I have been treating most of those good but not great cards as a puzzle. “What situation is this the answer for?” Sadly I haven’t solved very many.
You bring up some good points. I’m just not convinced you can tweak numbers and add or remove abilities and make it so every card in the game is situationally useful. I think there’s at least two problems with these kinds of adjustments:
- Tech slots are valuable so you will always just grab the generally best thing (most of the time this means getting the best bodies)
- The gold curve is too low so a tweak of a single number can have a huge impact on point one
not sure what could be done about point 1. However, during testing I would jokingly say that we should just double the cost and production of everything*. That way you’d have a ton more room to play with the numbers. If this is the case you could have Gemscout Owl still cost 1 and produce 2 gold, maybe now I’m interested. Fuzz Cuddles, Scribe, Tax Collector now cost 3, average Tech I 3/3s for 2 could cost 4, and the best tech I 3/3s for 2 could cost 5, and so on. Even then it would still be super hard to make everything situationally useful (then I guess will just have to double production and costs again, lol).
Control seems to be in a weird place in Codex. How do you make it good without making it too good? Not sure. While each individual Blue spec has found success in multicolor decks monoBlue is the weakest mono. This might just be because of the weak starting deck? or perhaps because meta decks smush illusions? or because their only form of hero defense (other then honest combat) is Free Speech? Funny thing is that Law in the form of Censorship Council can really stick it to Peace but it is often paired with Anarchy which can Detonate your CC. My eternal Codex goal is to find a control deck that works well. I have tried [Discipline], Balance, Law and that shows some promise. Will probably try [Past], Balance, Discipline or Past, Balance, Law (some serious control, not sure which starter to use).
With Law I’d like to see Arresting Constable gain haste. That way Law would have AC to stop a small amount of big dudes plan and CC to stop a swarm game plan.
No need to apologize. Competitive card game discussions are among my favorite kind of discussions. So throw all the thoughts out there you want.
*workers would cost 2 and produce 2. Or you could make workers produce 1 and you’d just start with double the amount of them.
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I see what you mean about how doubling the cost scale for everything would have left more room for tweaking.
I’m totally with you on all this. I think AC needs haste and to cost at least one less. Compare its stats and ability to other hasted units: Lobber at Tech I or Omegacron, Crashbarrow, and Glider at Tech II. Even with haste, at its current cost and stats + haste, AC doesn’t feel any better than Lobber: better ability and 1 more HP, but twice the cost? And compared to the Tech II units, it’s trash. Heck, I’d rather have a non-hasted Leaping Lizard just for stats.
I think situationally useful is okay for Tech II units, as long as they’re never terrible. If it can’t do something absolutely amazing right away, it should at least have a Tech II-sized body-to-cost ratio.
As for control decks to try out, I really enjoyed [Necro]/Discipline/Past a lot more than I thought I would. I put it together to get the Netherdrain+max Prynn “die in the past, die forever combo,” with Discipline’s Training Grounds as an extra way to get Prynn to max, but I found that everything synergized nicely: Necro’s hard control, Past’s Tech I bounce, Discipline’s additional control from MPM and Grave’s sword, Training Grounds+Garth’s max to bring the MPM out. I was playing against a new player, so I had an advantage, and several draws went well for me, but it just has so many possibilities.
That said, the deck I want to try out next has Law. (:
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not exactly “control” but I was absolutely destroyed by a Discipline Disease Law deck.
I got looped with sickness and spreading disease.
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Hope this isn’t a necro, but it’s hard to search for more recent threads of this nature;
Now that we’re 1.5 years in, how are we still feeling about the balance of this game/any changes we might want to make?
Any further insights?
I’m just curious because I’d love to see this game become as balanced as possible - and since Sirlin’s currently holding back on working on that (due to all the negative feedback he’s received); it seems like it would fall to us to try and develop what we can.
I’d love to see if I can find a list of changes people generally think might be good, so I can test them out in my copy/plays against others (informing them beforehand of course).
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The bare minimum I think is that Blue starter & Law T2 need slight buffs, and Black starter / Demon / Necro need slight nerfs.
@Hobusu related to what you said here, what if instead of raising DP’s gold cost you made it damage Vandy directly. Like deal 2 damage to your base (only your base, no more using it for finishing the opponent) and 1 damage to Vandy. I think you could leave it at cost 0 there, give Deteriorate 1-cost, and hit Garth in the stats maybe? (move his midband to level 5 and take 1hp off midband? makes it much harder to set up nasty maxband fetches)
All together, those nerfs are super harsh. Feels like it swings it the wrong direction. If DP hits Vandy, what happens when Bigby uses Jurisdiction to cast Dark Pact?
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I do like the idea of damaging Vandy directly in theory, but I really think Dark Pact and Deteriorate shouldn’t be at different costs because of Reputable Newsman. To be fair, adjusting either one to 1 would make it overlap with Nether Drain, but I think that being unable to block both DP and Deteriorate at the same time would make things harder for Blue in a way they really don’t need to be.
