We need to talk about StV

2456

Comments

  • DumasAG
    DumasAG Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2018
    arevala said:
    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
    Uh, what? Olivia WAS (and is) broken. Cards aren't supposed to be good in every phase of the the game. Fell behind? Cast Olivia and catch up. At parity? Cast Olivia to start winning. Need to close the game out this instant? Cast Olivia and win this turn. Olivia belongs with pre-nerf Baral, Hazoret's Undying Fury, and Deploy as absolutely broken cards. It 100% should have gotten (and still needs to) a nerf, probably to remove haste, or to remove the haste/lifelink it currently gives to other creatures, or to make it non-token (AT LEAST).

    As for StV, my problem with it isn't that it's broken, but that it limits the supports that are supposed to be the main mana converters - lands. Oktagon spent all this time making lands and things that care about lands for Dominaria, but why would you use any of them when usually you can jam StV instead, which specifically cares about NOT lands to flip. It's seems like a bit of a whiff from that perspective.
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    Gunmix25 said:
    FindingHeart8 said:
    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

    I agree. There's no point. Blue has had blue ramp before and I remember players griping then about how broken startled awake was. In QB it was an auto include for blue and it easily dominated a great many builds.

    Besides Startled Awake, what ramp has blue had before?  All I can remember is lands and planeswalker abilities, neither of which are really that nuts or unique.  And saying that having 1 stupidly powerful card in the past (in a stupidly overpowered set, no less) isn't really justification for keeping the current stupidly powerful card.
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    Mburn7 said:
    Gunmix25 said:
    FindingHeart8 said:
    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

    I agree. There's no point. Blue has had blue ramp before and I remember players griping then about how broken startled awake was. In QB it was an auto include for blue and it easily dominated a great many builds.

    Besides Startled Awake, what ramp has blue had before?  All I can remember is lands and planeswalker abilities, neither of which are really that nuts or unique.  And saying that having 1 stupidly powerful card in the past (in a stupidly overpowered set, no less) isn't really justification for keeping the current stupidly powerful card.


    I simply referring to Startled Awake. I didn't mean to imply in the plural sense. But then again that only goes to show that there are two blue ramp cards compared to how many in green; and of those two, one is legacy and the other is standard.

    Something I forgot to add. Green has bucket loads of ramp from about every angle and I find the argument about how STV is OP for calling in powerful blue cards a bit odd ... because if that is the issue … you do realize that if that Kiora and Nissa 3 can do that and more than STV on green ramp alone to bring in all those powerful blue cards that are in question.


  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    Laeuftbeidir said:
    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
    I'd love to hear how "dies to removal" is irrelevant. No one has responded with how, only that it's a weak argument. Actually come up with a reason why or you're just spouting conjecture.

    Removal has been the answer to dealing with supports since the beginning. Opponent plays Starfield? Support removal. Opponent plays Cast Out? Support removal. Opponent plays Lost Legacy? Support removal. Opponent plays Sphinx's Tutelage? Support removal. On and on it goes because it is how you deal with supports, and has been. You either bring removal, or hope to cascade them out.

    Storm the Vault is very powerful but it's susceptible to the same counter as every other support and can be shut down before it can even have an effect on the match.
  • DBJones
    DBJones Posts: 803 Critical Contributor
    The mana gains of StV don't bother me. Greg can easily get that much anyway. What screws me up is that it destroys your supports. I managed to get out Teferi's ultimate (I hadn't drawn any removal) and it died the next turn because it landed on blue. That was ridiculous. I haven't faced it enough yet to say whether it needs to be tweaked though (and I'm waiting for 2.7.1 to craft it).
  • HarryMason
    HarryMason Posts: 136 Tile Toppler
    Brakkis said:
    I'd love to hear how "dies to removal" is irrelevant. No one has responded with how, only that it's a weak argument. Actually come up with a reason why or you're just spouting conjecture.

    Removal has been the answer to dealing with supports since the beginning. Opponent plays Starfield? Support removal. Opponent plays Cast Out? Support removal. Opponent plays Lost Legacy? Support removal. Opponent plays Sphinx's Tutelage? Support removal. On and on it goes because it is how you deal with supports, and has been. You either bring removal, or hope to cascade them out.

    Storm the Vault is very powerful but it's susceptible to the same counter as every other support and can be shut down before it can even have an effect on the match.
    How 'it dies to removal' is a weak argument, according to chombli:

    First , saying it can be killed doesn't somehow invalidate the multitude of arguments against the card. You have to draw the removal, you have to cast the removal , then you have to pray you miss the treasures and land on storm .

    There are 3 cards in standard that hit it 100% of the time and a 4th that hits it if it hasn't flipped yet . Not to mention ,what happens if you're ob nix? Guess you deserve to get wrecked by the busted card ?

