Balance Thread

Agree with masa about the 1X1Y costs for ores and the cost & sac reduction for the either/or gens. Try out 1X1Y and if it's still pretty broken (or better than Princapalitites' dual gens) go with 2X1Y (acutally on the former point, 2X1Y wouldn't be unbalanced).

Mechazors: Agreed they need a boost; I'd perfer a stat boosting synergy like Mechazor 2's for all of them.
I do want to point out the benefit of Mechazor L's ability though:

Normally useless but when faced with a Swimsuit! or some other type of stall, the ability can put it a head above plain beatstick. I know Mechazor is ability immune, but heavy Miasma stall is 1 example where you might rather use the ability each turn than try attacking. Still won't argue with a general cost reduction to all the Mechazor's and then halving Mechazor L's attack or something like that (turn 4 win at 75 damage each attack or turn 5 win with the ability depending on circumstance).

On a minor note regarding the second life and merging: is it possible to make merging cause obliteration rather than destroy? It'd give a good reason to boost Mechazor 5's stats (aside from what's been already mentioned).

I was thinking of giving them all abilities that affect all zors, so they get more and more powerful as you get more out.

Would like to mention that Mechazor L had double immunities, which means its capacity to be stalled is much smaller (reduced to Selection Committee, Stone Maze, and Abandoned Fortress with something like Slime Valley), and thus its ability is significantly less relevant.

Also, reducing the either-or mana to costing one mana was a good move. Now to see if the allying gens are still that much better...

masamunemaniac Wrote:Interference Generator would be great even without speed summon, if it was unique, had no sac, and required/costed three counters per shot, I reckon. Forcing a discard is powerful, being reuseable is really powerful, but denying the opponent even the slightest chance to ever use it? Crazy powerful.

Three counters per shot would make it pointless. That means you nerf your mana production by one (two in the case of some decks, as this is a dual color card) to be able to make your opponent discard every third turn. Not counting the fact that in every deck I play, I would have destroyed it before it's first shot.
Make the card unique, remove it's speed summoning and now it's fine. There's no reason to nerf the card into the ground. CMC could use control decks, and this is the best reason to make them.

Aldgar Omk Wrote:if you use the ability every turn, keeping the 150/150 dizzy and USELESS.

Except for defending, which would be your gameplan anyway since you're not trying to attack to win. (If you were the ability wouldn't matter to you.)

Aldgar Omk Wrote:Seriously, as much fun a mechazor deck is, PLEASE boost the zors.
Otherwise, they will never, EVER be able to compare to The unspoken or even Aeon weapon as alternate win condition.

I do agree, the mechazors are an amazing concept but still weak. The Mechazor I really don't see as the problem, just the individual pieces. I mean on one hand, the mechazor can be used to DECIMATE your opponents field, and bash them to hell or be used in a defensive way (or, more impressively, against a stall/defensive deck) to win passively.

webrunner Wrote:I was thinking of giving them all abilities that affect all zors, so they get more and more powerful as you get more out.

I think that is a great idea, and I think the best plan. It might also be nice to give one the ability to flip other zors, giving them entrenching.

I thought Mechazor would work quite well with Selection Committee - prevent them being hit anywhere near as often, and then once big L is out the occasional global undizzy to add to the counter. There's probably quite a few other MC cards that would help a MEchazor deck to stall to win.

I think the most important balance changes that need to be made ASAP are Data Hack and Interference Generator.  The former should probably cost about twice as much, and the latter... well, others have already noted that locking down your opponent that easily is not a good thing.  

Masa suggested costing three counters, which I honestly think is a somewhat reasonable suggestion (and usually I tend to oppose masa's nerf-happy tendencies).  Personally, I'd say two counters (plus unique, etc).  Simply making it unique isn't really going to help much.  If your opponent ever gets to zero cards in hand, you simply win with Interference Generator, and there are multiple cards now (Data Hack being one) that can help him along towards that point.

