Duelyst Forums

Tiger costs 4. I dont get it

#11

My post could be any more clear. I gave 3 clear reasons for tiger being nerfed. Arguing for change is pointless because in this case any faction that “needs” 3 mana tiger they can simple now print in faction version of it. In printing a in faction version of tiger they can avoid the many many many issue decks with 3 mana tigers have cause because it easier manage one faction and its buffs than 6 factions and the multitude of interactions.

We are not arguing theortically stuff now. Kara bbs was literally nerf because of tiger,1 mana diretide, 3rd wish,Thumping wave were all abused by tiger. Phantasm and Stygian Observer would make tiger ridiculous as 3 mana play.Who cares what the card does for the early game some factions Magmar,Songhai and Vet don’t need access to more early damage and the devs have to walk on eggshells when designing cards because Tiger extends the burst damage factions can do. You keep asking was that oppressive.Yes it enable oppressive stuff and it would only be a matter of time before it happened again.

So closing.If Lyonar needs Rush minion make King of Beast 3 mana 3/2. If Vanar needs Rush minion create Snowy Tiger 3 mana 3/2 Infiltrate : Give this minion Rush.If Abyss needs a Rush minion.Spector 2 mana spell summon ghostly apparition. Ghostly apparition a 3/3 minion with rush that disappears at end of the turn. Even if they end up broken they are not in the game forever.

I don’t know how many ways to say it neutral minion that cheap with rush has been proven over and over to cause or assist in degenerate decks. To protect design space from future screws up they moved away from the 3 slot so use 2 tigers and a buff. It could only be a 1 mana buff.

#12

I should say it again now, as I did up there, the “degeneration” was never in Tiger so much as it was in the ridiculous stuff Tiger can abuse- Do you like Thumping Wave? Do you want it back at 3 mana now that Tiger is gone? Do you want Phantasm and Kara’s BBS back? Do you like Holy Immolation except when its used together with Tiger? Do you think auto triggering its death by the end of turn wouldnt solve Tiger + old Third Wish?
At this point its clear what this whole discussion is always gonna be about. The people who think that what Tiger can abuse is dumb, and the people who think Tiger itself is dumb. Which I evidently support the former because who the hell wants more ridiculous and nigh-OP cards in this game.

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#13

It isn’t matter of issuing blame on tiger or what ever enables tiger it about finding the most efficient solution to fix it.

Option 1. Is leave tiger as is. Nerf bunch of other stuff and future design has to be adjusted for possibility of tiger pushing something over the top.

Option 2. Is to change ONE card and have wide variety thing now be possible and not worry about tiger as much in design space.

It is easy choice and once again if something needs a “3 mana” tiger in the faction they can just add to that faction. For example Tiger was the perfect card in lyonar very few people had a problem with it. Holy immo/bbs Tiger was 9 mana play inline with other faction finishers.They just add a 3 mana rush minion in lyonar and they don’t to worry about magmar having access 3 rush minions instead of two in a cheesy deck.Simplest most effective solution is just remove the one card from the equation in this case 4 mana is enough to that.

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#14

I’m not sure you understood his point when you say that the degeneration was in the ridiculous stuff that tiger can abuse. Sure, in an ideal world, all buff cards would be perfectly balanced at the date of release. But his examples show that time and time again the devs have failed to balance new buff cards against tiger. If they kept tiger the same, it would probably keep happening with every new expansion. So it was sensible to nerf tiger.

Also, I do like that the tiger nerf has reduced the availability of cheap burst. Before the nerf, almost anyone could do 6-8 out of hand damage with an easy two-card combo at 6 mana or so. Now, that’s much more difficult and requires fairly involved set-up (except for decispikes, but that’s a different conversation).

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#15

Tiger and Revenant were both nerfed because the balance team thought Stygian Observer would be used in a Tier 1 deck, especially since they’d just had to make changes to Phantasm and the deck would use most of those cards. It didn’t turn out to be the case, but you have to live with the 4 mana Tiger now. This ties in with how Abyssian is now considered the weakest of the 6 factions - the expected strong archetype didn’t come through.

One hopes that Kirabi’s point of faction-specific Tiger replacements for the ones hit most (Argeon) will come through sometime.

#16

Official statement from Core Set and Rotation Changes:

#17

people are still posting this nonsense argument, supporting the tiger nerf because of it’s out of hand damage potential with buffs? just keep ignoring the fact that tiger is still buffable and when it’s being played for lethal one extra mana cost is usually irrelevant.

#18

if you’re playing tiger after you’ve played a stygian observer what difference would it make whether the tiger costs 3 or 4? on 8 mana you can still play 2 of them.

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#19

this statement is amazingly ignorant. for one thing you’re looking at it solely from the perspective of the person who wants their 1/3 to stick, not the person who by virtue of going second has to answer the OP 1 or 2-drop. being able to use a tiger to remove a T1 katara, on the condition that the songhai player played it forward to threaten the tile, is not “healthy” but the songhai player being able to threaten infinite value with the 4 damage backstab with the 0 mana juxtaposition is “healthy” and something that should be made harder to prevent?
the point you’re REALLY missing though is that playing a tiger turn 1 to answer a 2-drop has always been a tempo loss play. player 1 can then clear the tiger with face and play a 3-drop. being in this position should not make you feel “oh no i’m losing i lost my 2-drop” it should make you feel “fk yes i’m winning my opponent skipped their turn 1 to play removal on my 2-drop”.

