Laying Nate/George to Rest

Umm..Tarafang's drawback isn't the mana cost, it's the target restriction.

And N/G's drawback is not drawing cards NORMALLY. However, having one source of alternate draw out equals you can effectively turn drawing cherry's ability from "Draw a card" into "destroy target creature" with N/G out.

Funny that the first drawback that leaps to mind with Tarafang is the huge activation cost.

And yes, N/G's drawback is that you don't draw cards normally.  If you have Cherry out, now you're drawing one card per turn instead of the two you'd draw without N/G.  So there's still a drawback to having N/G in play: generally one card per turn.

It's not that I'm strongly opposed to the 'destroy on draw' nerf, though I'd lower the price if that happened.  I just think that 'mill on use' is a reasonable action to take to try to fix the N/G breakage.  Yes, it's conservative, but that's kind of the idea.

Well, let's compare things, eh?

If webby introduced a unique hero that cost 5, sacced for 6, had 20/40 stats and the ability Destroy target creature. -B-
I suppose most of you would instantly cry out "BROOOKEN" or similar things.

Now, N/G does exactly the same thing. It basically gives your alternate draw stuff the power to destroy stuff.

Since, you know, it wouldn't matter if you had no N/G and a creature with the ability mentioned above or if you had N/G and a form of alternate draw.

Tamdrik Wrote:

bane2571 Wrote:This nerf will not fix the primary imbalance of N/G in that it stops decking.
...
mill to use actually does nothing if anything it turns it into a slightly more useful cards

I think you're using two arguments that coexist about as well as matter and antimatter.

Mill to use stops the 8-card degenerate N/G decks cold, which were the biggest issue with N/G preventing decking.

edit: wait, I just reread your post tamdrik, of course the two arguements don't match up, you took the sentence out that links them. My point is that people don't play monsters when N/G is out so the mill to use is mostly useless. The only reason to play anything when N/G is out is if its controller is playing things too and generally the only way that happens is if they are drawing more cards. Without the ability to draw, N/G ends up sitting there doing nothing till effect D comes along and splats it.

OLD POST BEGINS!
I dunno about that, I'm pretty sure that I could build a degenerate deck that only used N/G to stop from decking out. In that case though, neither nerf would help. My problem with N/G is that you get both a way to not deck out if you don't want and the ability to circumvent it if you want to. By adding a mill to use you end up with both a way to not deck out if you don't want and the ability to circumvent it if you want to. I don't particularyly mind the free destroy effect, my problem has always been that N/G is used to circumvent the inevitability of decking.

I wonder what people with stall decks would be willing to pay (in mana) for a unique effect that simply says: you do not draw a card in the draw phase. Ask yourself that question then subtract that cost from N/G to discover what stall decks are paying for their creature kill.

But if you build a degenerate deck that leaves you with zero or one cards in your library, well, then you wouldn't be able to use N/G if I were to play a creature and start beating you with him (assuming that milling an empty library has the same effect as drawing from one).

Aldgar Omk Wrote:If webby introduced a unique hero that cost 5, sacced for 6, had 20/40 stats and the ability Destroy target creature. -B-
I suppose most of you would instantly cry out "BROOOKEN" or similar things.

Now, N/G does exactly the same thing. It basically gives your alternate draw stuff the power to destroy stuff.

Since, you know, it wouldn't matter if you had no N/G and a creature with the ability mentioned above or if you had N/G and a form of alternate draw.

Except it's more like "57/6 sac, 20/40, Into Play: Discard a Nate/George, Destroy target monster".

[minor rant]
Heh.. Out of the 12 people that voted in favor of this balance change, only four gave some explanation in the thread.

Of those against, two out of three gave an explanation.. I'm aware that some must have done this somewhere else, but I fail to see how it's supposed to be convincing if they just push the 'yes' button and leave again.
They've gotten tired of explaining and discussing? Then why are the rest of us keeping it up? Are we just too stubborn, or maybe they fully don't support their own opinion on this card anymore. I wouldn't know, cause they didn't tell me!

I dislike democracy for the fact that people are allowed to vote even without knowledge of what might be behind the button. But we have a really clear image of what we're getting here. ..It's not like it'll have ability immunity behind our backs or something ^_^
[/minor rant]

Well, one possible explanation is that I sometimes won't bother making a post supporting an idea if someone else has clearly made every argument I would have made.  Another is that maybe they already made their point in the original thread and don't feel like spending the time/effort rehashing it.  Just some alternatives to the theory that they don't really believe in how they voted. :)

also, a vote for yes is a vote agreeing with the orginal post in that "a nerf must occur so it might as well be this one" rehashing that has less point than saying that the nerf is completely pointless and won't achieve would it is trying to.

