Devs - Sorin's 10/3/3

Plastic

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

alextfish

It's particularly silly because creatures are the one card type that has a limit on how many different cards you can play in succession. Six different supports on the board? No problem. Six different spells in hand? Feel free to unload them all at the right moment. Six different creatures in hand? Haha, choose 3, the other 3 are useless unless you let you creatures die.

Or kill them yourself with his first ability, I guess, but... why...??

Hibernum_JC

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

Avacyn

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Good news~

So looking forward to those slot changes. Also I cant wait to see what kind of rework you guys have in store for his 2nd ability.

*Cheers

nexus13

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

Creature focus is fine but unless you have plans to increase the number on the board to beyond 3 or have creatures that trigger abilities when they are replaced then even 7 in your deck is more than is useful to ever be there. Glad to hear that ability 2 is changing. We appreciate the responsiveness.

Feagul

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

Do you even play the game? After Runaway Carriage trouncing mythics (yet not wanting to nerf its power even after completely disarming a mythic in Undergrowth Champion) and Sorin being hot trash, I'm a little curious how much game theory and optimization goes into testing these to their full potential.

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

4/3/3 is a perfectly fine allocation to me. That being said, the challenge is leveling him. At low levels, the combination of poor mana gains (3 colors with -1 for quite awhile) and hand-clogging creatures make it difficult to progress. It sort of penalizes casual players twice, because they can't afford to just level him to 60 immediately and bypass all the drawbacks.

Edited to add: I am not one of those casual players.

Feagul

madwren wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

4/3/3 is a perfectly fine allocation to me. That being said, the challenge is leveling him. At low levels, the combination of poor mana gains (3 colors with -1 for quite awhile) and hand-clogging creatures make it difficult to progress. It sort of penalizes casual players twice, because they can't afford to just level him to 60 immediately and bypass all the drawbacks.

Edited to add: I am not one of those casual players.

I disagree. 4/3/3 may be fine if that what's you actually want, but being forced into it completly stifles any creativity. Why even give him a 10 creature limit? Who would ever play that?

madwren

Feagul wrote:

madwren wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

4/3/3 is a perfectly fine allocation to me. That being said, the challenge is leveling him. At low levels, the combination of poor mana gains (3 colors with -1 for quite awhile) and hand-clogging creatures make it difficult to progress. It sort of penalizes casual players twice, because they can't afford to just level him to 60 immediately and bypass all the drawbacks.

Edited to add: I am not one of those casual players.

I disagree. 4/3/3 may be fine if that what's you actually want, but being forced into it completly stifles any creativity. Why even give him a 10 creature limit? Who would ever play that?

I definitely think the 10 creature thing is silly, but I find myself having to be *more* creative because I can't fall back on my usual suite of spells and supports. It makes me really think about what spells/supports to prioritize and include, which to me is the opposite of stifling. Just a different perspective.

Feagul

I have a write up I'm working on that compares the seemingly random deck restrictions, especially amongst premium planeswalkers.


Kiora has an allocation of 5 creatures / 8 spells / 6 supports (19 total). When I got Ulvenwald Hydra recently, I brainstormed a deck featuring only the Hydra and mass gem conversion. I tinkered around for three or four hours in Quick Battles that night alone just trying out different combinations of spells and supports to get an optimal balance. It was great! Guess what I'd do if I got a card that inspired me to do something similar for Sorin? Nothing "creative" like I enjoyed the heck out of with Kiora, that's for sure.

For all intents and purposes, anything above a maximum of five creatures is a wasted stat when it comes to deck restrictions. I'd argue that Sorin's 10/3/3 (16 total) is actually 5/3/3 (11 total) if you've played the game and understand its systems fairly well, and a most likely a hard 4/3/3 (10 total) restriction if you're looking to make an optimal build. From a paper magic background/perspective, I don't understand the arbitrary restrictions in the first place. I'm trying to imagine how impossible a deck like soul sisters would have been with a restriction of three creatures in play while simultaneously (and oddly) forcing the deck to run a minimum of 40% creatures. I don't think it would have ever come to be. That's not enabling creativity in my eyes.

