The Balance Saga: The Fall '05 Chapter

I like to think of SWIMSUIT!! when comparing effects to creatures. Using the established multi->mono conversion formula, SWIMSUIT!! is the equivilent to 6. Kelar Sage costs 5, but everyone says that SWIMSUIT!! is infinitely superior. The main point being that Kelar Sage is fragile, while SWIMSUIT!! is vulnerable only to Effect D (Can't be as easily dizzied, or directly attacked, or sniped etc). I share this commonly held view.
It's also quite simple to compare the 8 cost of a plain card-drawing Ivory Library with the hero synergy boosting, generally more multifunctional 5 Cherry...

In a rush deck, the value of a cheap rush creature is incredibly high, as it's the foundation upon which the deck relies on. Most decks will for that kind of cost have creatures for either their abilities (Rio, Drecker, Healers) or for synergy purposes, and are treated as mere fodder. An effect such as Slime Valley has much more permanence about it - you play it and you darn well expect it to stay there. It will generate my 1 mana or creature every turn, it will be nicely available for a mana boost come the appropriate sac phase, it will be there for my attrition, my Raddslaying and my entrenching defences. I will rely on the Slime Valley at least as much as my mana gens, whereas that beatstick will be a forgotten kamikaze. Whether it makes sense or not, I can't say, but that's how it goes... that's just how players use them.

edit 2:
What do people think of BoS dealing 12 damage instead of 10, and not affecting tokens then? I also personally think that even 3 mana from a single gen is a huge amount - remember that a normal full field will only give 5. I'd suggest a lower limit than 8 myself. And does this need its own separate thread, or should we continue on BoS in here?

edit:

Andriex Wrote:Double mill is a drastic step, not only does it makes Skeletal Chrimera much more powerful, but because I personally feel that nerfing it that hard is just a knee jerk reaction, without putting thought into the fact that we can rebalance the other swords (and possibly skeletal warhammer.) If anything, why not just try it at one mill, and see how it goes. It's not like we can't simply go back and balance it again, but we're DOUBLING one suggested penalty without even giving the first one a chance and seeing how things go.

Just saying it's better to be safe than sorry.

Yes, that's what I'm aiming at for this balance. And not just by personal preference, it's webby's will - no kneejerk reactions because you could well just end up on the other side of imbalance, maybe further away from our final destination.

If you're going to change BoS to 12 (or 13) damage, you should have it grant 4 counters instead of 3. And you won't have to worry about tokens in that case-- the reason tokens were an issue with my proposal was that a gloop would give you a full +1 generation.

Like I said, when discussing its mana generation, BoS just isn't broken right now.

Amorphous Fleshling, Slime Totem, Life Infusor, Active Time, Coffee Shops are Closed Day, Noble Sacrifice, War Cherry, Kelar Sage, Holy Peacemancer, First Avrillian : Yes.

Dark Doomsceror - Add (Decoying).
Nate/George: 1 mill, 8.
Agent B32M: A - cost decrease by . B - base attack of 15.
Shooting Star: No, no and more no. Keep it as it is! Even webby says so!
Battery of Souls: I've said it before, and I'll say it again - a lockdown that requires a lot of setup is not broken. I wouldn't mind 12 damage, though.
Magishield: 4 turns.
Slime Valley: 4 period would be ok.

New Balance Suggestion: Make Mind Burrower destroy itself when stopped.

Nate/George:
A cost increase is needed, it's one of the best splash cards right now.

Life Infusor:
20 life seems fair.
With Inn your opponent basically sacrifices their monsters (or at least part of their health)
for taking 2L per damaged monster from you, which isn't that hard to keep up with,
but (a player's) life isn't that easy of a resource to refill.

War Cherry:
55/80 is what I'd like her to be.
Compared to Legend Hawk, she has -10/-0 for 2L less. Doesn't seem right.
Crossroad has -10/-10 for 2G less compared to Dash (Clash version).
Her incompatibility with Diane I haven't found that much of a big deal to justify her stats.
Compared to Tough Dragon she seems to be fine but IMO Tough Dragon isn't exactly balanced either.

BoS:
What about making it reduce the life of a monster to one and adding 25% of life lost to the counter?
Or keep it at 30% (maybe even increase to 33%) and have it dizzy on use?
The most annoying part about BoS right now (to me, at least) is the sometimes minute-long repeated usage per turn.

