cane thoughts

I can see the synergy he means but seriously it is nothing, nothing at all.

look at it this way:
cane + valley is 2 cards to essentially have an ivory library (8L?) with no sac value but the ability to deal damage to for the low low price of 4/4/7. Using any other generator, that also adds a cost to the draw power.

As for the decks that cane supposedly hoses:
Tri color rush: yes, yes it does but really how many tri colour decks do you know that cant have 5 monsters out and opponents life down to 100 by 5th turn, which is the turn the opponent gets to kill his first weenie.

small decks: so? I\'m sure many people beleive that small deck slayers is a GOOD thing.

ability decks: yes, I agree with this, most ability creatures are too weak to survive a caning and too expensive to play more then one a turn

other sniper decks: diane: 45 ardam: 45 khrimech: 40 Shadey: 70 Dragoon: 65 more then half of the snipers survive one caning although they are probably too expensive to play more then one a turn so I\'ll agree with that one, but what decks cant beat snipers anyway?

How does the Yaiba fit into a deck much easier because it\'s monocolor?

I\'m sorry, I\'m not a rampant Cake, Swimsuit user. I was not aware that Yaiba could be used in a Grey or Black deck as easily as the Cane could. I don\'t see how 10L makes the Yaiba fit easily into a deck. Perhaps a Black and a Grey deck would like to \"splash\" the 10L Yaiba and tell me how hard it is to do.

Kyuu limits itself to Light decks preety damn hard. Cane can be thrust in any deck and still have a decent chance to be playable (if not 100% effective)

Cane with a Slime Valley out means the Cane is ALWAYS doing you harm. Yaiba doesn\'t have this ability. Cannon doesn\'t have this ability. Mugendai doesn\'t have this ability. Cane is already balanced with regards to the enemy. Why should it have more than that without some cost attached to it? Nothing? If variability seriously counts as nothing with a card as easy to splash as Slime Valley, then that calls for an immense round of buffs on a lot of Variability cards.

I\'m not saying it\'s the end of the world. Stop trying to paint me as saying the Cane is the be the end of all enders in Effect Damage. I\'m saying it\'s balanced with regards to the enemy already. So why isn\'t its\' possible beneficial benefits being counted into it\'s cost AT ALL to you guys? You all treat it as if were impossible to use this card\'s \"downside\" positively.

And Everyone else? There\'s about as many uniques on this forum against the cane power as for it. You, Gospel and Bane are perhaps the most vocal on this issue.

Why won\'t you address the variability at all with it\'s costs besides saying \"It\'s nothing\" or \"I find it hard to use it more than one way?\" That\'s the freakin\' issue I keep bringing up, and I keep getting \"It\'s nothing\" slammed back in my face over and over again. It\'s not nothing. It exists. You can combo it. You can\'t combo Bakuga, Kyuu or Mugendai. Why should cane be able to combo and these guys not be able to? Are you saying that without the ability to combo, the cane should be doing 40+ damage?

I\'d disagree with this.

You can combo either/both swords with Fairy Lightbringer, although FL admittedly isn\'t as powerful as Slime Valley on it\'s own.

You can combo Bakuga with Oozes, as their defects and strengths balance out rather nicely.

Either way, the creature makes up for the weakness of the other two, while being protected by them.

The main difference is Slime Valley is a great stall card on it\'s own, in fact, several people have claimed it\'s the greatest stall card. So if they use effect D on the Cane, you still have a bit of extra time on your hands.

Bakuga cannon without the Oozes or Oozes without the Bakuga Cannon do not fare quite so well, although oozes on their own are still decent, and Fairy Lightbringer out by itself gets killed by practically anything pretty quick.

So the situation isn\'t quite that clear cut. Once again, though, the Cane seems to have versatility going for it, at the cost of a little power.

Yes, you can combo them. But you can\'t combo them in the same fashion as Cane - that is, whatever magnificent combo you have, Yaiba/Cannon still isn\'t actively affecting the game state like Cane/Valley is when your opponent\'s field is clear (or full of ability immunes =D).

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:How does the Yaiba fit into a deck much easier because it\'s monocolor?

I\'m sorry, I\'m not a rampant Cake, Swimsuit user. I was not aware that Yaiba could be used in a Grey or Black deck as easily as the Cane could. I don\'t see how 10L makes the Yaiba fit easily into a deck. Perhaps a Black and a Grey deck would like to \"splash\" the 10L Yaiba and tell me how hard it is to do.

