Why am I not surprised? [Is Blue Too Powerful?]

Unknown

BlackSheep101 wrote:

pandabear wrote:

That is completely false.

When u try to pump your creature for the first time you get its power reduced to zero, and then he kills it with any of his creatures.

You're right about the +6 however, but it was an example to illustrate a point.

There is no way that -6 for 3 mana isn't a complete game changer, far more so than a pump that requires u to block with it. Defenders with 0 atk still block and get wrecked

So don't play defenders? There are more colors in the game besides blue and white.

because I spent a lot of time on leveling up and building my white deck/planewalker ... finally have a good deck (I was averaging about 80% win) then it gets nerfed ... I don't have rare and mythic cards for my other decks ... or when I do its not in any combination that is effective with the other cards I do have ... even my green that I leveled up first and has 3 mythics ... but useless for pvp ... the only deck I have that is valid for pvp is my white deck ... oh wait ... my 80% win ratio is now at about 55% ... so its not a great deck that was carefully built with though and hours of trial and error ... its an average deck ... no not valid for pvp

Keegan

Argent666 wrote:

BlackSheep101 wrote:

pandabear wrote:

That is completely false.

When u try to pump your creature for the first time you get its power reduced to zero, and then he kills it with any of his creatures.

You're right about the +6 however, but it was an example to illustrate a point.

There is no way that -6 for 3 mana isn't a complete game changer, far more so than a pump that requires u to block with it. Defenders with 0 atk still block and get wrecked

So don't play defenders? There are more colors in the game besides blue and white.

because I spent a lot of time on leveling up and building my white deck/planewalker ... finally have a good deck (I was averaging about 80% win) then it gets nerfed ... I don't have rare and mythic cards for my other decks ... or when I do its not in any combination that is effective with the other cards I do have ... even my green that I leveled up first and has 3 mythics ... but useless for pvp ... the only deck I have that is valid for pvp is my white deck ... oh wait ... my 80% win ratio is now at about 55% ... so its not a great deck that was carefully built with though and hours of trial and error ... its an average deck ... no not valid for pvp

So your problem is that now you don't win all the time with ease because your deck was carefully built around an unfair advantage that made the same strategy work against everyone?

I don't feel sorry for you at all. As you said, you actually only had an average deck that won by flawed mechanics. Sounds like the Gideon fix worked perfectly.

You're supposed to have to change up cards, planeswalkers, and strategies. It's a part of the game.

Morphis

Tbh now that u am facing more blue decks in pvp I can see the better OPness of it...
The problem is in huge creature advantage while having the chance to handle easily opponent creatures with bounce or frog or if u do not have any of that just spam first planeswalker skill till you get a reply...
Oh wait they can reinforce the creature to overcame the -6... Well they get bounced losing the stack

For blue creatures some are really insane while other color have just 1 max 2 insane creature... In a 10 card deck even having a single good creature more makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE.

So the creatures....
- harbinger of tides: even after nerf still a beast
- mizzium middler: if you are playing against it it is a pain in the ****... Unless you have removal or berserk BIG creaturw(cause of jace first skill)it can cause the loss of game. If you control it against ai it is almost a guaranteed win(ai does not move cards around to limit its effect
- disciple of the ring: WOW one this come in play better have a way to deal with is THE SAME TURN or you just lost... Once she keeps going she will lock down you while becoming a huge fatty UNTIL NEXT TURN making her basically immune to damage based removals

No other color has this many op creatures.
If you add the great mana gem gain blue has by itself and the amount of control the spells/recurring spells/-6 attack skill give, it is clear why it is the absolute best pwalker right now.

Unknown

Keegan wrote:

Argent666 wrote:

BlackSheep101 wrote:

pandabear wrote:

That is completely false.

When u try to pump your creature for the first time you get its power reduced to zero, and then he kills it with any of his creatures.

You're right about the +6 however, but it was an example to illustrate a point.

