How I would change cards and should not be on the balance team

[gsvalhalla]

I got bored and wanted to change some cards. While this is because of my boredom, I did look at how I would take away some power from the top 4 decks (Wanderer, Eggs, Fault, Healyonar). But because these changes may or may not change the power of the top decks and those just below it, I didn’t want to make it into a full blown fan made patch. Since even minor changes could have big knock on effects and I can’t be bothered to look into every deck to buff/nerf things.

Cards

Nerfed Rae to stop Fault being played at 5 mana or at 6 mana with Dervishes. The basic idea is to slow Fault down a turn. Making more room for aggro decks to shine and other midrange decks a chance to get online before getting overwhelmed.

Less attack means that it should (on average), use more dervishes before being able to wipe someone’s board away or be used more tactically, in removing the more important threats before coming back the following turn.

Basically, I’m stopping Wanderer from being ramped out in most cases. Flash, Kujata, Darkfire Sacrifice, all no longer allows Wanderer to get ramped out from those cards. However, It still allows Celebrant and the natural Mana tiles on the board for Wanderer to hit the board early, but requires more planning/thinking to do so (hopefully)

Less burst damage. The alternative was removing celerity but allowing Ripper to move more spaces.

Changed the damage from 4 to 3. Eggs in the right hands can be a very skillful deck, but I felt something else along side Ripper had to change. I feel like Zoetic Charm would be harder to do, so went for lazy/easy option.

Making it harder for players to get easy heal proc off Cleric. It basically, can no longer go face and get healed for easy procs.

It was hard to decide what to change in Healyonar. Maybe changing Gold Vitriol is a decent way to go. Lowers the damage coming off from it, but made it cheaper. Perhaps a different way to go would be changing Lucent Beam, but couldn’t think of a fair way to do it without it seeming like you’re paying too much mana for too little reward.

Fugative imo, is basically big reward for no risk. Now there’s more risk because you don’t get your card until the start of your turn, but also buffed Fugative’s attack to compensate a bit.

Changing 3 Vanar cards! Why? Vanar needs something to make it more interesting. So changing some cards that don’t see a lot of play. Starting with Cloudcaller, its now 1 mana cheaper but loses 1 attack.

Makes Vespyrs a bit better and might allow Wind Sister to see a bit of play.

Ok, I’m bias to Vespyrs. Added 1 attack but Huldra would probably still not see play.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[luckybob]

mythron rarity ripper
just a question tho
for alcuin fugitive does it matter whether you get a copy of a spell at the beginning or end of your turn? You still can’t play the spell until your next turn either way.

[gsvalhalla]

Its a big difference. At the end of your turn means that the other player has no chance to react or stop it from happening. At the start of your turn means that your opponent has a chance to try and stop you from getting a copy of the spell.

Some players might have experienced this, but if you ever played against someone who is playing Vanar and has concealing shroud. It feels really bad when they get to play both cards. Since they basically, sit there doing nothing and you know you won’t be able to hit them next turn as well because they already have another copy in hand. Of course you can dispel Concealing Shroud but not every deck runs dispel to be able to do that. The point is to try and make it more risky to play Fugative, rather than playing it and getting rewarded for free.

[luckybob]

so basically the opponent can dispel or kill the fugitive before you have the chance of getting the spell or the opponent can fill up your hand so the spell gets burned

[gsvalhalla]

Pretty much sums it up.

[unktrial1]

I’ve never seen fugitive run in anything but xor and memes. Even most alcuin decks don’t run fugitive.

In higher level games, there’s a lot of removal, so fugitive is usually overshadowed by a lot of cards: Trinity Wing and Blue Conjurer can instantly refill multiple cards; Alcuine Loremaster and Bloodbound Mentor are instantaneous and cheaper.

Although fugitive’s ability is powerful, it’s already slow, expensive, niche, and can be countered (dispel/transform/removal).

=============

For ripper, I’d definitely prefer the alternative of replacing celerity with extra movement. Part of the problem with ripper is that magmar buffs are ridiculously cheap; celerity amplifies them up to 11.

[gsvalhalla]

I’m assuming you mean Arcanyst decks when you say Alcuin, and you’re right. Arcanyst decks don’t run Fugitive, because Trinity Wing and Blue Conjourer are both more useful to what an Arcanyst deck wants. Which is instant access to cards that can be played or replaced on the same turn, as well as strong enough bodies to threaten the general or make good trades. However, Fugitive has a different purpose.

Even though you would describe the card as slow, I would argue its not slow in terms of how quickly it achieves what it wants to accomplish.

It generates an extra copy of a card straight away, and makes you have to deal with it, otherwise it keeps generating value. Which in turn slows the game down, which is what a deck with Fugitive in it wants to do. Since you have to spend mana on your turn to remove it. Slowing the game down because you have to react to it, rather than being more proactive.

