[split] The Donation > Normal Cards Misconception

It's not really a misconception. Misintegrate is pretty much better than Smash Hopes, Hadesia is WAY better than a Black Dragon, Valian Irdith is probably better than a Mystic Bird, and uh...all the other donation cards don't directly relate to too much. But it's pretty clear that stuff like Gauntlet of Shielding is amazing. Basically what I'm saying is that many donations ARE better cards. Not that they SHOULD be, but that's how it is.

Not the place to discuss this but:
Misintegrate can be stopped by Arm Breaker where Smash Hopes can't and the life gain isn't all that impressive unless the opponent uses Golden Idol (also can't target good generators like Warpwell, Hydrogen Cell, Slime Monument, etc.).
Hadesia does not compare to Black Dragon or any expensive Dark card really. Her ability is simply very unique and her stats are crap for her cost because of it.
Valian Iridith is recognized as overpowered and I think is being bumped to 6 in the next balance.

Pretty much, you hit the nail on the head when you said this:

Xagar Wrote:...all the other donation cards don't directly relate to too much.

Donations are unique in function from all other CMC cards. They have uses/abilities that no other card in CMC has but they still have to follow the power curve. Due to their uniqueness however, it's often difficult to determine where they fall on the curve due to the lack of comparisons typically used (no other card does what Guantlet of Shielding does, so it's very difficult to assess exactly how good it is and what would need to be changed if it is too good or not good enough).

And who uses Arm Breaker? (Anyway, that's why I said "pretty much.") Still doesn't really address my point that donations are generally stronger, and as you said, just different than most of the rest of the cards.

Xagar Wrote:And who uses Arm Breaker? (Anyway, that's why I said "pretty much.") Still doesn't really address my point that donations are generally stronger, and as you said, just different than most of the rest of the cards.

Actually, I thought the whole point of his post was to address the point that donations are supposedly stronger.  Different, yes, stronger, no (except in case of Valian, which should be rebalanced, as Blue pointed out).  I'd say that most donations really couldn't be legitimately accused of being unusually powerful (cf. Slime Cannon, Grieving Statue, Ko'near, Snowball, Rolling Golem, Melrak Spellsieger, Magic Copy Machine, etc, etc).

Question: are you arguing that Snowball is overpowered or that it's not? Because personally I'd say that it's not, considering that counterspells are supposed to be one of the "specialties" justifying making it just slightly better than CUP.

it's really more about weather donations are stronger then normal cards or not, which is difficult to argue about since they were made specifically to be different from normal cards, and so we don't really have any point of reference for most of them.

My opinion is that they don't need to be "stronger" than other cards, but that strength wise they need to be near the top of the curve, because they're donations so they need to be at least pretty useful.

I agree with Vincent, as long as they're unique, fun and clearly useful in at least a few deck types, donations are worth the money. They don't need to be obscenely powerful to be cool and interesting.

Kennisiou Wrote:Question: are you arguing that Snowball is overpowered or that it's not?  Because personally I'd say that it's not, considering that counterspells are supposed to be one of the "specialties" justifying making it just slightly better than CUP.

I listed it along with a lot of other donations that "couldn't be accused of being unusually powerful".  That is, donations that aren't too strong (which is the vast majority of them-- if anything, I think being underpowered is more common among donations).  You'd think being lumped with Rolling Golem would have given that away.

I don't think donations should be any more powerful than "normal" cards-- just unique and interesting.  They shouldn't be "near the top of the curve", or, put another way, "borderline overpowered".  They should be nice, normal-powered cards with nifty characteristics.

I agree.

Also, something to notice, most of the cards that people claim are underpowered are some of the more vanilla ones (rolling golem especially). Maybe we could come up with some unique effects to make them more... donation worthy.

Why is any of this in The Balance Codex? There's a nice "new thread button" that would love you to press it.

You missed your chance to plug in your thread there Andriex. The one where we debated all sorts of wacky, crazy ideas for Rolling Golem (including it "rolling back" in your hand).

I think Tamdrik really hit it on the head when he said that they're generally at the top of the power curve, and I think that's where they should be.

Blue- I'm going to remake that thread, so it felt kinda pointless. A lot of things got changed, but some other that failed to reach consensus need to be discussed further. Maybe after Christmas.

Xagar Wrote:I think Tamdrik really hit it on the head when he said that they're generally at the top of the power curve, and I think that's where they should be.

Are people intentionally misinterpreting my posts now?  I specifically said they shouldn't be at the top of the power curve.  They should ideally be right smack dab on top of "balanced", whatever that is, just like every other card.  They shouldn't be distinguished from 'normal' cards by their power level, only by their novelty.

This is pretty funny. I believe you just misinterpreted Xagar's misinterpretation Tamdrik.
He said that you said that most donations are at the top of the power curve, not that you support it. Funny that he mistaked that even after Kennisiou made the same mistake and you pointed out that you were listing off under-powered donations (under-powered in relation to even normal cards, such as Rolling Golem vs. Melrak Scout).

Well, the good ones at least are at the top. The bad *cough* Melrak Spellsieger *cough* are pretty bad.