Slime Valley:
4G (and keeping the 5 sac) seems fine to me.

Dark Doomsceror:
Yay for decoying!

Marcus (Clash):
I'd go with a life increase.

Mind Burrower:
Destroy upon fail ... me likes.


Suggestion:
Add ninja type to Melrak Assassin.

Andriex Wrote:Just saying it's better to be safe than sorry.

With balance, it's [i]never[/]i good to aim at "better safe than sorry". That would mean you'd have to re-balance the card again. An underpowered card that used to be too strong is likely not to get another boost again, for quite a while.

Seeing how I disagree with the two card milling, this worries me. If it does get two card milling, there would be no way it would be corrected any time soon. IMO it's better to not balance at all than to overnerf.

In my opinion, creature destruction IS powerful and SHOULD be expensive.

Currently, the eternal swords, tarafang, alien lawyers, ED2, Voip, fire the main cannon, MMW, Heroic strike, cursed warhammer, cost all at least 7 mana, and many of them aren't really used now, with the counterspells around(I mean, it's pretty stupid to play alien lawyers now when you have more versality and A speed for +2G, and versality + obliteration for +3G at B speed.)

N/G costs

a)less than even MMW to play
b)is reusable
c)has a "drawback" which you can get around, or sometimes even use in your favor.

I'd still vote for either double-mill, or 8:gmana(9:gmana?) playing cost, one mill.

Compare it to the friggin' eternal swords, THEN you can start complaining about an "overnerf".

I personally don't think ANY of the cards, except doom sorceror, N/G and life infuser should be changed. N/G and slime valley are powerful cards atm, but they are by no means broken, and are easy to play around and/or just kill with effect D (which is much cheaper than creature D). Milling 1 card/turn for NG seems perfectly reasonable... and slime valley should NEVER cost 4G, it was fine at 3G and then people objected and the nerf raised the complexity of the card a lot, with little effect on its usage. Sacrificing elegance for a minor fix is NOT worth it. I also believe that Shooting Star should increase cost 7L to further differentiate between each of the colours' special abilities (I think that Kelar Tremorcall and Ancient Legends also possibly need a look).

Be aware that decoying is a brutally powerful ability that can shut entire decks down. It shouldn't be proposed much in future without careful thought. However, I think on Doom Sorceror it could be fun.

I believe Clash Marcus should be left as is. You need some bad cards in cmc. Eventually it will be impossible to fix all cards, and besides many people enjoy making competitive decks based around supposedly bad cards (I certainly do). Every card does not need to be tier one playable.

Life infuser should not cost 20.... please be serious here.... 20 life for tha ability to heal a creature EVERY turn, and to do it essentially uncounterably? No.

Oh yeah, and as a fairy player, I approve MMW killing rad.

The playing environment in cmc is perfect atm. Control, beatdown and combo deck are all well balanced (with the exception of N/G maybe). People tend to find solutions to problematic cards rather than just complaining. I don't think that any minor change in a card can be justified in such an environment. Reduce Cherrry's toughness by 3? Please people, gain some perspective.... We should only balance cards in extreme circumstances, like adding milling to N/G, or if there is a particularly interesting change like adding decoying on sorceror. Have more respect for peoples' abilities to find creative solutions to their problems through deckbuilding and play....

There is however one possible "nerf" that seriously needs to be addressed. I would like to see some more control or combo orientated cards moved to Common or Uncommon rarities. It is just too difficult to build anything but a competive aggro deck when you start out in cmc atm.

But...half of the whole POINT of BoS is that it's a non-dizzying counter to various destruction / etc.!

murdermaniac Wrote:Agent B32M:)
Change abiity from "Combat with another monster: attack is equal to the other monster's" to "Combat vs a monster: Attack is equal to greater of the other monster's or 15".
This will make it able to take out low-end creatures and walls, albeit ineffectively.

Active Time
Change cost 4/sac 5 to cost 3/sac 4.
Potential to be useless, but not a massive gamble. Will make for a more viable defence.

Dark Doomsceror
Gains (Decoying), change stats to 60/55 (-5/-5).
This will make him useful ability shield, and pretty painful to some ability heavy decks (some snipers and lockdowns esp).

