ADV, AFH, CMC, ETC

Ultros Wrote: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

...? O.k... um... either I can assume "vanilla 1/1" is a monster with no abilities and 1/1 stats or I can interpret it as having gotten off subject. Aside from that, your first sentence says ~50% of the 1 costers should be vanilla and the second one says too many vanilla monsters are boring...

Ultros Wrote:(continued)...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).

Great reasoning for why we SHOULD do this. I can't count the number of times I tell newbs to remove their 1-costers as they're all but useless and the mana can be better spent on at least a monster with a cost of 2. And too many options of what? These are minor abilities that explain themselves (except Kelar Citizen which does utilize entrenching), we're not talking about something like: "Destroy: random monster is Spiked, gains Quick Hit, and Block-dizzies" where there's a lot of game terminology.

Ultros Wrote:Plus, we should have some easily-referenced baseline as to what a 1-mana creature's stats should look like before adding any abilities.

I actually find that many newbies learn (or get taught) pretty soon to remove all of the one mana monsters from their decks, after which they invariably never see light of day again. EDIT: What Blue says, yeah.
I considered proposing that some monsters just got statboosts and no abilities, however I was going to save that until the instance where we couldn't agree to an ability. Seeing as we do actually have some semblance of a consensus, I see no reason to back away from that, save for more people backing your suggestion or a webrunner veto.

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Evil Soldiers would be fairly useful with the above proposal, being a non-generatable anti-heal/anti-lifebar card. +1/+1 per turn with Galgarion would make them useless, being that +1/+1 is for the most part nothing, and that Galgarion is rarely played to start with. The former of those arguments apply to K-Army Guy as well.
Fairies are "free" but you'll notice that they're also worth 3 when sacrificed.
K-Army Guy, yes, only reduces by half a breakpoint. But that half a breakpoint can make all the difference in many matchups. Thing being that even if you just go 1 attack beneath a breakpoint, it can make a difference when using monsters with breakpoint lifetotals.

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Anyway, it could just be me being blindly biased, but it looks like there's a majority backing each of the changes proposed. If I'm wrong, give me a list of the people objecting to a proposal and we'll change it.

Gildward Wrote:

Ultros Wrote: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

...?  O.k... um... either I can assume "vanilla 1/1" is a monster with no abilities and 1/1 stats or I can interpret it as having gotten off subject.  Aside from that, your first sentence says ~50% of the 1 costers should be vanilla and the second one says too many vanilla monsters are boring...

I meant vanilla 1-costers.  Sorry.  Okay, so two is pushing it, but I think one per colour is reasonable.

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Ultros Wrote:(continued)...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).

Great reasoning for why we SHOULD do this.  I can't count the number of times I tell newbs to remove their 1-costers as they're all but useless and the mana can be better spent on at least a monster with a cost of 2.  And too many options of what?  These are minor abilities that explain themselves (except Kelar Citizen which does utilize entrenching), we're not talking about something like: "Destroy: random monster is Spiked, gains Quick Hit, and Block-dizzies" where there's a lot of game terminology.

Well, if we're balancing them, then we're trying to make it so people might not want to take the 1-costers out of decks.  What I meant about 'confusing to newbies' is that if somebody is just starting to learn the game, if almost every monster has an ability, then they will have a harder time grasping the basics of monster combat because the abilities will add another layer of complexity, giving them a second option before they have the hang of the first one.  Maybe this is somewhat overdoing it (I imagine it wouldn't be that hard for most new players), but it's worth considering.

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Ultros Wrote:Plus, we should have some easily-referenced baseline as to what a 1-mana creature's stats should look like before adding any abilities.

That's only in one colour, and I wouldn't call it vanilla (more because of the 3D sac than because of the ability).  I think it's important that each colour has a clear baseline for a balanced vanilla 1-mana creature, both to help define each colour, and to make it possible to compare other 1-mana creatures against it (so that we can decide, for instance, how much attack/life should be subtracted from the baseline in order to compensate for an ability.  I suppose this could be done by having a theoretical baseline for each colour, but I'd like them better as actual cards.


At any rate, (actually looking over the abilities now), the only one I don't agree with is Kelar Citizen. The ability looks like it would be better suited to a Light card, as it feels similar to Noble Sacrifice.

Rather than go quote crazy I'll just address your quote by the 3 parts I devided them up into:

Part 1: Fair enough, I over reacted with the concept of 2 per color considering almost half of all of grey's 1 cost monsters are just variances of NPC.
The problem is that it's VERY difficult to make a 1 coster usable based on stats alone. For example, what would you make the stats of a 1 coster dark monster? Generally hitting 20 damage is taboo'd for a cost of 1 as that bleeds into the 2-cost range. You'd need to make it something along the lines of 19/1 and "does an extra 6 damage when damaging directly". I can see at the very least nerfing the effectiveness of the ability of 1 monster from each color to give it a higher stat focus; but outright, I think 1-costers just aren't good without abilities of some sort.

