Depala.

octal9

Monkeynutts wrote:

Depala is more comparable with the Geier Reach Bandit Mythic thats $30, can't remember his name.

From outside appearances, Ulrich is on a whole other level compared to Depala.

I'm eager to try her out, but I'm not $30 eager like I was with Ulrich & Olivia.

gulgoth

My issue with her is that she's worthless for reinforcing. Reinforcing her only adds 3/3 to her for 26 mana. She needs to be bigger or cheaper.

Astralwind

James13 wrote:

Astralwind wrote:

I think the developers or designers are thinking too highly of overload. Imagine casting this card and it can easily be removed by a "Reave Soul".
Overload 1 to fetch a dwarf or vehicle into our hands is kind of weak.
If it's putting it into directly into battlefield, it would feel more like a mythic card.

She's actually minimum 6/6 since she'll buff herself there.

I do agree she's overcosted by far. One tweak that might make her more arguable worth it is if she partially charged fetch cards.

Straight onto the battlefield is probably too much for Overload 1. (Overload 2 or 3 straight onto the battlefield maybe).

Oh yeah. You are right. 6/6 minimum so Reave Soul would not work. But I forsee her getting "To the Slaughtered" the moment I get her out.

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Here's the logic for her cost - I know it looks huge and crazy, but there's a few things to consider.

1- Tutor-like draws will become rarer and rarer due to various factors, one of them being that you can easily create a 2-creature deck with a tutor-like draw and just guarantee creatures. While we still want to potentially use these abilities, their cost has to be higher since the benefit they provide is very high.

2- Drawing and fetching cards in Red is expensive. Red's focus is on aggression and the logic being that refilling your hand (at least with Red spell and effects) is expensive in itself.

3- Overload 1 is incredibly cheap and VERY easy to fulfill. Combining that with Energize 2 whenever a Vehicle or a Dwarf enters the battlefield means you'll be fetching often and can tailor your deck to hit specific targets.

Nevertheless, we will monitor the situation and see how she plays out further. In internal tests she was performing pretty well, but these are only internal tests and real-world testing also gives us a much better outlook of the cards.

I am not sure about the internal testing being mentioned and the conditions made to test her out.
To be able to have tutor like ability in Red is rare. This I agree. If I configure my deck correctly, I can fetch the card that I want.
But I don't agree with drawing card being expensive in Red. Jori En and Fevered Visions have red connections and they are relatively affordable in cost.
Even if overload 1 is easy to fulfill, dwarves and vehicles still cost something to summon.
I have to invest 26 mana into Depala and most of the time, she's not going to survive long as she can be removed very easily.
Many top tier players I have faced have plenty of creature removal cards. She's not going to be viable in PVP. Maybe story and events, she's going to fun.
All high cost creatures face the same risk of getting removed easily without being able to accomplish much.
But some high cost mythic creatures still does something when entering the battlefield and it's still not as bad when they got destroyed.
Let's talk about World Breaker. 25 cost, 5/7 reach, berserk, devoid. Destroys a support and 5x5 gems around it. Goes back to hand if 5 or more gems are matched.
At least for World Breaker, I can destroy a support and clear the board of gems before it gets removed by opponent. It can even do some blocking.
For Depala, she's just a sitting duck other than buffing other dwarves and vehicles. Assuming I already have 2 other creatures, I gain +6 damage.
That's about 6 mana cost worth. If I am unlucky and she dies before I get to use her Energize 2 or Overload 1 the next turn, I lose 20 mana against a low cost card of 5 mana cost.
Hence, the risk is simply not worth it in my opinion.

Someone mentioned about deploy the gatewatch to summon her. I think that's the most economical way. But Deploy the Gatewatch is yet another Mythic card. I guess it takes a Mythic card to use another Mythic card? If her cost goes down to a reasonable one, and she goes out on exclusive sales once again, I will consider again.

Mainloop25

Monkeynutts wrote:

Depala is more comparable with the Geier Reach Bandit Mythic thats $30, can't remember his name.

Are you talking about Ulrich?? Not even close. Ulrich, like Olivia, is basically countdown-to-win unless you have a way to get rid of them quickly. Ulrich continues to buff creatures on every flip, and can remove most creatures on his transformation, and for even less mana cost than Depala. Depala has neither continuous buffing, nor can it damage creatures on its own.

madwren

Mainloop25 wrote:

Monkeynutts wrote:

Depala is more comparable with the Geier Reach Bandit Mythic thats $30, can't remember his name.