There is no way that -6 for 3 mana isn't a complete game changer, far more so than a pump that requires u to block with it. Defenders with 0 atk still block and get wrecked

So don't play defenders? There are more colors in the game besides blue and white.

because I spent a lot of time on leveling up and building my white deck/planewalker ... finally have a good deck (I was averaging about 80% win) then it gets nerfed ... I don't have rare and mythic cards for my other decks ... or when I do its not in any combination that is effective with the other cards I do have ... even my green that I leveled up first and has 3 mythics ... but useless for pvp ... the only deck I have that is valid for pvp is my white deck ... oh wait ... my 80% win ratio is now at about 55% ... so its not a great deck that was carefully built with though and hours of trial and error ... its an average deck ... no not valid for pvp

So your problem is that now you don't win all the time with ease because your deck was carefully built around an unfair advantage that made the same strategy work against everyone?

I don't feel sorry for you at all. As you said, you actually only had an average deck that won by flawed mechanics. Sounds like the Gideon fix worked perfectly.

You're supposed to have to change up cards, planeswalkers, and strategies. It's a part of the game.

nerfing one thing to make another thing overpowered is not balancing

and my deck did NOT work all the time against everyone ... but gave me a fair playing field vs players with mythic and rare stacked decks ... as is common in pvp ... what your calling a broken mechanic got me a loss hundreds of times vs the story mode ... as for another point ... how often do we even see 3rd tier abilities even being used in pvp ... hardly ever cause most people stick to using 1st and 2nd tier abilities ... how is it broken when I have to with intent push to get the loyalty for the ability activate ... loyalty gems do not give mana ... so when charging for 3rd tier you have to suffer the loss of mana involved ... its not like charging for 1st or 2nd tier ... that happens within a round or two for most people ... not the 5 turns average that it takes to charge 3rd tier all the while not being able to cast a card unless you happen to get a cascade that charges it

so yet again ... 3 loyalty for -6/-0 till beginning of your next turn ... and 24 loyalty to get +4/+4 berserk and lifelink its a simple matter of math ... more often than not ... by the time I have enough loyalty to use champion ... im so low on health or so far behind in the buff your creature game that even if I get my 4/4 first strike on the board long enough to activate champion ... it is rarely large enough to not kill itself in the attempt

then back to square one ... no creatures ... no mana ... no loyalty ... and jace still popping -6/-0 2 times every 3 to 4 rounds

Unknown

Argent666 wrote:

so they just nerfed the white 3rd tier ability to remove lifelink and give defender ... but blue still has 1st tier ability that gives -6/0 ... even at max white first tier is only a +1/+1 ... and abilities are cool and all but in the end we all know it comes down to math ... speaking of too powerful ... black 1st tier ... destroy 1 card to destroy first and last card of opponent ... means you have to keep a charged spell or unselect a card to keep at the top of your deck at all times ... seriously broken ... I was gonna dump some cash into this game but the update today shows that there is only an interest in setting things up so people get frustrated and spend money ... im just getting tired of this type of marketing gimmick ... whatever happened to making a balanced well designed and complete product? ... nope just gonna sucker you into spending more money

one more thing to point out ... I never said that white didn't need to be nerfed ... only that if your gonna remove lifelink and give defender from white you cant leave an ability like blues first tier -6/-0 ... and that changing it from lifelink to defender totally chages how the card behaves, because a defender MUST block all attackers as long as it is alive and not disabled, leaving it a target for mobs of smaller creature that can within a round or two kill your card ... defender is a weakness imho and not a buff ... because of how my deck was built ... this gives me two options ... grind story missions for mana crystals to get new cards ... or pay for them .. and how id rather just pay 10 or 15 bucks to have a complete game from the start ... meaning a playable way of obtaining all items in the game ... and how the imbalance is a marketing tool used to get you to spend money out of frustration and not out of love for the game

Keegan

Argent666 wrote:

Argent666 wrote:

so they just nerfed the white 3rd tier ability to remove lifelink and give defender ... but blue still has 1st tier ability that gives -6/0 ... even at max white first tier is only a +1/+1 ... and abilities are cool and all but in the end we all know it comes down to math ... speaking of too powerful ... black 1st tier ... destroy 1 card to destroy first and last card of opponent ... means you have to keep a charged spell or unselect a card to keep at the top of your deck at all times ... seriously broken ... I was gonna dump some cash into this game but the update today shows that there is only an interest in setting things up so people get frustrated and spend money ... im just getting tired of this type of marketing gimmick ... whatever happened to making a balanced well designed and complete product? ... nope just gonna sucker you into spending more money