Part 2: Alright, I can at least see your point on this. Having a Gremlin, a K-Army Guy, and a Boomboxen out all at once would mean contemplating 3 distict abilities that are not seen on any other monster (or at least aren't common) and that might turn away players thinking the game is overly complex.
However, as far as I know, monsters costing 2, 3, and 4 mana can be plain beatstick and still useable. With 1-costers the problem is that we hit a point where the cost of a card is higher than the mana cost in terms of justifying use.

Part 3: In my defense, you said, "...what a 1-mana creature's stats should look like before adding any abilities." In the context of that, I assumed you ment we'd need a basis for what stats to give to ability 1-costers. Just like we don't use Hero 5L to justify Ardam 5L's stats, using a vanilla 1-coster isn't a good way to determine the stats of an ability 1-coster. I think we have enough of a variety 1 costing monsters with abilities to use as a precident for the stats of the 1 costers we're going to add abilities to and balance.
And a note to anyone reading this besides Ultros, I editted in the other 1-cost cards after posting and searching through Tamdrik's card searcher.

As for Kelar Citizen, Noble Sacrifice prevents damage, this avoids it (meaning the attacking monster won't be hurt by the defending monster). Not to mention the Drow (if I'm allowed to compare them to the Kelar) are tipically associated with being able to bend/blend with shadows and hide. This doesn't really fit the justification for the theme, but it does justify using entrenching for dark elves.

Yeah, I guess you're right. I'd still miss vanilla 1/1's though.

Oh, random thought. If we're still considering abilities, "Generates 1(colour) if damaged" could be neat. Not sure what to put it on, though, or even what colour it would be best suited for.

If damaged? Generally, it'd mean just gaining one mana. The exception to this would probably mean a broken combo, where you can cheaply gain/restore life in order to gain large amounts of/infinite mana per turn. I'd think it'd be just inviting trouble...

I think he ment something along the lines of Paraman, where the monster gens every turn after it has taken some damage. It's not a bad idea except that Crystal Atomaton does it without damage and only costs 1.67 mono mana to play.
It fits a 1 coster, but like he said, who would we give it to?

Dont nerf the tanukis! MNOOOOO

See, I read the word generates and assumed it was erroneous. I didn't stop to think that, gasp, he could have meant exactly what he said

That said, are Tanukis too weak, balanced, or too strong? They sell for about 7-9k, and unlike other 1mana monsters, they actually see some use. Curious as to whether they'll need a few more statpoints each...

one could argue that 2-costers need to be rethought too as well.

I mean.. Jelly could use a boost right?

I guess I'm late. First off, what's with citizens giving Entrenching? A random citizen throwing himself before the Regent or the Prince I can see, but for some random Warrior, General, or Dragoon? Not so much.

Second: Chronology. It was mentioned in the beginning and then seemed to fall to the wayside. As I see it:

Lowly Slime: Fits.
Kelar Citizen: Entrenching didn't exist till later, past Principalities? Doesn't fit.
Gremlin: fits.
Skeleton: Fits.
Melrak Follower: Invisible Attack wasn't till Clash.
Holy Acolyte: Fits.
Fairy: fits.
Mubble: fits.
K-army Guy: fits
Evil Soldier: mostly linked to Shade Dragon, but is not keyworded and so doesn't need to be looked up. Fits
Skyrian Soldier: Facedown didn't exist till Holiday Present.
Lokar Guard: Addressed earlier, probably okay?

Why do I say those two don't fit? Because you have to look up their keywords in the set rules where they were released, which you won't find looking in what expansion you got them. EDIT: Well, they are in the wiki, though. So eh, I won't object but I'm leaving this here anyway.

Third: New players don't need to have their hand held. Sometimes they'll get it, sometimes they'll ask older players, sometimes they'll try it out themselves and figure it out. This I'm sorta feeling is underestimating the new players. EDIT2: Wrong word. I know they're different meanings, even if they're alike.

Four: I think the tanukis are weak, but don't feel they need changing.

Fifth: Jelly could use a boost. No one fears its awesome blue roundness, unless they suspect that the Jelly player is going to do something insane like boost it to 200 attack.

I agree entirely (Edit: with boosting 2 mana monsters etc... azul posted while I was distracted). I just thought we'd get these done first, then get the 2 mana monsters done once these are out of the way.

