Exert Influence

Monkeynutts

I hate Exert Influence - so over powered. Ruins games.

NERF IT !

Ohboy

Monkeynutts wrote:

I hate Exert Influence - so over powered. Ruins games.

NERF IT !

I agree. It needs to cost at least 16.

It's currently so cheap I think nothing of using it on a small creature just for the 2 for 1 advantage.

majincob

Ohboy wrote:

Monkeynutts wrote:

I hate Exert Influence - so over powered. Ruins games.

NERF IT !

I agree. It needs to cost at least 16.

It's currently so cheap I think nothing of using it on a small creature just for the 2 for 1 advantage.

It's not that bad. Doesn't work if your board is full. Can't steal hexproof. Removal will kill anything you can steal.

Ohboy

majincob wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

Monkeynutts wrote:

I hate Exert Influence - so over powered. Ruins games.

NERF IT !

I agree. It needs to cost at least 16.

It's currently so cheap I think nothing of using it on a small creature just for the 2 for 1 advantage.

It's not that bad. Doesn't work if your board is full. Can't steal hexproof. Removal will kill anything you can steal.

Card advantage isn't that pronounced, but it still exists in this game. By using exert, your opponent has had a creature removed, and now has to burn a removal. The limitation of not populating your board isn't a big one.

Exert is a chase card for many players for a reason.

Saintbenn

Exert Influence can be hard to play against. However, should we then get rid of every card that is hard to play against? When does it stop? Yes, sometimes cards do need a bit of tweaking, but they don't exactly need to be unplayable.

Morphis

Exert influence is the typical card you can't comment on until you own it.

From outside looks op as hell. I know it.
When you own it you see its limitations.

Limitations being:
- board full. Yes it's bigger than you think. A stolen turn 2 Olivia is fun and makes you win.
What if you have board full and your only removal is exert? You are going to have a bad time.
- stealing zoo like decks is inefficient. 10 mana to basically kill a creature(no benefit from stealing a 3/3) is too much.
- bug: if you steal a creature after activate gem are already on the field, those activate benefit original owner. In vast majority of cases it is a malus for you.
- stealing as removal is a BAD idea in objective events. Stolen creature if big enough(most nowadays are) can kill opponent before you achieve the secondary objectives.

All of this is not to say it's a bad card. Is overall good and in proper events/decks can really shine.
It's just not always as strong as one thinks.

Monkeynutts

When your trying to play Werewoves for example ot u have an Ulamog and the at card gets played you literally go ****.
Especially if you're playing a planeswalker like Garruk who has minimal removal. Or chandra/Koth who have damage removal, but not destroy removal.

I find it most annoying in Event when you opponent matches 3 gems and the board ge nuts and all there cards light up and you know it's gonna come out n wreck you.

Only other card that fills me with rages it Tyrant of Valukat....6dmg to all creatures when it enters.....****! kills Ally decks, werewovles if you not fast enough and Sorin decks.

mrhibachi

Morphis wrote:

Exert influence is the typical card you can't comment on until you own it.

From outside looks op as hell. I know it.
When you own it you see its limitations.

Limitations being:
- board full. Yes it's bigger than you think. A stolen turn 2 Olivia is fun and makes you win.
What if you have board full and your only removal is exert? You are going to have a bad time.
- stealing zoo like decks is inefficient. 10 mana to basically kill a creature(no benefit from stealing a 3/3) is too much.
- bug: if you steal a creature after activate gem are already on the field, those activate benefit original owner. In vast majority of cases it is a malus for you.
- stealing as removal is a BAD idea in objective events. Stolen creature if big enough(most nowadays are) can kill opponent before you achieve the secondary objectives.

All of this is not to say it's a bad card. Is overall good and in proper events/decks can really shine.
It's just not always as strong as one thinks.

If your board is full, usually that means you are currently ahead in the game and the exert influence is not needed. In terms of killing "zoo" creatures, it breaks even if you steal a creature that costs 5 and is a net gain for anything higher than that because you are gaining the effective mana of that creature while your opponent loses that same amount. Then there's the fact that since the majority of creatures don't have an obligation to interact with other creatures, it forces the opponent to now have an answer for that stolen threat.
As for the activate portion, yea it's true you don't gain the activates but most activates in the game on creatures aren't game changers necessarily.
Objectives shouldn't be a problem too often so long as you don't summon any additional creatures because that would indeed make the enemy die too fast.

