Ixalan card costs

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  • IM_CARLOS
    IM_CARLOS Posts: 640 Critical Contributor
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    Every set after ori had some broken card or mechanic (cycle), but they have to, or everybody just play and buy origin packs.
    If something become meta defining thing had to to be nerfed.

    Ixl seems to need a nerf to be on par with origin. 
  • DBJones
    DBJones Posts: 803 Critical Contributor
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    I agree that AMK/HOU is mostly well-balanced. The commons give you more options then the Origins ones, but the Origins ones are still playable. I personally think even the Mythics in Origins are fine compared to their cost, we've just got more ramp and ways to get things out for free that makes them overpowered. Well, Nyx and Hixus together is nasty, but there's more support removal now. Overall, I think Origins is a reasonable standard now, and AMK/HOU will be once/if they properly balance Cycling, Omniscience, and probably a few more (HUF seems most likely). Nyx and Gaea might get the same, but I think that would mostly be because of combinations with cards from other sets, unlike Cycling. Omniscience can be nasty with any set, they all have high cost, high reward cards.
  • greven
    greven Posts: 5 Just Dropped In
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    Regarding hp, i prefer to keep my pw at low level. Lightning runner is more deadly againts Greg with 30 hp (imagine Tyrant). Pyramid of the Pantheon, Days Undoing etc2 also become more powerful mana ramp for low level pw... i dunno, something is wrong here, but many cards "seem" to be more powerful for low level pw... and low level pw = faster battle time...
    Maybe thats why card cost should be up... to encourages player level their pw up... for mana sake
  • greven
    greven Posts: 5 Just Dropped In
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    And my imminent doom is shining againts low hp pw...
  • andrewvanmarle
    andrewvanmarle Posts: 971 Critical Contributor
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    amk/hou is a good yardstick to measure the balance by.
  • andrewvanmarle
    andrewvanmarle Posts: 971 Critical Contributor
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    wereotter said:
    I was referring to comparing the cards to their paper counterparts, not stats from the set overall. The power and toughness of most creatures are about the same as the power and toughness of creatures from the paper set with the exception mostly of a few cards being pumped up too much, or being pumped up possibly because they didn't know how to otherwise implement their mechanics. For example, Dwynen's paper card is a 3/4 with reach that gives your other elves +1/+1. Assuming you have two other elves in play that counterbalances the Puzzle Quest version being a 5/6............snip
    The main difference is that we play against opponents with roughly 5 times the live of that of a paper player.
    Disregarding omniscience and cycling  the balance of standard was actually fine. Sure, some singular cards may be toned down a touch, but meta as a whole doesnt need this new perceived standard. We are better off playing origins cards than ixalan cards at the moment.
  • FindingHeart8
    FindingHeart8 Posts: 2,730 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I'm glad to see there's a lot of agreement in this poll :)
  • Thuran
    Thuran Posts: 456 Mover and Shaker
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    I voted that Origins is probably not the best baseline, because it does feature some cards that are a little out of whack, even for the base set.

    The truth is probably close to origins, but I think 13 mana for a 4/4 and a card each turn is a few mana off, as is 6 mana to discard 2 cards, and 19 mana for a 4/4 is closer to ixalan than innistrad, knight of the white orchid is also a mana or two overcosted I feel, whereas avaricious dragon feels just perfect.

    Wonder why people complain over a 9/9 for 18, when origins states 15 mana equals a 6/6 approx ;)

    Origins gets really close I feel, and could do with a few small tweaks, but was also built for a different set of walkers, and ixalan IS balanced same as Origins, relative to the mana gains.

    Remember that back then a high mana gain was like +3/+4 rather than +9. So origins probably needs adjusting to reflect current gains to make it the best baseline for modern mtgpq.


