Cruel Reality needs a nerf?

Llorence

Almost everyone i play against has it, and its destroying me each time...

UweTellkampf

As much as I can see how many inquiries for balancing make sense, this one doesn’t really. Cruel reality is an annoying card, yes. But it is a mythic and should be annoying. Also, it doesn’t create long or endless loops, it is easily dealt with, and it is even okayishly prized. 

Emanon2000

I think it is on par where a Mythic should be... It is susceptible to removal just like Hixus or any of the other REALLY annoying support cards.  It only has 2 shields as well. The cost isn't low enough that most Black PW's can't get it out on a single black gem match.    There are FAR more broken cards in the game than this one.

With Booster Crafting everyone had better be packing some kind of removal (or 2).  With Starfield and other strong supports in the hands of many... the game is gonna have a huge shift for a while.

GrizzoMtGPQ

Cruel Reality is well balanced. Two shields, higher cost, cool effects. It's a perfect mythic in my opinion.

hawkyh1

try to counter with something like murder investigation.

HH

FindingHeart8

hawkyh1 said:

try to counter with something like murder investigation.

HH

an interesting suggestion, but you can't really counter a deck you're playing for the first (and probably only) time.  Murder investigation is a useful card for beginners but not an overall effective card to put in your 10 card deck just in case you face a deck with Cruel Reality.

-2/-2 per turn would be more manageable that -3/-3, but I'm against balancing cards in general...just make more new ones so people have more options to handle ye 'ol powerful cards.

Mainloop25

I don't think it needs a nerf. It's actually fairly fragile when you play it. 

HomeRn

FindingHeart8 said:

hawkyh1 said:

try to counter with something like murder investigation.

HH

an interesting suggestion, but you can't really counter a deck you're playing for the first (and probably only) time.  Murder investigation is a useful card for beginners but not an overall effective card to put in your 10 card deck just in case you face a deck with Cruel Reality.

-2/-2 per turn would be more manageable that -3/-3, but I'm against balancing cards in general...just make more new ones so people have more options to handle ye 'ol powerful cards.

Uh, come again?

Murder Investigation isn't just a beginner tool, it's a combo piece if you know how to use it right.  The tokens generated from it are considered to be "human," which is interesting since it doesn't mention it.  There are a number of cards that both benefit from it and/or buff humans.

Think Westvale Abbey for a moment... that card needs "humans" to die for it to transform into a 15/13 lifelinking, hasty, flying, demonic monster; the fact that the very same "humans" generated from Murder Investigation can generate more of them.  Now all you need to do is figure out a way to constantly sacrifice them for Westvale Abbey to transform and take over the game.  Also, there are a number of black humans that make a great pairing for Westvale Abbey when used with L3 (constantly anointing humans to trigger the transformation faster)!

FindingHeart8

HomeRn said:

FindingHeart8 said:

hawkyh1 said:

try to counter with something like murder investigation.

HH

an interesting suggestion, but you can't really counter a deck you're playing for the first (and probably only) time.  Murder investigation is a useful card for beginners but not an overall effective card to put in your 10 card deck just in case you face a deck with Cruel Reality.

-2/-2 per turn would be more manageable that -3/-3, but I'm against balancing cards in general...just make more new ones so people have more options to handle ye 'ol powerful cards.

Uh, come again?

Murder Investigation isn't just a beginner tool, it's a combo piece if you know how to use it right.  The tokens generated from it are considered to be "human," which is interesting since it doesn't mention it.  There are a number of cards that both benefit from it and/or buff humans.

Think Westvale Abbey for a moment... that card needs "humans" to die for it to transform into a 15/13 lifelinking, hasty, flying, demonic monster; the fact that the very same "humans" generated from Murder Investigation can generate more of them.  Now all you need to do is figure out a way to constantly sacrifice them for Westvale Abbey to transform and take over the game.  Also, there are a number of black humans that make a great pairing for Westvale Abbey when used with L3 (constantly anointing humans to trigger the transformation faster)!

I hope you use that combo in your decks, I would enjoy eventually facing off against it.

While I do acknowledge the fun (and potential effectiveness) of that combo, it's too vulnerable and easy to shut down for my tastes.  With many regular players now sporting decks filled with staple mythics, (Hixus + nyx for example) the need for more aggressive control is necessary if you want to optimum change of success.

Murder investigation grants you an endless supply of a single 1/1 blocker.  Your opponent's creatures have trample, flying, menace then it's a dead card in your deck.  You may be able to synchronize it with some cool stuff but it still won't be quick enough or fast enough to compete with most top tier decks.

Westvale Abbey is another fun but slow card.  Since that card was brought to mtgpq I've never lost a single match to a player who dropped it, but I will admit it usually caught my attention and wondered what combo was set to go with it.  Sometimes I'd even slow down my attack and wait the opponents deck out so I could see what combo was used to activate it, then hit it with a kill spell as soon as it finally flips.

tl dr: Combos with Murder Investigation (even if it isn't just a beginner card) in my opinion don't go much beyond early advanced players.  There's too many better cards that can easily overrun the best combos with it.