In addition to having bad deck restrictions, Sorin's first and second loyalty abilities are simply not good. Kiora and Koth also don't suffer that fate and are for some reason considered top-tier while simultaneously having tons of builds.

Hibernum_JC

madwren wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Plastic wrote:

While making some decks just now, I had an urge to see what I could potentially throw together if I had Sorin. I was honestly about to go for it and buy the bundle, but I keep getting pooped on by that 3 card limit to supports and spells.

I get that there's a lifelink theme going on and that requires creatures. I understand that it can be a challenge to make working decks with those limitations, but I feel it works the other way too. We're pigeonholed into a creature heavy deck without opening up possibilities for more card combos.

If there was any hint of a rework coming, I'd still get him now. As he is, it's just not worth it. I want to like him but I just can't.

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later), but I'm changing his 2nd ability, and I'm looking into loosening his card limits. I understand that 3 Supports and 3 Spells is low, but let's say you put them in, that leaves you with 4 slots for creatures. At 4 slots, it's not like you'll very often be faced with a board full of creatures and a hand full of creatures you can't cast because they won't reinforce.

I understand the current idea behind deckbuilding is putting 3 creatures maximum in your deck and filling the other 7 slots with mostly spells and a few supports, but diversity is good in this.

Regardless, I will definitely look into making this a bit looser. I'm open to giving him more slots for spells and supports, but again it's important to note that Sorin's focus is being creature-heavy as a base and not spell-heavy.

4/3/3 is a perfectly fine allocation to me. That being said, the challenge is leveling him. At low levels, the combination of poor mana gains (3 colors with -1 for quite awhile) and hand-clogging creatures make it difficult to progress. It sort of penalizes casual players twice, because they can't afford to just level him to 60 immediately and bypass all the drawbacks.

Edited to add: I am not one of those casual players.

That is definitely a problem. It's something we're always looking into, and changing his mana allocation/gains over time so it comes in a bit sooner is most likely part of the answer.

Feagul wrote:

I disagree. 4/3/3 may be fine if that what's you actually want, but being forced into it completly stifles any creativity. Why even give him a 10 creature limit? Who would ever play that?

I could argue that creativity comes in many forms - having to work and find solutions within certain limits is certainly a form of creativity. (as an aside, as a game dev, this is what I do at work all the time).

Feagul wrote:

Do you even play the game? After Runaway Carriage trouncing mythics (yet not wanting to nerf its power even after completely disarming a mythic in Undergrowth Champion) and Sorin being hot trash, I'm a little curious how much game theory and optimization goes into testing these to their full potential.

Runaway Carriage is overtuned and will be changed in the next major update, which is coming soon. Undergrowth Champion was overtuned and was changed - it is still quite good, just that now it's no longer an insta-win button. The initial design for Undergrowth Champion, btw, was so that Green would have a very powerful Defender that would still have a way to be dealt with - Runaway Carriage will no longer have Prevent Damage so it will be a lot more manageable by every single color, while still remaining strong.

Another point to be brought up is internal testing vs real-world results. There is only so much internal testing can do, and while some cards may seem perfectly fine while we internally test them, go through QA, etc. they sometimes end up being used in different ways we haven't thought of and either end up stronger or weaker than we'd initially intended. The beauty of a game like this is that we actually *can* change cards, as opposed to a physical product where once it's printed, it's printed and there's very little you can do to change that.

Sorin being "hot trash" is, while a bit extreme (I find him to be a bit undertuned right now, especially with his 2nd ability which hasn't turned out how we wanted it to be, but certainly not unplayable) is something we are addressing. While I would love to just make changes and push them live immediately, there are certain imperatives at play here, and I can't just push data live without extensive testing and going through the usual channels, so these changes have to be pushed to other updates. Devour In Flames was an exception because it was crashing the game hardcore and the fix was simple enough that we could just do a data push, but we still have to be careful as to the speed to which we respond to some problems.

