Pre-Release (v1.5) Notes (06/23/16)

khurram

ThatRandomGuy wrote:

Animist's Awakening
This card has always been a bit too good, so I'm happy to see it toned down. I'm a little sad I'll never get to play with the busted version, but I still think it's good enough for dedicated green-conversion decks.

Relic Seeker
A much deserved nerf. It's probably still good though.

Out of curiosity.... do you have either Relic Seeker and Animists Awakening?

alextfish

The card cost changes look fantastic. Great job. Day's Undoing, Disciple of the Ring and Undergrowth Champion were far too good, and Chandra's Ignition, Evolutionary Leap, and Flameshadow Conjuring were far too expensive. (And guess what, I had all the latter and none of the former *rolleyes*) The patches to those are spot on. Even those nerfed cards which I did have, like Relic Seeker, did always seem cheatily undercosted, so I'm glad they were patched. And yay that it's not just mythics but Complete Disregard was fixed too, and all the ingest/process/Scion cards! That unlocks whole new deck archetypes now. Huge thumbs up!

And... do my eyes deceive me... there might even be a reduction in Network Errors? O.O This looks great!

Koth I'm somewhat sad at the changes. My only reason for buying Koth was the ability to give berserker to all my (first strike) creatures for 9 loyalty. Now you're making that more expensive up to 12 and calling it a "buff" None of the other changes to Koth look like they'll make up for that. But more mana generation is always good, so... we'll give it a go, I guess.

Ajani I bought a week ago, am working out how to use him, gradually levelling him up (currently level 40)... was looking forward to getting his first ability down to 3 loyalty. I guess I can look forward to getting it back down to the 6 loyalty it used to cast. But, eh, pretty much anything at 3 loyalty is overpowered, so it's probably fair enough.

shteev

Yeah, Relic Seeker and Skysnare Spider were really, really good, at 6/6 for 12 mana. What's more, a lot of people already HAD those, so you weren't going to make any money off them!

I applaud your decision to make them worse, but keep another 6/6 12 mana creature, Akoum Hellkite, exactly the same, since it's new, and you can entice suckers into buying cards with it!

Please, tho, don't forget to reduce it's power when the NEXT set comes out, or you won't be able to sell any of the new cards.

Upstartes

Generally, I like a lot of this. I'm excited about cheaper and better Eldrazi scions, among other things.

I have concerns about Ajani, though. The first ability cost increase seems fine - I don't use that one much anyway. The second ability increase is more concerning. I understand that the desire is to not have any PW be too powerful, but ever since the introduction of Kiora, I assumed that the developers were ok with having a few extra-powerful PWs, provided they cost more to get than the others. Ajani was obviously powerful, but I figured he was supposed to be, and that was why he cost 550 crystals. That was part of why I was willing to pay that many crystals for him. I will reserve final judgement until I actually play with him though.

Gaea's Revenge was the first mythic card I got. I had fun playing with him, but eventually dropped him because he just wasn't good enough for what he cost. Now I'm excited to try him out again.

Hibernum_JC

shteev wrote:

Yeah, Relic Seeker and Skysnare Spider were really, really good, at 6/6 for 12 mana. What's more, a lot of people already HAD those, so you weren't going to make any money off them!

I applaud your decision to make them worse, but keep another 6/6 12 mana creature, Akoum Hellkite, exactly the same, since it's new, and you can entice suckers into buying cards with it!

Please, tho, don't forget to reduce it's power when the NEXT set comes out, or you won't be able to sell any of the new cards.

Just a quick correction with your assumptions, however: Akoum Hellkite is Red and has Flying. Skysnare Spider is Green and has Reach. There are a few factors that go into how I calculate a card's mana cost: color and abilities go into it. Each color has different values for how I calculate the cost; for Red, Power costs less, per unit, than for Green. Flying is also much cheaper than Reach. There are many, many things to consider, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with a card's availability or the amount of money we can make off them. If they were both vanilla with no evergreens, Akoum Hellkite would be cheaper than Skysnare Spider.

Rootbreaker

• Player no longer fails to draw cards from Support gems when making a Landfall match without a creature on the opponent's battlefield.

Is this about prism array?

