The Balance Saga: The Fall '05 Chapter

The consensus on Marcus:
In this thread: Frosty and masamunemaniac.

In X-O's thread: X-O suggested a cost reduction or stat increase. Xagar wanted a cost reduction or stat increase. azulknight thought it was "easily decided". Tamdrik wanted a stat boost. Andriex feels it needs to be addressed.

I borrowed consensus from the other thread because the balance forum has slowed to a crawl, but I don't think anyone has objected to Marcus getting a boost. The only argument, and I suppose it's a valid one, is that he shouldn't get a cost reduction but a statboost instead. If a statboost would be preferable I think +5/+5 would be the best bet (Don't want to give him a larger boost). Just give the word and I'll take him out of consented.

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On Ressurection, we pretty much have consensus here that it needs a boost. It's speed -S-, so we can't up that. We can decrease the cost to 3, which would make it easier to play, and as splash.
Just thought that one boundary that we can't cross (often, there's been exceptions) on balances is changing the fundamental purpose of a card. The proposal for Ressurection to return a 2nd creature is a pretty big change, and something that there isn't already coding for.
And I asked webrunner about this specific change, who said that "changing what it sctually does as a goal isn't a good idea (That's what expansions are for)".
So I think we can rule that one out and put it into consented for cost decrease? As with Marcus, just give the word to recall Rezz to the land of debate.

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And changing the Shooting Star idea to "Gain 2 when countered" to make it a smaller change.

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Saying that, we've not really made progress on the Battery of Souls, so I'll chuck it into the "new" ideas for just upping the damage to 12 instead of 10.

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That leaves us with:
First Avrillian - Change sac from 10 to 5. (Currently abusable with Life)
War Cherry - Decrease stats from 60/80 to 60/77. (Trades with equivilent War D monsters)
Shooting Star - Add to the ability "Failure: Gain 2" (Differentiate colours)
Magishield - Change from a 5 turn counter to a 4 turn counter.
Slime Valley - Change cost to 4. Keep sac value at 5.
Melrak Assassin - Gains creature type "Ninja". (Very minor synergy boost)
Glowly Slime - Increase stats from 15/25 to 15/28. (Survives a bit better)
Clash Karashi - Boost from 25/45 to 25/50 (Because it's underpowered?)
Garshask - Boost from 55/35 to 55/40 (Obsolete to Media Player Ray, lacks a "uniqueness" boost)
Battery of Souls - Change ability from dealing 10 damage to dealing 12 damage.

Shall we quickfire our thoughts on those, now we're on a brand new fresh page 4?

Marcus - 35/50.
Resurrection (I refuse to misspell that) - 3.
First Avrillian - Agree.
War Cherry - Agree.
Shooting Star - No. Keep it as is.
Magishield - Agree.
Slime Valley - Indifferent. Agree if others do.
Melrak Assassin - Agree.
Glowly Slime - 20/28.
Clash Karashi - Agree.
Garshask - Agree.
Battery of Souls - Agree.

EDIT: Forgot some.

I think that ress should give you a card draw or something. As it is, you're spending 3 mana to swap ress with a monster you could have just put in your deck in the first place. I know that there's some extra choice when you play ress, but you also lose a lot of choice.
Letting ress give you card advantage is pretty much the only way to make it a useful card. Otherwise, I don't think it's going to be played much at a 3 mana cost.

ToK costs 3L, is A speed(even though it should've stayed at S, IMO) and lets a target player draw two cards from their deck.

If Rezz would be a cantrip additional to the ressurection, it would be BETTER than ToK, because it would replace itself AND allow choice, something even ToK can't give you.

Besides, I don't think it's underpowered that much that it needs cantrip.

Look at mitiring:costs 2L and delay to rezz a monster, and is considered balanced. Rezz at 3L and S-speed would be fine compared to ring.

Marcus - Agree.

Ressurection - Blasphemous Xagar. =P I'm tempted to say go with the "revive a buddy" thing just because of Tamdrik's explanation, but 3L and with a card draw would be better. It'd be similar in cost with Omen, and that works for me. EDIT: Fine, 4L, card draw. It's not all that reuseable or anything, I don't see why it can't go to 4L. At least people'd play it.

First Avrillian - Aw, I like having Avrillian be abusable... kinda. 6 sac? Doesn't really matter, but come on, we're NERFING FIRST AVRILLIAN. >_>

War Cherry - Agree.
Shooting Star - Why? It's supposed to be slightly inferior... Don't care.

Magishield - AGREE.
Slime Valley - Unaware that this needed nerfing. Don't care.
Melrak Assassin - Not all assassins are ninjas. He admittedly looks like a ninja, though. Sure, why not. Give ninjas some ToD action (I'm ignoring the trophy, thankyouverymuch).