Coppertouret

Hibernum_JC wrote:

While I would love to just make changes and push them live immediately, there are certain imperatives at play here, and I can't just push data live without extensive testing and going through the usual channels, so these changes have to be pushed to other updates. Devour In Flames was an exception because it was crashing the game hardcore and the fix was simple enough that we could just do a data push, but we still have to be careful as to the speed to which we respond to some problems.

Yeah, I see where that could cause issues, especially since you fixed one sort of freeze with Prized Amalgam and caused another. Replacing token zombies with him freezes the game now. Unplayable.

Mcjordan

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Sorin being "hot trash" is, while a bit extreme (I find him to be a bit undertuned right now, especially with his 2nd ability which hasn't turned out how we wanted it to be, but certainly not unplayable) is something we are addressing. While I would love to just make changes and push them live immediately, there are certain imperatives at play here, and I can't just push data live without extensive testing and going through the usual channels, so these changes have to be pushed to other updates. Devour In Flames was an exception because it was crashing the game hardcore and the fix was simple enough that we could just do a data push, but we still have to be careful as to the speed to which we respond to some problems.

Hey just wanted to say thanks for all of the new content and addressing constant feedback. New cards and events are cranking out really quickly, and while there have been some major issues (Prized Amalgam, Devour in Flames, etc), I would take frequent new content with some bugs over stagnation any day of the week. I also appreciate the willingness to make pretty major changes (Runaway Carriage and Sorin) without over-nerfing; there is a happy medium in this game with allowing great cards but not OP cards (similarly, allowing some drawback abilities and "bad" cards but fixing terrible ones).

madwren

Coppertouret wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

While I would love to just make changes and push them live immediately, there are certain imperatives at play here, and I can't just push data live without extensive testing and going through the usual channels, so these changes have to be pushed to other updates. Devour In Flames was an exception because it was crashing the game hardcore and the fix was simple enough that we could just do a data push, but we still have to be careful as to the speed to which we respond to some problems.

Yeah, I see where that could cause issues, especially since you fixed one sort of freeze with Prized Amalgam and caused another. Replacing token zombies with him freezes the game now. Unplayable.

I suspect that this is related to the "game freezes when destroying tokens" problem, and may not be Amalgam itself. I've had freezes (reported and posted about in the bug forum) with Engulf, Slaughter, Firecraft, etc, all when killing token creatures (Devils, Zombies, Kor Allies).

I'm hoping the devs know that and are looking in the right place.

Feagul

madwren wrote:

Coppertouret wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

While I would love to just make changes and push them live immediately, there are certain imperatives at play here, and I can't just push data live without extensive testing and going through the usual channels, so these changes have to be pushed to other updates. Devour In Flames was an exception because it was crashing the game hardcore and the fix was simple enough that we could just do a data push, but we still have to be careful as to the speed to which we respond to some problems.

Yeah, I see where that could cause issues, especially since you fixed one sort of freeze with Prized Amalgam and caused another. Replacing token zombies with him freezes the game now. Unplayable.

I suspect that this is related to the "game freezes when destroying tokens" problem, and may not be Amalgam itself. I've had freezes (reported and posted about in the bug forum) with Engulf, Slaughter, Firecraft, etc, all when killing token creatures (Devils, Zombies, Kor Allies).

I'm hoping the devs know that and are looking in the right place.

That will make this weekend's event quite fun. Hopefully we can still avoid playing Garruk and Gideon.

ZW2007-

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Sorin being "hot trash" is, while a bit extreme (I find him to be a bit undertuned right now, especially with his 2nd ability which hasn't turned out how we wanted it to be, but certainly not unplayable) is something we are addressing.

Have to agree with JC here. I really thought Sorin looked terrible but decided to bite the bullet and make my first in-game purchase anyway cause I love Sorin. Don't regret it one bit. That said, his second ability is pretty terrible and I have never used it once. If you are ahead, it's totally pointless to kill all your supports just to gain some life. If you are behind, destroying all your supports and gaining some life won't help you catch back up. Plus, if you used his third ability, you should never touch the second one anyway. That leaves Sorin in a weird spot of not having much to do with loyalty after using his third ability. His first ability will buff your creatures like crazy but you're probably already about to win and it's a waste of time to watch all the animations.