Plastic

Rootbreaker wrote:

• Player no longer fails to draw cards from Support gems when making a Landfall match without a creature on the opponent's battlefield.

Is this about prism array?

Hopefully the fix applies to landfall and the "Retreat" cards too.

nexus13

I think putting the spider at 16 is too much. It's a good card but far from broken. Now its almost strictly worse than Dwynen. It doesn't need to get spanked as hard as Undergrowth Champion, and that card will still be a giant problem even at 16 mana unless it has other changes.

Comparing costs between it and the dragon, a 6/6 red creature should cost more than a 6/6 green creature if neither has any abilities. Power on red creatures may be cheaper but toughness is more expensive and green is the color for big creatures. I understand that reach is more powerful in PQ then in paper magic but for green reach should be costed the same as defender because the anti-flying part is one of greens trademarks. Also the hellkite doesn't just have flying it has a very strong landfall ability. The only thing that could justify the hellkite being 25% cheaper is that red has a thing for dragons and sometimes they get special treatment.

ThatRandomGuy

khurram wrote:

ThatRandomGuy wrote:

Animist's Awakening
This card has always been a bit too good, so I'm happy to see it toned down. I'm a little sad I'll never get to play with the busted version, but I still think it's good enough for dedicated green-conversion decks.

Relic Seeker
A much deserved nerf. It's probably still good though.

Out of curiosity.... do you have either Relic Seeker and Animists Awakening?

As the writeup notes, no Awakening. Relic Seeker was one of my earliest Rares though.

khurram

Hibernum_JC wrote:

ThatRandomGuy wrote:

Animist's Awakening
This card has always been a bit too good, so I'm happy to see it toned down. I'm a little sad I'll never get to play with the busted version, but I still think it's good enough for dedicated green-conversion decks.

As I mentioned in the patch notes, it was too strong, and it was actually limiting the design of Green moving forward. I know a lot of people will most likely be upset at this change, but it's still potent, just not as much as before.

Quick question, if there are two activated gems on board and they both trigger at the same time will they convert total 5 gems to green or 10 gems?

Plastic

khurram wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

ThatRandomGuy wrote:

Animist's Awakening
This card has always been a bit too good, so I'm happy to see it toned down. I'm a little sad I'll never get to play with the busted version, but I still think it's good enough for dedicated green-conversion decks.

As I mentioned in the patch notes, it was too strong, and it was actually limiting the design of Green moving forward. I know a lot of people will most likely be upset at this change, but it's still potent, just not as much as before.

Quick question, if there are two activated gems on board and they both trigger at the same time will they convert total 5 gems to green or 10 gems?

Right now, in your scenario, both will trigger back to back. So, unless they change the behavior, it should still happen but now it'll be 2 sets of 5 instead of 2 sets of 10 conversions.

shteev

Rootbreaker wrote:

• Player no longer fails to draw cards from Support gems when making a Landfall match without a creature on the opponent's battlefield.

Is this about prism array?

I am very saddened to see the already overpowered Kiora gain a significant buff to one of her most powerful cards.

VladG0015

WOW!!! I am Loving the new changes

Cant wait till the update goes live!

With every other update having more debuffs than buffs I'm quite surprised to see that its 95% buff/cost reduction.
It makes all of those cards SO MUCH more playable!

Very much appreciated! Thank you.

paralistalon

Played against a Kiora deck he other day. I didn't really mind because I almost never lose to the AI so it's actually refreshing to get nailed every once in a while!

I think most of these rebalances are right on. Prior to this list, I was just sitting here wondering about how unbalanced many of the cards are. I guess you were just waiting to do them all in one go. I really love the scion update. They were completely unplayable before and are actually good with this change! I can't wait to try to find ways to pump scions' power. Hey, any chance you would ever release a Fireball type spell where you can pay X mana, kind of like awakening but with no limit? Or, I don't know, make it so you can't disable the X spell for balancing purposes?

The only thing that remains is fixing devoid so that all devoid spells are counted as colorless. I know you said you never intended to do this, but when the entire playerbase disagrees with you and thinks it should work differently, it's good game design to follow your players.

madwren

I'm actually excited to try out an Ingest deck, now that cards are more reasonably priced. Still disappointed at the fact that Devoid aren't colorless, however, as that negates so many more possibilities. There are some Devoid cards that really serve no purpose because they have no synergies.