Use Dr. Bukaga and you get a sword out for 5 and it is practically invincable as the Doctor can just bring it back. Ive played normal games with both swords out, diplomacy, cane, and one empty slot to play kel\'sor city or triumph city and sac it for the needed grey mana with sac site out. Then all use it sparks or dragon to wittle their life as they can do almost nothing to stop me. Its completly a mono-color grey deck that uses the swords to the fullest. I find using the swords far more effective becuase thier is no down side of them getting a card that could ruin me, most times i discard playing cane and opt for bringing swimsuit out instead. The cane isnt worth its effect for what i have my deck to do, an ultimate sniper effect barrage.

Baaaakkuuuuga!

But then you need Bakuga right?

And perhaps AN-52, Rememberances, Septuple Scare..

And Some Grey Mana Gen. (Sac Site... Large Grey Effects)

What\'s the speed on that deck?

if all goes right, turn 4 with the ability to bring any effect i desire. by the least turn 6 CUZ IM AWESOME LIKE THAT.

sqweek Wrote:Yes, you can combo them. But you can\'t combo them in the same fashion as Cane - that is, whatever magnificent combo you have, Yaiba/Cannon still isn\'t actively affecting the game state like Cane/Valley is when your opponent\'s field is clear (or full of ability immunes =D).

With Ooze+Cannon, you can deal 75 damage/turn when your opponent\'s field is empty. That effects the game state. As does Fairy Lightbringer, albeit not to the same extent.

Hm. You\'re burnt on changing this card even though it\'s not the end of the world. I\'m not burnt on changing the card because it\'s not the end of the world. Or, more properly phrased, because it\'s not too overpowered.

I\'ll be brief about this:

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:Are you saying that without the ability to combo, the cane should be doing 40+ damage?

Not exactly. Around 40 would be pretty much a-ok, but more than that would be too good again.
-Effect destruction is a lot cheaper than creature destruction.
-There currently are no effect undizziers.

0 sac; an approximate cost of 8 monocolor mana; 0 activation mana for 35 damage per shot; some versatility.
vs
approximately 10 monocolor sac; an approximate cost of 11 monocolor mana; 1 mana activation for 30-60 (or sometimes more) damage;

Yes, I said \'some versatility\'. Cane is best spent on your opponent\'s creatures, and I haven\'t seen a good match where the cane was on the field and the opponent had no creatures.

Ryuujin II Wrote:

sqweek Wrote:whatever magnificent combo you have, Yaiba/Cannon still isn\'t actively affecting the game state like Cane/Valley is when your opponent\'s field is clear

With Ooze+Cannon, you can deal 75 damage/turn when your opponent\'s field is empty. That effects the game state. As does Fairy Lightbringer, albeit not to the same extent.

Right. But that is the ooze/fairy bringing about the change - Yaiba/Cannon don\'t get to do anything other than sit there undizzied looking intimidating until your opponent plays creatures. It\'s the cane\'s extra potential to gain you card advantage at the same time as maintaining a lock (either through killing dispensible creatures like gloops/NPC or hitting creatures with more than 35 life) despite costing \'less\' than other effect snipers that is at issue here.

MooNFisH Wrote:You\'re burnt on changing this card even though it\'s not the end of the world.

I don\'t see Oxide as burnt on changing Cane so much as burnt on bringing an issue to the table.

I really apologize for that. (I deleted an offensive post.) I will be speaking with my roommate shortly.

I really do think that the cane needs to be nerfed just a little. I\'d give reasons as to why, but others have already done that. I think having a 1 mana each activation cost would help keep it from single handedly taking over matches like i\'ve seen it do. Or maybe have it do 25 instead of 35. 35 damage a turn is a lot for most decks to deal with 4th turn. It\'s probably my most hated card in cmc right now, not necissarily because of how overpowered it is, but because of how frequently I come across it. Being a non-hidden voucher, everybody who saw the front page got 2 of them. Because of that, everybody just kind of threw them in thier favorite decks and I\'d have to put up with the stinking things every other match. Lately they haven\'t been as big of a problem, but I still despise it and if I had my way it would be comepletely done away with. ><

amped, 1 mana each activation is not \"nerfed a little\"

I think the best thing to consider is what would happen if the cane was nerfed, because that is the way I\'ve been looking at this conversation.