As for the 10/3/3 break-down, it seems silly to me to limit any deck to certain creature/spell/support ratios in the first place but letting Sorin have 10 creatures and so few spells or supports isn't great either. Given his abilities, you want to rely heavily on creatures with lifelink or some form of benefit from life gain but the list of creatures that do this is quite small and a lot of them are sub-optimal. Plus, when you consider that his third ability majorly buffs your creatures, you won't be replacing your creatures unless one gets killed and if you have a lot of creatures in your deck, your hand will just sit filled with useless creatures. I currently have 5 creatures, 3 spells, and 2 supports in the deck and it works out well for me even though I do tend to get a pile up of excess creatures. I prefer to have too many creatures versus going the first 5 turns with none but I don't see the need to restrict people from building however they want.

I'd love to see a completely reworked second ability that is useful at any point in the fight. Maybe destroy one of your opponent's supports, gain X life. This fits with Sorin's nature of destroying things and gaining life, and also fits with the paper magic philosophy that white is the destroyer of all things enchantment and artifact which is basically all supports are. It wouldn't be overpowered because support destruction is always random, it's the second ability so the cost would still be relatively high, and the main goal with Sorin is to get to his third ability anyway.

Lastly, can we get an update where Sorin's support triggers and buffs all three creatures at once? I know it's something that effects tons of cards in game that buff your entire team but it gets very tiring watching all those creature buffs turn after turn after turn, not to mention it seriously slows down your win speeds which makes Sorin less competitive.

Chavez303

ZW2007- wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Sorin being "hot trash" is, while a bit extreme (I find him to be a bit undertuned right now, especially with his 2nd ability which hasn't turned out how we wanted it to be, but certainly not unplayable) is something we are addressing.

Have to agree with JC here. I really thought Sorin looked terrible but decided to bite the bullet and make my first in-game purchase anyway cause I love Sorin. Don't regret it one bit. That said, his second ability is pretty terrible and I have never used it once. If you are ahead, it's totally pointless to kill all your supports just to gain some life. If you are behind, destroying all your supports and gaining some life won't help you catch back up. Plus, if you used his third ability, you should never touch the second one anyway. That leaves Sorin in a weird spot of not having much to do with loyalty after using his third ability. His first ability will buff your creatures like crazy but you're probably already about to win and it's a waste of time to watch all the animations.

As for the 10/3/3 break-down, it seems silly to me to limit any deck to certain creature/spell/support ratios in the first place but letting Sorin have 10 creatures and so few spells or supports isn't great either. Given his abilities, you want to rely heavily on creatures with lifelink or some form of benefit from life gain but the list of creatures that do this is quite small and a lot of them are sub-optimal. Plus, when you consider that his third ability majorly buffs your creatures, you won't be replacing your creatures unless one gets killed and if you have a lot of creatures in your deck, your hand will just sit filled with useless creatures. I currently have 5 creatures, 3 spells, and 2 supports in the deck and it works out well for me even though I do tend to get a pile up of excess creatures. I prefer to have too many creatures versus going the first 5 turns with none but I don't see the need to restrict people from building however they want.

I'd love to see a completely reworked second ability that is useful at any point in the fight. Maybe destroy one of your opponent's supports, gain X life. This fits with Sorin's nature of destroying things and gaining life, and also fits with the paper magic philosophy that white is the destroyer of all things enchantment and artifact which is basically all supports are. It wouldn't be overpowered because support destruction is always random, it's the second ability so the cost would still be relatively high, and the main goal with Sorin is to get to his third ability anyway.

Lastly, can we get an update where Sorin's support triggers and buffs all three creatures at once? I know it's something that effects tons of cards in game that buff your entire team but it gets very tiring watching all those creature buffs turn after turn after turn, not to mention it seriously slows down your win speeds which makes Sorin less competitive.

Am I the only one thinking Sorin should be generating Vampire tokens with life link? Thats his thing. Chandra burns, Nissa heals and ramps, liliana deals with the dead.....Vampires for Sorin...plus those of us that missed the boat on BFZ are stuck with a limited number of vampires to use with him.

blacklotus

The last Origins Tutorial Sorin that we can play as does create a 5/5 vampire token.

wish we could have that as one of his ability, maybe the 2nd one.

