We need to talk about StV

khurram

It's time we did this. StV is the most degenerate card present in the standard. I'd even say that it is a worse offender than Rishkar's Expertise in the history of broken cards.

And don't anyone give me that cute, "But .... but you need to set it up first *blink*  ."

I love exploiting broken cards as much as the next guy (even more maybe). But let's just acknowledge what we've all been hiding in our basements. 

ElfNeedsFood

It's definitely a problem when you see a blue gem converter in mono red walkers' decks... 

That said, it's still not nearly as degenerate to the game as New Perspectives was...  \

Of course Guilded Lotus got the actual nerf...

Brakkis

We really don't and it really isn't.

It's a fantastic card but it's not broken. Yes it converts like crazy; however, it is susceptible to support removal (of which there is ample amounts) both before it flips and after. Most big converters are spells and thus, are harder to stop. 

Not every powerful card that bucks a trend needs to be nerfed. 

Unknown

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arevala

It's not broken (almost...) but is one of the cards to definitely be afraid of. Same happended in standard with olivia, decimator, deploy (broken) and a long etc

madwren

It's worse than Startled Awake. For that card, people often sallied forth holding the "but it's a creature / it can die to removal" banner. Everything can be destroyed.Whether or not it can be destroyed has nothing to do with its raw power, especially with support removal in such a fiddly form as it is.

Storm the Vault is one of the most powerful cards in Standard and singlehandedly skews the color pie.

GrizzoMtGPQ

madwren said:

It's worse than Startled Awake. For that card, people often sallied forth holding the "but it's a creature / it can die to removal" banner. Everything can be destroyed.Whether or not it can be destroyed has nothing to do with its raw power, especially with support removal in such a fiddly form as it is.

Storm the Vault is one of the most powerful cards in Standard and singlehandedly skews the color pie.

Yup, this card needs a rethink. Something to tame it just a bit.

Brakkis

madwren said:

It's worse than Startled Awake. For that card, people often sallied forth holding the "but it's a creature / it can die to removal" banner. Everything can be destroyed.Whether or not it can be destroyed has nothing to do with its raw power, especially with support removal in such a fiddly form as it is.

Storm the Vault is one of the most powerful cards in Standard and singlehandedly skews the color pie.

It's entirely different from Startled Awake. That's a mythic that instantly gives you 13 mana. You could kill it and prevent it from going back to hand but the 13 mana was already applied. There's no stopping the gain unless you had one of two cards already in play (Suppression Bonds or Claustrophobia).

Storm the Vault does nothing on entering the field in terms of mana. It either does nothing because you haven't raided, it spawns 2 treasures because you have and/or it flips because you have 4+ treasures. No mana is gained. Nothing happens. On your following turn there are 16 cards in standard ranging from common to masterpiece that can immediately remove it - 13 if it flipped - across 4 colors and 2 Planeswalkers that can remove it (Teferi and Vraska) and then... nothing. No gem conversion, no mana gain.

It doesn't skew the color pie because most people are running support destruction anyways to counter numerous other supports that heavily alter the field of play.

StV is not another Omniscience. It's not Startled Awake. It's a powerful card with a lot of counters.

Aeroplane

I tend to look at nerfing cards is to make the game less challenging. The AI needs all the help it can get. StV is a game changer but I've lost to Ghalta,Etali and a unchecked Lannery Storm more than StV. Blue , in my opinion, with Omni, River's Rebuke, Bolas PW, StV+Spell Swindle,Perilous Voyage...etc has the best pool of cards when teamed up with another color. Now they have given you Teferi which gives you the disable/lifelink ability of plains for the big hp bosses. If anything they could make some cards close to Vraska's ability.

bk1234

Just wait till everyone gets Jaya. She has blue mana bonuses. 

khurram

Brakkis said:

We really don't and it really isn't.

It's a fantastic card but it's not broken. Yes it converts like crazy; however, it is susceptible to support removal (of which there is ample amounts) both before it flips and after. Most big converters are spells and thus, are harder to stop. 

Not every powerful card that bucks a trend needs to be nerfed. 

It is a "fantastic" card. It is not "broken". It is punch-you-in-the-face hideous in terms of it's power levels. The game has never seen the likes of this card in those colors before. Hell, in any color even. It has skewed the color pie. Green is supposed to be the master of gem changing and Mana generation but its competing with blue for the top spot in that category now. Lets just keep pretending otherwise though. We all love our toys after all. I for one am exploiting it like crazy while I still can.

It even comes with built in decoy system for the opponent to waste their support removal on. Usually, one or two turns after you cast it you enjoy the benefits of casting a riskhar's expertise every turn.... in blue!!! 

