Reigning in the Power of Omniscience

GrizzoMtGPQ

What if we amended this card to say the following:
Omniscience cannot reduce the cost of Omniscience to zero. Omniscience cannot be fetched.

Grixis197

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

What if we amended this card to say the following:
Omniscience cannot reduce the cost of Omniscience to zero. Omniscience cannot be fetched.

Omniscience cannot reduce the cost of itself to zero yes I agree and cannt be fetched no you should be able to still fetch it with whir of invention or however else you fetch it as long as it can’t reduce itself, but that’s the paper version does makes everything 0 cost including itself so who knows.

wereotter

Grixis197 said:

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

What if we amended this card to say the following:
Omniscience cannot reduce the cost of Omniscience to zero. Omniscience cannot be fetched.

Omniscience cannot reduce the cost of itself to zero yes I agree and cannt be fetched no you should be able to still fetch it with whir of invention or however else you fetch it as long as it can’t reduce itself, but that’s the paper version does makes everything 0 cost including itself so who knows.

Not being able to fetch it is kind of the point, else you can just run into endless Omnicience loops. Also in paper magic you can always respond to an Omniscience being cast with something like Overwhemling Denial or Last Word, or you can hit an Omniscience with a Krosan Grip once its in play. You can't do that in Puzzle Quest, so the card has to be adjusted for that reality.

GrizzoMtGPQ

The problem with Omniscience, as I see it, is the looping potential and how that unbalanced things. Whir reduces the cost of it by 7 and makes it come up more often. I'd bend on that one. The first clause is more important.

Mainloop25

Good suggestions. I have no problem with that, although that will relegate my Tezz1 back to the closet collecting dust. 

THEMAGICkMAN

"This support does not reinforce" would keep its strength and reduce the looping power.

ertaii

I'm amazed at how many of you own omniscience. I opened dozens of booster packs and many elite packs but did not get a single masterpiece, not to mention Omni. I wonder how many player actually own it.

octal9

ertaii said:

I'm amazed at how many of you own omniscience. I opened dozens of booster packs and many elite packs but did not get a single masterpiece, not to mention Omni. I wonder how many player actually own it.

Sometimes it feels like it's everyone except you and me, bud. I felt the same way about Gaea's Revenge until booster crafting.

Complaints about Omniscience exist for the same same reason pre-balanced Baral was problematic: as soon as he hit the board, it was an issue. Since the game is turn-based, you couldn't counter him until he hit the board (outside of Insidious Will, of course), but that's problematic since he's already done his damage by then. In some cases, you lost on the same turn he hit the board. People would lose without being able to act for upwards of 10 minutes, and that's the second worst feeling when taking a loss (top being a bug making you lose). And yes, Baral had other counters - like Scab-Clan Berserker, but that was often mooned away anyway.

You could make the argument that it should be changed so it can't be fetched. But then you should be asking whether the real problem here is Omniscience, or if it's Whir of Invention.

EldrosKandar

I'm sure that the silent majority are in the same situation, as I am too.

span_argoman

octal9 said:

ertaii said:

I'm amazed at how many of you own omniscience. I opened dozens of booster packs and many elite packs but did not get a single masterpiece, not to mention Omni. I wonder how many player actually own it.

Sometimes it feels like it's everyone except you and me, bud. I felt the same way about Gaea's Revenge until booster crafting.

Complaints about Omniscience exist for the same same reason pre-balanced Baral was problematic: as soon as he hit the board, it was an issue. Since the game is turn-based, you couldn't counter him until he hit the board (outside of Insidious Will, of course), but that's problematic since he's already done his damage by then. In some cases, you lost on the same turn he hit the board. People would lose without being able to act for upwards of 10 minutes, and that's the second worst feeling when taking a loss (top being a bug making you lose). And yes, Baral had other counters - like Scab-Clan Berserker, but that was often mooned away anyway.

You could make the argument that it should be changed so it can't be fetched. But then you should be asking whether the real problem here is Omniscience, or if it's Whir of Invention.

I was missing Gaea's Revenge until Booster Crafting too, as most people in my coalition still do. And I believe none of us have Omniscience either. It's just that if you don't have it, you don't have much to weigh in with in the discussion.

I have suffered several times against opponents who had an Omniscience or HUF (and even Swarm Intelligence) spring up a massive board state or an infinite loop. There's not much else to say about it. If people recognise that making multiple cards free with one card can make game balance go terribly awry (especially when you can chain one into another) then it's a matter of how much the community in general cares about dealing with such cards and experiences.

octal9

I absolutely agree.

My change would be to make it make cards in hand cost 50/75% less and then increase the shield by the same amount (or heck, more if you want - you could increase the shield to 10 to make up for loss of board impact). No net change in mana return (actually a net increase if you increase the shield more than you reduce card costs), gives the opponent opportunity to counterplay, and most importantly - gives the player more control over what they cast. You'd probably have to change Omni's cost itself to determine proper ROI.

Obviously a reduction in board impact though. Guess how popular that idea was with Omniscience owners!

I've thought the same about DtG for the longest time - too much mana return for too little invested. Could easily be a fetch two creatures to hand and give them both 12 mana (change cost to 14-18). Not OP, but not weak by any means.

GrizzoMtGPQ

@ertaii it was possible to get Omniscience because it was in an Elite Pack when re-rolls were allowed. That made it possible to get it. Now it's just luck.

@octal9 I agree that there are cards that have a pretty unbalanced ROI - Rishkar's Expertise, Nissa Renewal, Behold the Beyond, Days Undoing, Prism Array, etc. Though these cards are fun and don't cause these huge issues. The ones I want addressed are the ones you outlined - the ones for which no counter exists, those which are auto lose. Omniscience definitely falls into this camp as does pre-nerf Baral. I frequently have said unbalanced cards and still want them addressed. I want this game fair and fun above all. 

