1mana monsters

1 mana monsters already have the best stats per mana cost without the abilities. plus there are much fewer "all enemy monsters take x damage" abilities compared to "target monster/entity is destroyed/obliterated" (usually at a high premium too, like VOIP!), so your total attack power is somewhat protected further.
people didn't use them before, well at least i didn't, i dunno about others, but it's because its cheap and boring.
abilities that make 1mana monsters stronger only makes them cheaper (soldier synergy on K-guy for example).
the intention i'm sure was to get people to incorparate 1mana monsters into their decks, by giving them abilities that would go well with bigger monsters. unfortunately i don't think any (besides maybe lowly slime) really accomplish that.

so really i have to wonder if they are honestly balanced better now. (mubble's dizzying and fairy's sac bonus aren't too bad though. its really just the ones that boost attack of 1mana monsters. and as i said earlier k army guy is the worst culprit. most soldier types are 1 or 2 mana afterall)

We've acknowledged K-Army Guy's new ability as being overpowered, which is why came up with an (as of yet unimplemented) substitute.

And while 1mana rush can be devastating, if you're able to stop it early, the opponent rarely has anything to use as a backup plan. Traps, tricolor rush, mountain range, slime valley, red goop, snipers, stun grenade... if you get any kind of defence out early the opponent's history.

If it makes you feel better Ezekel, after the 2-costers we're going to rebalance the 1-coster stats. If you feel 1-costers need a stat nerf; they now have useful abilities that allow for attack reduction without making them useless ^_^.

Hmm, well like M^3 said, the K-Army guy is already slated for change (To a sniper-style ability you can see in the posts around #23X.) The way it was set up, yeah, was pretty horrid and rushy.
Were there any other cards specifically you didn't like?

I was for reducing Skeleton's sac to 1. It'd mean he'd make a sac profit of 2, but delayed, but it'd be gained even if it's destroyed in combat. Also remember that it also provides discard material and graveyard synergies in addition to mana.

Although I as for a 1-0 sac for Skeleton, I though we were saving sac value change for when we rebalanced the stats.

What on Earth happened to your spelling/grammar in that post? o_0
---
Anyway, I'd get Skeleton changed as its ability is a sac ability. It effectively went from 2mana sac to 4mana sac. Now, we can't ask for the skull it drops to be weaker, so the only alternative is to reduce the sac of Skeleton itself.
I think it's more of a proper balance issue than a minor after-tweak.

If Skeleton were an effect that didn't do anything but sac for 2 and give you a Skull, I'd probably say that was acceptable (gets you one more mana than a Skull, but takes one extra turn).  At 18/4, giving you the skull on death... maybe a little too flexible, so I suppose I could get behind a sac drop to 1.  I think zero sac is a little much, though. I do think it's kind of silly to only do stat changes first when the clear fix is to adjust the sac.

The previous post is an example of why I generally wait until I have time to proofread my posts for spelling and grammar before submitting anything.

Any-who, we're going to be changing the stats (or at least most likely will be) of all the 1-costers regardless. That's why the 2-coster debate is now in session; because generally the 1-coster stats are determined with the 2-costers in mind.

Blue_Elite Wrote:The previous post is an example of why I generally wait until I have time to proofread my posts for spelling and grammar before submitting anything.

Any-who, we're going to be changing the stats (or at least most likely will be) of all the 1-costers regardless. That's why the 2-coster debate is now in session; because generally the 1-coster stats are determined with the 2-costers in mind.

Can I just say that this kind of balancing is *exactly* what I would call frivolous and unnecessary? Blue, no offense, but I think you're getting a little out of hand with all your "balances".

thanks guys. well i've said what i had to say and i got some nice replies to it. thanks.
as for thoughts- how much are you planning to nerg the 1mana monsters by?

the only otherthing: drawing a specific counter to a deck of rushers (assuming your deck has a tower or w/e) isn't really that good of a thing to use to defend it - you still need to draw it afterall

(sorry for the rubbishness of this post. i actually started it about 6-7 hrs ago and fell asleep in the middle of it (i woke up to see a long long long line of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" lol)

Ezekel Wrote:thanks guys. well i've said what i had to say and i got some nice replies to it. thanks.
as for thoughts- how much are you planning to nerg the 1mana monsters by?