Are you talking about Ulrich?? Not even close. Ulrich, like Olivia, is basically countdown-to-win unless you have a way to get rid of them quickly. Ulrich continues to buff creatures on every flip, and can remove most creatures on his transformation, and for even less mana cost than Depala. Depala has neither continuous buffing, nor can it damage creatures on its own.

Yeah, Ulrich is a game-changer, especially once you get the hang of triggering his removal.

Cards like Olivia, Ulrich, Gisela, Emrakul--those are the ones where the power level matches the price, because they instantly slot into multiple decks and archetypes. Depala is very, very narrow.

Steeme

madwren wrote:

Mainloop25 wrote:

Monkeynutts wrote:

Depala is more comparable with the Geier Reach Bandit Mythic thats $30, can't remember his name.

Are you talking about Ulrich?? Not even close. Ulrich, like Olivia, is basically countdown-to-win unless you have a way to get rid of them quickly. Ulrich continues to buff creatures on every flip, and can remove most creatures on his transformation, and for even less mana cost than Depala. Depala has neither continuous buffing, nor can it damage creatures on its own.

Yeah, Ulrich is a game-changer, especially once you get the hang of triggering his removal.

Cards like Olivia, Ulrich, Gisela, Emrakul--those are the ones where the power level matches the price, because they instantly slot into multiple decks and archetypes. Depala is very, very narrow.

Exactly. Olivia and friends are not only strong on their own, but the secondary abilities allow for big combos and momentum swings. Also, buffs from Olivia and Ulrich are permanent, which means they have at least provided some permanent benefit even if they get removed the next turn (this is the most important point).

Depala... is actually a drag on momentum. Her cost makes her ridiculously slow, which makes her very weak against decks with cheap removal or card discards. Also, relying on energize is a terrible idea. That means she is basically a one-trick pony and will be left behind when we finally move onto the next set and are finally rid of this fiasco.

tm00

Tbh it feels like she's just hit by dimishing returns very hard, vehicles are slightly overcosted due to being artifacts and while dwarves are cheaper, they aren't that strong and she muddles the pool with a 26 mana dwarf, so you aren't even guaranteed to cast what you tutor soon.

Probably is by design since stacking visionary augmenters is kinda scary tho.

Mainloop25

Visionary Augmenter is awesome, and I would argue that it's a better card than Depala.

wereotter

tm00 wrote:

Tbh it feels like she's just hit by dimishing returns very hard, vehicles are slightly overcosted due to being artifacts and while dwarves are cheaper, they aren't that strong and she muddles the pool with a 26 mana dwarf, so you aren't even guaranteed to cast what you tutor soon.

Probably is by design since stacking visionary augmenters is kinda scary tho.

It might work, but only thing that comes to mind offhand is how energize and fabricate work against each other. If you have a bunch of servos on the field from Visionary Augmenters then you won't be able to energize gems as effectively which will make triggering overload from Depala harder, conversely if you have the board well energized to trigger her overload consistently, you won't be able to place servos easily when a creature with fabricate enters. Seems to me that you'd want to run one strategy or the other, but not both in the same deck. I could be wrong, just my thoughts from considering the two cards in the same deck.

ZW2007-

wereotter wrote:

It might work, but only thing that comes to mind offhand is how energize and fabricate work against each other. If you have a bunch of servos on the field from Visionary Augmenters then you won't be able to energize gems as effectively which will make triggering overload from Depala harder, conversely if you have the board well energized to trigger her overload consistently, you won't be able to place servos easily when a creature with fabricate enters. Seems to me that you'd want to run one strategy or the other, but not both in the same deck. I could be wrong, just my thoughts from considering the two cards in the same deck.

The real issue is just having a board filled with energy and servo tokens. Just imagine how many phones would crash with a board like that followed by an activated fetch by Depala.

wereotter

ZW2007- wrote:

wereotter wrote:

It might work, but only thing that comes to mind offhand is how energize and fabricate work against each other. If you have a bunch of servos on the field from Visionary Augmenters then you won't be able to energize gems as effectively which will make triggering overload from Depala harder, conversely if you have the board well energized to trigger her overload consistently, you won't be able to place servos easily when a creature with fabricate enters. Seems to me that you'd want to run one strategy or the other, but not both in the same deck. I could be wrong, just my thoughts from considering the two cards in the same deck.

