Ideas to fix (not nerf) Baral

wereotter

PastrySpider wrote:

Switching from draw to fetch would qualify as a major nerf I'd say. It limits the mana he provides to cards drawn which is generally quite low.

Again, my suggest for this thread was not to nerf him but change him so he's still very good, just different. If you just downgrade his power, people have a very legitimate argument that they should get a refund as the card they bought is now strictly worse than it used to be.

Let's be honest here. Any change to him that doesn't make him stronger than he already is, will by definition be a nerf.

I 100% disagree with blocking decks containing him from being a deck you can play against because of the precedent it sets for other existing and later cards. Don't like playing against battle pig? Start a petition to say the AI should be blocked form using it! Hate when the AI gets off Deploy? BAN THE DECK! While it *could* be constrained to one specific card, I doubt that will be the case. Similarly I don't think it's fair to say "I want full power when I play it, but nerfed for the AI" again not only for the same reasons as banning the deck, but also how do you deal with the idea of using Exert against an AI Baral? Does it remain the same nerfed card? What if you're using Baral in your own deck and steal the opponents? Does his coding overwrite yours? Will it take up two creature slots on the field? There's too much complexity in the coding for two versions to make that a realistic request.

Ultimately if you want to make sure he's not broken, you MUST change his abilities. Changing them will mean that he may be weaker as far as combos are concerned, but it's possible to make him continue to be a valuable card and still powerful while disabling his combos. Yes people will whine and complain, and yes they have a point considering they may have spent real money on him, and if they have to issue even partial refunds or other rewards to players who purchased him, then that may need to be a lesson learned on the devs end to know they must release balanced cards.

PastrySpider

I agree that anything they do that changes the card will cause complaints. I am just suggesting that if the changes actually open up new ways to play him, rather than strictly limiting him, then there will be much less complaint. As with my suggestion to have him provide his mana at the beginning of the turn, that means no crazy spell loops but opens him up to gradually charging up bigger spells. Give with one hand and take away with the other. Overall, a nerf probably but at least you get to try something new with him.

Dologan

Anything that gets suggested that would likely result in significant changes to the game engine itself has virtually zero chance of being adopted as a fix, unless it already happened to be in the works for some reason.

This includes ad hoc exclusion of decks including Baral, different rules for player/AI (e.g. hard limits on AI casting) and, unfortunately, real reductions to spell costs, which is how the paper version of Baral operates (every card using such a mechanic gets implemented as gaining X mana, temporarily or not).

In any case, I dislike the idea of artificially restricting decks based on the presence of a card. People should be able to face Baral, damnkitty.

My current preferred fix would be kind of a mix between the current form and Pastry's suggestion: when this creature enters the board, at the beginning of your turn and whenever you draw a card, all your spells gain 1 mana.

As the reduced mana gain is balanced by the higher number of conditions triggering it, I personally would not see such a change like a nerf. However, since there are few abusable 1-mana spells, I believe that this would significantly reduce the chance and length of spontaneous and long loops occurring, while also allowing for very powerful combos and chain-casting with careful setup. Also, this shouldn't require any changes to game mechanics, as there are already cards that individually have similar effects.

I would actually find it preferable and more exciting to play with, as it would encourage more creative deck building and strategic hand management, and thus interactivity, than just going Baral + Metallurgic/Niblis + all cheap spells, and just tapping away while praying that the next drawn card won't be a clogger.

Does anyone have objections to such a mechanic?

Mainloop25

With all these proposed changes, I think my "limit blue pw's to 5 spells per deck max" idea no longer sounds so far-fetched.

Gotcha617

All I know is I will be submitting for a refund if one thing happens to this card...card was clearly broken...community asked for it to be balanced before it dropped...they did nothing. Prepare to see this card being abused everywhere

Zustel1

I have purchased Baral with cash. I used him in different 3-mana-spells-decks for 2-3 days. Then it got boring. The win rate wasn't higher than with classic decks. It just took more time and wasn't any fun to play. And obviously I don't want a card I paid 30 € for to be nerfed until it's useless. I would be totally ok with changing his ability to max draw 3 times per turn. It would still work in all decks I use him.
EDIT: Better 3 draws per swap, because with Heart against Tezzeret I often use him over 10 swaps per turn. But Idk if that is implementable.