Feagul

ZW2007- wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Sorin being "hot trash" is, while a bit extreme (I find him to be a bit undertuned right now, especially with his 2nd ability which hasn't turned out how we wanted it to be, but certainly not unplayable) is something we are addressing.

Have to agree with JC here. I really thought Sorin looked terrible but decided to bite the bullet and make my first in-game purchase anyway cause I love Sorin. Don't regret it one bit. That said, his second ability is pretty terrible and I have never used it once. If you are ahead, it's totally pointless to kill all your supports just to gain some life. If you are behind, destroying all your supports and gaining some life won't help you catch back up. Plus, if you used his third ability, you should never touch the second one anyway. That leaves Sorin in a weird spot of not having much to do with loyalty after using his third ability. His first ability will buff your creatures like crazy but you're probably already about to win and it's a waste of time to watch all the animations.

As for the 10/3/3 break-down, it seems silly to me to limit any deck to certain creature/spell/support ratios in the first place but letting Sorin have 10 creatures and so few spells or supports isn't great either. Given his abilities, you want to rely heavily on creatures with lifelink or some form of benefit from life gain but the list of creatures that do this is quite small and a lot of them are sub-optimal. Plus, when you consider that his third ability majorly buffs your creatures, you won't be replacing your creatures unless one gets killed and if you have a lot of creatures in your deck, your hand will just sit filled with useless creatures. I currently have 5 creatures, 3 spells, and 2 supports in the deck and it works out well for me even though I do tend to get a pile up of excess creatures. I prefer to have too many creatures versus going the first 5 turns with none but I don't see the need to restrict people from building however they want.

I'd love to see a completely reworked second ability that is useful at any point in the fight. Maybe destroy one of your opponent's supports, gain X life. This fits with Sorin's nature of destroying things and gaining life, and also fits with the paper magic philosophy that white is the destroyer of all things enchantment and artifact which is basically all supports are. It wouldn't be overpowered because support destruction is always random, it's the second ability so the cost would still be relatively high, and the main goal with Sorin is to get to his third ability anyway.

Lastly, can we get an update where Sorin's support triggers and buffs all three creatures at once? I know it's something that effects tons of cards in game that buff your entire team but it gets very tiring watching all those creature buffs turn after turn after turn, not to mention it seriously slows down your win speeds which makes Sorin less competitive.

I'll agree to disagree, then. I should have been more specific in noting that he's quite expensive for being "hot trash," as I put it--and stand by.



Abilities

• 9 - Deal 1 damage to each of your creatures and gain 4 life per creature you control.
  • Let's focus on the positive and say that this is at least good when his third loyalty ability has already been activated. Unfortunately, the third loyalty ability will almost never be used by the lovely AI, so this is actually a huge handicap when other players face your deck (and is both the reason I chuckle when I face Sorin and largely why I label him "hot trash").
• 12 - Gain life equal to the amount of Support you control times 8, then Destroy each Support you control.
  • This is a unique ability in that it's bad both when you're ahead and when you're behind. At least it's getting reworked, I suppose.
• 21 - Create a Support with "When you gain Life, each of your creatures gain +4/0"
  • This is a large part of why I've seen others consider Sorin powerful. I contend that while this typically helps games end quickly when you use it... to take real advantage of it you need to already be quite a bit ahead on the board--no? Compared to other 3rd tier abilites of other planeswalkers (see album here), I feel that this ability is win-more. Also, the average cost of his abilities is quite high at (9+12+21)/3 = 14.

Deck restrictions

• 10 Creatures - This might as well be capped at 4/5 as nobody in their right mind would run more than that in an optimized list.
• 3 Spells - If you're looking to optimize your deck, you'll be running the maximum of 3 Spells here. <Enter comment about creativity here.>
• 3 Supports - You're also going to be running the maximum of 3 Supports. Paint happy trees, you creative genius, you!