Yes, but they're saying nothing at all even though there are three people here that are burnt on opposing this decision and have several valid arguments (or at least that's what I assume, since they haven't been countered yet).

Three arguments against? I see two. One, about how the "primary imbalance" is the decking prevention got holes shot in it:

Tamdrik Wrote:Mill to use stops the 8-card degenerate N/G decks cold, which were the biggest issue with N/G preventing decking.

The other one I can see is about it helping Bakuga, which seems a bit silly to me. In nearly all cases, picking a discard with one of the cards currently used for Bakuga is superior to the (proposed) random discard of N/G. Of course, there is a small chance that you'll be chucking an effect for Bakuga to use - but if you put in enough to make that a significant chance; that is, so much that it would help more than hurt you statistically, then you've just added far too many effects to make your deck workable anyway.

As for why I like the balance, it's not too strong, and I, of course, am in favor of cheaper monster destruction. Another thing is that Webby originally suggested it (not to appeal to authority or anything, but he IS the creator).

i dont understand where this conversation has been going.

Milling-to-use doesn't stop decking, it's basically draw and then discard immediately, so you still lose if you have no cards to mill.

webrunner Wrote:i dont understand where this conversation has been going.

Don't know how much you've been reading, but here's most of it:
N/G's original concept was supposedly to destroy monsters, at the cost of not drawing cards. Not drawing cards has, however, proven itself to be quite useful in really small decks (e.g. 10 card deck that brings out a powerful combo and then stops drawing cards). This is one thing that people want balanced.

Also, decks that use alternate card drawers have been using N/G and are thereby bypassing the no card drawing drawback (or reducing it by making the loss smaller on total cards drawn).

Some people want to focus on the first, making it mill cards as you use it.
Others want to balance N/G by nerfing the second imbalance, and want to do that by having it destroyed upon card drawing.

However, the milling option means it will suddenly become really useful for bakuga decks (bakuga can bring it into play for less than its actual cost, and can mill effects into your graveyard), so it would just swap some elements in the imbalance, instead of obviously decreasing it.

With the destroy on draw, the 10 card deck will still be useable. In those decks, you would already have a weakness towards card drawers and effect destruction, so nothing changes there.

Balance weighing depends on how strong people think the 10 card decks are, whether or not they want the bakuga boost and the impact on casual play (didn't explain the latter, because it varies per player).
But as I said earlier, there's also the people that vote without supporting their opinion, because they just want any change to the card instead of the best change.

They were saying that the main balance problem of the card as it IS is the decking prevention. They'd rather see that ability pretty much removed entirely, as opposed to this suggestion, which would either kill creatures or prevent decking.

I don't suppose we could have the option "Whenever you draw a card, discard a card"? EDIT: Wait, that doesn't stop it from being decking protection then.

MooNFisH Wrote:But as I said earlier, there's also the people that vote without supporting their opinion, because they just want any change to the card instead of the best change.

Should be noted that a good number of these people have given their opinions and supported them in the numerous N/G threads that have already come to pass, and don't feel like continuing to repeat them. Also, 'any change' from what I've read ment any of the proposed changes that currently are still being talked about. The way you say 'any' makes it sound like they would literally support anything done to the card, and I'm almost certain that isn't the case.

Out of curiousity, (though note I stopped reading this thread a little while ago, so I may have missed this) did the obliterate version of milling just get forgotten? With that variant the card that is milled would be obliterated, and thus not go to your graveyard.

I also think people havn't been concidering something else... if milling is such a dangerous tool with life and bakuga in the game, and we were told that Webrunner will be introducing milling in the next expansion, simply not voting for milling for this reason is remarkably dumb as a number of cards are potentially going to gain it anyway. If it bothers you that much, balancing Bakuga would be a better idea since the effect is going to exist no matter what we do here.

Also, if milling puts the top card in your deck into the grave, then there's also the chance that it'll discard your Bakuga, Abrasis, or Life.

MooNFisH Wrote:

webrunner Wrote:i dont understand where this conversation has been going.

Don't know how much you've been reading, but here's most of it:
N/G's original concept was supposedly to destroy monsters, at the cost of not drawing cards. Not drawing cards has, however, proven itself to be quite useful in really small decks (e.g. 10 card deck that brings out a powerful combo and then stops drawing cards). This is one thing that people want balanced.

snip

With the destroy on draw, the 10 card deck will still be useable. In those decks, you would already have a weakness towards card drawers and effect destruction, so nothing changes there.

