That is a huge change IMHO. If nothing else, it severely reduces the value of breaking tech buildings, and makes teching ultimate spells much, much safer.
1 Like
You can see a few games using that change here.
I agree about some of these changes being too off-flavour, especially Bigby getting frenzy and those Peace units not being soldiers. Bigby is not a weak hero, it’s his set of Tech II cards that has issues.
1 Like
Oh man, do I have all kinds of things to say. I’d like to start out with a proposed methodology/goal: make the minimum amount of changes required to balance the specs in such a way that they are all viable or playable. I think the first step to that would be to shave the top off the most powerful specs and do throw a bone to the weakest few.
I don’t think any changes should be made to bad cards in good specs. In an ideal world all cards would have a time and a place, but it would take too many changes to make that happen.
I think before debating specific changes it would be best to decide on what needs nerfs and buffs.
In my opinion:
Nerfs:
Black starter
Vandy
Garth
Rook
Pirate ship
MoLaC
Garrison
Drill sgt
Crashbarrow*
Buffs:
Blue starter
Bashing/torq
Jaina
*I could be convinced this is unnecessary
I agree with Bomber that we should be very cautious with changes to starter sets. The one change that I think is warranted is Deteriorate costing 1g.
Blue starter probably shouldn’t be touched because mono-blue actually does very well vs. mono-purple. If anything in blue deserves buffing, I’d say it’s Law tech 2.
I also don’t think Jaina needs a buff. She’s vulnerable and kinda one-note, but once she gets going she can be very potent.
Going second the blue starter feels really terrible, but if the black starter and vandy/garth get tuned that may not be as much of a problem anymore. If I was going to change the blue starter it would be like a small buff to porkhand magistrate, that card is 100% trash.
Has anyone had real success with Jaina in a tournament? She’s so soft and takes so much to level. I would reduce her midband a level or maybe give her resist 1.
I don’t think either of the changes I’ve mentioned are massive buffs that would move the needle too much.
You’re probably right about Law, but at least Scribe and Insurance agent are playable. A small buff to arresting constable would probably be good.
Not just kinda well, bansa and I played purple/blue and I went 0-10 on purple
Blue is actually crazy good against Purple. The starter isn’t that bad, it’s just really weak to Black and Red (which are good in general but still, Blue is weakest to them).
Editorialized my thoughts on Pena’s list but I pretty much totally agree. Every other spec sees play w/ good things easy to find.
1 Like
Constable and Gaurdian at the Gates. Both are complete trash and in dire need of a reason to play them. I don’t think either card has once been played effectively towards a win. The Ram and building aren’t great either but at least are playable, and Scribe/Tax Collector/Insurance Agent as you pointed out are decent.
Fire + Graveyard is still pretty solid, and mostly Jaina doesn’t see much success b/c hero hate is pretty common. Fire engine T2 is also really good. W/o good hero hate Jaina succeeds much as Setsuki does. I actually would have her maxband at 6 instead of 7 for a minor buff though. That’d have her maxband threat a little more reachable early
2 Likes
@FrozenStorm I don’t know if you remembered but we actually messaged back and forth on this topic ~4 years ago, “Interest in playing a balance patch tournament.”
LMAO it is essentially the same list we were discussing then. Lich’s Bargain not being on the radar is wild though.
yeah, at that time I was thinking the deteriorate nerf + some nerfs to the heroes would be enough, but it seems like the community sentiment is leaning towards also doing something to lich’s bargain and dark pact. Even with Garth having a 1-4 midband and lich’s bargain costing 3g or something, necro still has some of the best T1 units and will still be very playable I think.
1 Like
Garth’s maxband and hero hate spells alone are worth having him around, not to mention the power of skeleton spam. I maintain he is the more critical piece of nightmare than Vandy. If Cala or Grave were black heroes they’d swap in for Vandy fairly well I think, though DP also is just crazy strong.
A thought I had about MoLaC + haste:
What if you had to tap MoLaC to get the buff? Something like “Tap → If this has at least five growth runes, your units and heroes get +5/+5 until your next upkeep”.
That would prevent instant activation by the obvious culprits, but also give it a bit of value against decks with upgrade hate (since you get to keep the buff until your next upkeep even if the upgrade is destroyed/stolen).
Not to ignore Dreamfire’s comment, I don’t have a personal opinion on it right now, but are there any other specs that should be considered for buffs other than what we’ve mentioned? For me candidates would be:
Bashing (the only mandatory one in my opinion)
Fire (jaina is a bit too soft)
Law (t2 unit)
Feral (not Cala but maybe a t2 unit)
Ninja (not sets but maybe a t2 unit)
We must be very careful to maintain the Bashing vs Finesse balance. That is paramount.
I don’t think that we are changing how beginners learn this game. We are changing how something between 10-40 geeks are playing this game in the forum and only there. How often do beginners play their first finesse vs bashing game here in the forum? And would it be awfully bad if a beginner learns to play with bashing vs finesse and afterwards comes into contact with some slight balance changes where some minor alterations to some of the cards has been agreed upon?
1 Like
I would only consider competitive tournament play. If you want to play finesse vs bashing just do that without the extra steps.
I would argue that our opinions of strength and weakness are at least in part built on the echo chamber of the forum. Thats not to say certain setups arent really strong.
Blue is weak… except against purple. When talking about buffing a weak thing, chances are good you are nerfing a currently middle tier thing. There may be an absolutely perfect deck that beats nightmare and miracle grow, but loses to a ton of other things and thats why we dont see it much here.
Keep in mind that part of the design intent from my perspective is to reward people for predicting their opponent, and reward people for surprising their opponent. That should mean that there are several viable lines of play.
3 Likes
Simple change would be that battlesuits buffs your purple soldiers, keeping the power in purple and not blue’s. Personally though, I see it more as a problem with Peace tech 2 (notably garrision), and the fact that blue can often not have other good alternatives (their Peace/Law Tech 3’s being meh, Law tech 2 being quite bad, and Truth having very polarising matchups). Bringing garrision down to a once per turn draw, and buffing up blues other options would also achieve a similar result.
2 Likes
Is the problem really battle suits or is it garrison? I feel like without garrison the soldiers theme would not be that overwhelming.
Garrison is it’s own problem, but blue doesn’t really have the options it needs if its scaled back atm.
The short term solution is to stop the battle suits interaction to reduce the power, as to adjust the rest of blue’s kit to fill in the holes is a much larger endevour.
I don’t think after garrison is toned down that battlesuits into Cadet/Brave etc will be a problem, and suits can be returned to what it is.
1 Like