The ones I haven't quoted, I'm fine with. These are the few I have an issue with.

Agent B32M: 15 attack? Where does this number come from? What basis is there for a 15 attack? I know I've argued it in the other thread, so I won't bring up the same discussion, but someone said "he's like a re-usable MMW with no cost to you." I figured... being a 10 mana creature is no cost at all, right? To top it off, 2 mana is required for the Second Life ability. That's no cost? Come on... he needs a better buff than 15. Stick it at 45 where it should be as befitting an Agent.

Active Time: I dunno, I see a lot of decks using undizziers. I'd say I've never really had issues with it being too expensive, but if it is requested, I'd say that dropping it to 3/4 for cost/sac is good.

Dark Doomsceror: I thought we were helping this guy. Decoying makes him a liability for you as well as them. I agree with the stat drop, but give him Spell Immune instead, or along with Decoying.

Z

Snoopy:
Small balances have their place. And explain why you want a light D-speed destroy to cost as much as a grey A-speed obliterate? Please note that Life Infusor dosn't dizzy. Also, try to make an effective deck with Life Infusor in it and you'll see why we want it to cost 20. No, you do not need bad cards. Every card should have its own niche.

N/G IS NOT balanced. Situation: You both have two creatures. The opponent kills one of yours with N/G and one with one of his monsters. You have no monsters, and he has one. He hits your life. It is unlikely that you will be able to play more than one monster per turn. Assume that you play a monster. It dies. He only has to play one more monster, probably, to have enough attack to get you nearly dead by the time you can play 3-ish monsters. This scenario happens a LOT. Sometimes you just don't have effect D, and even if you draw it soon you're still dead. All this for 6G and the penalty that is mitigated by not actually HAVING to draw anything to replace.

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Spell Immune and Decoying would be ridiculous. The opponent can't play any spells that target creatures! I don't think I agree with that, but it would be VERY good. If it had that, it should have a ~ cost increase.

MooNFisH Wrote:With balance, it's [i]never[/]i good to aim at "better safe than sorry". That would mean you'd have to re-balance the card again. An underpowered card that used to be too strong is likely not to get another boost again, for quite a while.

Seeing how I disagree with the two card milling, this worries me. If it does get two card milling, there would be no way it would be corrected any time soon. IMO it's better to not balance at all than to overnerf.

Sorry Moonfish, but I have to disagree with you there...
There is no reason in this community that I couldn't make a thread one week after the balance takes effect and say that N/G is still overpowered and try to get it changed to 2 mill. There's no reason I couldn't do it in a month (since honestly, one week of playtesting means nothing.)

I really think that if there's a serious problem with a card, we're not going to have to sit here and wait a long time to change it again. Slime Valley has been at 3g for the first and 4g for each additional for a relativly short amount of time (only a bit longer than war has been out I believe.) This popped up relativly fast enough, I think that shows that we can come back to a card fairly quickly. Faster if someones crusading over it.

In the end, I truely believe that a double mill will cause more problems than it will fix. We'll end up with an underpowered creature destroyer as well as an easily combo-able card, too easily in my opinion. So really, I'm sticking with 1 mill and a possible cost increase. If we get the balance, we can fiddle with it for a month or so, and if you or anyone else thinks it's under or over powered, I'll be right back to continue this conversation.

Changes to first post:
-Reorganised into a "Mostly consented", "Partially consented" and "Other" categories.
-Specified Slime Valley proposal as 4 cost with no sac increase.
-Split Battery of Souls into two separate ideas. Opinions on both would be nice (If either nerf is okay to you, but one is better, say so, rather than saying yes to one nerf and no to another)
-Removed a lot of the random notes - you're intelligent enough to know or work out reasons for the proposal. Plus it removes an element of my bias on what should be justan up-to-date summary page.
-Stopped tracking opinions on the changes that have been mostly agreed on. If there are any in there that you think "I'd rather have no nerf at all!" then shout out. Please don't request extra boosts/nerfs, for reasons specified a gajillion times.
-Added new suggestion: Melrak Assassin gains type "Ninja".
-Added new suggestion: Clash Marcus has cost decreased by 1.