Personally: No clue. That's kinda why I like that we're waiting a bit to decide. I figure that I'll start thinking about it now that the new rebalance of the 1-mana creatures is updated onto CMC, and once I've played them all.
I would feel pretty stupid deciding without playing them.

Ezekel Wrote:the only otherthing: drawing a specific counter to a deck of rushers (assuming your deck has a tower or w/e) isn't really that good of a thing to use to defend it - you still need to draw it afterall

You are right, except in the case of mountains. I can't really give you that, as if you're running a location in a deck, odds are you're running enough that you should draw one within three turns.

I don't really see why Skeleton shouldn't have 2D sac in its current form. If you're able to sac the skeleton, you end up with a net gain of 3D after playing and saccing the Skull, but it's much more likely that your opponent will attack it before your next sac phase in order to deny you that mana, leaving you with only a net gain of 1D. Being a creature might make it more flexible than an effect, but it's also much more fragile, so the potential mana gain is balanced by the difficulty in actually achieving it.

Also, I'm sorry I wasn't posting about the proposed changes earlier (all of this schoolwork makes it tough to keep up with everything that I want to keep up with), but I'm not happy with the proposed Skyrian Soldier and Mubble.

Giving Spell/Ability Immune to something as small as the Skyrian Soldier seems fairly pointless. How often would your opponent want to waste a removal spell on it anyway? Protection from snipers and the like is also rather silly on something too small to impact the game. How big is it potentially going to be when we change the stats?

As for the Mubble, this change would make Mubble Woods usable as a second Swimsuit, which was the reason for the 50% chance in the current incarnation. Could I get an explanation of why we don't need an "if not a token" clause for this one?

Also, the current Fairy seems pretty weak (it's a Magic Orb that can be easily killed before you get the mana, attached to an attack and life that make it useful for little more than saccing), but stat changes might change that.

Exile Wrote:Can I just say that this kind of balancing is *exactly* what I would call frivolous and unnecessary? Blue, no offense, but I think you're getting a little out of hand with all your "balances".

If blue wants to spend time with the balences let him. You don't have to post in the balence thread if you dont want to "waste" your time.

However, are you saying you've NEVER won a game where your monster fell to 2 or 3 hit points? Well without Blue's balences you prob would havn't won.

At the end of the day if every 2mana abilityless monster had same stats it would be pointless. the 1 or 2 point changes does change the game, and in my opinion Blue has a good judgement on what is and isnt balenced so you can leave it to him and his judgement on the 1 or 2 point adjustments.

No offence ment to anyone in this thread, just that post nd the "new player group" thread did just annoy me a bit. Well thats my post over.

Unusual__me Wrote:If blue wants to spend time with the balences let him. You don't have to post in the balence thread if you dont want to "waste" your time.

See, if this was true, that'd be great. I agree that I shouldn't have to worry about the balance forums. But these aren't hypothetical balances--cards are actually changing. If I want to know what my tournament deck will do tomorrow, much less whether it will be any good, I *do* have to follow the balance threads. Changing a card people already know affects the entire realm of CMC. It should not be done lightly.

You make some fair points unusual. I've got class in half an hour so I'll respond as quickly as I can. First, till now, I have generally kept out of the balance thread. The problem is that if no one presents objections to balances, then they'll just go through, assuming the tacit approval of everyone else in the CMC community *precisely* because they didn't speak up and post in the balance thread.

Your example of when a monster fell to 2-3 hitpoints is also faulty in that people can say they just as easily lost to an opponent whose monster fell to 2-3 hitpoints. Or you could say that you lost because your monster died when it previously would've survived by 2-3 hitpoints because of a nerf. All of these situations come about because of these changes in balances. You can't claim that everyone receives a positive experience from the balances because in the end, it's a zero-sum game, somebody wins and somebody loses.

As to trusting Blue's judgment, you can have your opinion and I can have my own. It's precisely because *I* disagree with his judgment that I'm even posting here in the first place. In a way, it brings up the whole issue of "elite" players deciding the direction of the game by determining what should or shouldn't be balanced, except in this situation, it's limited to Blue and I'm against that. That's all for now.

Ultros Wrote:Giving Spell/Ability Immune to something as small as the Skyrian Soldier seems fairly pointless. How often would your opponent want to waste a removal spell on it anyway? Protection from snipers and the like is also rather silly on something too small to impact the game. How big is it potentially going to be when we change the stats?