There are a few other cards that might be a bit too strong, but those two are the only ones that I'd really call 'broken' right now.  (That said, I haven't seen every card yet.)

I'm usually nerf happy, but opt for small, stepped nerfs. But as it's not real-cmc and we're going to be in beta for quite a while I imagine, larger steps may get the job done quicker.

And really, I'd pay for an effect that caused my opponent to discard every third card they drawn.

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Stealing cards was a fairly niche thing before that wasn't really used, but you can look at it like this. You gain a card and the opponent loses one - the nearest singleshot spell to this is Cameo, which is 2.5 per card, and is accepted to be (close to) balanced. But not only that, you're effectively forcing the opponent to discard at random, as they're losing cards from the hand instead of the library. I'm not too sure on what a discard is worth spell-wise, but if it's worth the same as card draw it's 1.5 per card (well really it's more, considering AL and ToK actually costs a card). So stealing a card could probably cost 3.5-4 mana. Stealing two should cost 7-8. Having it based on the (really easy to achieve) condition of (Allying 2) could maybe make it cost 7 instead of 8, but once you consider that a second mana color is accepted as being worth less than the primary, a cost of 44 would probably be quite fair.

D'oh, just checked and it's been rebalanced to exactly that. err... POST-EMPTIVE ATTACK!

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Also,
Overheard Information is insanely powerful. Imagine using it to simply make the opponent draw five cards in a decking deck, that's halfway between ToK (3) and Eureka (14), so 8.5 might be about right. That's a bicolor equivilent of maybe 55, possibly 54. But then, imagine this: you pay that for decking purposes, and then you draw an extra 5 cards yourself too! 66 would be very reasonable in all. But if that's too expensive, then the cards given could be reduced to maybe three? Just as it is it's the ultimate decking card in my eyes...

Both players draw 3 cards basically = Trinity Black Hole. 4 (half the maximum hand) would be good. I've got nothing on how much that should cost but your cost formula for it sounds... sound masa.

Also web is removing entrenching from facedown so Sword Dancer is back up for debate. 3 proposals:
1. 45/10
2. 50/5
3. No change, hiding mana is a good enough feature of facedown to replace entrenching.

Of course I'm near certainly missing a few details, but I think my balance guesstimate would be a lot close than what it currently is at.

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Also Target the Engines seems far too cheap for what it does. A major use of Burn! Burn! is for a turn 2 shot at the generator, effectively wasting their first turn - with this you can even do it if you play second, and it doesn't cost you 50 life. Also, targetting only basic gens at such a cheap cost seems to me like a nerf to the first three sets, as War and MC are immune... I'd probably opt for making it generators that cost 2 or less total mana, making it less of an 'Early expansion hoser'. Allying 2 is probably a little low as well, as you could easily make it a cantrip on turn 2, making it even more like a 'free extra turn' if used correctly... In all I'd probably go for Allying 3 or 4 (so that the card draw kicks in only at a stage when destroying gens is less of a critical blow), and make it cost 21 or 22, and affect gens that cost 2 or less. Oh also, people really hate turn 2 Burns, so all the more reason for the changes.

Eep. Yeah, Burn/Desert type decks aren't much fun--throwing in a second Burn that is also cheaper and can draw cards seems like a bad idea. I'm with masa on this one.

I'll side with masa's more conservative suggestions on Target the Engines (2/1 cost, Allying 2 or 3, target gens of cost 2 or less).  And while you can certainly get Allying 2 by turn 2 easily, it's not so easy to get Allying 2 and cast a 2/1 spell same turn (not impossible, but not especially trivial, either).

Overheard Information also struck me as a pretty nifty decking card, but unlike Eureka/ToK, it's really only useful if you're trying to deck your opponent.  So I could get behind 45 or something like that, but I don't think I'd go any higher.

Oh, and I think Sword Dancer should just be cheaper, like 3/3.  I think it compares fairly reasonably with something like Skelebird, once you remove the entrenching factor.  Frankly, I think I'd still rather have Mechahawk (but that's probably a little too strong too... maybe 42/50 instead, with reduced (43) sac?)