Mana Generation (+8)

• +4 W / +0 G / +0 R / +4 B / +0 U — +8 Total
  • I won't deny that Sorin's mana generation game is strong. However, there are currently 4 other multicolored planeswalkers:
    • Nahiri — +4 W / +1 G / +4 R / -1 B / +0 U — +8 Total
    • Ajani — +3 W / +2 G / +2 R / +0 B / +1 U — +8 Total
    • Kiora — +0 W / +3 G / +0 R / +0 B / +3 U — +6 Total
    • Sarkhan — +1 W / +1 G / +2 R / +2 B / +1 U — +7 Total
    That makes him look a lot more like a hybrid of Nahiri / Kiora in terms of focused mana generation and value. I'll reinforce the fact that it's nice--but it's also worth noting that it's nothing unique to Sorin.

Card Pool

• Black / White / Colorless Cards
  • Again, there are only four other multi-colored planeswalkers--putting Sorin in a unique spot. Even more uniquely, he is the only planeswalker with access to both white and black cards. There are lots of interesting possibilties this affords us (yes, I did buy him in spite of my harsh review). Unfortunately, these possibilities are ultimately hamstrung by the combination of his sub-par ability set and very restrictive deck constraints. Compared to the potential a planeswalker in these colors has (both flavor and power-level wise), he is very underwhelming. I find that comparing him to Kiora particularly funny.

Plastic

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I can guarantee you there is a rework coming - it's actually what I was working on today, as a matter of fact.

Again, this won't make it until the next major patch (but that should come sooner rather than later)....

JC, is Sorin going to be out of the store before the rework? For those of us interested in him still, should we consider getting him now and then wait for the changes?

Or is there an approximate timeframe he'll be in the vault for crystals?

PS Happy belated birthday

ZW2007-

What I meant was that I think JC is correct in saying that 'hot trash' is a little extreme but also that Sorin is currently undertuned. I actually agree with most of the points you made as well Feagul.

Abilities:
I never considered the AI playing as Sorin when looking at his first ability. Basically the AI will always make bad decisions with Sorin's abilities because it will never get enough loyalty to use his third ability before slowly killing it's own creatures or blowing up all it's supports after getting a crazy cascade. I've never used his first ability before getting his support out, which to a me shows a huge weakness in his abilities. Sorin has four different planeswalker cards in paper and all four have very similar things going on: drain life/deal damage/gain life, create vampire tokens, buff your creatures, and kill your opponents creatures. I'd love to see Sorin create tokens but I just don't expect them to re-work him that much which is why i suggested having him destroy an opponents support (singular, not all) instead of your own. Honestly I'd like to see his first ability changed to create a 1/1 vampire knight with lifelink token which would synergize with the support that makes the same tokens while also providing a source of lifegain to synergize with his 3rd ability and still keep him on theme. This would really make him more like Sorin, Lord of Innistrad instead of Sorin, Grim Nemesis because his third ability is already clearly based on the former planeswalker card. I don't see this being an issue though because I highly doubt they would ever introduce another version of the same planeswalker character to this game when there are still so many completely new (to MTGPQ) planeswalker characters out there with more coming out in each new paper MTG set. As far as his third ability goes, I kind of like it as is. It can be a win-more but thats not always bad in this game cause it increases your win speed (even though the excessive animations probably offset that). There have been a handful of games where I was losing the damage race and the support buffed my lifelinkers enough each turn that I eventually outhealed the enemies damage and ended up winning when I otherwise wouldn't have.

Deck Restrictions:
I don't think I was clear enough before, I don't think there should be any deck restrictions for any planeswalker beyond the 10 cards in a deck limit. Removing the current limitations would open up so many new possibilities in terms of deck building for all planeswalkers and it would be an interesting shake up for the game.

Mana Generation:
I think his mana generation is fine and expect most new multicolored planeswalkers will continue this pattern.

Card Pool:
Agree with you here too. There could be some really cool decks made with Sorin but the deck restrictions limit you a lot and to make the most out of his current abilities, you are limited even more. A lifelink token on first ability and support destruction on second ability combined with new/no deck restrictions could really blow the door open for deck building options and make Sorin a very fun and interesting pw.