My point in wanting this balance is that it encourages using 1 mana cards not as just 'another piece of the pie,' but to actually build decks around them.

Ultros Wrote:As for the Mubble, this change would make Mubble Woods usable as a second Swimsuit, which was the reason for the 50% chance in the current incarnation. Could I get an explanation of why we don't need an "if not a token" clause for this one?

If I get why you're asking, it's because tokens can't return to hand.

Now, to Dav and Exile-
You have strong points and a solid arguement. However, they seem to not be about 1-mana cost creatures but about balance in general. As such, please stop clogging up a thread with shit that shouldn't be in it. If you want to make another thread called 'Balance Tactics' or some shit, fine. I'll read it, I'll post there, I'll do whatever, but don't clutter this thread with vaguely connected ideas.

I seem to have become the focal point of balancing for some reason... I'll address that in Exile's "Understanding Balance" thread as I believe it might actually be pertinent to the subject.

Anyway, the cards:

Skyrian Soldier: I shared your view-point Ultros. However, in a dedicated deck this can really be a very powerful card. You can pump it up and make it spell/ability immune. What's more the ability to be targetable and untargetable means you can have a monster like Prince Far'thin but can still be healed, boosted, etc. I'm sure when the change is made even before the stats are rebalanced, there will be some pretty effective decks using Skyrian Soldier as a focus; though that might be dependent on whether it comes into play spell/ability immune or not.

Mubble: Mubble Woods becomes a 1 50% chance Swimsuit. Not only is it less reliable, it can only be used at the end of your opponent's turn to get the monster out undizzed; not to mention it also has a cost.

Skeleton: If gotten out turn 1 the Skeleton can easily beat on the opponent and then be sacced when the opponent finally gets a monster out. Only later is there a risk involved in not recouping your mana by sacing the Skeleton. At the 2D value, you can sac a Skeleton on the second turn and play 2 more plus the Magic Skull. Skeleton can be the very mana source of a deck like this (although in my personal testing experience using it as the only monster as well does not work too well). I believe the decision in choosing between 0 or 1 sac is: should you be able to play both another Skeleton and a Skull next turn (1 sac value) or just one or the other (0 sac, you gen 1/1/1 naturally per turn).

despite my rant earlier, i have to admit i have a certain liking to a monster creating a source on death
(hum column of iridith has a magic orb on it... when it dies shouldn't we get a magic orb in hand by the same logic?... just idle musing).
its definetly not as game breaking as some of the soldiers.
if it turns out that skeleton loses that ability then maybe it could be used on a future card (although what card is given to th eplayers hand doesn't have to be a source)

Skeleton can be powerful in multiples early on, but it's risky. If your deck has a large number of Skeletons, you're more likely to get the early mana boost, but after a few turns, you'll still be drawing Skeletons and they'll be next to useless, unable to stand up to the monsters that are out at that point. If you have a smaller number, you're unlikely to get the big early mana boost. Unless somebody makes or has made an overpowered deck using Skeleton in its current form, I say leave it as is.

Dropping the sac to 1 would make the potential net gain equal to that of what a Skull already is, but would take two turns and be fragile. You might be able to get in a few attacks during the first few turns, but once your opponent has creatures, they're almost cards, taking two turns for a net gain of one mana. In other words, it would be like playing slow Mana Skulls where the only advantage is that you could do some damage in the first few turns if you wait on saccing them, and the huge disadvantage of becoming almost useless afterwards. Dropping it to zero would mean that you always get a net gain of only one mana, no matter what. If they become horrible after the first few turns, they could at least be better than Magic Skulls during those turns.

As for Mubble Woods, I was referring to the proposed change rather than the current version of Mubble, and was unaware that tokens couldn't be returned to hand (I was assuming they would just disappear afterwards, like in Magic). My mistake.

And the argument for Fairy staying as is instead of getting some other ability was

masamunemaniac Wrote:And I say keep Fairy as is. Dark has Skeleton and Boomboxen, Grey has the basic gens and Buckets, let Light have a decent early sac card too.

The reason why Skeleton and Boomboxen are decent early sac cards is because of their attack. Are we planning on increasing Fairy's stats? By how much?