I'd like to point out that in the early game Target is much, much better than Burn (even without any card drawing). Then late game you can just pay a couple mana to trade it in for a more useful card (with the destruction effect probably being less important).

masamunemaniac Wrote:Also,
Overheard Information is insanely powerful. Imagine using it to simply make the opponent draw five cards in a decking deck, that's halfway between ToK (3) and Eureka (14), so 8.5 might be about right. That's a bicolor equivilent of maybe 55, possibly 54. But then, imagine this: you pay that for decking purposes, and then you draw an extra 5 cards yourself too! 66 would be very reasonable in all. But if that's too expensive, then the cards given could be reduced to maybe three? Just as it is it's the ultimate decking card in my eyes...

UMM..please read Overheard information more closely.

It doesn't say both players draw five cards.

It says both players draw TO five cards.

Translated:

Both players draw cards till they have five cards in hand.

Thats very situational, and hardly overpowered.

Ah.  My excuse is that after ~60 boosters, I still don't have one, so I had to go by masa's desc. :)  On the other hand, while that's no longer useful for decking, it can be more generally useful, if you tend to dump your hand quickly.

Tamdrik's excuse isn't any more valid than mine, because I linked the name to the getcard page

Anyway, yeah, a usually minor, two letter word is very easy to miss and hence misunderstand. It could probably do with a more immediately understandable rewording, but even as it is it could still be of great use to a decking deck (especially now hat we have many more discarders), and could probably do with a raise of 1 mana or .

Ability Text Wrote:You draw cards until you have five in hand, then the opponent does the same

Switching 'you' and 'opponent' as necessary. The reword (imo) more clearly explains the draw to 5 ability, and who draws first is important for endgame decking purposes.

I don't understand why some people think of the Slimeborg as Underpowered, I got mine up to 677 attack in 1 turn... I find that a bit overpowered

Tamdrik Wrote:I'll side with masa's more conservative suggestions on Target the Engines (2/1 cost, Allying 2 or 3, target gens of cost 2 or less). And while you can certainly get Allying 2 by turn 2 easily, it's not so easy to get Allying 2 and cast a 2/1 spell same turn (not impossible, but not especially trivial, either).

Covering both posts, but only referencing Tamdrik-
Leave it at basic generator, I'd be fine with giving it 2/1 (preferably 2l/1d) and allying 3.

Tamdrik Wrote:Oh, and I think Sword Dancer should just be cheaper, like 3/3. I think it compares fairly reasonably with something like Skelebird, once you remove the entrenching factor. Frankly, I think I'd still rather have Mechahawk (but that's probably a little too strong too... maybe 42/50 instead, with reduced (43) sac?)

I like both of these changes, though I might drop the sac to 3/3 on Mechahawk.

masamunemaniac Wrote:It could probably do with a more immediately understandable rewording,
but even as it is it could still be of great use to a decking deck (especially now hat we have many more discarders), and could probably do with a raise of 1 mana or .

At 3/3 an extremely situational card, that evens out at one card over a ToK is perfectly fine for the cost. Especially when you concider how few decking cards match that color combination.

Soo... Deadly Appliance is the dark Sporkman?

let me get this straight, you're balancing cards before they've even come out on the off chance they might be good? or am I missing something? what's wrong with the balance system we have (besides the fact that it's also terribly flawed, game whale anyone?)

Snoopy196 Wrote:let me get this straight, you're balancing cards before they've even come out on the off chance they might be good? or am I missing something? what's wrong with the balance system we have (besides the fact that it's also terribly flawed, game whale anyone?)

Yeah, that's about right. We spend most of the time blundering through and making the game worse. It's a horrible system, and most of the time it would probably be better if we did nothing at all.
That probably sounds sarcastic, but I'm being completly serious.

On the specifics of balancing Mechanical Chaos, the cards are out, just not on the main server. So we've, well at least I've, played all the cards we've discussed so it's not like we're just balancing blindly.