Planeswalker Rebalancing

Stormcrow

You dressed it up with a fancy chart and some math, but this really does just look like you're trying to inflict your idea of how PWs should work and how MTGPQ should be played on everyone else. I mean, besides your distaste for your own (narrow) definition of "troll" decks (the only deck I truly consider a troll deck is a Starfield lockdown deck with no creatures and no damaging spells. When you don't bother with a win condition other than "force the real human to quit in frustration", that's when I know you're trolling.), there's Koth clocking in at 16 under your analysis - comfortably in your 13-to-17 "optimal" range - and yet you want to nerf the everloving heck out of him. You want to nerf Kiora, who clocks in at 17, by hitting her 3rd ability (in a very impractical way - note that all Octopus tokens in the game are all 8/8, or were you going to nerf Crush of Tentacles too?), while Tezz 2, who also clocks in at 17, skates through untouched; and Nicol Bolas, clocking in at 18, gets a weaksauce -5 hp to "balance" him. Basically, your nerf suggestions don't line up with your own math, and amount to just nerfing the PWs you personally don't like.

I do actually like some of your buff suggestions - your ideas for Garruk in particular - but strip away a very long chart and this is still basically just like, your opinions, man. [/lebowski]

I'd love to see the Original 5 PWs get some love - either they need their gains improved or else they should be made true "beginner PWs" by having the rune costs to level them up significantly reduced compared to other PWs. The only one that really needs any ability tweaks is Jace. And Arlinn, I think we can all agree, needs a slight ability rework, so she's at least /usable/ in standard. But you went way beyond that, and a lot of it seems to be in pursuit of making all PWs play more like each other and all of their decks more...well, ordinary.

As far as deck limits go: I see absolutely no reason not to encourage people to run Tezz1 decks with 9 supports if that's what they want to do and they can make it work. (I will admit, I personally run a Tezz1 deck with just 1 support, but it is Omniscience and I am a terrible person.) And if someone wants to run a 10-spell Chandra1 burn deck, I say more power to 'em. Creatureless Garruk decks can make a lot of sense - he can fill all 3 creature slots with just his abilities, so you may not need any more. But again, I bet Tezz1, Garruk, etc., aren't really the PWs whose deck limits you are chiefly concerned with changing - once again, you're dressing it up as "objectivity" but you're really just out to shut down specific decks you've run into that you don't like. Don't do that. Or if you're gonna do it, at least be honest about it.

Planeswalkers are different from each other. Yes this makes them harder to balance, but it also keeps things interesting. Stick to fixing the most extreme outliers and stop trying to cap other peoples' creativity at the limit of your own.

MTG_Mage

The 'fancy' chart is a break down of each PW into numbers. Numbers are what they are, there are no opinions there. The only number on the chart that is partly subjective is Abilities. Even if you make the abilities column 0 for all PWs, there are huge differences between one to another, and they should all be at least close in totals.

Abilities define the PW. When making a deck, you look at the cards you have, then what PW the deck will work with by color, then in that color pick the PW whos abilities fit your deck, which leaves all the other points unimportant in deck design. 

The only nerfs indicated by points were small adjustments to a few PWs HP, and Saheeli's mana gains. Kiora and Koth were the other two and thats because their abilities are way overpowered. Even though PW ability usefullness varies greatly depending on the cards in the deck. 

Kiora's octopus token is a 32/32 with reach and trample for 24 PW points - compare that to any other token generated by a PW ability such as Garruk's largest, his beast tokens at a vanilla 12/12 for 15 PW points. Thats 0.8 creature per PW point vs Kioras 1.34. Other PWs less than a 1to1 creature per PW point but the creature has one ability, so if her token were 24/24 for 24 PW points (6/6 each) then that would be more balanced, but even still too strong considering she will be getting 1to1 and two abilities on the creature.

Koths first ability is just plain overpowered. It needs to be raised to 9 to be in line with all other PWs with good first abilities. More so is that there are dozens of threads complaining about this very thing. The reason for that is Koths first power blows up a lot of gems, which gets explosive mana gains AND generate a bunch of PW points so he can do it nearly every turn. The AI spams first abilities and with Koth it gets a ton of mana. Red decks are typically aggro and fast, so the AI can pilot fast beat down decks quite well as they are straightforward (unlike control decks or decks designed with specific usage of PW abilities, or decks depending on PW third abilities).

Also consider that all 3 of Kiora and Koths abilities are excellent and always usable whereas pretty much all other PWs have at least 1 ability that is subpar.

Deck limit suggestion was mainly to help out newer players so they wouldnt jam a ton of creatures in a deck and get frustrated and quit when they don't do well.