Overall, IMO, this card (and welcome to the fold) are very unfair and need to be nerfed. The only time it is not good is if you are running a creature heavy deck. But in low creature control type decks (which blue very much specializes in), this card acts as it's own win condition and can even steal an opponents win condition (prized amalgam, olivia, etc). My personal suggestion is either they raise the mana cost or they change the constraint to say "you can only use this card if you currently control no creatures".

wereotter

"Blue is doing blue things and made it so I didn't win!!"

Yeah. Getting your stuff stolen is annoying, and it's a powerful card, but blue has been able to steal your creatures since Alpha. Exert Influence is powerful, yes, but mythic rare cards are supposed to be.

There are plenty of equally obnoxious mythics to contend with, but basically put, if you don't want your stuff stolen, there's lots of good hexproof creatures you can run.

majincob

Ohboy wrote:

majincob wrote:

It's not that bad. Doesn't work if your board is full. Can't steal hexproof. Removal will kill anything you can steal.

Card advantage isn't that pronounced, but it still exists in this game. By using exert, your opponent has had a creature removed, and now has to burn a removal. The limitation of not populating your board isn't a big one.

Exert is a chase card for many players for a reason.

Sorry, my half tongue-in-cheek response did not have enough snark in it to be detectable.

Like Morphis said, it's definitely a great and powerful card, but it doesn't solve all your problems all the time. Sometimes you want to use it, have it charged in hand, but simply can't. I typically cast it 0-1 times a game, but moon I can cast 2-4 times a game (for about the same cost).

mrhibachi

wereotter wrote:

"Blue is doing blue things and made it so I didn't win!!"

Yeah. Getting your stuff stolen is annoying, and it's a powerful card, but blue has been able to steal your creatures since Alpha. Exert Influence is powerful, yes, but mythic rare cards are supposed to be.

There are plenty of equally obnoxious mythics to contend with, but basically put, if you don't want your stuff stolen, there's lots of good hexproof creatures you can run.

It's not like paper magic where a stolen creature:
a) Doesn't change owner permanently
b) Isn't doing free damage every turn so long as you have creatures that can block it

As great as hexproof is, most of those creatures tend to cost high amounts of mana and the majority of them are green. Even with hexproof, blue decks that own exert... most likely own some form of aoe bounce to ignore hexproof --> Crush of Tentacles being the biggest offender.

Ohboy

majincob wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

majincob wrote:

It's not that bad. Doesn't work if your board is full. Can't steal hexproof. Removal will kill anything you can steal.

Card advantage isn't that pronounced, but it still exists in this game. By using exert, your opponent has had a creature removed, and now has to burn a removal. The limitation of not populating your board isn't a big one.

Exert is a chase card for many players for a reason.

Sorry, my half tongue-in-cheek response did not have enough snark in it to be detectable.

Like Morphis said, it's definitely a great and powerful card, but it doesn't solve all your problems all the time. Sometimes you want to use it, have it charged in hand, but simply can't. I typically cast it 0-1 times a game, but moon I can cast 2-4 times a game (for about the same cost).

You can't point towards another obviously broken card and say this card isn't op because that one isn't.

No card solves all your problems all the time. That's not how you measure if a card is overpowered.

Exert influence is an auto include in blue decks because it does 3 things at once when you're behind :

1) remove opponent's best creature
2) put the a creature on the board better than any existing creature on opponent's board
3) swing tempo instantly from defence to offense.

All for 10 mana.

It's a cheap card that more often than not acts like a get out of jail+win the game now card.

I discard my exert influences more often than I cast them too. But that's because it's a big swing card, and I don't need it when I'm winning. And like every other player in this game, I win more than I lose. That doesn't mean it's not broken. It's broken only in the rare situation when you're behind. The further behind you are, the more absurd this card is.

If tentacles can cost 20+ mana for that effect, exert influence can cost 16.

MTG_Mage

I must say that exert influence is definitely the most powerful spell in the game, and its undercosted. All of the best spells are destruction spells, and this is a destruction spell AND a creature spell, just like crush of tentacles. It needs its cost adjusted to at least 16, and speaking of crush, I still think ALL octopi tokens should be reduced to 6/6 instead of 8/8 each (so that would include Kiora's ultimate as well)

ZW2007-

I have to agree that it is grossly undercosted.
Here's a hypothetical:

Sorin vs Kiora
Sorin spends three turns to get 21 mana (three turns of match-3 black/white) to cast Olivia for 20 mana. Keep in mind this is the fastest she can be cast with no supports or abilities adding mana and only making match-3's.

