Chandra is so unfun

Plastic

Not just to play against but to play as (opinion). But with the way the update made things, it feels impossible to be competitive in quick battles unless she's used. So I'm trying all kinds of decks with other planeswalkers to spice things up and every time I come across a Chandra, I'm reminded that I shouldn't bother.

How long did it take for the devs to address such levels of OPness(giggity) in the past? I've only been playing since Feb/Mar and don't have a feel for their responsiveness to these things.

BassMuffinFIve

I feel like Nissa was the cascade deck before, and now Chandra does it just as well, if not better.

The problem is really with the planeswalker abilities. All of Chandra's abilities are useful. I'm happy to use all of them. But then when I switch to Jace it is a rude awakening. His abilities are all garbage. His first ability has some use, but it is totally situational and reactive. It also doesn't speed up the game and is not enjoyable to use. Jace's other 2 abilities do absolutely nothing and are a waste. Gideon's abilities are fine, if not underwhelming/slightly overcosted. Liliana's are a little bit underpowered and situational. Bringing 3 creatures back from the dead in a control deck (the only build allowed with Liliana due to a limiting card pool of bad options) isn't exactly what control decks want to be doing. Nissa feels about right. All of her abilities make sense with her and have some utility and flavor.

Maybe the real issue I'm getting to is that control-based planeswalkers just don't work currently in this game. The name of the game is speed, and if Jace's and Lililana's abilities don't really affect the board or speed up the game, that makes them less good choices for people.

Meto5000

BassMuffinFIve wrote:

Maybe the real issue I'm getting to is that control-based planeswalkers just don't work currently in this game. The name of the game is speed, and if Jace's and Lililana's abilities don't really affect the board or speed up the game, that makes them less good choices for people.

This has been my experience. I'm currently going through all of the story mode levels with each color and both black and blue are noticeably slower than the other colors. I win just as easily, but on average it seems to take about twice as long to do it. Nissa and Gideon's strategy is to get a bunch of creatures on board that deal with your opponent's creatures on defense so you don't have to stop attacking in order to control your opponent. Chandra can be somewhat controlling, but if you get way ahead you can start blasting fireballs at your opponent to end the game quicker. Also, minimum 4 damage + board shakeup every turn is amazing for churning through your spells very quickly while doing decent damage to your opponents.

Jace and Liliana are just so slow. They have decent creatures but they don't have any mechanisms to really start steamrolling. Neither of them have ways to speed up mana gain or to buff their own creatures so they just attack with a few mid power creatures every turn while holding up 2-3 kill/bounce spells. Typically I know I'll reach a point where there's no way the opponent can win, but I still have to wait while my Despoiler of Souls takes forever to whittle down my opponents large health pool. I think the new Merfolk Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper will help Jace a lot. He can continue to sit back with a handful of spells, but at least now every spell also gives his creature +3/+3. There's also the colorless card Desolation Twin which is a great finisher for Jace (and pretty much every deck really).

ChrisTot

Umm...I like Chandra..different people enjoy different play styles. Play the PWs that you enjoy, and ignore the ones you don't

Plastic

ChrisTot wrote:

Umm...I like Chandra..different people enjoy different play styles. Play the PWs that you enjoy, and ignore the ones you don't

That isn't the point of my post though. It's about balance.

ChrisTot

Plastic wrote:

ChrisTot wrote:

Umm...I like Chandra..different people enjoy different play styles. Play the PWs that you enjoy, and ignore the ones you don't

That isn't the point of my post though. It's about balance.

Are you losing to Chandra when you're playing against her? She does a lot of damage to you, but if you're at 60+ life, the games are fine. She doesn't optimally use her skills, her creatures are easy to deal with, and our creatures are better and we know how to match 5 when we see it on the board. If you get an early Colossus out in green, Chandra is dead. Herald of the Pantheon gives her fits too. The life linkers in gideon make her first ability not a big deal, but you do have to be able to deal with Embermaw. Black is slow and has always been a slow color. Blue can bounce Embermaw back to hand and make it cost even more to play at all. Blue's got all the card draw but the games aren't incredibly fast.