Rants etc:
Balance changes should be kept to a single, small/medium change in any balance. Why?
Firstly, you get closer to balance, then you get the opportunity to test the newer version of the card out, and then you can petition for another nerf/boost for another balance. Multiple changes, or a drastic change in a single balance can lead to over-boosting or over-nerfing.
Secondly, This is the way webrunner wants it. Most likely because of the reasons stated above.
So I'm refusing to listen to suggestions for radical changes to cards without unanimous agreement. Such as multimilling and/or cost increases for N/G (this is a truly unique card, making it much much harder to balance). And also B32M - having a minimum attack of 45 is a massive change.

For Doomsceror, spell immune+decoying together would mean that nobody could play any spell that targets a monster while Doomsceror was in play (That's how the mechanics of both abilities combo'd would work). Also, realised much later that Xagar's already said this. Hopefully other changes will be decided in his own thread. And I'll change his suggestion to a plain "Add Decoying" and remove the idea for a stat nerf for now.

First Avrillian... I really don't see why anyone objects to this. It currently only serves to allow a player to have crazy turn 2 mana.
Turn 1: Play Mana Bucket. Play Magic Orb.
Turn 2: Sac All. Play Mutual Disarmament (Discard Avrillian). Cast Life on Avrillian. Sac Avrillian. Have 1 or 2 cards left for Play Phase.
Current Mana Totals: 2015. Ready to spend on turn 2. Or try running War Chookie/Remembrance instead of Mutual. This deck can (and has) function pretty well.
So I propose that we find some other way of making First Avrillian somehow useable. 9 card decks is not the way to go about it.

Making Mind Burrower destroy itself on failure? It now dizzies on failure as opposed to how it was before. And we're advocating a boost for Active Time, and for Sage and Peacemancer (dizziers). We also have docoying to prevent undizzies, and we're pushing for another decoying. Any of the counterspells available also prevent him as well. If you feel this is a real issue, make a separate thread for it.

There is no need for bad cards, with the only balance exceptions being (as stated by webrunner) Gildward and Eternals, and to an extent donations/trophies/special cards (ie those not normally available). And some of the Gildwards and Eternals are still arguably useable in casual play. There should be no card that you can say will be better in 99.9% of situations than a an identical (save for something that makes it superior) equivilent. That's after taking into account things like single synergies and uniqueness (Tom/Fencer), sac values (Winged Demon/K-Golem), and the most minor of abilities/differences (Tesla/Hero?). But mostly ignoring things like "worse is better if the enemy runs Burrowers" and such, and accounting for colour variation...
A lot of cards are "better" than other similar cards save for just some tiny differences... for example Winged Golem is always better than Bakugabot atm, with the only possible exceptions being if you run Dr Bakuga or Reka.

If the Swords are unbalanced relative to Nate/George (Which I think they are), then perhaps someone could start a balance thread for them, along with some suggestions/a poll etc to try and get a broader idea on these.

Rarities are as far as we're concerned (I think) unchangeable. There are a lot of balances between different rarities, different colours, different card types, card complexities, intrararity balances and probably more. Unless you can pester webrunner to allow such a thing (which I'm sure he won't) I won't step into this new territory.

Life Infusor heals creatures really well, yes. But it kills you, the player. There's a reason a lot of people run Smash Hopes as opposed to Burn Burn, it's the same here. Lifeloss hurts.

I also like Zeku's idea for Melrak Assassin being a ninja - it's still a pretty underused card, and it's small enough of a change to make having its own thread rather pointless.

To Andriex on Nate/George: Okay, this may well be a special case. This card has a powerful ability and a unique ability(drawback?), fairly cheap. It definitely needs the one mill nerf to make it either a decking protector or a creature destroyer, but not both. But in doing so we're adding yet another new unique ability to it. So I think that after a short period of testing after the new Nate/George comes out, we can then make a better decision as to whether to go for a cost increase or an increased mill. Because there's a split between the two in the poll thread atm, and the votes are being cast theoretically (guessing) rather than from a practical standpoint (having played/seen it). If it does still need the nerf, we'll be in a better position to decide the direction that nerfing should take.

Also, although the Sime Valley change was recent, the nerf was only very minor, and the card is still in essence the same as before. So it is to be expected that a call for further nerfing would come quickly: It may be that the call isn't loud enough this time however (There's no crusade this time).