Azerack

Yup, Jaya with Etali and Storm the Vault is definitely entertaining..
However, any Blue PW with StV and Spell Swindle cast in the same round can be equally as dangerous/annoying.
But, interestingly enough, since the switch of StV, Vault of Catlacan, is the LAST support that goes out, you can take this out, first, if you have a support killer (that destroys any support, since it becomes a land.. ).

HarryMason

If the only real defense of a card is 'it dies to removal' that's a really weak argument .Perhaps if you could target supports rather than rolling the dice that would be one thing. Maybe if it didn't spit out decoy supports, that would make it a valid argument . There's no reason a blue gem converter should be a staple in non blue decks. It's busted. I love the card, but it's still busted . Granted , I've seen it used poorly because of how busted it is, but that's really just a testament to how busted it is. As soon as it flips , the hand vomit commences. Then ,since it's blue , that's usually followed by drawing a new grip. It's right up there with startled . I never really thought REX was that bad . I never got it when it was standard legal, but it was just another cog in the annoying kiora engine that worked fine without it . Storm is one of those cards that you have to be prepared to deal with. You're not always going to be able to remove it, and it can quickly turn a game around. I'm not crying about it, but I'm also not going to pretend like it isn't a problem. I'm just really glad that Prismatic Array isn't in standard, because that brings the degeneracy to 11. If ubiquity is the enemy ,storm is the enemy. 

gogol666

I'm of the not broken field: in each set there are very few very powerful cards that we love to use and we hate when Greg uses them, but that's the game: sometimes you lose because the opponent has a better deck.
If only vanilla card existed we will be dead by cascades or we win every game just because we always start first.
If we ask for every powerful card to be nerfed as soon as it is played against us, eventuallyeven most powerful card will become solemnity...
I think playing against powerful (but not broken) cards is amazing. I love playing against a nyx lock, a stv spell swindle combo, omni decks (without whir), Bolas loops
What i don't like is playing against decks that can win (or lock the game) in a single turn from an empty battlefield like all the naru meha loop decks. These, to me, are the only real problem in standard at the moment

Brakkis

HarryMason said:

If the only real defense of a card is 'it dies to removal' that's a really weak argument .

Except... that is the exact argument against every single creature in the game. It dies to removal. Supports are no different and the argument no less sound. There are supports, and there is support removal.

We've been removing Nyx for years. We can remove Storm the Vault before it even has a chance to go into effect.

Theros

I have to disagree. STV is not even an "auto include " like prenerf Guilded. its does work for all blue decks, especially ones that rely in red/black/green gem counts. Support removal is not a weak argument, it's stronger and more viable and next patch makes it better.

 If stv is broken it's fair to bring to the table other more problematic cards: etali, zacama, ghalta and imminent doom. the last 3 can end a game in less than 3 turns in Greg's hands in standard.

I don't think it's a good idea chasing cards perceived to be strong. we endured prism array, nyx (still), xisus, omni and many more.

Mainloop25

I do agree that it is far too powerful even with all the hoops you have to go through to flip it. But the nerf is simple. There is no reason that it needs to be "times 2" for the number of converted gems. If it was just x1 it would still be a good card on par with Azcanta and As Foretold. 

Laeuftbeidir

Dies to removal should have an own filter as irrelevant argument.

I like playing the card, I don't mind facing it a lot, but it really feels wrong. It's even worse than R'ex IMO. @Mainloop25 s idea looks like a good way to balance, but not nerf it

TheF3C3SK1ng

Please for the love of all that is good and decent in this world, leave this card alone.

Its not dominating matches, its not killing us over and over, its not freezing the game, its not warping the meta. 

Please oktagon, do not listen to these complaints, there is so much worse out there in Legacy.

Sure, its strong, but it just gives mana. If you can't deal with the results of high mana gains for the opponent, you're building your decks wrong. 

Mburn7

Funny, I agree with everyone in this thread it seems (well, almost everyone)

On the pro-nerf side:

Its stupidly powerful
It is relatively cheap and easy to use
Blue should not be able to generate that kind of mana

On the leave it side:

It makes itself less useful over time by destroying all the supports (including itself) after a couple turns
You need an attacking creature to make it flip (usually)
You can stall the flip by popping the treasures as they come out (not exceptionally difficult)

FindingHeart8

I don't really see the point of this except for rabble rousing.

1) This card was released almost 2 sets ago and only now seems to be getting hate.

2) This is a powerful and effective card, but it doesn't break the game like a combo Omniscience deck (or cycling).

3) Even Omniscience and cycling didn't get the nerf they deserved.

Just sayin