add mana cost for activation: 1 of each colour makes it more then useless, 1 or more of any coulour essentially makes it only usable for that coulour

raise cost: 1 of each makes it too expensive IMO, 1 or more of any makes it slightly slated towards being only usable by that coulour

lower damage: 35 is a pretty major breakpoint so lowering the damage of this 4/4/4 effect makes it unlikely to kill ANYTHING of cost 3 or higher where the other effects (which I must say I consider similar in price and usefulness) can kill most 5 mana creatures.

make it target opponents monsters: hmmm ,now that is a thought, keeps the flavour removes self help potential. However, I\'d say the damage would need to be upped a tiny bit (maybe 5, no more then 10)


I think I just found a compromise most people would be happy with, lose the ability to taget friendly monsters and boost damage a sliver. Amazing how the brain works, isnt it? That said though, I\'m still against changing it, I like it the way it is.

Gah, the last thing the cane needs is more damage, unless by \'a sliver\' you mean \'less than five\'. Moving the cane to 40 damage and merely removing the ability to self-cane makes the cane better, not worse. Increasing it to 45 would just be ludicrous.

similar cost and effect?

The only card that is exactly similar to cost and effect of cane is Bakuga\'s Cannon. And he can\'t do nearly the amount of damage cane can do unless he keeps 4+ creature out to get attack debuffed. Bakuga needs a full field to be attack sapped to kill 5 cost creatures.

Sword and Mugendai both have pure mana activation costs. Only the Kyuu can regularly claim to kill off 5 mana creatures left and right. Mugendai has trouble getting above 30 damage by the time it\'s out.

Last I checked, no cards of cost 3 grey and dark (creatures) had more than 30 health. Only the Paladin Trainee and Karn have above 30 health. All other cost creatures would fall. Dreck. Rio. Dragon. Goblin. Fencer. Khrima Royal Guards. Ooze. Tom. Cody. 30 hp. Though walls are a given for high hp, they are a special case, seeing as how they can\'t attack.

Increasing the Cane\'s damage by 5 points would just ensure that no non-light 4 mana creature would survive it, as well as put Breakneck, Legend Hawk and others into it\'s double shot range. As it stands, having shadehawk in it\'s double shot range is barely tolerable enough as it is.

Removing the variability of the card would simply make CmC less interesting as a whole, as well. Decking decks, stalls and such make full use of the cane\'s secondary cost, and they shouldn\'t be penalized that hard simply because of it\'s primary.

Simply lowering the card\'s damage to 30 would increase the variability usage (by giving you a wider range of creatures to self-cane, namely, the 4 mana creatures could now be self-caned twice, in a pinch.) while taking such ridiculous one shot targets as Garshak, Winged Demon, Baron Diamond, Doom Coffin, Melrak Soldie out of it\'s one shot range, as well as removing high-end cards Dragoon, Crossroads, and such out of it\'s two shot range.

Above all though, I would like some sort of activation cost on the cane. I\'d attempt to propose a reduction in scale of the card, but drawing one card already sets a bounded minimum on the card. My original proposal was a 2/2/2 cane that costs 1/1/1 to activate, that did 30 damage. But I\'ll have to think more about it, simply because it\'s a drastic change.

ok, so I was off with the life of 3 mana monsters, I still think a hit to cane\'s damage would be too weakening. I see the point about variety, except that your arguement earlier was that cane is too strong because of it\'s variety.

One thing I havent seen mentioned is the fact that 35 damage to one of your monsters is a bad thing. I\'m not sure if it was you that argued this, but someone did say that the card draw doesn\'t balance the damage but now you are arguing that when used on your own monsters you are now saying the damage doesnt balance the card draw. Yes, you can say that with slime valley there is no disadvantage but I still feel that is slime valley\'s fault, not cane\'s.

At the best with (non valley abusing) cane draw, you lose 35 life from a 4+ mana monster meaning that even high mana monsters become sitting ducks to attacks. A Worst case you sacrifice an effect slot to turn every 3 mana or less monster into a 1 card draw. Not really that powerful.

That makes aggresive use of the cane the thing to do. And I\'m sticking with the fact that the other effects are more powerful in a cost/damage ratio if you consider the advantage that the card draw gives.

Firstly, the cane doesn\'t really give card advantage unless it\'s used to snipe 5/6 mana cost or higher cards. I don\'t think you realize this:

If I kill a Dragon Whelp (4G) (35/35) with the cane, then I\'ve basically converted his Dragon Whelp into a really ridiculously high cost NPC. He has lost no cards and gained no cards but he has lost 4 mana in the process.

