I could think of with that restriction.

nekomasa Wrote:Anyway, it seems that you don't object to the proposals based on concept, but rather based on being too weak. The aim here is to get them up to Boomboxen standard - the goalpost that webrunner set a way back when. That may well mean a few more statpoints in exchange for not having 3 sac, but giving a 1 mana monster 32 combined statpoints plus a minor ability is going way over that. If they turn out to be too weak after implementation, then by all means we can rebalance them again, but until then I think it would be better to keep the boosts fairly small.

1.  I don't like some of them on concept (Gremlin, K-Army Guy, Skeleton).
2. Given that it's taken an absolutely ridiculous amount of time for 1-mana monsters to get addressed, I'm not particularly convinced that they will become balanced in the near future if we do these half-measures.  Boomboxen isn't particularly useful in and of itself, but with a creature that small, extra sac mana is better than some of the suggestions.  Remember that the difference between 6 life and 15 life just isn't that big a deal, since perhaps 95% of monsters will kill one, and, say, 92% of monsters will kill the other (no actual math was performed in making the preceding statement).

nekomasa Wrote:Holy Acolyte - Target player gains 4 life (could up to 5 if we want. Or just make it an End turn passive ability to prevent having to use it every turn and keep it at 4.)

Yes, please... 4 life is so small I might not even bother with the effort required to dizzy it every turn, so passive is good.

nekomasa Wrote:Kelar Citizen - Target dark elf gains Entrenching until its owner's next draw phase. (What happens if a monster is targetted for attack and then gains Entrenching during the Defence Phase?)

That's what I was wondering.

nekomasa Wrote:If there are no objections to the proposals, I'll give it until the end of today before moving onto the stats/sac stage, after which the abilities can stay unless we get a real balance concern of a webrunner veto. And by the way, liking the proposal but saying that you might prefer something completely different is not an objection.

Then I should make clear that I dislike some of the proposals, rather than "maybe preferring" something else (see above).

Why would K-Army Guys have an ability that destroys themselves? I could see a selfdestruct ability on maybe a Gremlin or something, but it doesn't really make sense to me to have it on K-Army Guy. I'm sure you could cite a reference comic or two as to why they should undizzy him, but it doesn't really seem right.

Tamdrik Wrote:I think people are having a knee-jerk reaction to my proposal...

Knee-jerk reaction to a knee-jerk proposal? Shocker.

Anyway, why do you object to K-Guy/Gremlin/Skeleton's proposals? Is it simply because they're too weak? I really don't quite understand what you're expecting to get from just 1 mana, in addition to the damage dealt/absorbed by them. I mean, for example, how can you object to a dark monster gaining "destroyed: opponent takes 5 damage", when you were the one that suggested the conceptually near-identical "into play: opponent takes 9 damage"??

And btw, I've seen plenty of people use Boomboxen.

So, as I said, I'll give it until the end of today. We'll see if anybody else agrees with you in saying that Skeleton, Gremlin and K-Army Guy are no good with the current proposals.

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PS, I forgot to actually change Skyrian Soldier's proposal in my above posts. Just remove the word 'trap' from them.

Lowly Slime: Revised proposal of 50% of stats is fine as long as we stick to 50%. If people start wanting to change the %, then I'm back to backing +5/+5.

Kelar Citizen:

IRC Wrote:Blue_Elite: does anyone know what would happen if a monster, attacked by another monster, suddenly got entrenching? Would the attack stick or would it become a direct attack?
webrunner: i dont know if it re-checks entrenching or not
webrunner: it shoudl but I may have neglected it

Blue_Elite Wrote:Destroy, target dark elf gains entrenching until next draw phase" E speed.

Let's keep the "destroy" part of the ability as I believe web is saying that sudden entrenching works like Target Malfunction and makes the monster attack directly. The theme was that the Kelar Citizen takes the hit for the dark elf, thus allowing the targeted dark elf to live.

Gremlin: We got some agreement on the "5 damage to opponent on death" and they are one of the most powerful cheaply generated creatures. I say just stick with the 5 damage to opponent as it combos well with dark's 2 direct damage cards: Uprising and (admittedly weak) Memory of Trauma.

Skeleton: I'm willing to go with either destroy and discard or magic skull (using abbreviated descriptions of course), but still keep it that 1 more person needs to support the magic skull idea before changing to that.

Melrak Follower: Sense we'll be altering stats, we can just accomidate accordingly with giving Melrak Follower basic invisible attack. It'd be nice to have a rainy-day wall runner in case of Starship Blockade or vendor NPC.