It would be nice to hear more suggestions on how others would like to adjust specific PWs instead of just criticizing the listed ideas. If you want to say something is bad than do so, but also suggest a solution as well. 

IM_CARLOS

PW are different and has to be different. For the story and for the game.

The early five are the cheapest and every one of them got more improved versions. So the first five are more the apprentice version of every pw. I went to story mode with this five and maxed at least one of them in this process. 

Runes are a problem this days but  in hero matches you get 250 runes and you know the opposing deck. You can  grind here.

I think no pw is broken, not even bolas. They can balance them but will cut the fun of the game. And yes the creature or more spell limits are good for deckbuilding skills. You have to limit  your rampaging skill with samut for instance.

I think special events for the apprentice pw could be a good way to give them a little more playtime. 

Thuran

@Hateborn

Dovin Baan is capped at 5 supports so a 6 support baan is impossible.

PS; have a pretty flawless bolas doom deck myself, but feel it really needs to run 3 supports, so I'm curious to see how you assembled your version can you pm the list?

Stormcrow

MTG_Mage said:

Kiora and Koth were the other two and thats because their abilities are way overpowered. Even though PW ability usefullness varies greatly depending on the cards in the deck.

Both of these PWs have been discussed/argued about many, many, many times on this forum before; I don't see any point in rehashing those arguments for the thirty thousandth time. Use the search function.

Kinesia

I've been playing with GW Ajani and it _is_ frustrating to have a 4 support limit, but the answer is to get a new green/white walker with differences, not to open him up.

His only true problem is mana, that is it. It's a _huge_ problem. I'd make green 3 and one of the other colours 1.

Dovin seems fine.

Bolas number 1 ability being destroy _is_ a problem. Ob at least has it at 2nd and has to pay life. Bolas should be -5-5 at max.
He _has_ changed my decks to completely being things I can bring back from the dead. I can't play Kaladesh energy creatures, only Scrapheap Scrounger, hexproof and embalm/eternalise creatures have any value now. There is too much "free" destroy

Koth needs his first ability to add "any matches from this ability do not generate mana" to stop it going over and over. It's better than just adjusting the cost. So it can set up a match for you manually still but that is all.

Kiora's octopuses are fine, Garruk's need a buff so his 3rd is closer.

Jace1... His 3rd needs to be "while this token is in play you have +1 hand size"

The beginning ones... The new ones need all their mana cut down, not the beginners boosted.

blacklotus

it is had to believe now, but the original pre-nerf Chamdra was the most OP pw ever. She was even more powerful than Koth.

Why? because her first ability used to cost only 3 loyalty points. One good cascade and you can be dealing 4 damage and cascading into more mana every turn till you win. 

Houdin

Stormcrow said:

You dressed it up with a fancy chart and some math, but this really does just look like you're trying to inflict your idea of how PWs should work and how MTGPQ should be played on everyone else. I mean, besides your distaste for your own (narrow) definition of "troll" decks (the only deck I truly consider a troll deck is a Starfield lockdown deck with no creatures and no damaging spells. When you don't bother with a win condition other than "force the real human to quit in frustration", that's when I know you're trolling.), there's Koth clocking in at 16 under your analysis - comfortably in your 13-to-17 "optimal" range - and yet you want to nerf the everloving heck out of him. You want to nerf Kiora, who clocks in at 17, by hitting her 3rd ability (in a very impractical way - note that all Octopus tokens in the game are all 8/8, or were you going to nerf Crush of Tentacles too?), while Tezz 2, who also clocks in at 17, skates through untouched; and Nicol Bolas, clocking in at 18, gets a weaksauce -5 hp to "balance" him. Basically, your nerf suggestions don't line up with your own math, and amount to just nerfing the PWs you personally don't like.

I do actually like some of your buff suggestions - your ideas for Garruk in particular - but strip away a very long chart and this is still basically just like, your opinions, man. [/lebowski]

I'd love to see the Original 5 PWs get some love - either they need their gains improved or else they should be made true "beginner PWs" by having the rune costs to level them up significantly reduced compared to other PWs. The only one that really needs any ability tweaks is Jace. And Arlinn, I think we can all agree, needs a slight ability rework, so she's at least /usable/ in standard. But you went way beyond that, and a lot of it seems to be in pursuit of making all PWs play more like each other and all of their decks more...well, ordinary.

As far as deck limits go: I see absolutely no reason not to encourage people to run Tezz1 decks with 9 supports if that's what they want to do and they can make it work. (I will admit, I personally run a Tezz1 deck with just 1 support, but it is Omniscience and I am a terrible person.) And if someone wants to run a 10-spell Chandra1 burn deck, I say more power to 'em. Creatureless Garruk decks can make a lot of sense - he can fill all 3 creature slots with just his abilities, so you may not need any more. But again, I bet Tezz1, Garruk, etc., aren't really the PWs whose deck limits you are chiefly concerned with changing - once again, you're dressing it up as "objectivity" but you're really just out to shut down specific decks you've run into that you don't like. Don't do that. Or if you're gonna do it, at least be honest about it.