I would not encourage you to take it out of your decks though, I would not be opposed to facing it one day in the game and seeing what you did with it.

Llorence

still, i have starfield of nix, and even that doesn't seem as good as cruel reality, and cruel is cheaper to boot

HomeRn

FindingHeart8 said:

HomeRn said:

FindingHeart8 said:

hawkyh1 said:

try to counter with something like murder investigation.

HH

an interesting suggestion, but you can't really counter a deck you're playing for the first (and probably only) time.  Murder investigation is a useful card for beginners but not an overall effective card to put in your 10 card deck just in case you face a deck with Cruel Reality.

-2/-2 per turn would be more manageable that -3/-3, but I'm against balancing cards in general...just make more new ones so people have more options to handle ye 'ol powerful cards.

Uh, come again?

Murder Investigation isn't just a beginner tool, it's a combo piece if you know how to use it right.  The tokens generated from it are considered to be "human," which is interesting since it doesn't mention it.  There are a number of cards that both benefit from it and/or buff humans.

Think Westvale Abbey for a moment... that card needs "humans" to die for it to transform into a 15/13 lifelinking, hasty, flying, demonic monster; the fact that the very same "humans" generated from Murder Investigation can generate more of them.  Now all you need to do is figure out a way to constantly sacrifice them for Westvale Abbey to transform and take over the game.  Also, there are a number of black humans that make a great pairing for Westvale Abbey when used with L3 (constantly anointing humans to trigger the transformation faster)!

I hope you use that combo in your decks, I would enjoy eventually facing off against it.

While I do acknowledge the fun (and potential effectiveness) of that combo, it's too vulnerable and easy to shut down for my tastes.  With many regular players now sporting decks filled with staple mythics, (Hixus + nyx for example) the need for more aggressive control is necessary if you want to optimum change of success.

Murder investigation grants you an endless supply of a single 1/1 blocker.  Your opponent's creatures have trample, flying, menace then it's a dead card in your deck.  You may be able to synchronize it with some cool stuff but it still won't be quick enough or fast enough to compete with most top tier decks.

Westvale Abbey is another fun but slow card.  Since that card was brought to mtgpq I've never lost a single match to a player who dropped it, but I will admit it usually caught my attention and wondered what combo was set to go with it.  Sometimes I'd even slow down my attack and wait the opponents deck out so I could see what combo was used to activate it, then hit it with a kill spell as soon as it finally flips.

tl dr: Combos with Murder Investigation (even if it isn't just a beginner card) in my opinion don't go much beyond early advanced players.  There's too many better cards that can easily overrun the best combos with it.

I would not encourage you to take it out of your decks though, I would not be opposed to facing it one day in the game and seeing what you did with it.

Abbey was designed to be a slow card... however there are some really fun ways to making it faster.

White does have the aforementioned Murder Investigation, but that usually requires more supports and/or buff spells to make that work (cards that give a creature reach or defender will force the creature's position to change).  From what I'm seeing is that it's usually better to give the humans static buffs in addition to giving them berserker so that they find a way to sacrifice themselves to the Abbey - and keep the loop going through Murder Investigation.

Red on the other hand... has a number of interesting ways to speed up Westvale Abbey.  Burn spells are an option - especially those that can hit all creatures (like say, Sweltering Suns) so that the Abbey really speeds up AND you deal some damage to all of your opponent's creatures!  Then there's also Serpentine Spike (14 mana for 4, 5, then 6 damage to up to 3 different targets) and Deem Worthy (11 mana for 12 damage and can be cycled) which can be used to potentially chunk large amounts of time before the Abbey flips.  Not to mention there's Giant Spectacle shenanigans... (force your opponent's creature to attack the Abbey instead of your face!!)

bk1234

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

Cruel Reality is well balanced. Two shields, higher cost, cool effects. It's a perfect mythic in my opinion.

I agree with this, I don’t have it, but it is cast against me often. It makes marches tough, but it’s beatable.

Stormcrow

So it's a bit off-topic, but:

HomeRn said:

Abbey was designed to be a slow card... however there are some really fun ways to making it faster.

I have always liked Westvale Abbey (it's awesome just on flavor alone) and I really wanted there to be a way for it to work effectively in this game, but after trying it extensively in a bunch of decks under a bunch of different Planeswalkers...it just doesn't. Not with the 3-creature limit on the board, and token reinforcements not counting as additional creatures, meaning the most humans you can possibly have on the board is 2 (plus the Abbey itself). And with the Abbey's human tokens being unique, you can't even combine the Abbey with another creature that generates human tokens (Sigarda for example). The limitations just mean the Abbey is unavoidably too slow; the number of turns it has to be on the board (without getting turned into a frog or a moon token or otherwise offed)  before it can flip means that by the time you've devoted all that effort, deckspace, and most of your in-play creature slots to actually getting it to combo off, the results of said combo (one fatty with lifelink, still very killable) just aren't impressive compared to what you could've accomplished in a few turns of playing other, better cards. It's sad, because like I said, I really like Abbey and want it to work and be fun, but it just...isn't good. Maybe if the Abbey started with 25 toughness, and Ormendahl had hexproof and trample, but as it stands, too much work for too little gain.

rafalele

Does not need nerf, needs to come to my library as soon as posible.

