Enough is Enough with Baral

Diabeetus

Look. I own him. I paid the thirty dollars. But it's making the game MISERABLE. I would say a good half of the decks I go against now are based around him combined with Imprison the Moon and Negate. There's no stopping it once it starts. I'm sick of it. The rounds take eons, and it makes me want to quit. Keep my stinking money. You're killing the fun of the game. He is the Koth of cards - cheap, boring, and overplayed by everyone.

Diabeetus

Heck, I got mooned 7 times in one turn. I've known drunk frat guys that do less mooning than that.

Diabeetus

AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. SICK OF IT.

I'm now pressing quit every time I see him cast. Please please PLEASE. Keep my money. Just for the love of all that is holy, do an emergency maintenance and nerf him ASAP.

erakbgg

Something tells me I should stick to the silver tier for as long as I can. I haven't seen this at all where I am.

wereotter

I agree. I bought him, I had my fun with him, and now he's just added to the list of decks that I face constantly that I dread going up against. He's become the last straw for me now, and I just log in to do coalition events so I don't let them down, and PvE events because I'm so sick to death of him.

This issue needs addressing since it's one that will drive people away from the game.

Furks

Agreed, he's such an annoying card to play against or with. (and I own him)

It's been suggested multiple times; change him to charge spells by 3 at the start of your turn instead of when drawn. This prevents the endless looping while opening up the strategy of charging expensive spells over multiple turns.

He would still be very strong but not ridiculous infinite loop annoying.

Phase

The card needs to be hotfixed. Any other game would have hotfixed a card with this many feelbad experiences by now. Make it 2 mana instead of 3 as an emergency nerf to prevent Moon cycling and he can be redesigned later if necessary.

Let's go D3 do the right thing here. The card is warping the meta in a really unhealthy way.

MTG_Mage

3 solutions to fix Baral:

reduce the mana gained from entering the battlefield and drawing a spell from 3 to 2
OR
if a spell is at full mana as a result of mana gained from Baral, that spell loses 1 mana
OR
increase the cost of the 10 or so problematic spells of cost 3 or less to 4 or more

Option 3 is the best option as it does not touch Baral and thus people wont be demanding refunds. To implement that and curb the endless loops
the following cards need to have their cost adjusted to 4:

natural connection
costal discovery
stratus walk
negate
scatter to the winds
imprisoned in the moon (this card needs its cost to be increased to at least 6 and up to 9)
transgress the mind
whispers of emrakul

imprisoned in the moon - what were they thinking when they made this cost 3? This is by far the most obsurd card cost translation in the game.
Black has a few good removal spells at 5 (which is color appropriate), there are a few conditional ones at 6, most other colored removal is 8 or 9, and colorless at 12...so what made the dev team think that 3 was good for a blue spell?! It MUST be increased to 8 or 9, considering turn to frog is 9 and this is arguably better as it is, and some PWs can get up to 8 in a single gem match.

Caeman

Fought a Baral deck. Knew I was fighting one when I saw all the cheapy blue and green spells.

Ten minutes for a **** spell storm.

Won the fight.

Game crashed.

Auto lose.

**** NERF BARAL!!!!!!

Caeman

Another possible way to nerf this guy is to make it so he can ONLY load blue spells.

No colourless, no red, no black, no white, definitely no green, JUST blue.

Monkeynutts

I lost two Node games to it.

I quit both games. One combo went pn the eight minutes.

Great f**king developing there.

wereotter

MTG_Mage wrote:

3 solutions to fix Baral:

reduce the mana gained from entering the battlefield and drawing a spell from 3 to 2
OR
if a spell is at full mana as a result of mana gained from Baral, that spell loses 1 mana
OR
increase the cost of the 10 or so problematic spells of cost 3 or less to 4 or more

Option 3 is the best option as it does not touch Baral and thus people wont be demanding refunds. To implement that and curb the endless loops
the following cards need to have their cost adjusted to 4:

natural connection
costal discovery
stratus walk
negate
scatter to the winds
imprisoned in the moon (this card needs its cost to be increased to at least 6 and up to 9)
transgress the mind
whispers of emrakul

imprisoned in the moon - what were they thinking when they made this cost 3? This is by far the most obsurd card cost translation in the game.
Black has a few good removal spells at 5 (which is color appropriate), there are a few conditional ones at 6, most other colored removal is 8 or 9, and colorless at 12...so what made the dev team think that 3 was good for a blue spell?! It MUST be increased to 8 or 9, considering turn to frog is 9 and this is arguably better as it is, and some PWs can get up to 8 in a single gem match.

People haven't had much to say about it, but the solution I, personally, prefer for him is simply to change his second ability from drawing a card whenever you cast a spell to drawing a card whenever you discard a card. I think people don't see the benefit immediately, but here are a couple of instances where this is handy:

Mad Prophet, Sphinx's Tutelage and cards like them now are discard a card, draw two cards.
Cathartic Reunion is discard two cards, draw 5 cards
Skeleton Key would give unblockable and discard a card then draw a card
Lightning Axe would deal 6 damage to a creature for the cost of discarding a card then drawing a card
Wharf Infiltrator and Smuggler's Copter would discard then draw 2 cards when they attack
Crow of Dark Tidings would discard a card when it dies, convert 3 gems to black, then you draw a card
Wolf of Devil's Breach would discard a card, deal 5 damage to your opponent and each of your opponent's creatures, then draw

That's just some of what you can trigger on your own, not to mention the benefit you get when your opponent casts a card like Transgress the Mind/Whispers of Emrakul/Infinite Obliteration, of if you're playing against Origins Liliana where the AI spams her first ability whenever possible.

AresOmega

Oh my Lord, no. Olivia would have no drawbacks to casting her. Saheeli + Baral + Olivia *shudder*

wereotter

AresOmega wrote:

Oh my Lord, no. Olivia would have no drawbacks to casting her. Saheeli + Baral + Olivia *shudder*

Eew, true.... I don't own Olivia so didn't think of that interaction. I rescind my previous suggestion, unless they also take my Olivia nerfs as well (she doesn't buff herself, gives a smaller buff, and doesn't grant flying or lifelink)

carlosmatador137

Must agree, If Baral goes past 60 seconds I just quit, I don't have 10 minutes to waste waiting on one turn, especially since I am 98% losing at that point anyway, especially with haunted cloak providing haste.

Completely absurd that they can start the turn with nothing on the board and still end up doing 100+ damage. I should at least have 1 turn to respond. This card is completely broken and needs to be fixed immediately. All nodes battles are basically pointless because you are going to lose almost every time this card shows up.