Pre-Release (v1.3) Notes (1/29/16)

Unknown

So I wanted to say why defender is overcosted - because look at the defenders that we do value: Skysnare Spider, KotWO, and...Dywen's? Maybe?

Their common characteristic is that even without defender, they are fairly cheap and certainly not overcosted like the slew of other defenders out there.

My point is not that defender isn't good - its that regardless of what you choose, whether berserker or defender, the bottom line is you are trading creature for creature (unless you have first strike, which is why despite being "overcosted" KotWO is extremely good), and efficiency is the only thing that matters.

It is VERY easy (even for non Gideon) to trade creatures, and thus creature efficiency decides a good defender.

Simply having defender doesn't make a card even "that" much better. It should come at a cost premium of at most 2 mana, and every creature should have a mana curve maximum roughly equal to

• Common - 3 * power max base cost
• Uncommon/Common - 2.5 * power max base cost
• Rare - 2.0 * power max base cost
• Mythic - 1.8 * power max base cost

Base cost is for a vanilla X/X card.

I'd cost abilities thusly:

• Flyer - 1-2 mana cost
• Defender/Berserker - 1 mana cost
• Reach - 2 mana cost
• First Strike - 3-4 mana cost
• Special abilities - varies, no more than 3 bonus cost
• "Penalty special abilities" - penalizes the controller, no more than 2 mana lower cost

Pretty much any card that didn't follow that curve, I put in Tier C because they're worthless.

EDHdad

Nobody is noting the fact that Knight of the White Orchid ramps hard. It converts 5 gems to white when it enters the battlefield, which is very likely to set up a cascade. In paper Magic, Knight of the White Orchid allows you to search your deck for any Plains (not necessarily a basic Plains) and put it into play untapped. The creature itself is a 2/2 First Strike for WW. Reducing its casting cost and reducing its power is very much in line with the original flavor of the card.

I don't see any point arguing whether Knight is better than Consul's Lieutenant. If you have both cards, you should put both in your deck. The real power with these cards is Gideon's ability to pump a first strike creature, give it "come at me, Bro", and Lifelink to boot. They're Nerfing the ability to give Lifelink to any creature, which probably means that there will be fewer 100-game winning streaks, but oh well.

In paper Magic, rarity does not determine playability. There are plenty of commons and uncommons in the history of Magic which see much more play than certain rares and mythic rares. Rarity is more a function of how frequently they want the card to show up in draft / sealed / limited.

In Magic Puzzle Quest, getting rares and mythics is like pulling teeth. A new player shouldn't have to wait until they've opened 50 packs before they get a playable card. You should be able to build a fun, playable deck the first time you play.

BlackSheep101

Folks saying that you don't get a turn to buff KotWO are overlooking supports. White has some good ones, and there are 6 colorless that buff creatures.

Meto5000

BlackSheep101 wrote:

Folks saying that you don't get a turn to buff KotWO are overlooking supports. White has some good ones, and there are 6 colorless that buff creatures.

I think their concern is valid. If you're waiting to cast KWO until you have a buff support down you're effectively making him cost 21+ mana. For 24 mana I can cast 2 Consul's Lieutenants. 16 mana is a huge upfront cost and even at 6/6 there are more efficient ways to spend your mana in white. At 4/4 I rate KWO just barely A tier, and maybe even high B tier.

BlackSheep101

Assuming Chandra doesn't snap her fingers and make the Consul go poof, sure. Meanwhile, KotWO makes subsequent spells easier to cast, muddying the waters a bit when considering cost. It's already been pointed out that you can and probably should play both in your white deck. It just sounds like people are writing off the knight as entirely superfluous just because it doesn't autowin anymore.

loroku

Any word on interface overhaul / changes?

Meto5000

BlackSheep101 wrote:

It just sounds like people are writing off the knight as entirely superfluous just because it doesn't autowin anymore.