The real issue is just having a board filled with energy and servo tokens. Just imagine how many phones would crash with a board like that followed by an activated fetch by Depala.

Also yes. I've not had any crashes from fetching, energize, or servos (though servos DO make my game run at a crawl), so not exactly what came to mind for me first, but I can see that.

DuskPaladin

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Here's the logic for her cost - I know it looks huge and crazy, but there's a few things to consider.

1- Tutor-like draws will become rarer and rarer due to various factors, one of them being that you can easily create a 2-creature deck with a tutor-like draw and just guarantee creatures. While we still want to potentially use these abilities, their cost has to be higher since the benefit they provide is very high.

2- Drawing and fetching cards in Red is expensive. Red's focus is on aggression and the logic being that refilling your hand (at least with Red spell and effects) is expensive in itself.

3- Overload 1 is incredibly cheap and VERY easy to fulfill. Combining that with Energize 2 whenever a Vehicle or a Dwarf enters the battlefield means you'll be fetching often and can tailor your deck to hit specific targets.

Nevertheless, we will monitor the situation and see how she plays out further. In internal tests she was performing pretty well, but these are only internal tests and real-world testing also gives us a much better outlook of the cards.

Unfortunately, there no dwarves nor vehicles good enough that would make us want to pay such a high price.

The average PW gains 6 mana per on-color matches, that's 5 turns (!!) before finally having enough to cast her. You invested all that time not avancing your board for a 6/6. It'll take more turns to embark on a gravy train which will never pass.

For some reasons, you guys are really overestimating fetch effects like Rashmi, Torrential (pseudo-fetch), PanHarmonicon, Madcap Experiment, Depala, etc.

Like others pointed out, fetch is basically the same as draw. The good fetch/draw cards are those who ALSO fill the fetched cards with mana, like Seasons Past, Deploy the Gatewatch, Behold the Beyond. No need to give such higher cost for fetch-without-mana cards.

Also why is Red bad at fetching and drawing again? It is because it's all-in and bet everything on the present and sacrificing it's future? If so then it needs to have a great body, like Geier Reach Bandit or Angel Castigator. A creature 6/6 for 26 mana better have gamebreaking abilities to be considered which Depala doesn't have at all. I would never play such overcost and underwhelming creature just because it cantrips (the exact same problem with Torrential Gearhulk).

Many of those secondary abilities should just be considered an added bonus and in no way affect the final converted mana.

The easier comparison for Depala is General Tazri. They are both Tribal "Lords" which fetch, are expensive and have marginal secondary abilities.
Tazri is superior in every aspects : cost, fetching ability, repeatability of her activated ability. Despite all this, Tazri was not even a must-have during Ally decks' Golden Age.

How can Depala be considered a playable card is beyond me.

bk1234

Hibernum_JC wrote:

3- Overload 1 is incredibly cheap and VERY easy to fulfill. Combining that with Energize 2 whenever a Vehicle or a Dwarf enters the battlefield means you'll be fetching often and can tailor your deck to hit specific targets.

The problem in this logic is that there aren't many vehicle or dwarf cards that anyone would want to play. I was testing them the other day and I literally fell asleep. The power creep isn't good enough for events or QB and the fun factor is lacking for story mode.

Also my story mode is almost entirely complete so I have no use for mechanics that won't benefit me in the aspects of the game that I can still play.

Mainloop25

I just fought someone who actually bought Depala. I killed her, and her +3/3 buff stayed on the vehicles even after she was gone from the battlefield. Either it's a bug, or the text on the card is wrong. Either one I can believe.

khurram

JC, just realize this already. Creatures that fetch in this set have been a fail and are considered to be among the worst mythics. ... Rashmi, torrential gearhulk, Depala.

And agreed, Tazri is a lot better than depala and even she doesnt see play. You must have the data?

Theros

Dynavolt, Aetherworks marvel and skysoverign should have made it to the volt instead. Instead, they decided to released bad mythics in vault that are hard to buy. The next mythic coming to the vault is Brisltling Hydra, another mythic that is not so good compared to Ulvenwald Hydra at least.