Kiora spends two turns to get 12 mana (two turns of math-3 green/blue) to cast Exert Influence for 10 mana. Same rider as above, no supports etc.

Sorin has now lost three turns worth of mana investment while Kiora has gained 13 mana (or 2+ turns worth of mana investment). To clarify, Kiora now has a 20 mana creature and Sorin's creature is, for all intents and purposes, dead. The cheapest kill spell is Imprisoned in the Moon at 3 mana. That's 23 mana total value at a cost of 10 mana. This is a massive tempo swing and to top it off, Sorin needs at least 5 mana to get rid of Olivia, which will take another turn. So in the end, Sorin is set back four turns while Kiora essentially gained two. That's a six turn swing in the game's tempo. This problem only gets worse when talking about reinforced creatures. To top it off, Kiora was able to get two cards worth of value at the cost of only one card. Add in the surprise factor of the opponent 'playing' a 20 mana creature when clearly they were charging up a cheaper spell, and you can see the problem.

alextfish

I agree. Exert is horribly frustrating to play against. (I'm willing to believe it's not quite so OP if it's on your side, though it still seems like an auto-include to me.) Welcome to the Fold is a little better because of the restriction meaning it can't hit huge creatures, though power 6 or less still gets quite a lot of expensive things.

The silly thing is that the paper card Exert Influence has converge, and can only gain control of a 5-power creature at maximum, and that only if you've assembled five colours of mana. D3 removed one of the vital anti-frustration features while porting the card.

I would be thumbing up all the posts, but the ridiculous forum bugs won't let me, so I'm posting in agreement instead.

RhysMarkov

Honestly, I don't see what the issue is here. I run both Exert and **** (lol) in my Jace2 and I will still get trounced 1 game in every 4. Why? Kiora pumping out 2 Gaea's Revenge or 2 Plated Crushers in one turn. Any deck with decent card draw, ramp and Runaway Carriage. Board wipes. Tezzeret and Claustrophobia, or a white deck with the white equivalent of Claustrophobia (S~ Bonds) On and on. The point I'm trying to make is that yes, it can be a game changer, but a lot of mythics are supposed to be game changers. That's why they're mythics.

Another thing, as far as using Olivia for comparison, I would just like to point out that I've had to deal with her an order of magnitude more than Exert or ****. I've only come up against Exert or **** maybe 1 in 10 matches compared to every third match for Olivia. Sure, she's part of the meta now, but how often does everyone else come up against a dedicated control deck?

Could Exert stand to have its cost raised? Sure, but you might as well make it a rare for 16.

RhysMarkov

Looks like my original post didn't take, but case in point: I just got stomped on by a 15/3 Runaway Carriage out of a Sorin deck. Exert Influence nabbed me a 2/2 chump blocker that just wasn't quite enough to save me. So yes, Exert Influence is great, but there are a ton of answers for it.

Ohboy

RhysMarkov wrote:

Looks like my original post didn't take, but case in point: I just got stomped on by a 15/3 Runaway Carriage out of a Sorin deck. Exert Influence nabbed me a 2/2 chump blocker that just wasn't quite enough to save me. So yes, Exert Influence is great, but there are a ton of answers for it.

If your counterargument to a spell being overpowered is that it is helpless against the handful of cards with hexproof...

This is like saying Olivia isn't overpowered because removal exists.

You don't have to be invincible to be overpowered.

zaann85

I have Exert, and I never use it, because blue has better options, just look at Prism Array or Tamiyo's Journal! Both rares!

RhysMarkov

Hexproof is one of only a number of answers to Exert Influence. Removal and/or bounce are also good. Also, it is and can be very situationally specifically useful, i.e. if you've already got 3 creatures in play then it's dead weight in your hand. I can understand why the argument that it's undercosted for its effect exists while not agreeing with haha... and in a universe where Koth can essentially dual-cast a Decimator Of The Provinces (or any number of other game-finishing cards), I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt over smashing the AI in the face with it next turn (if I hapoen to be running blue when it happens lol... that actually just happened when I was using a deck other than blue, so I caught a 3 turn beatdowm from DotP haha)

RhysMarkov

Still though, Ohboy, you may have a point. There's probably a reason why I'm Platinum in Blue, and barely a tick over Gold in everything else. But hey, you use the tools you've got.