one more thing to point out ... I never said that white didn't need to be nerfed ... only that if your gonna remove lifelink and give defender from white you cant leave an ability like blues first tier -6/-0 ... and that changing it from lifelink to defender totally chages how the card behaves, because a defender MUST block all attackers as long as it is alive and not disabled, leaving it a target for mobs of smaller creature that can within a round or two kill your card ... defender is a weakness imho and not a buff ... because of how my deck was built ... this gives me two options ... grind story missions for mana crystals to get new cards ... or pay for them .. and how id rather just pay 10 or 15 bucks to have a complete game from the start ... meaning a playable way of obtaining all items in the game ... and how the imbalance is a marketing tool used to get you to spend money out of frustration and not out of love for the game

I've understood what you've been saying, I played with Gideon as well. You won 80% of your battles by playing Knight of the White Orchard, Isora's Champion, or something similar, reinforcing it after giving it lifelink and +4, then kicking back to relax while your opponents creatures never had a chance, and if they did, you got the health right back through lifelink. Now you cannot do that, therefore it is unfair that Jace has a cheap -6/0.

Here's what you do when playing Jace with Gideon now: Cast a decent but not too expensive creature after casting a creature like War Oracle that has lifelink. Keep buffing your War Oracle and your first creature usually being blocked by the -6/0 while you keep casting other creatures/spells/supports; after all, you can give all creatures +3/+3 which is much more economical than the +4/+4 lifelink for one character was, or what it is now at 21 with Defender.

Soon you'll start making positive grounds on health through the War Oracle or other lifelink creature, who is also doing damage while giving you help, thus negating the removal of lifelink, and while Jace has been busy wasting his mana on the -6, he won't be able to afford it every time and your now not-blocked and super buffed creature delivers a huge blow unexpectedly.

All you have to do is change strategy, the game is not as simple as one planeswalker and a couple carefully selected cards. You can take down a level 48 Jace to level 50 Gideon at 96-0; I did it just a few minutes ago.

Unknown

Keegan wrote:

Argent666 wrote:

Argent666 wrote:

so they just nerfed the white 3rd tier ability to remove lifelink and give defender ... but blue still has 1st tier ability that gives -6/0 ... even at max white first tier is only a +1/+1 ... and abilities are cool and all but in the end we all know it comes down to math ... speaking of too powerful ... black 1st tier ... destroy 1 card to destroy first and last card of opponent ... means you have to keep a charged spell or unselect a card to keep at the top of your deck at all times ... seriously broken ... I was gonna dump some cash into this game but the update today shows that there is only an interest in setting things up so people get frustrated and spend money ... im just getting tired of this type of marketing gimmick ... whatever happened to making a balanced well designed and complete product? ... nope just gonna sucker you into spending more money

one more thing to point out ... I never said that white didn't need to be nerfed ... only that if your gonna remove lifelink and give defender from white you cant leave an ability like blues first tier -6/-0 ... and that changing it from lifelink to defender totally chages how the card behaves, because a defender MUST block all attackers as long as it is alive and not disabled, leaving it a target for mobs of smaller creature that can within a round or two kill your card ... defender is a weakness imho and not a buff ... because of how my deck was built ... this gives me two options ... grind story missions for mana crystals to get new cards ... or pay for them .. and how id rather just pay 10 or 15 bucks to have a complete game from the start ... meaning a playable way of obtaining all items in the game ... and how the imbalance is a marketing tool used to get you to spend money out of frustration and not out of love for the game

I've understood what you've been saying, I played with Gideon as well. You won 80% of your battles by playing Knight of the White Orchard, Isora's Champion, or something similar, reinforcing it after giving it lifelink and +4, then kicking back to relax while your opponents creatures never had a chance, and if they did, you got the health right back through lifelink. Now you cannot do that, therefore it is unfair that Jace has a cheap -6/0.

Here's what you do when playing Jace with Gideon now: Cast a decent but not too expensive creature after casting a creature like War Oracle that has lifelink. Keep buffing your War Oracle and your first creature usually being blocked by the -6/0 while you keep casting other creatures/spells/supports; after all, you can give all creatures +3/+3 which is much more economical than the +4/+4 lifelink for one character was, or what it is now at 21 with Defender.