He is an awesome card and can be used in so many different ways, that it would be a waste to nerf him completely. I for example like to use him in combination with Day's Undoing and Talent of the Telepath. With these two cards you gain full control over your deck. Great for human players, probably useless for AI. And there will be much more great combinations, that are fun playing and playing against. Just give the players some time to figure that out.

Just an example of a Baral deck, with which I have a better (and much faster) win rate than with the trolling-spells:

Dovin Baan

Creatures
Baral, Chief of Compliance

Spells
Talent of the Telepath
Imprisoned in the Moon
Confiscation Coup
Day's Undoing
Saheeli's Artistry

Supports
Insidious Will
Gonti's Aether Heart
Era of Innovation
Deadlock Trap

andrewvanmarle

Baral's issue is not that he's OP, but that the ai can easily loop what he is doing and playing againsy a running loop isnt fun

So what about this: baral pumps out 3 mana when a spell is played, no card draw and the mana doesnt only go to spells like it does now.

You have a buch of 3 mana cards and you empty your hand, big deal. You play spells and you have a fatty you might charge your fatty

buscemi

andrewvanmarle wrote:

Baral's issue is not that he's OP, but that the ai can easily loop what he is doing and playing againsy a running loop isnt fun

Ok, how about this then: we make Baral an 8 mana 30/30 with haste which fetches another copy of itself when it comes into play. That way, he retains his ability to win on turn 2 or 3 with a half decent draw, but we don't have to sit through the AI looping.

hueyTW

I think the role of Baral is spell attacker now. My suggestion is improving the offensive but cut the long spell chain.

1. Add hexproof to Baral
2. All spells gain 7 mana and then lose 1 mana

This modification buff the ability of mana gain for Baral to exchange the ability of long spell chain. Hexproof make Baral become a good medium creature for more blue deck.

andrewvanmarle

hueyTW wrote:

I think the role of Baral is spell attacker now. My suggestion is improving the offensive but cut the long spell chain.

1. Add hexproof to Baral
2. All spells gain 7 mana and then lose 1 mana

This modification buff the ability of mana gain for Baral to exchange the ability of long spell chain. Hexproof make Baral become a good medium creature for more blue deck.

how does 2 work?

Zustel1

hueyTW wrote:

I think the role of Baral is spell attacker now. My suggestion is improving the offensive but cut the long spell chain.

1. Add hexproof to Baral
2. All spells gain 7 mana and then lose 1 mana

This modification buff the ability of mana gain for Baral to exchange the ability of long spell chain. Hexproof make Baral become a good medium creature for more blue deck.

This is perfect!

Phase

My solution would be to just cut the mana gain to 2. Would nearly kill all these combo decks depriving them of the powerful 3-drop spells (imprison, green conversion, coastal discovery, etc) but keep the card a useable value engine.

You could also cut the card draw completely and he'd probably still be balanced, but I think that'd be a little harsh.

span_argoman

From what I see, people still want to have the ability to loop spells (and their deck) with Baral. So we could look at delaying Baral's spell loop to give players a window to react to Baral entering the board.

Various (separate) suggestions to delay Baral's spell loop:

1. Baral does not charge spells with mana when entering the board.
2. When summoned, Baral gives the 3 mana to spells only at the end of the player's turn. This will ensure that the loop only starts the next turn so players have 1 turns out react to Baral. For coding purposes, the trigger timing can be the same as for Werewolves checking whether to transform or not.
3. When summoned, Baral gives 4 mana to all your spells in hand. Then drain 1 mana from each spell in hand.

hueyTW

andrewvanmarle wrote:

hueyTW wrote:

2. All spells gain 7 mana and then lose 1 mana

how does 2 work?

work as Baral's original behavior. Give mana to spells when ETB and draw spells. I just append the command "lose 1 mana" to make all spell's cost can't be reduced to zero.

For example, a 6 cost spell get 7 mana at first, 1 mana exceed the upper bound and is discard. The spell only get 6 mana. The "Lose 1 mana" command drain 1 mana from the spell. There is only 5 mana at the spell and it still need 1 mana to be cast.

PastrySpider

I like the more mana but minimum cost of 1 solution. Expands the usefulness but removes the loops. Nice!