Koth in a bad spot?

Plastic

I can't help but wonder what type of data the devs have to show for Koth.

Every time I decide to try another combination of cards with him, I struggle immensely compared to every other planeswalker. I seem to always be on the defensive/catching up to the opponent. Without the best luck with gems and cascades I don't know how he's viable.

The dev's description when he was released mentions Koth's focus on creatures but I'm finding his focus is on mana generation just to get back on equal footing with the others.

While his ultimate is powerful, it can be countered by cheap spells/creatures. I'm not sure how you guys arrived at the loyalty costs when compared to Ob Nixilis and the new Gideon. While the abilities aren't necessarily comparable, the cost for creating an impact in a match is much better for those two.

Please tell me that when you (devs) said that you're experimenting with these legacy characters that you're open to reworking their kits.

I want to like this guy and I want to feel like I made a good investment purchasing him. As of right now though I can't say either are true.

Morphis

I do not own any of the new pwalkers but from what I have seen(and I have faced them) only first 2 are OK
Garruk is good only cause of his 2nd skill and superior mana production, but boring.
Koth is a joke. I laughed so hard with scour from existence that kept(caus of void gem) him from playing anything
I would be so pissed off if I bought him even with crystals. Do not know what would happen if I spent money for it

Rogan_Josh

He's not bad, just a little problematic.

one thing though, he is terrible right out of the box with no levels. With very little mana-fixing cards you're relying on his abilities to get the red you need when you need it. It requires spending turns setting up, making sure that explosive turn will net you a tempo swing and plenty of board control. I've played with him a bit and you will be emptying your hand that turn.

Comparatively speak, no plainswalker is bad at the moment. Though some have better or worse abilities, HP etc there isn't enough diversity in cards to turn a good ability into a win condition. Yet.

Plastic

I wouldn't mind if he was slow to play but can consistently perform well. When I can use my other planeswalkers in quick battles without needing a potion until after a few fights and I need to use one after each fight with Koth, it feels unbalanced. Why would I even use him?

EDHdad

I just had an 86-game winning streak stopped by an opposing Koth, so there is something there. I do think he's way too swingy. At level 60, he gets 10 mana to match 3 red, and only 2 mana to match anything else. Unfortunately, he got a few matches in a row and completely went to town.

I feel like, if he's going to care about red gems so much, maybe his first ability should create red games. Like his first ability could be -3 or -4: convert (some number of) gems to red.

But I also wouldn't mind if he got a less ridiculous amount of bonus for a red match, and wasn't nerfed on the non-red matches. Like at level 60, +5 for red would be fine (8 mana on a match 3), and +0 bonus on the others.

Plastic

So I finally got to play against a Koth. Complete. Push. Over.

They even had the new Shrine of the Forsaken Gods (great for Koth players, not AI apparently).

Hibernum_JC

Just popping in to say I am investigating Koth as a Planeswalker, especially his abilities. I'm aware that there is a problem with him in that his mana gains are extremely low, but that was as designed - we wanted players to focus a bit more on using his abilities to make him win, but at the moment he is far too swingy (either you get lucky and get red matches or a lot of loyalty, or you lose).

I have a few solutions in the pipeline for this, but I just want to reassure you guys that if the data ends up showing that there is a big balancing problem with him I will fix him.

UniQ_77

Good to hear.
Koths ability's surely are to expensive to play. I play koth a lot and i only managed twice to play his third ability. And its a very usefull ability, specially agaiinst chandra amd her cascades. So an adjustment would be nice. Overall koth gathers to slow loyalty to play a lot of his ability's. Most games you use 2 or 3 max .

UniQ_77

The balance between the colors is good in my opinion , i like it that with very little red i can have great action. This would be improved if his second ability would be more playable.

Meto5000

UniQ_77 wrote:

The balance between the colors is good in my opinion , i like it that with very little red i can have great action. This would be improved if his second ability would be more playable.

The problem is one of consistency I imagine. A red match gives 10 mana but any other match gives only 2 mana. So while he can have rounds where he gains lots of mana, more often there will be rounds where he gains very little. Also, it seems like it would be very easy to keep a Koth from gaining significant mana since you only have to worry about denying a single color.