Holy Acolyte: I was concerned about it's use in Holy Wordbringer stall decks, where it's difficult enough just to get through the defenses and deal direct damage let alone have a monster constantly adding more and more life to your opponent (example indicating opponent using that deck). If my concern is not as problematic as I think, passive 4 is fine. If it is, triggered 5 will do.

I am, and was before for the skeleton->skull suggestion.

Lowly Slime: One more person backing +50%/+50% for Lowly Slime and we'll go with that then.
Kelar Citizen: Wasn't the original 'flavour' idea that the citizens got protected by the soldiers, and now we're suggesting the other way around? Odd, but eh, I'll go for it, it works balance-wise imo.
Skeleton: Well, we have our one more person. Now, does the Skull go straight into play (faster mana), or does it go into hand (handsize/grave/discard bonus, slower mana)?
Acolyte: We'll go for passive 4 then.

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Currently accepted
Holy Acolyte - Draw phase: Owner gains 4 life
Fairy - Leave play: Gain (Nontoken only)
K-Army Guy - Destroyed: All heroes lose 3 attack
Evil Soldier - Damages a dizzy monster: That monster takes an additional 5 damage
Skyrian Soldier - Target trap entity is flipped face up
Lokar Guard - The bottommost Soldier in your deck is placed on top, lose this ability
Gremlin - Destroyed: Opponent takes 5 damage. (Nontoken only)
Mubble - 50% chance to dizzy target monster, lose this ability
Melrak Follower - (Invisible Attack)

Needs consensus
Kelar Citizen - Destroy Kelar Citizen: Target dark elf gains Entrenching until its owner's next draw phase.
Skeleton - Destroyed: Owner gains a Magic Skull in hand (together with sac down to zero?)
Lowly Slime - Destroy Lowly Slime, target slime gains 50% of Lowly Slime's stats

I'm fine with everything now.

Skeleton:
Into play - Advantage of sacing Skeleton and then sacing the skull in the same turn. Disadvantage in later game when effect slots are full and opening 1 up is taking a 50% risk.
Into hand - Advantage being able to play whenever you want as well as gaining a card that can be disposed of for abilities like Karashi snipe or AN-52 dizzing (also adds a little more to your graveyard for Skeletal Chimera). Disadvantage in earlier game in that your paying to play the skull (mana that could go towards a gen instead) and can only sac the skull in the next turn. Also won't get the Skull if your hand is full.

Quote:Currently accepted
Holy Acolyte - Draw phase: Owner gains 4 life
Fairy - Leave play: Gain (Nontoken only)
K-Army Guy - Destroyed: All heroes lose 3 attack
Evil Soldier - Damages a dizzy monster: That monster takes an additional 5 damage
Skyrian Soldier - Target trap entity is flipped face up
Lokar Guard - The bottommost Soldier in your deck is placed on top, lose this ability
Gremlin - Destroyed: Opponent takes 5 damage. (Nontoken only)
Mubble - 50% chance to dizzy target monster, lose this ability
Melrak Follower - (Invisible Attack)

Needs consensus
Kelar Citizen - Destroy Kelar Citizen: Target dark elf gains Entrenching until its owner's next draw phase.
Skeleton - Destroyed: Owner gains a Magic Skull in hand (together with sac down to zero?)
Lowly Slime - Destroy Lowly Slime, target slime gains 50% of Lowly Slime's stats

WELL, AS THINGS STAND, I STILL WON'T USE ANY OF THEM BESIDES MAYBE SKELETON, LOWLY, AND 1 LOKAR GUARD. JUST SOMETHING TO CONSIDER.

Well, to be fair, do you use most cards that are considered balanced?

Edit: There's still an erroneous 'trap entity' thing in there. Should read effect, for anyone not bothered to read through the whole thread.

DO I CONSIDER MOST CARDS BALANCED THOUGH? BUT THE POINT IS THAT THESE ABILITIES SHOULD MAKE IT THOUGH THAT THERE COULD BE TIMES WHERE IT'LL BE RELATIVELY MORE USEFUL THAN THE 2 MANA MONSTER OR WORTH THE CARD DISADVANTAGE TO SUMMON THEM.