People are complaining because their auto-include high tier rare has been downgraded to a somewhat overcosted solid filler card. I don't think it's a terrible card, even in its patched state, but I wasn't super hyped on it to begin with. I already don't include the current version in my Gideon deck due to it being so expensive over other creatures like Vryn's Wingmare, Relic Seeker, War Oracle and Consul's Lieutenant. The other 2 creature slots are saved for super low cost creatures that smooth out my mana curve (Enlightened Ascetic and Bonded Construct). I actually might include it once the update goes live; low cost creatures are severely weakened since you can only cast the +1/+1 ability about half as much making it hard to trade favorably with them.

AettThorn

Updated the game to the new update, and lost all progress I had made (was forced to start over as a new player). Is there any way to get my old progress back?

Unknown

Well everyone saying a card has a counter or what're is forgetting one huge thing:

The AI is the worst.

It's never gonna poof a consul because it is busy hitting your face for zero damage.

Of all the hundreds of games I've played I've lost maybe one creature do to Chandra burn. A couple more to bounce.

It isn't a huge deal.

Also k want to know, who was complaining about disables so much that all the disables got nerfed to u usability? Is anyone seriously going to cast a 9 mana claustrophobia? Be honest here...

I'm pretty sure no one ever complained about them, and they weren't even that useful to begin with, because stalling is a literal waste of time

Hibernum_JC

Hey guys,

The update just went live, so here's the thing - the more you play it, the more real-world data we have, and the more data I can parse through and see what works and what doesn't.

I understand some of you are disappointed with the changes to bounce mechanics. We have explored many different possibilities for keeping these cards as-is, and the only one that felt right was requiring space for most of the bounces. Forcing discards/etc felt super clunky, slowed down the game and still were too powerful.

Bounce is meant to be a temporary removal. In paper MtG, unless you ramped a creature, you can still put it down on the next turn, which makes bounce a mechanic that slows down the opponent. In our game, bouncing a creature slows your opponent MUCH more as filling up a creature's casting cost is slower than in paper. Bounces in MtG also only kill tokens, while in our game they kill tokens, reinforced stacks as well as used to outright kill creatures when your hand was full.

Bounce in MtGPQ is much, MUCH stronger than in paper. You can't straight up compare it to paper. So we have a choice: either increase it's mana cost drastically and let it as is, or modify it so it's still usable, with a potential drawback, and keep the mana costs intact.

We chose the 2nd option because it's what made the most sense - increasing mana costs just makes for a much slower game while keeping the fact that destroying creatures is not Blue's strong point. It's still a control option, just not as powerful as it used to be.

As for Gideon, his abilities were too strong. They aren't meant to be spammed continuously, every turn. As I said, we will continue to monitor the situation (and things can change again in the future) and see what comes of it.

Knight of the White Orchid needed to be nerfed because as some others have stated putting it down meant it was an insta-win. I've seen it multiple times, and if you manage to reinforce it it swung the situation far too much. It's still powerful, but it's no longer an auto-include in 90% of Gideon decks.

Finally, Panda's logic about Defenders and such is a tiny bit wrong - a Defender's usefulness scales with it's Toughness. The more Toughness, the better the Defender in most cases, so the cost of the Defender keyword scales with a creature's Toughness. First Strike is a similar situation - the higher the Power, the more useful First Strike is, and in such adding 3 or 4 to the mana cost of a First Strike creature isn't necessarily fair - a 1/1 would be massively overcosted while a 8/8 would be massively undercosted. We have to scale the cost of some abilities to their Power or Toughness.

We tried, while we were still developing 1.0, to have cheaper Defenders, and all it did was force a race to put out Defenders and buffing them to make yourself unkillable. It wasn't fun, so we had to increase the cost of Defenders.

In short, as I said, we're still monitoring the situation, and will adjust accordingly.

Unknown

I've played KWO a lot as well, and lately it usually sits in my hand because it's too slow. Even if matches slow down with these adjustments I highly doubt I'll even include it anymore.

People are way overrating the mana change too. It's just as likely to back fire by setting up the opponent for match 5s, cascades, or match 4s to destroy your supports. Especially at 16 your opponent likely has something good to play if it's a good deck. Volcanic Rambler and Abbot of the Keral Keep have a similar effect but seem a little less likely to set up your opponent since they don't flood your board. Plus they're more efficiently costed, and Abbot has an additional ability to draw a card and reduce its cost for 15. Abbot really outclasses KWO by a long shot and still costs one less, and for what think is the best PW now to boot.