A Stone Golem (5G) becomes a slightly less expensive Ancient Legends, (2G for 2 cards) while a Bird (5L/6L) becomes a slightly less or on par expensive ToK. (3L for 2 cards.)

(Costs based on say a Kyuu killing the card, where you\'d lose all of the mana entirely.)

It\'s just when you scrape past that range, more life becomes really costly, and a crossroad (8G) or Dragoon (10G) becomes a ridiculously expensive Ancient Legends at 5G and 7G respectively.

The Cane is cycling anything it can kill in one shot. The opponent does not gain card advantage if you can kill the card in one shot. The opponent is paying a very steep price to cycle through his deck. Compare the NPC\'s cycle (1G temporarily for 1 card) or rememberance\'s cycle (1L - 2 cards for 2 cards) to say, playing a 4G creature to have it caned cycle (4G, for 1 card)

Thus, on my scale, the cane has the same or slightly higher damage to cost as all the other creature destructs. And it has variability. Thus, the cane is above the power line.

Yes, indeed, the variability is the straw that pushes the cane over, and indeed my argument was based off that. That doesn\'t mean however, that I\'m arguing that the variability should be removed. I believe cards in CmC should be more variable. However, this means that to solve it I must look down the path of nerfing it\'s damage. (As a benefit, this would also increase it\'s variability in the amount of self-caning monsters, thus promoting what I like: Variability, and reducing what I dislike: Splashy Effect Sniping)

You see, proving unbalance on something with odd costs like the cane is a very difficult thing to do. However, if one removes all possible beneficial effects and you do a straight comparison, cane is up there with the other effect snipers. Then one pulls the blinds off and looks at the possible beneficial effects, and finds that cane has them in the spades, and thusly, one can conclude that the cane has something pushing it over the top. Were it easier to make a case out of a 70 damage lock, I would do so, but the Kyuu\'s effect really limits arguing damage lock off numbers approach.

The 35 damage to one of my monsters being not a bad thing comes about the following scenario:

Stone Golem attacks Reka. Reka\'s going to freakin\' die anyway. Cane her for the card before it gets obliterated.

The \"I\'m going to sacrifice this thing anyway for mana, might as well get a card from if it can survive\" scenario.

Slime Valley has proven to be a magnificent combo card and a very good defensive card. However, no one can really say that the Slime valley has ever turned a game around 180. One can\'t really make a good argument that the slime valley is broken. One can say it\'s annoying to deal with. The only argument that I can think of that has a remote chance of sticking is that the slime valley sacrifices for much higher than it\'s worth. But that\'s a whole other can of worms that I would not even try to touch from space with a 16000km stick.

Actually I think there\'s definitely a problem with Slime Valley. Compare it to any other creature generator--a slight reduction in stats on the generated creature, costs only 3, generated creatures are FREE and have SPEED SUMMON. (I mean really. Would you rather have a 5/10 speed summon for 0 or a 7/14 non-speed summon for 1? And don\'t say \"oh, but fairies combo well.\" So do slimes.) If the Valley is fine, then the other generators need to be boosted. And it\'s certainly saved my life before. Reducing an attacking creature\'s damage by 10 plus half of its attack minus 10 (and doing 5 damage) is a VERY nice reusable FREE ability (for a setup cost of 3g.) All of a sudden stone golem/mystic bird only do 17 damage instead of 45. That\'s bought me the time I need on many occasions with slower decks. Or on the flip side, it\'s bought my faster decks the flanking power they need to kill the opponent quickly. Not to mention the combos-with-approximately-every-card-in-existence thing. (Of course many of the other generators have some nice combos too...but they cost 1 mana a turn and 1 more to set up.)

Now back to your regularly scheduled cane discussion.

Ok...I somehow get X-O\'s point. If you insist on changing cane, lower the damage to 30. I\'m fine with that...

Besides, slime valley should cost 4G, IMO.

Just my two cents.

I suggested 4 for the Valley too, but I got shot down.

And I think if you\'re going to change the cane at all, it should be dropped to 33-34 damage, no further. The Bakuga Cannon analysis completely ignores the lack of sac value of the Cane, which is a bitter pill when they drop a Holy Beacon. When you factor that in, I do think the Cane is comparably costed to a Sword. Not to mention, the Bakuga Cannon isn\'t exactly a brutal tourney-dominating card, to say the least-- I imagine it could probably be safely dropped to 7.

Personally, I don\'t have much problem with an expensive effect that is most devastating against Rush and Burrowers.