Glowly Slime - Well, that makes it equal to Mana Bird, except Mana Bird has no profit on sac and weaker synergies... Is it really necessary?

Clash Karashi - Suggest 25/51 or 26/51. Make her life match her voucher form like it used to, precious. >_>

Garshask - Agree.
Battery of Souls - Don't care.

EDIT: Aldgar, the choice is limited to creatures and more importantly, creatures that are already dead. ToK lets you get mana, removal spells, can be played earlier in the game with a better effect (would you return some weak early monster to your hand just to draw a card?). I wouldn't say that it would be anything more than on the same level if anything.

First Avrillian - I STILL say change it back to 50/50 >.> but agree.
War Cherry - Agree
Shooting Star - Disagree
Magishield - Disagree
Slime Valley - Utter disagreement
Melrak Assassin - Agree
Glowly Slime - Agree
Clash Karashi - Agree, but I don't think the change will help anything.
Garshask - Agree
Battery of Souls - Agree
Ressurection-Draw a card OR 3L. I don't see why it needs both.

I'd go for draw a card bonus with ressurection.

Mitiring can also be used to sac if it's not needed, gaining 1L. Not a big deal, but it beats just sitting in your hand.
Also, let's say that ress were 3L and brought back a buddy and let you draw; it still wouldn't be completely superior to ToK. ToK can help deck your opponent. ToK can give you 2 cards even if nothing's in the graveyard (or if there's nothing you want to bring back, you have a greater chance of drawing the monster you need). Sometimes, you just don't need to bring a monster back; and ToK is vastly superior there.
I'd be fine with 4L, I just think it's not worth a lot to swap with a monster in the graveyard.

Btw, is there any reason why the Melrak Assassin should be a ninja? That makes no sense to me. He's a freaking assassin; that doesn't make him a ninja. Next you'll ask for the Southcorp SWAT to be ninjas again...

Wow, some tempo!

Anyway, no time to go through this atm, but I'll just repeat one minor note.

webrunner wouldn't want to change rezz in a way that changed the card's concept, expecially by rezzing a second creature (new concept and new coding).

That is all I have time for now. Let's keep up the debates!

First Avrillian - I'll go for 7.  Considering that using it with Life is the only way to make it remotely useful, I don't have a problem with it actually being, well, remotely useful.

War Cherry - Um, why?  It's not like it's overpowered now.  Just to be contrary, I say make her 60/82. : p

Shooting Star - Meh.  Don't care.

Magishield - Fine.

Slime Valley - Fine with me.

Melrak Assassin - Er.... I'll reiterate HailSpork's post... why?

Glowly Slime - Heck, 15/31 is fine with me.

Clash Karashi - *shrug* Sure.

Garshask - Fine.

Battery of Souls - Only if it also grants 4 counters, in which case I might be willing to go as high as 13 damage.  Once again, BoS is NOT overpowered as a mana generator.  

Resurrection - Funny, for some reason I thought it was already 3.  I say make it 2. Mitiring can lose its activation cost, too.

Battery of souls isn't broken as it is, but it can be abused pretty badly with things like boardroom avengers, red goops, etc....I still stand by my suggestion(damage=X).

Alright then, I'm taking any call for overboosting or overnerfing or such as agreement, just to narrow down the list a bit.

First Avrillian - I'll change the suggestion as reducing sac to 6, so there's still gain to be had from using it as a risky combo, but hopefully not enough to setup an entire field on turn 3. Putting it into "consented", unless anyone really really really thinks it should be 7.
Cherry - Moved to "near consented".
Shooting Star - Moved to "Not consented". But here I was thinking, could we come to an agreement that this suggestion would make it more balanced, and then move it to the "flavour suggestions" section, because the only real objection is that Light shouldn't be as good at Effect D as Grey or Dark. Here it's more of a "safeguard" or "insurance", which does imo fit into a Light spell.
Magishield - Moved to "near consented".
Slime Valley - Moved to "Not consented".
Melrak Assassin - Moved to "flavour suggestions", as it's undisputed that he needs the boost (unless anyone wants to dispute it). But then it's flavour that really webrunner will have the say on - if he's not a ninja then he's not a ninja, and that's it. (Like Fairy Dragon isn't a dragon type). But he looks a bit like a ninja...
Glowly Slime - Moved to "consented".
Karashi - Moved to "consented".
Garshask - Moved to "consented".
Battery of Souls - Moved to "Not consented".
Marcus - Recalled to the land of debate.