My problem with the propposed change is that the major arguement for it presented in this thread is that it stops the above situation when the fact is that it doesn't. In degenerate deck the key is to quickly get a powerful (often infinite) combo and not deck out before you can win. Adding milling to use won't substantially lower N/G's usefulness in this situation as if you don't want to lose you just don't use it.

The whole point of the post is "we need a nerf here's a random one I like, let's do it" I used to agree with it but I don't like it anymore for the reasons I've stated so if we absolutely must have a nerf I'd prefer aldgar's to milling.

Come to think of it I don't really think a nerf is entirely warranted.

I thought of that too Ageatii but I'll answer why that's not a problem to save MooNFisH the trouble, seeing as how he's so adamant against support for the idea (no offence, but you've been a "Negative Nancy" about this from the get-go).

The way N/G based decks normally work is that you get all the cards you need in hand BEFORE you play it. So technically speaking, the player would have at least the Bakuga/Abrasis/Life they need in hand before playing N/G, due especially to being unable to draw the afore mentioned cards once it is out.
As I understand it, the main argument is thus that you can now discard directly to your graveyard AND get monster D at the same time. It's like getting your cake and eating it too.
Part of what annoys me about this is that Bakuga has been the sole example of abusing N/G. It sounds a lot like the Trinary Black Hole argument in that there are 2 deck constructions that can greatly abuse its use. You have N/G on the chopping block because it has POTENCIAL, rather than direct abuse seeing as how the discard is random and the Bakuga decks that I've seen are generally designed to discard cards in mass anyway.

Yes MooNFisH I acknowledge your argument that by polling this with what amounts to an ultimatum that I'm in essence throwing out much better ideas. However, as I mentioned, the problem was that there were TOO MANY good ideas and no one could draw a majority of support for just one of them. That being the case, I went the other route and tried just putting out the most conservative, non-arguable choice just to gain some ground on a better nerf than +1. If what's really annoying you is that this sounds like a finalization on the card, here's why it's not:

Blue_Elite Wrote:Later Aldgar, first I just want to focus on what has been consented to before as a correction to the original theme of the card; that being that it's not suppose to prevent decking. After that, THEN we can all continue debating more nerfs for the card.

Aldgar Omk Wrote:http://forum.cmc.redleaf.de/showthread.php?tid=88
[Thread leads to a post about a year and a half ago where people were against changing Phoenix]

There, first post shows my opinion of phoenix.

I find it a bit strange that people thought differently back then...

For my comment, ya, it's contradictory to the thread's name. But that's how it is. BRA was changed with the attack nerf and I still hear complaints about it. Which then leads to Aldgar's comment: People change their opinions over time. After the milling is added, maybe people's opinion of the card will change and they'll focus on agreeing to the "draw a card, N/G is destroyed" nerf. Maybe an even better idea will come along. Is milling really so bad an idea because there are 1-3 special deck constructions that have a potential to take advantage of it?

If Bakuga is the sole reason people don't like this nerf, then I don't really know what to say.  Bakuga just isn't that powerful.  You might be able to make a nice deck that does well in casual play, but it's still a gimmick deck that isn't exactly going to dominate the tourney scene.

As far as the combo-of-death-in-10-cards-or-less, did you have a specific one in mind?  The best I can come up with is Buckets, Burn! Burn!, Orb, Desert, N/G, and that's still not quite a lock.

bane2571 Wrote:My problem with the propposed change is that the major arguement for it presented in this thread is that it stops the above situation when the fact is that it doesn't. In degenerate deck the key is to quickly get a powerful (often infinite) combo and not deck out before you can win. Adding milling to use won't substantially lower N/G's usefulness in this situation as if you don't want to lose you just don't use it.

So what you're saying is... if someone is using a small deck that is using N/G to stop a decking situation, it actually doesn't? Either I don't quite get what you're talking about, or what you said made no sense.

bane2571 Wrote:The whole point of the post is "we need a nerf here's a random one I like, let's do it"

Actually, it's because it has warrented the most positive feedback in the previous X threads that N/G has been brought up in. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean there's no good reasoning behind it.

Blue_Elite Wrote:(no offence, but you've been a "Negative Nancy" about this from the get-go).

Someone disagreeing with you isn't a bad thing >.>