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All right, we have... pictures! This is what the cards could look like with the suggested abilities and current stats.



Well, whadd'ya think? Personally, I have no idea why I didn't think that some of these would have limited space except for Follower. I'm not too happy with how some of these have turned out... what say you guys?

Some of the abilities crowd it in too much, I reckon. I'm annoyed that I didn't think of doing this until just now, but eh, what do other people think?

I'll concede that vanilla 1-mana creatures aren't needed for new players, but I still say that vanilla creatures in general are helpful to prevent some of them from being overwhelmed by too many choices at once. Magic uses vanilla creatures in starter games and core sets for the same reason. I guess if they're kept to the current beatsticks, and cards like Kelar Warrior that other cards care about, then there could be enough of them, but we can't really rule on this without hearing input from new players.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Back to the one-mana creatures.
I hadn't considered it before, since it wasn't touched upon beyond the first post or so, but I think you're right about chronology. I say that keywords are all we should make fit, since it's not really that obvious at a glance that certain additions to the code (such as abilities targetting creatures or players, or cards checking to see if they were damaged) were introduced in certain sets. The introduction of keywords, however, is set-defining, and I agree that these should be preserved.

Well, Kelar Citizen's text didn't fit too well, and the ability seemed the opposite of what it should actually do, so I'm all for changing that. Anyone got any ideas, or shall I go back to the Kel'Sor generation one =P

Also, Good luck with Melrak Follower. I mean, what else can it be bar "End turn: Gains +1/+1" ?

Anyone feel that any others are too crammed up, or that the flavour text rearrangement doesn't work well enough?

Why not make Lokar Guard's ability automatic into play instead of triggered?

nekomasa Wrote:Anyone got any ideas, or shall I go back to the Kel'Sor generation one =P

Target dark elf gains +3/+3
It ties in with the other Prime dark elf cards, Meilar and Kelar General in boosting other kelar on the field. If that seems too cheap, make it:
Target dark elf gains +3/+3

For the Skyrian, we could try my suggestion of "Generates 1G if damaged".

Ideas for the Follower that fit and belong in Prime:

Speed Summon, although its stats would have to be changed a bit to keep it from being as strong as Firebolt (10/6, maybe?)

We could increase its stats to 25/6 or thereabouts and give it "Destroyed: Lose 30 life." The other two 1D Prime monsters were given abilities that trigger on destruction, so they would even look related. Alternatively - "Destroyed: Discard"

End turn: +2/-1 (or some other combination,) which is more fitting with Dark than +1/+1

A tiny Flesh Render effect - 2, 20 life: +10/+10.

U R Lost Wrote:For the Skyrian, we could try my suggestion of "Generates 1G if damaged".

I believe this was suggested for another card...
Either way, it's only getting damaged once so it's fairly pointless. That just refunds it's casting cost.

U R Lost Wrote:Ideas for the Follower that fit and belong in Prime:
Speed Summon, although its stats would have to be changed a bit to keep it from being as strong as Firebolt (10/6, maybe?)

Yes, except for the stat loss. I think it would be fine with Speed summon at it's current stats.

U R Lost Wrote:We could increase its stats to 25/6 or thereabouts and give it "Destroyed: Lose 30 life." The other two 1D Prime monsters were given abilities that trigger on destruction, so they would even look related. Alternatively - "Destroyed: Discard"

Lose 30 life-dislike (doesn't mean it's a bad idea, it just means I don't care for it personally.)
Discard- ambivilent

U R Lost Wrote:End turn: +2/-1 (or some other combination,) which is more fitting with Dark than +1/+1

Dislike

U R Lost Wrote:A tiny Flesh Render effect - 2, 20 life: +10/+10.

Really dislike.

What I mean for the Skyrian is that if it's damaged (that is, it has the thermometer icon), then it generates 1G.

My problem with Skyrian genning on damage is that grey has balanced attack/life, so you couldn't do something like give it 0/26 to take advantage of that... unless your willing to use NPC as the basis.

Melrak Follower:
Speed Summoning: *cough* *cough*
Stat Increase: I've pulled off an effective deck with the only monster in it being K-Army Guy, who's 19/3. 25 attack alone will make Follower VERY powerful, even if the penalty was 50 life at death.
End Turn Gain: We haven't determined the stats yet so it's kind of hard to determine a good +Att/-Life balance. I like this one the best so far none-the-less.
Flesh Render effect: Would anyone use it? I can pay 4 and summon a 40/30 Axeman rather than pay 5 + 40 life for a 35/26 (at current stats) Follower with 2 sac. At least with Flesh Renderer the first use gets you a 75/70 8 monster or a 3 return if you perfer.