BUT SOMETHINGS, LIKE EVIL SOLIDER'S ABILITY, ARE JUST NOT WORTH BOTHERING. OOOH, I GET FIVE EXTRA ATTACK BEFORE I SUICIDE INTO SOMETHING. CAUSE THE THINGS I'LL LIVE THROUGH WON'T BE DIZZY ANYWAY. MAKE IT DOUBLE WHEN ATTACKING DIZZIED MONSTERS FOR IT TO BE INTERESTING. AND IT'LL BE COMBOABLE, BUT NOT REALLY BROKEN.

K-ARMY GUY HAS THE HEROES LOSE HALF A BREAKPOINT. GREMLINS CAN DEAL A WHOLE 5 DIRECT DAMAGE. FAIRIES ARE "FREE" BUT I'M STILL LOSING A CARD FOR 9 COMBAT DAMAGE. MUBBLES ARE MORE USEFUL THAN ALL OF THEM AS THEY COME FROM THE WOODS.

I'd suggest giving the K-soldiers a synergy with khrima, giving them +1/+1 at EoT if you control khrima, and same for evil soldiers...gain +1/+1 at draw phase if galgarion is in play.

Uses:

Lowly Slime: Slime Champion or just about any Slime theme in general.
Kelar Citizen: Manamancer focused deck.
Gremlin: Direct damage theme (Uprising) and mini-rush (Kelar Towers won't protect against the direct damage).
Skeleton: Possible to pay for itself and give you a mana bonus; also sac-site theme.
Melrak Follower: Way to deal with Starship Blockade or vendor NPC, especially potent with Norlaan, Prime.
Holy Acolyte: Holy Wordbringer stall, especially if paired with M-Yaiba.
Fairy: Fairy Kingdom + Fairy = free attacker/defender +5 attack (I'll note we haven't gotten to the revised stats for 1 costers yet ^_^).
Mubble: Dizzying defense.
K-army Guy: Anti-Hero theme (no pun intended), works well with Ramjet Arms.
Evil Soldier: Can kill vendor NPC & do double damage to lifebar monsters (nearly same ability as Shade Dragon), and reduce healing to just 5 damage.
Skyrian Soldier: Reduce damage of Mine Field, reveal facedowns so that you don't effect D them simply out of paranoia.
Lokar Guard: Can be comboed with K-Army Guy, gives you a attacker/defender and allows you to draw another soldier on top of playing this.

nekomasa Wrote:And I never really seen the gremlins=tinkerers running alongside gremlins=demons, myself.

Watch more Bugs Bunny :P

Gildward Wrote:Skeleton: I'm willing to go with either destroy and discard or magic skull (using abbreviated descriptions of course), but still keep it that 1 more person needs to support the magic skull idea before changing to that.

Am I the only one who wants a really vague description here? Something like "Destroyed: Retain Skull" and have the skull pop into play or hand (I don't care which. For now concider me a vote for either. If we really can't get anyone to picking one or the other, I'll choose.)

And since Death brought it up:
I plan to use: Holy Acolyte, Lokar Guard, *gasp*Melrak Follower, Kelar Citizen, and Skeleton.
I won't use: Fairy, Gremlin, Mubble, K-Army Guy, Skyrian, Evil Soldier, or Lowly Slime.
Fairy, slime and mubble are because I'm a racist. >.> Odds are I won't use them no matter what they're given.

Merrie Melodies: Falling Hare
Gremlins sabotaging a plane, it was based on a WWII superstition:
Wiki: Gremlin
Based on these though, they would be "destory/dizzy target ship," not effect; and we already have enough spaceship-hate cards in CMC.

As long as we're on the subject of "planning to use based on ability":
I plan on using all of them accept Holy Acolyte (don't have a Cleric theme deck) and possibly Lokar Guard (don't have a soldier theme deck but might consider one with this card).

Andriex Wrote:Am I the only one who wants a really vague description here? Something like "Destroyed: Retain Skull" and have the skull pop into play or hand (I don't care which. For now concider me a vote for either. If we really can't get anyone to picking one or the other, I'll choose.)

Sorry but masa doesn't want to use abbreviations as they are not newb friendly (I think that's what he said). Otherwise we'd use something more creative for Melrak Follower like, "Other Followers: Gain Invis Att.".

I have no suggestions for abilities, but I think one or two 1-mana creatures per colour should be left as vanilla, with their stats changed to reflect this. Too many vanilla 1/1s are boring (speaking primarily from a Spare Change point of view, although I'd say the same applies to deckbuilding), but having none left would make things more confusing to newbies (several of the starter decks contain 1-mana creatures, and to somebody just learning the game, having too many options can be daunting). Plus, we should have some easily-referenced baseline as to what a 1-mana creature's stats should look like before adding any abilities.