Soon you'll start making positive grounds on health through the War Oracle or other lifelink creature, who is also doing damage while giving you help, thus negating the removal of lifelink, and while Jace has been busy wasting his mana on the -6, he won't be able to afford it every time and your now not-blocked and super buffed creature delivers a huge blow unexpectedly.

All you have to do is change strategy, the game is not as simple as one planeswalker and a couple carefully selected cards. You can take down a level 48 Jace to level 50 Gideon at 96-0; I did it just a few minutes ago.

no ... most of my wins came from simply getting better cards on the board first and using first strike creatures with vigilance/flying ... the only real advantage I had was in being able to heal to full health by end of the match so I could keep playing quick match without using potions ... I only recently got Isora's and added it to my deck ... was using consuls lieutenant until then ... I have a very good understanding of the game of magic ... and how important the puzzle game is to this version of the game ... I play mana block quite a bit and use that time to charge and judicially use my plane walker ability ... rarely did I even have anything on the board larger than a 10/9 first strike/vigilant/berserk/flying/lifelink/renown ... nothing to compare to the 24/? disciple of the ring or harbinger ... its not THAT ive been losing ... its HOW ive been losing ... when I spend 5 or more turns charging up and setting cards to drop say Isora's ... 4/4 berserk double first strike ... I have champion charged but cant use it till I get a new swap ... so end of turn ... start of jace turn ... confusion ... I now have a 0/4 berserk double first strike ... he drops anything with a power of 4 and defense of 2 my Isora's is dead my first turn it can act ... its kills itself ... for the cost of 3 loyalty ... I have a 2/8 berserk double first strike that's gonna beat its head against the first card it sees till its dead ... every other color I play its a race to see if I can get the right combo of cards in play with the right abilities charged ... if I do I win ... if not I lose ... not with blue ... I have to hope I get the same creature over and over to stack and buff it to over shadow the 3 loyalty -6/-0 that comes out if not every turn after the first then every other turn ... and every time is a chance to kill off a creature with no power ... and forced to either attack a creature or defend from all attackers ... they did change defender to regen ... a good compliment to white ... but that still has nothing to do with 3 loyalty for -6/-0 ... so stop trying to focus the discussion around my ability to play the game and keep to the mechanics and math ... I am not the topic here ... its the game and the rules of the game

Keegan

Sorry, my intention was not to focus on you.

The question is: Is blue too powerful?

Many replies are writing as though blue is unbeatable, or very sorely overpowered to the point of unfair advantage. I think we all agree that 3 mana for -6/0 is stupid cheap, but it's not insurmountable IMO, it's annoying but can be worked around fairly easily. If anything was too powerful it was White's 15 mana for +4/+4 Lifelink.

Unknown

Keegan wrote:

Sorry, my intention was not to focus on you.

The question is: Is blue too powerful?

Many replies are writing as though blue is unbeatable, or very sorely overpowered to the point of unfair advantage. I think we all agree that 3 mana for -6/0 is stupid cheap, but it's not insurmountable IMO, it's annoying but can be worked around fairly easily. If anything was too powerful it was White's 15 mana for +4/+4 Lifelink.

15 mana for +4/+4 lifelink?

or was it 21 loyalty for +4/+4 berserk lifelink? ... cause the berserk in that causes you to keep that creature in constant jeapordy ...all it takes is one good cascade and a free swap and someone can buff a card ... ive seen as high as a single card that was 42/32 in a single round ... oh yet again jace

Keegan

Argent666 wrote:

Keegan wrote:

Sorry, my intention was not to focus on you.

The question is: Is blue too powerful?

Many replies are writing as though blue is unbeatable, or very sorely overpowered to the point of unfair advantage. I think we all agree that 3 mana for -6/0 is stupid cheap, but it's not insurmountable IMO, it's annoying but can be worked around fairly easily. If anything was too powerful it was White's 15 mana for +4/+4 Lifelink.

15 mana for +4/+4 lifelink?

or was it 21 loyalty for +4/+4 berserk lifelink? ... cause the berserk in that causes you to keep that creature in constant jeapordy ...all it takes is one good cascade and a free swap and someone can buff a card ... ive seen as high as a single card that was 42/32 in a single round ... oh yet again jace

My mistake, I meant to say 15 loyalty. For berserker and lifelink. It was raised to 21.