Edit: That’s a good point about Jurisdiction, too. Really, I think we ought to do some tests with DP and Deteriorate at 1 and see how that goes.
Is picking 0 something Newsman typically does? I’m pretty out of the loop but I always picked 2 for RN. It stops him from just dying to Sac the Weak and stops Lich’s Bargain, which is great in the early game and amazing vs some decks, and it happens to stop both Soul Stone and Sickness as well.
I don’t know if it’s common, but I don’t like the idea of breaking the two apart anyway. It’s not as big an issue as some of the others, though, and if Dark Pact cost 2 (for example) so that it overlapped with multiple other important spells (instead of 1 making it overlap only with Nether Drain within Black) I wouldn’t mind Deteriorate being different. It’s just something that should be kept in mind even if it’s not as important as some of the other issues, if only because the Blue/Black matchup needs as much help as it can get.
REMOVE VANDY RESIST
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@Bryce_The_Rice Agree on removing Vandy’s resist, though I don’t think that in itself is enough of a hit to Vandy. Her resist is rarely relevant.
@Hobusu would you (or anyone else) want to play a couple 4 or 6 game matchups of Black vs Blue with a couple of the tweaks we’ve proposed? I really think Deteriorate at 1-cost but DP at 1 damage to the casting hero (to get around the Jurisdiction point) and 2 base damage but 0 gold would be totally fine. I’d be fine playing the Blue side.
What changes to Blue are we wanting? GatG / Constable buffs + something for Bigby (stats? spells?) and the LS switch to an upgrade?
If we can find a set of tweaks that makes the Blue / Black matchup feel even more like 40/60, I think that’s probably about the limit of how many buffs / nerfs you want in that matchup to prevent problems in other matchups for both colors.
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I’d be willing to try some changes, but I have almost no experience with either side… Ironically, my only Blue experience was using the Peace engine to destroy a relatively new player who was trying Black, but I doubt that would translate into doing well on either side against a more experienced player! As long as you’re okay with that, though, I’m up to try it.
I still don’t like Lawful Search as an upgrade for flavor reasons (it would be the only upgrade that doesn’t stay on the board indefinitely, which seems bizarre for an “upgrade” to be temporary, and “Lawful Search” just doesn’t sound like an upgrade but rather a one-time action). Other people can test whatever they want, but I would prefer to test with Administrators (and maybe Guards?) able to cast it as well as heroes (this still feels more reasonable flavor-wise to me for a number of reasons, one of which is that it would imply that everyone in Quince’s government has the power to have people searched at any time).
(Sorry about part of my post being cut off at first, my internet’s been buggy today…)
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If you don’t want to change JUST deteriorate and dark pact, which i think is a pretty significant change that will have some fairly significant effects to the blue matchup, I recommend changing Arresting Constable and Guardian of the Gates.
Arresting Constable is simply changed to a 4/5 or a 3/4. If that isnt enough, then lowering its cost to 3, but i doubt that would be needed.
For GotG, simply changing to 2/6 instead of 1/6 helps a LOT specifically in the black matchup. GotG should be comparable to Voidblocker, but in my opinion, GotG should be more powerful. As it is, voidblocker has an effect on heroes, and effects how someone chooses to order their attacks, and can go off even against swift strike or obliterate. GotG is meant to force a hard stall to the opponent. In its current form, it rarely slows black down at all. Just adding heroes to the effect would probably be sufficient if the increased attack isn’t enough.
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On the topic of changing Blue, does anyone ever use Spectral Tiger? I’ve even managed to make Rokh really carry the game once, but Tiger is just beyond me.
Also Jurisdiction should clearly cost 1g. I think all other blue spells are fine.
I’ve used Spectral Tiger in a tournament game and won with it. It’s very nice when played on Turn 3. Jurisdiction costing one would make it far too powerful. Always havinig the right answer is very powerful in codex, and while 2 gold is alot for that, it still is used as it is such a powerful effect. Ideally I think it should be ~1.5 gold, but fractions are bad so 2 it is.
I completely disagree about jurisdiction. I’ve only ever managed to use it with free speech when quince was dead, but a 4g free speech didn’t let me do much else. Most of the time, you are far better off teching the correct answer rather than teching jurisdiction. Even at 1g, I see it more as a crutch to new players than as a really viable card.
I agree, I’ve never used Jurisdiction and never felt like it’s the right move
Tech II Spectral Tiger on Turn 3? 
Could you link a game topic, please?
I mean, what sort of environment it has to be to maxband Kala on T2, not get punished, actually have Quince on your team, and somehow 5/5 Illusion Tiger being better option than either of the 4/4 Feral ones with significant upsides or even better than just spending 4g on something else and attacking with a 4/5 Kala instead…
Wrong line of play 
I used Verdant Tree to build tech 2 on turn 3, and play the Tiger, link is here
EDIT: Remembered I had another game that tournament where I did the same thing, and this time the tiger didn’t just immediately die…
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