Shooting Star... well, a few people like it as it is. Do you ever use it or do you run other Effect Ds as splash? Because if it's unused by anyone apart from newbies, that's a sign of imbalance. And are you basing your opinions on the fact that webrunner would prefer it as is? Because if so, then you aren't giving me your opinion, you're just mindlessly following someone else's opinion. If you honestly believe that it would be better balanced without change, see it as being usable and aren't merely copying someone else's opinion, then fair enough. And if webrunner's opinion really metters, well the decision to implement any balance changes is ultimately his to make, and as such he has the power of absolute veto. Just because any suggestion is made here doesn't mean it will ever actually become implemented.

ZOMG length...

I'd like if Slime Valley stayed as is. It's a cool card, it's powerful and versitle, but I've never seen someone say "I lost because of that darn valley." Honestly, I don't even see it played that much. It's a good card that just doesn't appear in decks. It flanks and blocks, which I think is cool, but I don't think it's wreaking anything. I like it where it is.

Mind Burrower NEVER destroyed on failure. I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

Assassin can be a ninja, why the heck not?

Ok, my bad, appeal to authority = logical fallacy. Anyway, I DO run Shooting Stars in many of my light decks.

EDIT: Because I TOTALLY play light ALL THE TIME. YES. TOTALLY. <_< >_>

murdermaniac Wrote:To Andriex on Nate/George: Okay, this may well be a special case. This card has a powerful ability and a unique ability(drawback?), fairly cheap. It definitely needs the one mill nerf to make it either a decking protector or a creature destroyer, but not both. But in doing so we're adding yet another new unique ability to it. So I think that after a short period of testing after the new Nate/George comes out, we can then make a better decision as to whether to go for a cost increase or an increased mill. Because there's a split between the two in the poll thread atm, and the votes are being cast theoretically (guessing) rather than from a practical standpoint (having played/seen it). If it does still need the nerf, we'll be in a better position to decide the direction that nerfing should take.

...ok, so I guess thats agreement with me? Just a little confused on where you stand.

murdermaniac Wrote:Do you ever use it or do you run other Effect Ds as splash?
unvote

I have >.>

me earlier Wrote:Making Mind Burrower destroy itself on failure? It now dizzies on failure as opposed to how it was before.

Making Mind Burrower destroy on failure was someone's suggestion. Dizzying on failure is how it is now. Doing nothing at all on failure (so as to allow you to immediately reuse it) was how it was before. Didn't mean to imply that it destroyed itself before.

On the Nate/George, yes, I think it needs more than a single card mill. But we're not reaching any consensus on whether it should be a cost increase, how much of a cost increase, a 2 or 3 card mill or pretty much anything beyond "nerf it". So I think I'd be pro-nerf even after it's been nerfed to 1mill, but I don't know whether it'd need a cost increase (to prevent splashablility, but only minor nerf to grey decks) or a double mill (all-round major nerf). I do believe that the 1mill balance would be a nice initial nerf however, and I know some people that are all for a single mill would be against any further nerfs atop that. In all, I don't see it as being possible to reach our destination here in a single balance.

Slime Valley flanks, blocks, generates mana, and buckets (verb). It's used in all slime decks, a lot of grey decks, quite a few decks as splash and I've seen it in loads of tourney decks. It is a used card. It was ranked as being conformist and restricted in the PADC just gone by. And I have seen it on numerous occasions turn games around. It's only rarity 51, and as I type this there are none in the shops. This much is fact. If you can accept all that, and still think it doesn't deserve a nerf, then contributing your opinion is useful. If you give your opinion based on the fact that it's never used, then you are just wrong.

well I had a very long post about all the things brought up, but it dissapeared, I probly hit new post instead of reply, and then it didnt go through because it has not title.  Lord knows if done that enouph times.

anyway

Now im cool with whats been said with the fallowing exceptions:

Nate/George
This will definatly need a cost amp, eventualy, though its probly wiser to take small steps, especialy with the expermental card milling thing that is agreed upon.

Sage and Peacemaker
take their health up to 31, put it in line with kelar scholar.

