The Spy Who Screwed Me

Spybot's only uses now are combos. He combos with Stasis field, with Unknown, with SKRAP, and with turn skipping. Play him without one of those combos and he sucks. A 60% chance to steal a card every turn isn't worth giving your opponent a 55 attack monster, and you wont even get that 60% chance if he suicides into one of your monsters with his low life. Uncomboed, I wouldn't play him if he was free.

I suggest dropping his attack so he can't hurt you as much, and raising his life so it's harder to suicide him. As a side effect this would hurt the Unspoken combo and either hurt or help the SKRAP one depending on what we boost it's life to.

If we changed it's ability to activate during the draw phase, would it work before or after they drew a card?

Just to note the life would have to be at least 43 to avoid being SKRAP'd.

46 if you're worried about the new Melrak Chantress.

Which requires an extra 5 card already on your field? I'd call that a reason to keep Spybot below 46.

He should still have fairly high attack. I could see 47-50 attack and 43-45 life; though that's about an even stat trade...

And to be honest, there are a lot of cards that aren't so hot outside of combos. Spybot's attack is a tiny bit too harmful, but aside from that I think he's okay.

-8/+8 seems fine to me

I agree that it could use a change. Maybe -10/+5? That way its attack would stay above its life and it would still trade with most five mana beatsticks. Note that this change would also stop Spybot from Suiciding into the bulk of six mana beatsticks, where currently, Spybot can Suicide into most grey and dark six costing beatsticks as well as some light ones. Changing the ability from end turn to draw phase also sounds good.

If Spybot's attack staying above its life isn't an issue, I could see it getting -10/+15 so that most 5 mana beatsticks couldn't suicide into him. Though with this change I would want to keep its ability as is.

Edit: When I opened this no one else had posted...

bubbleman2 Wrote:I agree that it could use a change. Maybe -10/+5? That way its attack would stay above its life and it would still trade with most five mana beatsticks.

I have a small problem with paying 4 mana and a card to destroy my 5 mana monster without getting anything in return. I was actually hoping for -30/+10, so it couldn't kill your monsters as easily.

@E-Mouse: I know there are cards that suck outside of combos, doesn't mean I have to like it. It might just be me, but I've always thought that if we could make one of those cards usable without boosting those combos, we should try. See my Autogun boost thread.

There was a point where spybot WASNT a combo card?

This thread is bad for CMC because you're trying to make a GOOD niche card into an OKAY everyday card.

Fine as is, not everything needs to be playable.

IT'S FINE.

No touchy!

Yeah, I'm under the impression that this was meant to be a combo card only, really...

You guys are probably right. When the only way I can think of to make it playable outside of combos is to give it -30/+10, it probably wasn't meant to be played outside of combos.

Also doing that would make it a pretty unlike the rest of the spybots in CMC. I mean, even hero spybot is a light 60/20, which goes AGAINST the light archetype. I don't really think that a low-attack spybot makes any sense to begin with.

Yeah, I use this card in my AN-52 deck. It's fine.

I'll throw myself in with the "It's fine" group.

It's fine, etc.

I'm in the "it's a combo card, so leave it alone for combos" group, though I wouldn't mind seeing it's attack changed to around 50 still. I just think it would be a more balanced combo card.

Tally

Nerf attack/boost life: Nacho(-30/+10;change of heart?), �ルノ(-8 to -5/+8 to +10), NOLDER(-8/+8), bubbleman2(-10/+5 or -10/+15)
Total: 4
Fine as is: ThePanda, Shadowhunter, masamunemaniac, Vincent, Kennisiou, Noodle, sXeAndriex(Okay with -5/+0)
Total: 7

More chain voting... Redirecting focus to just nerfing the attack by 5 might get somewhere. Otherwise it's pretty clear that people are fine with this being basically only a combo card and not a "play alone" monster.

It's fine.