That leaves us with the following:

Marcus - Reduce cost to 5. (As opposed to increasing stats to say 35/50)
War Cherry - Decrease stats from 60/80 to 60/77. (consider the hero type pretty please?)
Magishield - Change from a 5 turn counter to a 4 turn counter.
Shooting Star - Add to the ability "Failure: Gain 2". For now let's accept that it might be out of character for the colour, but can we consider only balance?
Slime Valley - Change cost to 4. Keep sac value at 5.
Battery of Souls - Change ability from dealing 10 damage to dealing 12 damage. Or something else?
And anything else anyone has really strong objections about.

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Also added a Red Sprite/Green Sprite/White Sprite idea from the other thread.
Red Sprite/Green Sprite: Drop cost to 4 and sac to 5. Keep stats the same. Add 2 activation to the ability to keep White Sprite costing the same as before (10 total). This will make the Red/Green Sprites more individually playable and replaceable, but keep White Sprite as is.

I can agree with the White/Red/Green sprite change.

Give Karashi 51 life, please? PLEASE? See, how I see it is thus. I-Karashi has 2 katanas. Normal Karashi only uses one. Katana gives 25 attack, which is equal to the difference between the two card's attacks. IT WOULD MAKE SENSE AND ALL WOULD BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

Except, you know, all human suffering and that sort of thing.

The upside is that it no longer dies in one hit to Winged Demon and instead trades with it. The downside is that it still dies to Media Player Ray and Garshask and Asteroid Belt (in two hits). It gets the ability to take another hit from Mountain Range, I suppose. Would that be too strong?

Well, adding a Failure return to a spell is introducing a new mechanic that hasn't been labeled Light yet... And Shooting Star's still playable, though inferior.

Okay, I haven't seen it played so I'm going to ask: is the Life/Avraillian thing actully bad, or is it just bad in theory? It seems to me that you're spending some amount of mana and two cards to gain 10G, which is pretty good. However, Avraillian will be a dead card in every game you draw it without life around, and I'm not sure if I wanna splash Life instead of some other card (and I mean I'm really not sure...I forgot exactly how it works. What is it, half the normal cost plus three?). So, I wouldn't mind a change if someone out there actully did build a powerful deck based on this engine, but if we're purly speculating it I don't think there should be a change. Sure, if might be powerful in one in ten games, but that would be made up for by the fact it hurts you in the other nine. Anyway, not really commenting an opinion, just want to know if this has worked in practice or if it's only in theory.

First Avrillian - 6 is still pretty worthless.  A two-card combo just to get the same net mana gain as a bucket, but also converting some light to gray.  That's assuming you have an easy way to discard the Avrillian, too.  At 10 mana I haven't been tempted to try to make a tourney-thrashing deck based on the combo.

Shooting Star - Well, if you're citing Webby for Fairy Dragon, I'll point out that webby said that Shooting Star was "exactly how he wants it".  Aside from that, I don't really care one way or the other.  I occasionally use it as is.

Melrak Assassin - If he did need the boost, making him a ninja would be so inconsequential that it would hardly count.  I don't think he particularly needs boosting in his current form, though.  (Granted, before the last balance, he was friggin' awful)

Marcus - 5 is fine.

masamune Wrote:War Cherry - Decrease stats from 60/80 to 60/77. (consider the hero type pretty please?)

Well, I suppose since she's a hero, I'll back down to 60/81. : p

Red Sprite/Green Sprite: Fine.

...You always have an easy way to discard the Avrillian. You play it, it dies, you life it in sac phase. I've seen someone do it, it wasn't a bad way to drop a bunch of golems. I think they used N/G, too. Not sure.

The Avrillian/Life combo was my theory, but someone else (I think Noodle?) actually went and applied it to a deck with about 8 cards in (N/G for the decking protection), that won almost every game except when a specific card was the last draw on the pile (so it won about 80%+ of the time). With the combo, 14-15 on turn 2 is not an unrealistic scenario. In practice it can, does, and probably will happen.

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Failure clauses to a spell isn't really new - it's how the counterspells can now be used as counter-counterspells. It's new insofar as that there's been no "counterspell insurance" on a spell before, so perhaps webruner will reject it. That's why I'd stick it in the "flavour suggestions", changes to what the card actually is and does.

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Putting Karashi to 51 life is boosting her life by two breakpoints, not just one. Why not make it a two step process and petition for a second balance after this one?

Stop! Necro Time!
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That's right, we've put in too much work to just forget about these balances! So I'm giving it a bump, in the hope that cmc can decide to be more nicely balanced as a new year's resolution! Or something...

Anyway, the newcomers are:

Sporkman - Reduce sac to 33
Bank Robber - Add "Sneaking Grey"
Gatemaster - Change type from "Supervillain" (which he so is not) to "Scientist" (for assistant synergy).

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Place your bets now!

Sporkman- don't care
other two- perfectly fine, unless Webby has some villian synergy planned to go against heroes *hint, hint*