  • Emanon2000
    Emanon2000 Posts: 156 Tile Toppler
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    While I don't like the look of things... I think it is entirely too early to say whether or not the set is 'Good' or 'Bad'   Events and Mechanics may reveal themselves as making the cards relevant.  Until the set is released and we have had a solid 2 weeks under our belt... It is too soon to tell.
  • Bil
    Bil Posts: 831 Critical Contributor
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    As origins is the only set meant to remain in standard on the long term, it would make sense to use it as a reference for balancing new cards
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Planeswalker life totals have also inflated over time. Your average Origins planeswalker has about 90 health at max whereas now we’re hitting closer to 120.

    And yes. I’ve brought up tyrant and Olivia before. And you know why? Because they haven’t changed here and their physical cards will never change. Tyrant, along with Skysovereign, are grossly over powered not just based off their inflated power and toughness, which is the part you focused on, but also their ETB effects. Both deal 3 damage to a creature or player on entering the field in the paper game, here Tyrant deals twice that much to everything. That’s 3 ETB damage verses 24 ETB damage, or an 8x power increase. Skysovereign got its power doubled and deals 20 damage on entering as opposed to 3. 

    Higher life totals only can justify so much, especially when there’s literally no failsafe in check as to how much power a player can put onto the field in a single turn, especially early turns. There’s a natural barrier in the physical game that makes early turns balanced considering you can only play one land per turn. Here you can cascade out your whole hand of 20+ mana spells, and a higher starting life total is all that creates balance and allows the other player to survive long enough to stand a chance at answering your cascade. 

    Additionally, higher life, even in the paper game, doesn’t mean creatures scale to adjust. I’ve never played a commander game where everyone says all the creatures and spells should do double damage because everyone starts at 40....
  • Szamsziel
    Szamsziel Posts: 463 Mover and Shaker
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    Flaw in your explanation: in commander actually power of creatures which can hurt you are doubled (if there are 3 players) or multiplied depending on amount of players.
    Life is one of the benchmarks for how long the game should last.
    More life - longer games if there are no other changes. Remember that match against one player is predicted to last 40-50 minutes (so let assume 15 minutes per game). How long you'd like to play against one opponent in a mobile game?
  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
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    We can't compare to the paper Skysovereign since crew is a completely different animal. However, I still will, in paper it is a 5 mana flying 6/5 that does 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker when it enters the battlefield or when it attacks. It's ability can trigger multiple times and it is dirt cheap at 5 mana for a 6/5. Skysovereign is very powerful in this game but given its mana cost, it is only "OP" in the hands (deck) of Saheeli Rai. That speaks more to Hibernum's design philosophy since she was changed to interact with vehicles when KLD finally came out and I think that was their way or really pushing vehicles. Much like crew, this game is a different animal than paper. There is no combat strategy in this game and that is probably the most key aspect of paper.

    Tyrant isn't OP either. It is a very strong card and one that can cause some serious hurt but it's not OP. You can very quickly deal with a tyrant for 1-8 mana in any color. The only beef people have with it is that some PvE encounters spit it out like it cost 5 mana.
  • FindingHeart8
    FindingHeart8 Posts: 2,730 Chairperson of the Boards
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    wereotter said:
    Planeswalker life totals have also inflated over time. Your average Origins planeswalker has about 90 health at max whereas now we’re hitting closer to 120.

    And yes. I’ve brought up tyrant and Olivia before. And you know why? Because they haven’t changed here and their physical cards will never change. Tyrant, along with Skysovereign, are grossly over powered not just based off their inflated power and toughness, which is the part you focused on, but also their ETB effects. Both deal 3 damage to a creature or player on entering the field in the paper game, here Tyrant deals twice that much to everything. That’s 3 ETB damage verses 24 ETB damage, or an 8x power increase. Skysovereign got its power doubled and deals 20 damage on entering as opposed to 3. 

    Higher life totals only can justify so much, especially when there’s literally no failsafe in check as to how much power a player can put onto the field in a single turn, especially early turns. There’s a natural barrier in the physical game that makes early turns balanced considering you can only play one land per turn. Here you can cascade out your whole hand of 20+ mana spells, and a higher starting life total is all that creates balance and allows the other player to survive long enough to stand a chance at answering your cascade. 