Life Infuser
I am against any change to it, the whole point of differnt collors is that they do things differently, the big argument I see for the change is to bring it in line with Inn, which is light, light should heal things better than dark does.

Shooting star
I am against any change, again because the collors should be differnt, Light should not be laying waste to effects, just feals out of place.

Slime Valley
Its fine as is, It is increadibly versitile, it does many things, but for everything it does there is a card out there that does it better. Mana production? Charms cost 1 and make 1, duel generators cost 4 but make 2, and they dont take a critter slot.  ITs bucketness, well bucket cost only 1, and if you dont have a monster slot open the valley doesnt bucket, it only charms.  Blocking? there are hoards of things out there with more life than a gloop, unflankable blocking? there a goodly bit of entrenchers now, repeatable unflankable blocking? Swimsuite does the trick, and can stop invis atack (but not abil imune).  Atack, well, there is very, very little that doesnt outclass a gloop in atack.  monster generation? you only get 5 monsters max, so monster stats matter more in cmc than other ccg's, and gloops are just about the bottom of the barrel. But it does do all of that. Damn nice, great even, but when secondary ones already cost 4, this nerf is only hitting the first, and the first just isnt a huge deal, if you want a nerf just make the plus 1 thing cumulative, I mean yeah, it would kill one of my decks, but valley would keep its versitility, which is something I like in general.

Battery of Souls
of those two options I vote yay on the first (with the x damage), and nay on the second. Because the first uses the principle of dimishing return, putting BoS on a curved production vs damage done scale while the other keeps it linear.

two more ideas for BoS
1) This is just a differnt way of puttin a curve on the damage vs mana productin scale, change would be deals 10 damage and gains 1 counter, but mana production is changed to sqrt(x). To compare (new/old) hits to mana it would be 1 mana (1/4 hits), 2 mana (4/7 hits), 3 mana (9/10 hits), 4 mana (16/14), 5 mana (25/17), etc
2) BoS gains "when BoS leaves play its controler takes damage equal to 2 times counter" Sure you can still make obscene mana, but now, effect d kill you too. So even if there is always room for more souls in the battery, they dont seam to happy about being there, and when they get out, well.

War Argent + VCH Wrench - How about this Argent being called "Judge Finis" with an "AKA: Argent". And Civilian Wrench being called "Laria" with an "AKA: Wrench".
Melrak Assassin - Gains creature type "Ninja".
Clash Marcus - Reduce cost to 5. (Re: Comparison to Karashi)
^^^^
those are all good, 'specialy the first, that is the sort of touch that makes things great.

Slightly side note:
As looking over cards for balance consideration a few weeks ago i noticed Mystic bird, its +0/+5 over stone golem with no diffence in cost, sac, uniqueness, or racial bonuses, I mean I understand that its rare an all, but In a didgital medium were things are bought with points and "cards" are generated out of nothing, eventualy everyone will have multiples of even the rarest of the rare cards (with the exceptoin of course of discontinued VCH's and donation cards). I mean its not being abused right now, and if it is I havnt been privy to it, but it still is something that makes me turn my head and go "huh?" I would be on the vote of more hp, less atack

Right now Life Infusor is a bad card. As has been discussed previously in this thread, there should be no bad cards (in general). Hence a damage reduction.

Frosty the Pyro Wrote:Slightly side note:
As looking over cards for balance consideration a few weeks ago i noticed Mystic bird, its +0/+5 over stone golem with no diffence in cost, sac, uniqueness, or racial bonuses, I mean I understand that its rare an all, but In a didgital medium were things are bought with points and "cards" are generated out of nothing, eventualy everyone will have multiples of even the rarest of the rare cards (with the exceptoin of course of discontinued VCH's and donation cards). I mean its not being abused right now, and if it is I havnt been privy to it, but it still is something that makes me turn my head and go "huh?" I would be on the vote of more hp, less atack

I believe it's due to "combo-ability" with Mana Bucket. Bucket goes straight to Golem on one turn, Orb does not. Plus you have nostalgia to consider.

masamunemaniac Wrote:Amorphous Fleshling - Change ability from "Destroy Amorphous Fleshling: add attack and life to target Fleshling" to "Destroy Amorphous Fleshling: Add attack and life to target Fleshling".

I dont understand the difference between the change and the current form