UniQ_77

Unless his reshape the mountain ability would be eassier to play more often

EDHdad

In paper Magic, Koth is all about Mountains (a type of land which produces red mana). But since this game doesn't have Mountains, you'll have to improvise.

In Magic Puzzle Quest, I really like Fertile Thicket. Maybe you could make something like that as his first ability.

"-x (maybe 3 or 4): Convert 3 gems to Red. Then put a support on the field which has 'at the beginning of your turn, convert 1 gem to red".

2nd ability could be something like:

"add +x/+x to each creature you control until end of turn, where x is the number of red gems on the field"

3rd ability could be something like:

"Put a support on the field. It has 'at the beginning of each player's turn, your opponent takes x damage where x is the number of red gems on the field".

EDUSAN

EDHdad wrote:

In paper Magic, Koth is all about Mountains (a type of land which produces red mana). But since this game doesn't have Mountains, you'll have to improvise.

In Magic Puzzle Quest, I really like Fertile Thicket. Maybe you could make something like that as his first ability.

"-x (maybe 3 or 4): Convert 3 gems to Red. Then put a support on the field which has 'at the beginning of your turn, convert 1 gem to red".

2nd ability could be something like:

"add +x/+x to each creature you control until end of turn, where x is the number of red gems on the field"

3rd ability could be something like:

"Put a support on the field. It has 'at the beginning of each player's turn, your opponent takes x damage where x is the number of red gems on the field".

I wouldnt really make the skils depending on how many red gems you have, because for a PW like koth you WANT to match all the red gems you possibly can. So i dont think you will ever have a lot of red gems available (not counting the red gems that the enemy will want to prevent you from matching)

1st skill seems ok. At the beginning Koth needs to ramp a bit on red gems for low mana/loyalty
2nd skill could be something about having more mana accordingly to your board like "destroy X number of non-red gems equal to 2 times the number of creatures in play" (1 creatures = 2 gems destroyed - 6 creatures = 12 gems destroyed) (giving possibilities of cascades)
or maybe something like "until the end of your turn, all your gem matches have +2 and give loyalty" (making a red match to give 12 and every other other one to give 4 mana)
I like your 3rd skill. It makes some damage almost every turn. and if player doesnt work to match red they will receive a lot of damage.

EDHdad

You're probably correct, but that's why I think Koth should have some easy-to-spam 1st ability which creates red gems. Even with a bad board state, though, there might still be 3-5 red gems on the board. They just aren't necessarily next to one another.

Paper Koth's first ability is to untap a Mountain, make it a 4/4 Elemental until end of turn. Perhaps Puzzle Quest Koth can make a token creature which also converts gems to red.

Maybe Koth could have 2 or 3 abilities which do some small thing, but also convert gems to red. Like "put a 1/1 Elemental creature named Mountain onto the battlefield. It has 'at the beginning of your turn, convert 2 gems to red'." Or "convert 3 gems to red. Then, deal damage to each of your opponent's creatures equal to the number of red gems on the field". Something like that.

UniQ_77

I suggest to keep his current ability's.

Switch his first and second ability
And make them cost 5/9/18 loyalty

This should let you use reshape the mountain much more often and thus generate more red gems/ loyalty gems

Plastic

Another idea I was thinking would be to give him a bonus to loyalty matches so he can use his abilities easier.

Plastic

UniQ_77 wrote:

I suggest to keep his current ability's.

Switch his first and second ability
And make them cost 5/9/18 loyalty

This should let you use reshape the mountain much more often and thus generate more red gems/ loyalty gems

I like this. This would force players to choose to start denying his red before he gets things out of control in his favor.

UniQ_77

Plastic wrote:

UniQ_77 wrote:

I suggest to keep his current ability's.

Switch his first and second ability
And make them cost 5/9/18 loyalty

This should let you use reshape the mountain much more often and thus generate more red gems/ loyalty gems

I like this. This would force players to choose to start denying his red before he gets things out of control in his favor.

Exactly