Planeswalkers are different from each other. Yes this makes them harder to balance, but it also keeps things interesting. Stick to fixing the most extreme outliers and stop trying to cap other peoples' creativity at the limit of your own.

I wish there was a choice for "awesomeness " instead I just hit insightful. This thread has been hurting my brain for days, for exactly the reasons stated above. The forums in general have had an over abundance of entitlement posts lately, and honestly I can't believe I'm the one saying this. I've gotten in trouble a few times for being overly vocal towards austerity measures. 
Perhaps it's backlash from such an extended period of clawbacks and silence? 
I don't know.
To make this a relevant response.
No planeswalkers  need to be nerfed. 
Changing all the deck building constraints for every planeswalkers to be the same is unnecessary and bot in jeepung with the spirit of the game.
If you don't like playing creatureless decks than why are you playing magic? 
I run at least three that I can think of in paper magic.
The one and only thing that I am in agreement of is the fact that the starter walkers should either be cheaper to buy and level or be made slightly better to be usable for beginners, and arlinn at the very least should be altered slightly to be usable in standard. 
Once again. Great job so far Oktagon and thank you d3 for finally realizing the austerity measures were going to kill this game.

JopeX37

@JopeX37 ; using math for all the PW abilities is as fair a way to compare them. Mana bonuses are given -5 to give more weight to the bonuses above the weak mana gains of the original 5.

MTG_Mage said:

For instance, I find that any PW with less than a +4 mana bonus in their primary color will struggle. This is evident in the older PWs so I suggested they all get boosts.

earlier in this thread I addressed that any PW with gains less than +4 has issues and made sure to have all PWs get at least a +4 or +5 to at least one color.
I fully agree that the spread that Sarkhan gives overall poor gains, hence him getting a total mana overhaul.

But you're still missing my point, which was that in your original listing, Samut's and Sarkhan's mana were rated the same, and that is frankly ridiculous.  Either you need to overhaul Sarkhan's mana or the way you've decided to rate mana is flawed, it can't be both.  Not all ratings systems are created equally, and that the way you've done yours paints an incomplete picture.  I restate my assertion that if you're going to **** value to mana, any Green planeswalker should be given a bonus of some sort due to how much access is has to ramp.

All colors are not equal, however they all balance out to be of equal power in any few blocks due to WotC paying very close attention to what is in standard format. In paper or MTGPQ all colors are equally powerful, of course depending on what cards you have. I will give blue a slight overall edge in vintage due to counter abilities, but that doesnt exist in this game (insidious will is the closest and there is only one card that does that, so you cant have an all counter deck).

It isn't just counterspells.  In the paper game you have old power cards like Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Tolarian Academy,  Brainstorm, Gush, etc. that make Blue the best.  Pair these with newer staples like Gitaxian Probe, Treasure Cruise, Delver, Snapcaster Mage, and Jace TMS and it's clear it isn't just in Vintage, throughout the history of the game blue has been the best color.  I make this point only to make the point that like your assessment  of the paper game, the way you view power levels within the PQ game is flawed.  Blue has the single best removal spell in Imprisoned in the Moon, the best card draw(Pull, Array, NP, Days, Reason), the best Masterpiece(Omniscience), the best combo enablers(Baral, Swarm Intelligence, Whir, Waterveil, Metallurgic Summonings), the best boardwipe(Crush), the best steal effects(Exert, Lay Claim, Unesh), the best prison effects(Will, Drowner, Scatter, Censor, Sphinx's Tutelage) and the best cycling abusers(Drakes, Curator, NP).  And even after all that there's still Startled Awake, Rattlechains, Exert, Fevered Visions, and TSN.  No other color in this game can approximate all of these powerful effects, Blue is the best color, and to leave that out of your analysis means that the conclusions that you draw from it are flawed.

The 'fancy' chart is a break down of each PW into numbers. Numbers are what they are, there are no opinions there. The only number on the chart that is partly subjective is Abilities. Even if you make the abilities column 0 for all PWs, there are huge differences between one to another, and they should all be at least close in totals.

Oh there's plenty of opinion and subjectivity in there.  It is your opinion that having two colors is worth 2 points.  It is your opinion that restraints are worth what they are.  it is your opinion that if you just add all those numbers together it gives an accurate presentation of how powerful each walker is.  

aesith

People spending lots of time on numbers and calcs. Wow.
Just boost the mana gains on the original 5 please. Thier abilities are mostly still good and useful.