Bloodbound Mentor is used when you want extra copies of the BBS only. While Loremaster is another card that is similar to Fugitive, but it’s also not something you have to deal with it beyond the turn its played. Whereas, Fugitive is. You leave Fugitive up, then you get repeatedly punished. Changing the card from getting the spell at the end of the turn, to the start of the turn. Allows a chance to stop the person from getting the card, but still stalls the game because its a minion you don’t want to leave up to gain value over time. Which in my opinion, allows the Fugitive deck to slow the game down like it wants to, but allows the opponent the opportunity to have a chance at stopping the player from gaining a spell.

As for the Ripper, I agree that Magmar buffs are cheap (mainly greater fortitude). Replacing the celerity with extra movement is something a lot of people have suggested before. So I didn’t just want to straight up go with that, but I would agree with people in that it’s probably the best way to change it.

[cloudfrog]

how about removing rebirth? it removes the stickiness and snowballing, but it will maintain the egg synergies and combos.

[snowshot]

leave my boy caller alone.

i’ll argue that 4/5 for 5 is by far stronger then 3/5 for 4.
especially when you got cryo to cover early game single target removal.

[atrestia]

You weren’t harsh enough.
I’d rather totally slam dunk nerf all those cards into the ground, let the meta develop and later buff them when necessary.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[unktrial1]

Oops. Yeah, I did mean arcanyst.

Slowing the game down because you have to react to it, rather than being more proactive.

A ton of 4+ mana cards have instant effect + value over time that forces a reaction. Owlbeast, kindling, decimus, onyx jaguar, sunbreaker, shadow dancer, etc.

The nerf isn’t too bad, but just… pointless. Fugitive is such a rare and niche late game card. How often do you come across people using it?

[gsvalhalla]

Fugitive is such a rare and niche late game card. How often do you come across people using it?

Depends, if Xor trial is the flavour of the month or not. I would say somewhere between 80-90% of Xor decks and between 10-15% of BBS Faie. I agree its not a common card to see. However, I will argue that just because a card doesn’t see a lot of play, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be looked at in terms of changes.

i’ll argue that 4/5 for 5 is by far stronger then 3/5 for 4.
especially when you got cryo to cover early game single target removal.

Fair enough.

how about removing rebirth? it removes the stickiness and snowballing, but it will maintain the egg synergies and combos.

While I wouldn’t be against it, one of the main things that people dislike about Ripper is the ability to do the 10 damage combo. Since it can be done in aggro, wanderer and eggs. Nerfing the combo via reducing the damage (by removing Celerity) would probably a more agreeable idea to most people.

[ryousen]

Cloudcaller is already played. Pretty good with Mentor.

[gsvalhalla]

I know it is, but wanted to try and have it see a bit more play.

[boronian]

Fugitive is a dead card after your nerf.

Who plays 5 mana for a 3/5 which does nothing? Fugitive already dies most of the times the next turn.

Increasing the stats doesn’t change the card’s problem & weakness that your nerf amplifies a lot: It needs to be protected super hard to gain value from.

I don’t think the card needs a nerf anyways. It is not an auto include in anything because it has such bad stats and already needs to be played defensively because 1 spell alone is not worth 5 mana, then Loremaster is just better. (It actually works better in most decks anyways, especially Xor)

[snowshot]

Pretty good everywhere actually, it is a staple of mine.
Ramp then kill every 4 hp gamebreaker and break their nose with a big eskimo water wizard/reflect it/ body block with it/ let it stand and be pretty like that.

[snowshot]

There are 2 cases of people not running callers - they don’t have the spirit or they don’t know vanar very well.

Caller should be played in every vanar deck (excluding maybe two very specific decks that needs the space)

[snowshot]

8 dmg is still kind of crazy for 5 Mana combo when one of the pieces is in your hand already.

I think either 1/1 or 2/1 without celerity.

Seeker use to be annoying as a bbs and it is 1/1 ranged.

[mrmana3]

I like a lot of these changes. It’s clear that a lot of thought was put into them. I also like how you didn’t only focus on nerds. You wanted other cards to have a chance to shine! Rae and Wanderer are among my favorites!

Slowing down fault by raising Rae’s cost is a great idea and also prevents chaining them to tiles for ramping.

Ensuring Wanderer is played on 6 makes the deck far more fair. Maybe a personal gripe is to ask the player to start with 6 mana cores, unless you’re ok with celebrant ramping it out.

Cloudcaller is probably my biggest concern from this batch. That change would make cloudcaller far too strong. The turn 2 blowout plays would be devastating, and are honestly not hard to achieve. Heck, as player 2, you open with bloodbound mentor, then play cloudcaller turn 2 to delete a minion, establish a 3/5, and put a 1 mana deal 4 in hand.

As a whole though, well done good sir.

[alplod]

Caller should be played in every vanar deck (excluding maybe two very specific decks that needs the space)

One could be Nemeton, I guess. The other one?

Speaking of Wanderer, I proposed a specific change long ago, much more brutal, probably. Make it 3/3. Dealing with 4/4 on 6 mana is usually not a problem, so playing it would be a huge tempo loss. Recovering from it will actually require masterful play. Really, for 6 mana we have vanilla 8/8 golem, taking 2 stats for this huge effect is what I consider totally unfair.