Please nerf Baral

wereotter

He's so freaking good!

But if we're going to the topic of "omg pls nerf nao!" then let's look at other blatantly overpowered cards that in now way represent their paper counterparts everyone is using (Olivia, I'm looking directly at you)

As far as a chain of spells, it's possible but eventually it will run out of steam. Set up this build for Saheeli and was quickly able to go from Baral and a couple thopters to about 90 power on the field in one turn. It was only stopped because my hand filled up with supports and creatures so there was nothing left to cast, but it didn't matter since I had more than enough power to kill my opponent.

Currently using:
Baral
Metallurgic Summonings
Harness the Storm

Imprisoned in the Moon
Artificer's Epiphany
Built to Smash
Evolving Wilds
Negate
Sure Strike
Devour in Flames

Consider that once it gets going I get two thopters for every spell I cast, and Baral is likely to bring me back a new spell to cast every time, it's easy to get massive power on the board. Entirely broken once it gets going, yes, but there is that point before the combo starts going off that nothing is happening.

Edit: scratch that, decided to let it play out in a recent match. Went from having a 1/1 frog token to summoning Baral, and ending up with a 130/130 thopter, a 75/50 frog, and a 45/45 Baral, all in one turn. Same situation, hand finally got full of non-spell cards, and the chain stopped, but it took at good 15 minutes for the turn to play out.

madwren

bken1234 wrote:

Have they ever nerfed a P2P card? I don't think so.

Isn't that the point?

well, they "fixed" Olivia when she wouldn't discard madness cards, but we probably wouldn't call that a nerf per se.

AettThorn

wereotter wrote:

SNIP!
Currently using:
Baral
Metallurgic Summonings
Harness the Storm

Imprisoned in the Moon
Artificer's Epiphany
Built to Smash
Evolving Wilds
Negate
Sure Strike
Devour in Flames

Consider that once it gets going I get two thopters for every spell I cast, and Baral is likely to bring me back a new spell to cast every time, it's easy to get massive power on the board. Entirely broken once it gets going, yes, but there is that point before the combo starts going off that nothing is happening.

Would Molten Nursery also work in this deck for Saheeli? Each thopter that comes out should do 2 damage to the opponent on its own. Not sure if that's better or worse than Harness the Storm for something like this.

wereotter

AettThorn wrote:

wereotter wrote:

SNIP!
Currently using:
Baral
Metallurgic Summonings
Harness the Storm

Imprisoned in the Moon
Artificer's Epiphany
Built to Smash
Evolving Wilds
Negate
Sure Strike
Devour in Flames

Consider that once it gets going I get two thopters for every spell I cast, and Baral is likely to bring me back a new spell to cast every time, it's easy to get massive power on the board. Entirely broken once it gets going, yes, but there is that point before the combo starts going off that nothing is happening.

Would Molten Nursery also work in this deck for Saheeli? Each thopter that comes out should do 2 damage to the opponent on its own. Not sure if that's better or worse than Harness the Storm for something like this.

Hmmm probably! It would work for all the thopters entering, and when I cast evolving wilds, so that would be handy, but harness the storm helps me get through getting a hand full of supports and Baral by destroying gems and possibly causing cascades. I'd have to try it out and see if it's better or not.

julianus

wereotter wrote:

...hand finally got full of non-spell cards, and the chain stopped, but it took at good 15 minutes for the turn to play out.

I can foresee people building decks with this setup just to sabotage and bog down opponents when they fight it in PVP.

Mainloop25

My only hesitation is: what do I do with it once the novelty wears off? Sure I get to use some cool daisy-chain 2-turn win. But after the 50th time of sitting through 25-minute turns am I still going to be as happy?

I'm going to wait to see how this plays out, and decide sometime in the next 6 days whether or not I want to spend $30 on it.

wereotter

Mainloop25 wrote:

My only hesitation is: what do I do with it once the novelty wears off? Sure I get to use some cool daisy-chain 2-turn win. But after the 50th time of sitting through 25-minute turns am I still going to be as happy?

I'm going to wait to see how this plays out, and decide sometime in the next 6 days whether or not I want to spend $30 on it.

Clearly it's how you get your extra ribbon on the 3.1 revolt against the Consulate node

Schlemoc

I will admit i built a similar deck to wereotter. It is insane once rolling, with it easily rivaling the gonti heart chain.

Is it a game changing card? Absolutely. However, i have a feeling the draw a card was added to bog down the hands with non spell cards, thus making it hard to chain. You really, really need to set it up right to get to a crazy point AND remain alive to do so. I have lost a handful of matches where it was too slow, or i got bogged down on supports and baral. Most notably was a white deck which kept destroying my harness. Ran in to that a few times.