I don't think Deploy is that bad. Yeah it gets you a bunch of stuff for free but in the hands of the AI you can recover. Unless you have really problematic cards like Emrakul (essentially giving you time walk) or Decimator or Samut giving everything haste. On second thought let's fix this one too. I like your idea.

span_argoman

I like your idea of halving or quartering the mana cost of cards in hand for Omniscience and Swarm Intelligence, and I guess for the fetched cards for HUF. It gives the player more agency to reorder the discounted cards for maximised effect while giving the opponent a chance for counterplay as you said.

DtG is a little bit more problematic. HUF is crazier than Omniscience or Swarm Intelligence in that it fetches the (4) cards for you. So it's not only mana gain but also pseudo-card draw. It's capped by your hand size but DtG on the other hand throws the free creatures right onto the battlefield.

If we want to keep that aspect of bypassing the hand for Deploy the Gatewatch, maybe an option is to fetch 3 creatures still but cap the mana cost of the second and third to say 18 and 12 mana. Like how the Expertise (except Rishkar's) cards can target the next card costing X or less in your hand free.

A very unpopular option would be to have DtG wipe your board before fetching the free creatures.

*edit*
After thinking about the suggestions for changing DtG, I think HUF could do something like "Fetch the next 4 (3?) spells in your deck. The first fetched spell is free. The others have their cost reduced by 8 (just for example)." That way the card still has an immediate effect but isn't a flood of spells like it is now.

FindingHeart8

span_argoman said:

I like your idea of halving or quartering the mana cost of cards in hand for Omniscience and Swarm Intelligence, and I guess for the fetched cards for HUF. It gives the player more agency to reorder the discounted cards for maximised effect while giving the opponent a chance for counterplay as you said.

DtG is a little bit more problematic. HUF is crazier than Omniscience or Swarm Intelligence in that it fetches the (4) cards for you. So it's not only mana gain but also pseudo-card draw. It's capped by your hand size but DtG on the other hand throws the free creatures right onto the battlefield.

If we want to keep that aspect of bypassing the hand for Deploy the Gatewatch, maybe an option is to fetch 3 creatures still but cap the mana cost of the second and third to say 18 and 12 mana. Like how the Expertise (except Rishkar's) cards can target the next card costing X or less in your hand free.

A very unpopular option would be to have DtG wipe your board before fetching the free creatures.

*edit*
After thinking about the suggestions for changing DtG, I think HUF could do something like "Fetch the next 4 (3?) spells in your deck. The first fetched spell is free. The others have their cost reduced by 8 (just for example)." That way the card still has an immediate effect but isn't a flood of spells like it is now.

I've said this before when defending DtG and HUF, but I'm going to leave a short version of this right here for you guys too.

1) The AI generally favors playing the high cost creatures in hand, while shifting spells like Deploy the Gatewatch to the bottom, same with the AI not checking its hand size when playing HUF and only getting 1-2 free cards instead of it's full potential.  I understand that these cards are easy targets to hate on, but nerfing them (much like nerfing cycling combos, the only power strategy that's fairly obtainable for new players) would ultimately hurt active players more than it would weaken the AI opponents that rarely use their full potential anyways.

2) Yes, Omniscience is the modern Runaway Carriage nightmare.  Wouldn't be opposed to slight nerf to prevent infinite (or 20 minute) loops.  the "cant fetch itself," sounds like a good idea.

wereotter

Omniscience doesn’t fetch cards to begin with. It’s all the other engines it’s paired with. Cards like Rashmi or Whir of Invention.

The care absolutely needs to be addressed, but not letting it fetch itself doesn’t fix anything. 

DBJones

Actually, wouldn't making it impossible to reduce the mana cost of Omniscience fix most of the problems? It'd still give you three (four?) free cards of anything else, but couldn't loop itself. Plus Whir could still fetch it, but you'd still have to charge it up.

GrizzoMtGPQ

My idea was that Omniscience itself could not be fetched. There are a lot of broken things you can do where you can have other cards fetch Omniscience because it is the only support in the deck. Whir of Invention, Refurbish, Totem Hart Guidebeast. If Omniscience has to be drawn then it limits how many times it can slap you in the face.

Kinesia

DBJones potentially has a good solution except there are still other ways to play things for free. (Like Mirrorpool or the Minotaurs) Most of the suggested fixes make the engine more complicated to set things up but don't completely stop it. Which might be ok... Even attacking with creatures is just racing, it's all a race, so we want to slow things down enough that other ways to win are ok without completely breaking the thing so it's useless.

The not fetching thing, though, there are also deliberately 1 creature decks so you can fetch the exact thing, it's just they aren't as broken (yet). Oh, and HUF and fetching 1 spell.

DBJones

Can Mirrorpool charge supports? It only takes about spells and creatures on the card. I'm not sure what Minotaurs you mean, the one that gives you 4 when it damages a Planeswalker, maybe? Unless you meant something else, that doesn't seem like it would make a big difference.

wereotter

He might be referring to Wildfire Eternal, but that only makes the next spell in your hand free.

Another possible fix for Omniscience, rather than make cards free, is to have it just add a set amount of mana to every card in your hand at the start of turn. Then it can still be plenty powerful, but it doesn't immediately win the game, and then it doesn't need to lose shields at your upkeep.

khurram

I suppose we can live with Omniscience reducing a fraction of cost of cards in hand instead of making them totally free. But then it should absolutely does not lose shields when you cast anything. It will be more like overwhelming splendor and quarantine field but opposite in effect.