FindingHeart8

Abbey was designed to be a slow card... however there are some really fun ways to making it faster.

White does have the aforementioned Murder Investigation, but that usually requires more supports and/or buff spells to make that work (cards that give a creature reach or defender will force the creature's position to change).  From what I'm seeing is that it's usually better to give the humans static buffs in addition to giving them berserker so that they find a way to sacrifice themselves to the Abbey - and keep the loop going through Murder Investigation.

Red on the other hand... has a number of interesting ways to speed up Westvale Abbey.  Burn spells are an option - especially those that can hit all creatures (like say, Sweltering Suns) so that the Abbey really speeds up AND you deal some damage to all of your opponent's creatures!  Then there's also Serpentine Spike (14 mana for 4, 5, then 6 damage to up to 3 different targets) and Deem Worthy (11 mana for 12 damage and can be cycled) which can be used to potentially chunk large amounts of time before the Abbey flips.  Not to mention there's Giant Spectacle shenanigans... (force your opponent's creature to attack the Abbey instead of your face!!)

I applaud your fascination with the card.  I think it's an interesting card too, and I do actually run it with my charge chandra, where the 2nd ability (with charge counters) can activate it moderately quickly.

My main point here wasn't that murder investigation or Abbey weren't fun cards that brought their own little charm to the game, but that they are combo pieces that take several turns (with good mana swaps) to be able to even get rolling, and when they do it's too easy to shut down (with kill spells for Abbey as low as 3cmc for blue, 3 and 5 for black, and 6 for white).  When the solution to your combo is less than half the cost of 1 of one of the multiple cards you need for your combo, I do not consider that an even trade, and wouldn't expect to see it in any decks beyond the beginner-intermediate level (unless someone was just having fun goofing off.)

FindingHeart8

I have always liked Westvale Abbey (it's awesome just on flavor alone) and I really wanted there to be a way for it to work effectively in this game, but after trying it extensively in a bunch of decks under a bunch of different Planeswalkers...it just doesn't. Not with the 3-creature limit on the board, and token reinforcements not counting as additional creatures, meaning the most humans you can possibly have on the board is 2 (plus the Abbey itself). And with the Abbey's human tokens being unique, you can't even combine the Abbey with another creature that generates human tokens (Sigarda for example). The limitations just mean the Abbey is unavoidably too slow; the number of turns it has to be on the board (without getting turned into a frog or a moon token or otherwise offed)  before it can flip means that by the time you've devoted all that effort, deckspace, and most of your in-play creature slots to actually getting it to combo off, the results of said combo (one fatty with lifelink, still very killable) just aren't impressive compared to what you could've accomplished in a few turns of playing other, better cards. It's sad, because like I said, I really like Abbey and want it to work and be fun, but it just...isn't good. Maybe if the Abbey started with 25 toughness, and Ormendahl had hexproof and trample, but as it stands, too much work for too little gain.

heck if they gave Ormendahl prevent damage I could see him getting a bit more play.  Would make him feel more like the highest cost Amonkhet God (since they all take a bit of preparation to get functional).

blacklotus

i never bother to use it even when i pulled it in the 2nd week of akh set release. not my style of play. too fragile and  passive and slow to get rid of critters, especially dangerous ones. 

Bil

I actually think cruel reality is a very annoying support but not overpowered which is precisely what a mythic support has to be. Not too hard to destroy, it will slow your game but allows you to keep playing, and it won't damage you too fast neither if you ain't got creatures.

I think a few supports would be better candidates for a nerf. Sandwurm convergence seems more unbalanced to me... Popping a 5/5 creature each turn is far enough for 13 mana... Adding the anti flying creature seems a bit too much for a single card. 

Mainloop25

blacklotus said:

i never bother to use it even when i pulled it in the 2nd week of akh set release. not my style of play. too fragile and  passive and slow to get rid of critters, especially dangerous ones. 

Yeah it's not great if it's your only method of creature destruction, but it's almost like having an extra creature/spell on the board to supplement your overall strategy. 

Sirchombli

It's important to build your decks to be prepared for things like this. Supports can absolutely stop you dead. So prepare for them. I kind of plan for the worst case scenario in deck building. 3 out of 5 colors have support destruction that cycles. There's absolutely no reason not to run it. Those 3 colors also have alternate support destruction if you don't like the cycling ones. Seems silly to cry for a nerf because a card is annoying. Most good cards are annoying to play against. Oh, also, mono blue and mono black are asking to get pegged down by supports. Wouldn't use them in standard unless you don't have any other options. 

Kinesia

Hmmm, actually, Sorin, The Abbey, Murder Investigation, and our new Christmas Gift...

It's beginning to look a lot like a frosty christmas sacrifice at the Abbey...