I managed to buff Thopter up to 48 once with Gideon. Still not sure how that happened

Keegan

Unknown

Blue is overpowered - period. Frankly I'm tired of losing to EVERY blue player I'm up against - every time. I bought a starter pack - I'm going to see about getting my money refunded and uninstall the game. I don't trust a developer who utterly nerfs one color (Gideon in this case - who was quite OP), and ignores the other obvious one (Jace) while ignoring the underpowered colors (which I've found to be red and black).

My latest loss is pretty much my limit.

My Gideon is at level 46 or so. I'm facing off against a Jace of equal level. I have a few nice rares in my deck - no mythics, but you can't really trust those to build a deck. I start off strong - a 5-gem combo nets me a second a turn, and a really lucky cascade of drops gets me my White Lion 4/4 first striker AND a champion (4/4 double strike) out in the first turn. I spend the next few turns buffing both and reinforcing the champion TWICE! (woohoo). I bring my opponent down from 88 to 33.

Then the **** begins.

First things first: my Krosa's Champion (now at 12/12) gets bounced back to my hand. Then my lion gets claustrophobia'd. Then a Mizzian Transwhatever comes out - that's the one that tosses half your mana gain from your top card to your bottom. I manage to deal with the first claustrophobia, but that stupid -6/0 ability makes him a worthless wall while my opponent rolls over him. At this point, I can't get anything out that can survive - I have NOTHING with power greater than 6, and even if I did, the lone blue gem sitting in a corner with claustrophobia prevents me from using it. Over the course of the next several turns, I try and fail to cast multiple creatures - they either get nuked, bounced, claus'd, or destroyed.

With 8 life left, I managed to get a 2/2 knight out and my krosa's champion again. The knight is in the first slot and gets claus'd - I have enough to put a +1/+1 using Gideon's first ability on the champ so she can at least defend.

...

This pushes her to the #1 slot, where the claus takes effect on her immediately.

So... yeah. That sucks. I lose.

This is absolute ****, and I honestly don't trust D3 to fix it. The game still has a ton of bugs (the random crashes during battles I'm winning are tiring). At this point I just want to try and get the money I spent back and be done with this utter ****.

Unknown

sputnik128 wrote:

Blue is overpowered - period. Frankly I'm tired of losing to EVERY blue player I'm up against - every time. I bought a starter pack - I'm going to see about getting my money refunded and uninstall the game. I don't trust a developer who utterly nerfs one color (Gideon in this case - who was quite OP), and ignores the other obvious one (Jace) while ignoring the underpowered colors (which I've found to be red and black).

My latest loss is pretty much my limit.

My Gideon is at level 46 or so. I'm facing off against a Jace of equal level. I have a few nice rares in my deck - no mythics, but you can't really trust those to build a deck. I start off strong - a 5-gem combo nets me a second a turn, and a really lucky cascade of drops gets me my White Lion 4/4 first striker AND a champion (4/4 double strike) out in the first turn. I spend the next few turns buffing both and reinforcing the champion TWICE! (woohoo). I bring my opponent down from 88 to 33.

Then the **** begins.

First things first: my Krosa's Champion (now at 12/12) gets bounced back to my hand. Then my lion gets claustrophobia'd. Then a Mizzian Transwhatever comes out - that's the one that tosses half your mana gain from your top card to your bottom. I manage to deal with the first claustrophobia, but that stupid -6/0 ability makes him a worthless wall while my opponent rolls over him. At this point, I can't get anything out that can survive - I have NOTHING with power greater than 6, and even if I did, the lone blue gem sitting in a corner with claustrophobia prevents me from using it. Over the course of the next several turns, I try and fail to cast multiple creatures - they either get nuked, bounced, claus'd, or destroyed.

With 8 life left, I managed to get a 2/2 knight out and my krosa's champion again. The knight is in the first slot and gets claus'd - I have enough to put a +1/+1 using Gideon's first ability on the champ so she can at least defend.

...

This pushes her to the #1 slot, where the claus takes effect on her immediately.

So... yeah. That sucks. I lose.