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#20

Your entire thought process is about Katara which is overpowered. Nothing I said was wrong the early game is healthier with ability to play 1 and 2 drops with out a tiger rushing in all the time.Faction Removal in the game is fine enough to handle the one and two drops i am mentioning. It just nice to play a manaforger, Aethermaster ,Rancour foward without it being smashed in by a tiger

#21

Ridiculous. A 1/3 Songhai minion would never be placed anywhere near the reach of a Saberspine Tiger. As you say Katara is just going to be moved into position by MDS or Juxtaposition.

You’re right. Using Saberspine Tiger to kill a 2/3 or 3/2 minion is a poor tempo play. However, if you manage kill off a 1/3 and block off the center tile from your opponent than you will have managed to trade 1-for-1 at worst and very likely stopped your opponent from accelerating for the next two turns. That’s a great position to be in as player two.

And these two thing are the problem with Saberspine. Two mana 1/3 Minions fall into one of two categories. Minions that are played in the back and can’t reasonably be destroyed in combat or minions that are played in attempt to get a mana tile and end up as Tiger food.

Saberspine Tiger at three mana prevents the 1/3 minion from being useful as anything other than backline value generation machines. Four mana Saberspine Tiger gives CPG a bit more room to make viable 1/3 frontline minions.

Between this and the fact that Saberspine Tiger has been at the crime scene of a suspiciously large number of nerfs I feel like the mana increase was deserved.

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#22

Tiger nerf was a safety measure…cant understand though why thery print metal tooth at the same time

#23

It’s relevant because people don’t put it in their decks any more because playing it as a 4 mana phoenix fire to remove something feelsbad. It’s no longer so flexible.

Also, 3 vs. 4 mana is often going to be important for the win condition of an aggro/tempo-y deck.

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#24

If they really wanted to raise its cost, making it a 3/3 would have been fairer. Paying 4 mana for a 3/2 is just too much, now it’s a horrible card

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#25

A real shame about the awesoume frosttiger skin

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#26

if you would honestly prefer your opponent to not play a tiger turn 1 to clear your manaforger or aethermaster then either 1) you simply don’t grasp the concept of tempo in this game or 2) that card sticking is so powerful that reducing the options for clearing it is definitely not “healthy” for the game.

#27

all i see in your description of how saberspine tiger interacts with 1/3s is a perfectly balanced card. if accelerating into a 4-drop turn 2 is so important you have the option of running 4 health 2-drops and the loss of acceleration doesn’t matter if you’re running strong 3-drops.
the concept of a 1/3 being a “frontline” minion is asinine and ample evidence of how desperately you’re reaching for arguments in favor of the tiger nerf. if you have a real reason for supporting it i don’t know why you wouldn’t just state it and leave it at that. like what is “frontline” even supposed to mean? something you play for it’s stats not it’s ability/value generation? so a 1/3 is inherently not going to be a “frontline” 2-drop.
obviously the 4 health does nothing against natural selection, hearth sister or daemonic lure. so unless you want those cards nerfed too there’s no consistency in your or kirabi’s view of being able to remove an opponent’s turn 1 2-drop being “unhealthy”. obviously now you fall back on drawing some arbitrary distinction between what it’s ok for a faction card to do and what it’s ok for a neutral card to do. and what is it then that it’s ok or “healthy” for a neutral card to do? apparently being an inferior stand in for a faction spell to increase consistency in having early answers so you can prevent falling unrecoverably behind on turn 2 due to bad draw luck isn’t it. i guess neutral cards should all be nerfed until they’re unplayable or just deleted from the game.

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#28

The simplest way to put why is probably, they wanted to print a new neutral rush unit but they needed the design space to do so, so they nerfed tiger but made a cheaper but more situational rush unit.

#29

It’s not about Tiger being balanced. It’s about Tiger single handedly making 1/3 minion useless as anything other than would be artifacts.

Player 1 cannot play Rancor, Sunrise Cleric, or Pureblade Enforcer, etc. on tile B4 or D4 with the intent of getting the mana tile the next turn without risking getting massively set back by Tiger eating the minion and blocking access to tile C5.

And when you say

you’re acknowledging that 1/3 minions are strictly worse than 1/4 minions as mana accelerants so long as Saberspine Tiger costs three mana.

And that’s my problem with Saberpine Tiger. At three mana Tiger makes two mana 1/3 minions irrelevant if they can’t be parked in a corner get value over time.

CPG can’t use a specific stat line when balancing minions. Minions with strong effects but the “eh” 1/3 stat line aren’t ever going see play. Not unless they’re along the lines of pre-nerf Circulus. But minions like that are minions in name only. They fulfill the roles similar to that of artifacts.

I don’t think Saberspine Tiger should be four mana because it’s too strong from a power level perspective. I think Saberspine Tiger should be four mana because a three mana Tiger will make two mana 1/3 minions unplayable from a design perspective.

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#30

so there’s some risk/reward involved in choosing to put 1/3s in your frickin deck. what a travesty. let’s just make all minions immune for a turn so no one can be deprived of their right to have anything they put on the board still be there next turn in a game where virtually anything worth putting on the board threatens to snowball so hard that every turn is a tough decision to play removal or develop something of your own (if you even draw well enough to have the luxury of choosing). what game are you playing where you’re in some fantasy land of “but it’s not fair if i can’t have my turn 1 play stick”. what’s fair for the other player then? why is your sympathy entirely with the player 1 who wants their value generating 2-drop to stick and not with the player 2 who’s put in a position of having to produce an answer on their turn 1 to prevent the value snowball?

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