Meilar's Makeover

But if we balance him when he's already balanced in comparison to other high costing monsters, then we need to balance all of the high costing monsters, and that just brings as right about here.

Winged Golems don't heal each turn from Elven City Kel'Sor.

Winged golems don't cost 22 mana to do that for one monster with maintence, they get 4 55/55 for a total of 220 attack power.  Which is FAR better. This is exactly what I'm talking about, your overlooking how much it costs to do this, its not even reasonable to get that much mana out before your dead.

We're talking about unfeasible mana costs, yet the proposal here is to change a free ability into an ability that costs mana to use...

Because his ability ISN'T FREE, it costs you an 85/85 attacker since it dizzies him, and that really hurts to do something that is almost useless.

I'd still rather greatly increase the boost than change the ability. Upping the speed would help as well, since you could use it in response to dizziers and such.

Let me try this again. Meilar is a big Dark Elf beatstick. That's mostly what you're paying for. The ability is extra. You might be very glad to have it to protect your Manamancers or dizzy Meilar in response to WYBM or because there's a Diplomacy in play or because you'd like to take out 2 Golems and survive, but yes, mostly you want to be attacking with Meilar. This is not a problem. If you think the costs are off, that's another matter. But there's nothing wrong with the idea of a big monster with a little ability. If you don't personally like it, fine. But again, that's not a balance argument.

You already made that point, and Gospel already responded by saying that being a large beatstick isn't enough when mid-cost ones are much better. That kind of repetition is what causes balance discussions to drag on far too long. Let's try and avoid it.

The reason I personally didn't want to just make the boosts stronger was that I believed it wasn't the reason people don't use it. He can give +20/+20 and dizzy and I don't think people would still use the ability anymore than they did before. They'll probably try to incorporate tricks into their deck to use it like Zero-G, Selection Committee, Grieving Statue, etc. but Meilar will still primarily be a beatstick.

I liked the non-dizzying ability idea because it actually works WITH him being a beatstick. His ability could cost 6 per use and only give +5/+5, but as long as it would keep one of the Dark Elves in play from being killed by an attack after Meilar attacks, a person would have a good reason to use it.

Because I know someone is going to throw that example into question I'll give a better example:
The opponent has 2 Kelar Warriors out and you have Meilar and a Manamancer. You can't protect the Manamancer because you can't kill both of the Warriors at once nor do you want to waste 85 attack on a 4 monster. So you just pay to use the ability once and put the Manamancer out of death range and then attack directly.
And in an attempt to cover all bases: this would be beneficial as you'd be able to block once with the Manamancer, end up using her ability twice before sacing her on the next turn for a 4 mana net gain (6 ability cost then add 2 x 2 for Manamancer + 6 sac).

If we're just changing the card because dizzying abilities suck on really expensive monsters, then shouldn't we do the same for VCH DLK? His ability's just as useless, if not more so.

now that i think about it
i agree with dav and masa
he is going to be played for his stats more then his ability always

i'm fine with changing his ability to non dizzy or a slight boost to the ability stats but other then that i would say dont change anything else

hes pretty much fine as is

Voucher Khrima's ability can put any monster (except Terny and Grand) into snipe range. Combined with, oh let's say Ardam, they can twoshot anything with 139 or less life, ie twoshot any monster with the potential to oneshot Khrima himself, and emerge unscathed.

Voucher Khrima's ability is very powerful, but unlikely to be used. Meilar's ability is weak, but unlikely to be used.

Khrima's ability can also be used to lower monsters into range for GI-GUY to Steal them.

Khrima's ability is scaling like MMW. It might be nearly completely useless (8 damage to a Melark Follower) or terribly useful (119 damage to Clash Eternion). Making it non-dizzying activation can be terribly detrimental; especially because as a scaling damage ability it works well with other static damaging cards like War Diane/Khrimech, Mine Field, Firebolt, Mallet of Extreme Pain, etc., to kill off monsters regardless of how strong they are.
The dizzying is necessary to keep Khrima from being able to annihilate the opponent's monsters (it's not hard to come up with a combo like Firebolt or use Mallet) and be allowed to attack directly for 100+ damage.

Holy Dragon's ability can be useful not only for healing itself but also for healing you. Again, it's technically a scaling ability as it completely heals the last damage Holy Dragon takes whether it be 5 from Chookie or 85 from Shadow Pudding (and at speed, which allows countering the likes of Laser, MMW, etc.). If it didn't dizzy, as long as you had 4L your opponent would basically have to deal the full 90 damage to kill it while at the same time you get an extra 20 life each use so there's a lasting effect even if Holy Dragon is killed.
The dizzying really is necessary to limit Holy Dragon to a defensive monster if you don't want to risk getting it killed. If it was static life increases, then the ability might warrant being a non-dizzying activation cost ability (though the whole "gain 20 life" per use would have to change).

Meilar's ability is a static boost to your own monsters. Whether it's a Kelar Citizen or a Kelar Dragoon, it's going to be +8/+8. As long as the activation cost is significant enough, about the only time you'll use his ability is when the opponent happens to have a monster that will kill your own monsters within about 7 to 15 points of their life (example: Kelar Warrior (34/40) or Kelar Manamancer (3/30) vs. Stone Golem (45/45)).

Blue_Elite Wrote:Meilar's ability is a static boost to your own monsters.  Whether it's a Kelar Citizen or a Kelar Dragoon, it's going to be +8/+8.  As long as the activation cost is significant enough, about the only time you'll use his ability is when the opponent happens to have a monster that will kill your own monsters within about 7 to 15 points of their life (example: Kelar Warrior (34/40) or Kelar Manamancer (3/30) vs. Stone Golem (45/45)).

Or the reverse situation.

...the reverse would be if you had a monster that would kill theirs without dying. ...wh...why it be useful then?

Maybe he means you have a monster that's just 8 attack away from killing one of theirs?

Huh, alright, that would make sense.

I think pretty much all the main points have been said.  Yeah you'd be changing the ability, but then you'd be making it least somewhat useful.  Dizzying to give +8/+8 isn't very useful, and the beatstick arguement doesn't work well since mid costers are more effective 95% of the time.  Even if it doesn't cost to dizzy, I don't see it being used very much anyway. And didn't we already conclude that most large end monsters needed a boost anyway?

If you want to boost all the large monsters then go to the thread and see what you can do. What I don't want to see is Meilar getting boosted and then overshadowing other high-costing beatsticks. Forget how useful mid-costing beatsticks can be for a minute and just compare him to other similar-costing beatsticks and see if he needs a boost in comparison to them.