Its no worse than having an olivia and pig combo unleashed,except it relies on a support and some luck. Just my opinion after a day of tinkering.

Pretty happy this was the card of choice though. I wanted to play it since node 3.3 where others said it was harmless.

Mainloop25

That is one hell of an expensive ribbon...

AngelForge

buscemi wrote:

...

Incidentally, when they inevitably nerf him, what's our legal recourse? Can we demand refunds, or are we all just screwed?

As far as I know, you're screwed!

But it is not as unhealthy as spending it on a bottle of whiskey (or whatever). So, Baral might have saved (especially) your liver some stress...

Spiritdark

Baral is BROKEN....

I just purchased him.

Kiora Planeswalker, level 23

Deck:
Creatures:
Baral, Chief Of Compliance
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper

Supports:
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
Fertile Thicket

Spells:
Seek The Wilds
Negate
Natural Connection
Reclaim
Stratus Walk
Artificer's Epiphany

All spells are 3 mana cost except 'Seek The Wilds' at 4. Stratus Walk and Artificer's Epiphany award double, or triple, card draw if you have a support out with Baral. Fertile Thicket and Natural Connection both stimulate green gem matches for extra mana to summon supports and creatures in the middle of a spell chain. Reclaim on Baral, only when you have an extra copy in hand to add to the mana generation.

Once Baral is out it's not hard to get Noyan Dar out fast and once you do it's spell chain for the win. I just had a game where by turn 5 I had Noyan Dar swing in for 96 damage for the win.

One could argue tossing in Talent Of The Telepath but I was trying to keep all spells at 3 mana or under.

Once Kiora is max level and you can use her 2 tier power to summon and almost autocast Noyan Dar... plus remove Shrine of The Forsaken Gods and include an extra spell... this deck would get ridiculous. More so than it is now.

THEMAGICkMAN

I think now is an appropriate time for me to say "I told you so" as i recently stole a Baral from 3.3 and went parading around slack telling everyone how ridiculous he is. however i think his true power isnt in the loop decks, but in general just for value use.

Mainloop25

I don't think anyone ever doubted his power. From the moment people saw he was going to be an exclusive mythic, they were saying it was going to be their #1 purchase.

andrewvanmarle

A question to the nerf callers:

What consist of a one turn kill. certailnly not a turn 1 kill? because if we speak of decks that require setting up to then go lethal on one turn, there are quite a few more of those and I don't think baral is the problem here.

Yes he can daisy chain spells untill you run out of steam, but you need supports to make the chain do something. and that is just the thing that stops the loop. Baral is strong, just as strong as Harness the Storm, but not better.

one card that is a nasty one, and I think more of a problem in this set up than anything else: Imprisoned in the Moon. That card was allready on the strong side, playing it for free in a chain make this card a problem. I'd suggest not touching Baral, and increasing the manacost for imprisoned to 4 mana.


On a tangent: Baral decks are foiled by Kambal, Authority of the consulate, minds dilation,(of course disable and kill) captured by the consulate, managorger hydra, noosegraf mob, scab clan berserker.

Yes Baral impacts the meta, but i'm'fine with that, it means we need to take other tactics into account, plan for sideboarding.

Steeme

I really need him in my Noyan Dar setup as a chump troop. I could really care less about the endless looping, I mean in order to do so you have to build explicitly for the loop which leaves you susceptible to other issues.

What I care about most is that I can put another body on the field to give the AI another target for banked kill spells. Without Baral, I would typically rely on Islands to try and draw them out, but the Awaken costs are too slow to eat 3-5 cost kill spells.

Now, with Baral, I have an additional out if the AI keeps removing Noyan Dar. My deck doesn't particularly loop that much, perhaps it cycles through Scatter and Coastal, but that will only buff Noyan Dar if he's out on the field along with Baral. It's a much better position to have the AI make a decision which of my creatures to remove at that point. (Note I've tried Sphynx to give hexproof but he is way too slow and expensive and is susceptible to being blocked or disabled).

Honestly, it's cool that you guys can build a mega-loop with Baral, but that's just a novelty deck design. He is much more important for helping certain decks keep pace with aggro and grief decks. Especially when Ob Nix is in the rotation without a single win condition as the AI fails to reach ultimate.


Edit: I tried AettThorn's deck above and it does keep cycling, albeit it is kind of boring. Nevertheless, I would agree to reduce Baral's mana gain to 2 mana per spell just to counter this issue.

morgue427

i didnt go that way with my baral i use him along with curious homunculus with some of the higher mana steal cards like revolutionary rebuff not swinging for much but get him up and running and insidious(only support i have in j1) is useless really it is just there as a safety really and with curious adding 2 mana each turn to every spell dont take long gor those steal 3 mana to add up really. still tinkering with it though.

buscemi

Day 1 of Baral was most enlightening. I focused entirely on combo testing, featuring Baral and as many 3 mana spells as possible.