This is absolute tinykitty, and I honestly don't trust D3 to fix it. The game still has a ton of bugs (the random crashes during battles I'm winning are tiring). At this point I just want to try and get the money I spent back and be done with this utter tinykitty.

completely mirrors my first post ... its not really about what cards or planewalker is the best or if there is one right way to do things ... its that D3 is not gonna work to fix game balance because it does not drive sales if no one needs to buy things to keep up with the pack ... today the discussion is about blue and how op its abilities are ... come next update it will be another color pushed into the OP slot to cause everyone to switch from their awesome but now nerfed to unusable trash and need to buy more card packs to fill out the new OP color deck ... Wizards of the Coast has been doing this same thing from the very beginning of M:TG ... this is like my first tourney back in the mid 90's ... spent 2 months traveling all over to card/gaming shops and around 750$ buying cards to get a good deck ... some ultra-rare's I paid close to $100 a card for from shops and collectors ... I get to the shop hosting the tourney ... and my deck is not valid ... I had 2 of an artifact WoC says you can only have 1 of in your deck ... 4 creature cards that are banned from tourney use ... and if I wanted to play in the tourney id have to remove 1 of my artifact cards ... and replace my main powerhouse creature with something not on the banned list ... so ... buy packs of cards till I can reassemble my deck into something playable ... and that's the catch ... the release of overpowerd cards is intentional ... to get you to buy more packs in search of that ultra-rare you need to finish out your deck .... then they nerf it or ban it altogether so you have to buy more cards ... shortly after that they start putting out the propaganda ... new release with more powerful cards ... and its wash rinse repeat ... only the wash isn't laundry or your hair ... its your bank account

Unknown

sputnik128 wrote:

I don't trust a developer who utterly nerfs one color (Gideon in this case - who was quite OP), and ignores the other obvious one (Jace) while ignoring the underpowered colors (which I've found to be red and black)

Jaces 1st ability might be OP. But he hasn't been ignored. The changes to claustrophobia and bounces were quite a nerf.

Also I don't think that red is underpowered at all.

Morphis

Nerimos wrote:

sputnik128 wrote:

I don't trust a developer who utterly nerfs one color (Gideon in this case - who was quite OP), and ignores the other obvious one (Jace) while ignoring the underpowered colors (which I've found to be red and black)

Jaces 1st ability might be OP. But he hasn't been ignored. The changes to claustrophobia and bounces were quite a nerf.

Also I don't think that red is underpowered at all.

Red is not strong like other but I agree It is not underpowered.

Liliana anyways needs to abuse the her 1st skill to win.
Abusing to deny any play from opponent or a abuse to resurrect huge fatty discarded...

While jace 1st skill is Op cause he can use it on top of good cards Lilianas one is needed to make the deck actually work
That is really dumb in my opinion

Unknown

I think maybe they need to redo the planewalker abilities all together ... and maybe let the cards be cards and planewalker abilities should only affect gems and mana gain

Unknown

Argent666 wrote:

I think maybe they need to redo the planewalker abilities all together ... and maybe let the cards be cards and planewalker abilities should only affect gems and mana gain

Well the planeswalker abilities are copied from actual planeswalker cards, so its not like they're out of the blue.

That system is a bit different however, and planeswalker emblem abilities were designed to be game enders.

However...the ones we have now are on the whole really boring and aren't worthwhile (the capstone abilities, that is).

Brainstormin

Jace is so easy to beat with Chandra and Liliana... Stop playing only Gideon.
Red can easily destroy supports and black can force them to discard their hand before they can play anything. Plus Claustrophobia is junk now.
Just like paper magic, certain colors are better against others.

I have many problems with this game but Blue being too powerful is not one of them.

Unknown

Brainstormin wrote:

Jace is so easy to beat with Chandra and Liliana... Stop playing only Gideon.
Red can easily destroy supports and black can force them to discard their hand before they can play anything. Plus Claustrophobia is junk now.
Just like paper magic, certain colors are better against others.

I have many problems with this game but Blue being too powerful is not one of them.

Still haven't gotten Demolish, though I have 2 of Tragic Arrogance. Anyone want to trade?

Brainstormin

Hopefully in the future the events will be a best of 3 Match against your opponent, like a regular magic tournament.
If they allowed a 5-15 card sideboard it would make games even more dynamic. Being able to side out small creatures against jace and bring in support destruction etc would add a whole new level and possibly balance some matches.