    Additionally, higher life, even in the paper game, doesn’t mean creatures scale to adjust. I’ve never played a commander game where everyone says all the creatures and spells should do double damage because everyone starts at 40....
    not quite sure where you're going with this, but I'm just gonna add my 2 cents in that I actually like Tryant and Skysovereign as is.

    I'm yet to own either, and have often grumbled when facing them (especially with Saheeli's 3rd ability fetches a boomship squadron and wipes my field).  However, apart from my own saltiness on those experiences, I buffing of those cards made them so much more appealing.  I didn't give the paper versions a second glance when they came out, because they were "meh" at best.

    Without more than 3 creature slots, a 2nd main phase, a stack you can respond to, and the ability to face off against your friends, (and the obvious gem-swap mechanic) this game will always be Magic-esque at best.  I like that they try to keep the mtgpq cards similar to the paper mtg cards, but some deviation is nice :)
  • bk1234
    bk1234 Posts: 2,924 Chairperson of the Boards
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    [MOD MIC ON] Merged into existing discussion on topic. While polls can be a useful tool in these forums, please refrain from making polls to "settle" discussions in other posts -- redundant posts and polls will be merged. [//MOD MIC]
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
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    @ZW2007- It would be interesting to do similar stat comparisons on the common, uncommon, rare, mythic rarities of origins and ixalan.

  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
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    You know, I've been so focused on the rares, mythics, and masterpieces... I hadn't noticed the largest piece of garbage card in the set in terms of cost vs effectiveness - Dusk Legion Dreadnought. That is easily the most overpriced creature for it's value on the field I have ever seen. I faced a Saheeli deck in the new Valentine's Event that was using it and it was a complete joke watching the AI dump all of it's supercharged mana into trying to cast this thing 3 times.

    Even if you try to Crew it instead, you've gotta drop 8 creatures on the field to put it out that way. What a garbage pile.
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Brakkis said:
    You know, I've been so focused on the rares, mythics, and masterpieces... I hadn't noticed the largest piece of garbage card in the set in terms of cost vs effectiveness - Dusk Legion Dreadnought. That is easily the most overpriced creature for it's value on the field I have ever seen. I faced a Saheeli deck in the new Valentine's Event that was using it and it was a complete joke watching the AI dump all of it's supercharged mana into trying to cast this thing 3 times.

    Even if you try to Crew it instead, you've gotta drop 8 creatures on the field to put it out that way. What a garbage pile.

    And yet the _human_ playing that deck would've been fine because they would never have cast it and only gotten it for free from Saheeli's ultimate.

    The AI's (lack of) priorities is somewhat of a pain occasionally...
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Brakkis said:
    You know, I've been so focused on the rares, mythics, and masterpieces... I hadn't noticed the largest piece of garbage card in the set in terms of cost vs effectiveness - Dusk Legion Dreadnought. That is easily the most overpriced creature for it's value on the field I have ever seen. I faced a Saheeli deck in the new Valentine's Event that was using it and it was a complete joke watching the AI dump all of it's supercharged mana into trying to cast this thing 3 times.

    Even if you try to Crew it instead, you've gotta drop 8 creatures on the field to put it out that way. What a garbage pile.
    You get a little more value if you use pilots to crew the Dreadnought to give it flying and first strike, but that would have to be in a red/white deck....
  • ElfNeedsFood
    ElfNeedsFood Posts: 944 Critical Contributor
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    wereotter said:
    Brakkis said:
    You know, I've been so focused on the rares, mythics, and masterpieces... I hadn't noticed the largest piece of garbage card in the set in terms of cost vs effectiveness - Dusk Legion Dreadnought. That is easily the most overpriced creature for it's value on the field I have ever seen. I faced a Saheeli deck in the new Valentine's Event that was using it and it was a complete joke watching the AI dump all of it's supercharged mana into trying to cast this thing 3 times.

    Even if you try to Crew it instead, you've gotta drop 8 creatures on the field to put it out that way. What a garbage pile.
    You get a little more value if you use pilots to crew the Dreadnought to give it flying and first strike, but that would have to be in a red/white deck....
    Pilots. Lol. Depala looks cheap now. 

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