I like this approach. Just so we’re all on the same page, can someone clearly explain why Geiger dominates Jaina? If nothing else, we’ll need an explanation for her section in the Bureau of Balance.
Thoughts on Jack and the future
I still think this is the best way to make Jacks worthwhile as a combat-reveal:
J* Flame Trap [During Combat]
If either side of this card deals block damage, the opponent doesn’t draw a card from blocking.
Combined with whatever stat changes to Flame Arrow and Charged Shot make sense for improving her bad matchups, this would make combat-revealing Jacks similar to Grave combat-revealing his own Jack, but with more block damage and some self-damage. I removed the “search your deck for a Jack” and card draw parts of my first and second versions, respectively, for two reasons: (1) I realized that getting card advantage off of it could be oppressive against grapplers, and (2) this way lets me cut out everything that isn’t the core of what I wanted Flame Trap to be.
I do think Flame Arrow at least needs buffed so that the ratio of block damage to self-damage is at least 3 (to match Lightning Cloud’s 3 block damage), and as long as it doesn’t make any matchups unfair it would be nice if Flame Arrow could trade with other projectiles like Lightning Cloud and (especially) Fast Time Spiral. I could see the damage being boosted to 8 to match Lightning Cloud’s, but this should do as a starting point:
J* Flame Arrow: 7(6) damage, 2.4 speed, 1 cp Ender
Changes to Charged Shot should be handled carefully, I think, to make it a useful tool for Jaina’s bad matchups but not cause it to become oppressive in her good ones. At the very least, though, I think it needs to be kept at a minimum of 2 damage stronger than Flame Arrow, leaving this as the smallest change from 2nd Edition that does so:
J* Charged Shot: 9(8) damage, 4.6 speed, 2 cp Starter
Points worth considering for the future:
- Should Charged Shot knock down?
- If so, how fast should it be?
- If so, should it be a Starter or a Can’t Combo move?
- Should the damage of Flame Arrow and/or Charged Shot be increased further?
- If so, how much?
- If so, should the block damage also be increased to match or should it be left as-is (for example, a Flame Arrow with 8 damage and 6 block damage and a Charged Shot with 10 damage and 8 block damage)?
- What needs improved to make Geiger no longer dominate Jaina, and what are the smallest changes that would allow that without making her good matchups oppressive in turn?