No card game is ever truly balanced, there's always an ebb and flow that is called the metagame. People adjust to what's the "best". If things are out of control, abilities are shifted. Her first ability doesn't cost enough mana, it's true, but that can and will be changed.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em till Chandra is fixed.

Plastic

Yeah I guess I'm just impatient on the fix to her first ability being spammable.

Trust me, I'm using her for 90% of my quick battles in order to stay competitive. It just sucks that I can't get as many wins per hour with other PWs.

ChrisTot

Plastic wrote:

..I'm using her for 90% of my quick battles in order to stay competitive.

Same!

dimit

Ima be sad if they toss out 5 new PW and they all lose to Chandra.

Plastic

dimit wrote:

Ima be sad if they toss out 5 new PW and they all lose to Chandra.

I have Koth and I honestly don't think he'll ever work vs Chandra. Both competing for red and he'll always be ramping up slower.

madwren

Yeah, she's brutal. My Gideon-Z ally deck is the only one that consistently withstands the onslaught. Everything else gets trampled by Abbots and Hellions.

paralistalon

I think Chandra's 1st ability should cost 6 and it would go a long way towards balancing her.

EDHdad

The major thing they changed with Chandra is that they made her first ability cost 3. Jace used to be overpowered because his first ability cost 3 (and also did -6 on the top level). Nissa used to be bonkers, even though her first ability cost 6, because the amount of ramp available to her. Chandra's 3rd ability is actually useful now - 25 damage for 21 loyalty, but this is more of a way to end games that you're probably already going to win.

Before the update, Chandra was overshadowed by Jace and Nissa. She is now much more playable. I agree that a Nerf might be in order. If the first ability cost 4 or 5, it would probably be more balanced against the other planeswalkers.

Liliana is actually pretty good if you have the cards to support her. The -15 can do 5 damage to each opponent's creatures multiple times, plus this game is starting to get a critical mass of efficient removal spells. You no longer have to spam her -6 ability just to have something to do.

The really overpowered Planeswalker that I can see right now is the new Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Right now, most people don't have one and probably have rarely encountered one. But it has the ability to make a 8/8 dude for the everyday low,low cost of -9. Chandra can't burn her way out of this. When Gideon becomes more available, it's probably the one that will have to get Nerfed. For example, instead of making a 8/8 dude for 9, maybe it makes a 2/2 dude for 3 or 4.

EDHdad

BTW, I personally think the new Chandra is a blast, and she is by far my favorite Planeswalker right now. But I do agree that a Nerf might be in order.

If you're playing her, I'd suggest not using the first ability if you can match 2 pairs or make a red match.

I don't have much problem playing against her, because the AI often misplays it. It will have a match 5 available, only to hit me with the first ability, and screw up their board. It will hit me in the face for 4 when I have attackers on board which can hit them for lethal next turn. It will cast some equipment with no creatures on board, and then burn the board and destroy the equipment.

Plastic

I just want to be clear that I didn't make this thread because I struggle against Chandra. It's just frustrating that it seems if anybody wants to be competitive, they basically need to use her. By competitive I mean having the ability to get a high amount of ribbons in quick battles per hour/day/etc. Of course this will vary person to person based on their cards available to each planewalker, but when a majority of the opponents I come across are Chandra....yeah.

EDHdad

Early on the most easily abused planeswalker was Gideon, because he had the ability to give something +4, lifelink, first strike and berserker. You could be down to 2 life, and if you gave this ability to something, you'd be back up to 96 (or whatever max was) in no time.

The next update they Nerfed Gideon and Jace / Nissa were the best. Jace in terms of win percentage (if you had Mizzium Meddler) and Nissa in terms of speed.

The next update they Nerfed Jace, Nissa and Mizzium Meddler, reduced Chandra's first ability to 3 and she became the strongest Planeswalker. When the same ability cost 6, people rarely played her.

New Chandra is strong, but not 100-wins-in-a-row strong like old Gideon and Jace/Mizzium Meddler used to be. If Nissa gets a fast start, Chandra is dead. If Chandra faces Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Chandra is likely dead.