Slytechs

I like a lot of these new changes, but wondered if you will make the old packs have 1 Rare guaranteed like the new set coming up? I wouldn't mind spending more if that happens, seeing the current odds are awfully bad

Maybe take into consideration the following
- 1 pack contains 1 rare, 1-2 uncommons, rest commons (with chance of Mythic from every pack)
- when buying a big box / fat pack (the 600crystals one), make it have a guaranteed Mythic instead?

I think it will be more balanced and enjoyable for everyone to know they get their moneys worth when investing in the game.

Maybe also make daily 24h or 48h refreshable shop where you can buy singles (mythics, rares, uncommons)? I believe it would make people spend some cash to get those few exact cards missing in the collection?

nerdstrap

Slytechs wrote:

- 1 pack contains 1 rare, 1-2 uncommons, rest commons (with chance of Mythic from every pack)
- when buying a big box / fat pack (the 600crystals one), make it have a guaranteed Mythic instead?

to me, I think of it this way - in mtgpq, each pack contains an uncommon, and that is a "rare" (I am still missing tons!!!). What is labeled as rare in mtgpq is an "epic", and what is labeled as a mythic is truly a mythic

so you still have 4 levels - common, rare, epic, mythic but mtgpq doesn't advertise as such because #profits

Barrelrolla

nerdstrap wrote:

Slytechs wrote:

- 1 pack contains 1 rare, 1-2 uncommons, rest commons (with chance of Mythic from every pack)
- when buying a big box / fat pack (the 600crystals one), make it have a guaranteed Mythic instead?

to me, I think of it this way - in mtgpq, each pack contains an uncommon, and that is a "rare" (I am still missing tons!!!). What is labeled as rare in mtgpq is an "epic", and what is labeled as a mythic is truly a mythic

so you still have 4 levels - common, rare, epic, mythic but mtgpq doesn't advertise as such because #profits

Uhmm, no. Paper magic has the exact same rarities - common, uncommon, rare, mythic rare. Every pack has a guaranteed rare, that could be mythic rare if you're lucky.

khurram

shteev wrote:

Yeah, Relic Seeker and Skysnare Spider were really, really good, at 6/6 for 12 mana. What's more, a lot of people already HAD those, so you weren't going to make any money off them!

I applaud your decision to make them worse, but keep another 6/6 12 mana creature, Akoum Hellkite, exactly the same, since it's new, and you can entice suckers into buying cards with it!

Please, tho, don't forget to reduce it's power when the NEXT set comes out, or you won't be able to sell any of the new cards.

I thought about it, looked at the upcoming changes and concluded that it just doesn't seem correct....

As far as old cards from Origins are concerned, more are getting buffed than nerfed.

Gea's revenge, evolutionary leap, tragic arrogance, hallowed moonlight, flame shadow conjuring, scab clan berserker, rogue'passage, chandra's ignition, molten vortex, woodland bellower, priest of the blood right, avaracious dragon, abbot are all getting buffed by getting their costs reduced (did i miss any?)
Oh yeah, and hixus too

While the only considerable nerfs are skysnsre spider, relic seeker, days undoing and animists awakening and although i was upset about them its not going to affect my decks very much... those cards are still far from bad and still use able

All these cards are from the old set and as far as the upcoming changes are concerned the positives outweigh the negatives

And speaking about making the new cards better than old ones.... they are nerfing 2 of the most popular cards from the new set; Noyan dar and Veteran warleader

span_argoman

khurram wrote:

... avaracious dragon, abbot are all getting buffed by getting their costs reduced...

Avaricious Dragon and Abbot are getting nerfed. They are losing their ability to draw cards with the cost reduced / mana gained which was what made them useful in the first place. Their reduced cost does little to compensate that.

Avaricious cost is reduced by 3 but the subsequent drawn cards are all back to normal cost (the old effect was that subsequent drawn cards are ALL 3 mana cheaper). That's a huge nerf. Abbot cost is reduced by 2 but you no longer gain 6 mana to the drawn card. That's up to 4 mana less. Changing the gem destruction from a 3x3 to a 5x5 doesn't affect all that much in terms of cascading for mana.