Kiora, frankly, doesn't do anything more impressive than I can already do with Ulvenwald Hydra, Prism Array, Season's Past, and Part the Waterveil. Dovin Baan feels very similar; as I cast my 50th spell for the turn, and look at my field of 30/30 Spirit and Soldier tokens, I think to myself: It would have been much easier and faster for me to Mirrorpool or Startled Awake into a Deploy The Gatewatch for 2 Kozileks and an Emrakul.

What's key, though, is you'll notice that the broken decks that I can build tend to rely on a whole bunch of utterly broken mythics. Baral lets anybody spend $30 and start breaking stuff with a mishmash of commons, perhaps with a rare like Aetherflux Reservoir or Niblis of Frost thrown in.

Maybe this is good for the game? Why should the top players have access to unbridled power while those at the bottom are still slumming it with balanced cards like Exquisite Firecraft, Sword of the Animist, Herald of the Pantheon, or Displacement Wave? As Steeme says,

Steeme wrote:

Restricting all the goodies for the top of the leaderboards isn't good for anyone

I might counter that perhaps the long term viability of the game might be better served by busting down a bunch of other OP cards rather than giving anyone who pays money access to infinite combos. You be the judge.

(Dev team please note: Don't just nerf all my broken cards because I've listed them for you. Other broken cards that exist that I don't own include Olivia, Crush of Tentacles, Exert Influence, Dynavolt Tower, Drowner of Hope, Thopter Spy Network, and the forthcoming Rishka's Expertise. Also, other broken cards exist, too! I mean if you were to knock Geier's Reach Bandit, Lightning Runner and Desolation Twin down a peg or two, then I might stand a cat in hell's chance of coming first in Nodes of Power every once in a while. No amount of splitting the eights is going to make me as consistent as decks running those guys).


Saheeli, tho... now she's the real deal with Baral. So far I can't make her win on turn 5 more consistently than certain other planeswalkers in the game, but any other objective, she can do it a treat. Bored of waiting to kill 8 creatures, or lose 8 creatures? Or need to kill or lose 0? Need to drop your life total below 20 in order to win? (That's a pretty hard one, isn't it?) Take 0 damage, or 90 damage? Job Done. And while you may need to wait a few turns to draw into Baral with Coastal Discovery or Artificer's Epiphany, she is far from defenceless before then... Imprisoned in the Moon and Scatter to the Winds see to that. If you don't need speed and are worried about supports, stick a Demolish in your deck and you may as well be casting Consulate Crackdown. (One think I like about talking about Baral is I feel like I can talk openly without giving away my best secret tech, since any numpty can search through their list of spells that cost 3 or less and find the best ones to play).

I feel D3 really missed a trick by not releasing Saheeli for cash AFTER Baral, because I think there'd be loads of players who'd want to pay to win with both of those.

Anyway, onward, to more testing! How will non-combo decks fare? Is an 8 mana 5/5 which only draws a single card and gains 3 mana a turn good? Let's find out!

madwren

buscemi wrote:

What's key, though, is you'll notice that the broken decks that I can build tend to rely on a whole bunch of utterly broken mythics. Baral lets anybody spend $30 and start breaking stuff with a mishmash of commons, perhaps with a rare like Aetherflux Reservoir or Niblis of Frost thrown in.

I think this is an interesting point. While a lot of other for-sale mythics are simply individually powerful and don't necessarily boost other cards so much as render them obsolete, Baral is an enabler that creates multiple interesting strategies. They all revolve around the same type of spell abuse, but the individual components are a "season-to-taste" sort of mix.

octal9

buscemi wrote:

I feel D3 really missed a trick by not releasing Saheeli for cash AFTER Baral, because I think there'd be loads of players who'd want to pay to win with both of those.

I fully expected them to release Baral or Heart of Kiran as the offer when Saheeli went up for sale - Ulrich went on sale when Arlinn first hit the vault for crystals, Mirrorwing Dragon (lol) did the same when Sarkhan first hit the vault.

Was a bit stunned when it was just Saheeli out there.

nexus13

My problem with Baral is that he creates another situation where there are long chain combos where the AI turn takes forever. I really hate the matches that take 20+ minutes to complete. I really disliked Olivia as pay to win but at least she does it quickly. Baral is pay to win plus slow torture. People arguing that he is easy to kill miss multiple points, since there is nothing I can do to interrupt the AI turn then an answer on my turn is too late potentially. The other thing is even if I do get another turn he's dirt cheap to drop again and even if I win I still lose a ton of time waiting out his chain of spells. He's plain not fun to play against.