If speed is a concern, I suspect Nissa will probably yield more wins per hour than Chandra. Though card availability keeps me from testing this fully. Also, it's possible that there might be a hyper-fast Goblins deck available to Chandra if you have Zada, Hedron Grinder, Goblin Piledriver, Sure Strike and some key pump spells available.

Sure Strike on Zada with Chasm Guide and Goblin Piledriver will attack for 37. Each additional Sure Strike on Zada adds another 21 to the attack.

Plastic

Yep I have all those cards. Zada is insane.

Edit: Fyi - Zada doesn't buff himself. There's a thread already in bug section to get clarification on wording issue or actual bug.

EDHdad

That's interesting. In paper Magic, Zada wouldn't buff herself either. So it's probably a feature rather than a bug. However, it should be worded "other creatures you control" if this is the case.

BTW, Zada is female, not that you can tell by looking at her.

shteev

EDHdad wrote:

Early on the most easily abused planeswalker was Gideon, because he had the ability to give something +4, lifelink, first strike and berserker. You could be down to 2 life, and if you gave this ability to something, you'd be back up to 96 (or whatever max was) in no time.

The next update they Nerfed Gideon and Jace / Nissa were the best. Jace in terms of win percentage (if you had Mizzium Meddler) and Nissa in terms of speed.

The next update they Nerfed Jace, Nissa and Mizzium Meddler, reduced Chandra's first ability to 3 and she became the strongest Planeswalker. When the same ability cost 6, people rarely played her.

New Chandra is strong, but not 100-wins-in-a-row strong like old Gideon and Jace/Mizzium Meddler used to be. If Nissa gets a fast start, Chandra is dead. If Chandra faces Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Chandra is likely dead.

Lilly's turn next then surely? I fear, however, Gideon 2 will overshadow her

Hibernum_JC

Just to let you guys know, we're actively monitoring the situation with the balancing of Planeswalker abilities. If needs be we will adjust, but we don't want to be too hasty in putting the nerf bat to some things - the meta can adjust itself accordingly. If the meta doesn't adjust and Chandra is used far above other Planeswalkers, we will address the situation for sure, but in the meantime we'd rather analyze the data and see what is going on.

As an FYI, if that's interesting to you folks, in the past the least used Planeswalker was Liliana but interestingly enough she had the highest winrate, by quite a bit. There's plenty of reasons why that could be, but it's something we're trying to keep in mind. We have a ton of data available right now and we can adjust according to the data.

In the past we've done quick balance passes because there were some incredibly pressing matters (Gideon's vigilance was especially problematic, for example) but we'll be taking a bit slower of an approach in the future so that we can properly address issues.

Meto5000

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Just to let you guys know, we're actively monitoring the situation with the balancing of Planeswalker abilities. If needs be we will adjust, but we don't want to be too hasty in putting the nerf bat to some things - the meta can adjust itself accordingly. If the meta doesn't adjust and Chandra is used far above other Planeswalkers, we will address the situation for sure, but in the meantime we'd rather analyze the data and see what is going on.

As an FYI, if that's interesting to you folks, in the past the least used Planeswalker was Liliana but interestingly enough she had the highest winrate, by quite a bit. There's plenty of reasons why that could be, but it's something we're trying to keep in mind. We have a ton of data available right now and we can adjust according to the data.

In the past we've done quick balance passes because there were some incredibly pressing matters (Gideon's vigilance was especially problematic, for example) but we'll be taking a bit slower of an approach in the future so that we can properly address issues.

Hey JC, thanks for the update. I'm in the camp that thinks Chandra is slightly overtuned but not by a lot. I think adding +1 or +2 loyalty cost to her first ability would go a long way to making her perfectly balanced. The amount of "guaranteed" damage she does every turn seems to be a little high which puts a huge premium on lifegain that really only white and green (limited) have access to.

I think people discount Liliana not for a couple reasons. The biggest one was that she could be good, but only if you had a deck full of rares which not many players do/did. The other reason is that even when she wins, it takes her a long time to get there. Do you guys have internal data that shows length of battles per planeswalker? Win % is only part of the equation of what it takes to do well in QB. Liliana is in a weird place because she doesn't have the ability to finish the match. She's great at gaining control of fights but she can't do much to take advantage once she gets it.