Commons are usually not that useful and only rarely as powerful as rares, and uncommons only slightly more so. And yes some rare cards are closer to filler than powerful. But if you look at number of rares in each set, the percentage of **** rares is much much lower than **** commons; that argument/analogy doesn't hold up to scrutiny. And no, Wizards does not determine rarity solely for sealed/draft, their main objective is to make money, if too many of the good cards were common/uncommon players would easily acquire all the cards they needed for tourneys after playing a few drafts. Only a handful out of hundreds of common/uncommon cards in each set are worthy to be included in decks. Plus in this game you get to open up a lot of packs. If the first few packs you get you uncommons that outclass rares then what's the point of trying to get more packs so you can get rares/mythics? It's terrible design just like the Gideon adjustments that make it disadvantageous to level him up higher.

Unknown

oh I have no problem with Gideon's 1 being nerfed, my problem is it being actually harder to use for its primary purpose as you level him. I have zero incentive to level him now, especially with abilities 2 and 3 also costing a bazillion.

I agree with most of your analysis but the main issue is that we aren't balancing against a person, we are doing so against the AI. Many of the problems that we described can be countered by smarter AI.

No one is saying bounce wasn't too powerful. Simply that this solution is an awful way to do it. Instead, why not use the card choice mechanic like Sphinx tutelage or magmatic insight gives, and have the opponent choose 1 card to discard if the bounce overflows his hand?

You're right that a defender is better if they have more toughness but only if at a macro level they can survive an additional hit, and almost all of them still cost so much they can't be used. The rest of them, they were good cards before defender and defender just makes them better.

Also I am a bit confused was Knights mana cost adjusted too? I can't really play at work ATM but if it's mana cost was also reduced it would still be a fine card

Unknown

Thanks for the explanation again, JC. Is there any word on the daily reward and reward on the 31st for January?

Unknown

With all due respect, there are no teeth left in bounce mechanics.

You're right about a price increase being a bad solution, but what about a forced discard at end-of-turn? That creates space without allowing bounce to destroy creatures.

The one-two punch to Claustrophobia and Suppression Bonds (I think it got it too) of a price increase and lowered shield is very apparent; i.e. takes longer to cast and is destroyed same turn making it less than useless because of the wasted mana. Blue doesn't have high-powered creatures or direct damage and now their means to mitigate damage have been thrown into a tar pit. Jace's Sanctum and Claustrophobia are 9 mana now, getting them out in any timely fashion costs too much.

Hibernum_JC

pandabear wrote:

oh I have no problem with Gideon's 1 being nerfed, my problem is it being actually harder to use for its primary purpose as you level him. I have zero incentive to level him now, especially with abilities 2 and 3 also costing a bazillion.

I agree with most of your analysis but the main issue is that we aren't balancing against a person, we are doing so against the AI. Many of the problems that we described can be countered by smarter AI.

No one is saying bounce wasn't too powerful. Simply that this solution is an awful way to do it. Instead, why not use the card choice mechanic like Sphinx tutelage or magmatic insight gives, and have the opponent choose 1 card to discard if the bounce overflows his hand?

You're right that a defender is better if they have more toughness but only if at a macro level they can survive an additional hit, and almost all of them still cost so much they can't be used. The rest of them, they were good cards before defender and defender just makes them better.

Also I am a bit confused was Knights mana cost adjusted too? I can't really play at work ATM but if it's mana cost was also reduced it would still be a fine card

The AI is something we are constantly improving, so I actually have to balance as we're playing against a person (if I didn't, I'd have to rebalance the entire game every time we made an AI change, which is not something that is remotely feasible).

As for making the opponent choose to discard a card, there are two problems with the approach:

1- You're forcing your opponent to make a move during your turn, which we must avoid - there is nothing in the game right now that does this, and as I mentioned all it does is slow down the game.
2- If we made the discard forced first or last, for example, it would still be very strong removal for Blue (I could argue that there is a chance that it is stronger - you could voluntarily bounce a 1/1 to make your opponent discard a potentially very strong card).

Knight's mana cost wasn't adjusted, but it may in the future. First Strike was undercosted for the card, and it now more in-line with what it should be, but there is a chance it might go down in cost in our next update.

And you do have an incentive to level him up - his 2nd and 3rd abilities are still very powerful (they were too powerful before, and seriously undercosted). Their cost is now more in line with their power.

Before the update, his 3rd ability, at rank 3, made you win the game. It essentially was a Win button. I've had multiple, multiple games where I was down to 1 or 2 HP, spent 15 PW mana, and I got back to full health and annihilated my opponent who was at full health. It was *that* strong. Now it's more in-line with other colors - high cost, very strong ability, especially if you use it on a First Strike creature.

hafersvideo wrote:

Thanks for the explanation again, JC. Is there any word on the daily reward and reward on the 31st for January?

You're welcome! News for that should be coming soon.

Unknown

Hibernum_JC wrote:

1- You're forcing your opponent to make a move during your turn, which we must avoid - there is nothing in the game right now that does this, and as I mentioned all it does is slow down the game.
2- If we made the discard forced first or last, for example, it would still be very strong removal for Blue (I could argue that there is a chance that it is stronger - you could voluntarily bounce a 1/1 to make your opponent discard a potentially very strong card).

1. I would make it an end-of-turn move, meaning you may discard down to 6 cards, but could potentially have more (or even just 7) sometime before the end of turn. This way, when a bounce occurs off-turn, it becomes that 7th card which can be reordered/reused or discard at the end-of-turn.
2. I agree, bouncing a 1/1 to force the discard of a stronger card would be powerful, but see my reply to the first objection.

I cannot express how abysmal bounce has become and how disheartening it seems that "it is what it is".

Unknown

Heyo I played a few games.

Here is what I noticed.

Harbinger is still an instant win. There is no way to come back from having your biggest creature bounced and effectively unable to be cast, ever.

With current mana costs and average creature costs of 10-12 this is a 8 point mana swing and a free 4/4.

I immediately forfeit any game with a harbinger out.

Blues mana generation is way too good. 2/1/1 is insane. He also has the fastest deck out there, even with the nerfs, the only deck that is reasonable to be sub 10 mana in avg cost.

Blue still has the best creatures in the game. He is also the only deck that the AI has no problems playing.

Ps if you are going to nerd Gideon 1 then Jace 1 also needs a nerf. It is absurdedly good, far better in the right hands than gideon

carlito666

I have gotten an epic fat pack including archangel of thides and 4 other rares :'D

Unknown

pandabear wrote:

Heyo I played a few games.

Here is what I noticed.

Harbinger is still an instant win. There is no way to come back from having your biggest creature bounced and effectively unable to be cast, ever.

With current mana costs and average creature costs of 10-12 this is a 8 point mana swing and a free 4/4.

I immediately forfeit any game with a harbinger out.

Blues mana generation is way too good. 2/1/1 is insane. He also has the fastest deck out there, even with the nerfs, the only deck that is reasonable to be sub 10 mana in avg cost.

Blue still has the best creatures in the game. He is also the only deck that the AI has no problems playing.

Ps if you are going to nerd Gideon 1 then Jace 1 also needs a nerf. It is absurdedly good, far better in the right hands than gideon

pandabear, would you elaborate on the Blue deck (specific cards) to which you're referring? I find that the slower rate of damage mitigation via bounce or disable (greater mana costs and limitations) doesn't allow Blue to bring its far weaker creatures, with respect to damage cabability, online before the opponent overwhelms. Without direct damage, damage mitigation is the name of Blue's game. Sure, I could put in some Colorless damage support, but then I'm not playing Blue support.

loroku

Hibernum_JC wrote:

As for making the opponent choose to discard a card, there are two problems with the approach:

Interesting that "opponent (re)acts on your turn" mechanics are seeing a decline in online games; Hearthstone also dumped them categorically and said their reasons were 1) it slowed down the game, and 2) they weren't fun (mostly this was said about discards but still the main idea was in off-turn actions). Just an observation!