    Beyond the hoops that you have to jump through to remove it, it only needs to trigger once to swing a game. We're straw manning nyx , but they're two different animals . Nyx slows the game down and is completely useless on an empty board. It doesn't let you dump your hand.

    Dies to removal is a weak argument because it's completely dismissive. You're allowed to like broken cards , but saying it dies to removal has been a weak argument for the 25 years magic has existed. 
  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2018
    Mburn7 said:
    Brakkis said:
    Laeuftbeidir said:
    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
    I'd love to hear how "dies to removal" is irrelevant. No one has responded with how, only that it's a weak argument. Actually come up with a reason why or you're just spouting conjecture.

    Removal has been the answer to dealing with supports since the beginning. Opponent plays Starfield? Support removal. Opponent plays Cast Out? Support removal. Opponent plays Lost Legacy? Support removal. Opponent plays Sphinx's Tutelage? Support removal. On and on it goes because it is how you deal with supports, and has been. You either bring removal, or hope to cascade them out.

    Storm the Vault is very powerful but it's susceptible to the same counter as every other support and can be shut down before it can even have an effect on the match.
    "dies to removal" is generally seen as a weak argument (in paper and PQ) because of how unreliable it is as a means to deal with the problem.  For a removal spell to work, you need to:

    A) have it in your deck (usually you have at least 1)
    B) draw it
    C) have the mana to cast it
    D) (for PQ only) have it properly target the thing you want destroyed.

    I know I have personally lost matches to supports because they were buried in a place I couldn't match them and the game adamantly refused to let me draw any of my removal options.  

    Now in this case step C is fairly trivial, since most support destroyers are cheap to cast (unless you have a really tinykitty board).  Unfortunately, Storm the Vault creates treasures instantly (usually), which act as a pretty good chaff screen for your killer.  There's a 66% chance your support killer hits a non-StV card, and that's assuming it is the only support on the board.

    Also, saying that a card is not overpowered because it can be destroyed means that almost no cards are overpowered, since there is technically a removal for everything.  That is a super generic argument that glosses over so many of the complexities involved in what makes a card overpowered.  I personally don't think Storm the Vault needs a nerf, but I try to make arguments that are a little more nuanced than "but it dies to removal"

    To that last part I disagree. Cards often viewed as truly overpowered subvert the "dies to removal" argument because they have an immediate on the field effect. They give mana, or drain mana, or they have haste coupled with another effect, or they deal significant damage - either to the PW or to creatures - on entry, etc. These can all still be removed but they've already had some sort of negative effect on the board state. Olivia, Pig, Emrakul, Startled Awake, Omniscience, etc. To those types of cards, dies to removal is irrelavant.

    Storm the Vault is not one of those cards as it has no immediate effect. It is mildly more challenging to remove due to the treasures yes but it can be done at a decent rate.
  • Theros
    Theros Posts: 490 Mover and Shaker
    gummix made some good points. add to it is that white also has the more efficient gem changer than blue  in Fall of the Thran. unlike Stv, Thran is instant  and needs no prior setting.
    it takes more turns/supports for stv to convert 12 gems compared to Thran which can do that in 2 turns. nothing  wrong in other colors mimic green.

    when hou rotates green will be unplayable; no gems changers to afford expensive cards. animiste awakening  shouldn't  be nerfed
  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    HarryMason said:
    Brakkis said:
    I'd love to hear how "dies to removal" is irrelevant. No one has responded with how, only that it's a weak argument. Actually come up with a reason why or you're just spouting conjecture.

    Removal has been the answer to dealing with supports since the beginning. Opponent plays Starfield? Support removal. Opponent plays Cast Out? Support removal. Opponent plays Lost Legacy? Support removal. Opponent plays Sphinx's Tutelage? Support removal. On and on it goes because it is how you deal with supports, and has been. You either bring removal, or hope to cascade them out.

    Storm the Vault is very powerful but it's susceptible to the same counter as every other support and can be shut down before it can even have an effect on the match.
    How 'it dies to removal' is a weak argument, according to chombli:

    First , saying it can be killed doesn't somehow invalidate the multitude of arguments against the card. You have to draw the removal, you have to cast the removal , then you have to pray you miss the treasures and land on storm .

    There are 3 cards in standard that hit it 100% of the time and a 4th that hits it if it hasn't flipped yet . Not to mention ,what happens if you're ob nix? Guess you deserve to get wrecked by the busted card ?

    Beyond the hoops that you have to jump through to remove it, it only needs to trigger once to swing a game. We're straw manning nyx , but they're two different animals . Nyx slows the game down and is completely useless on an empty board. It doesn't let you dump your hand.

    Dies to removal is a weak argument because it's completely dismissive. You're allowed to like broken cards , but saying it dies to removal has been a weak argument for the 25 years magic has existed. 

    Someone plays Dauntless Bodyguard and a creature with reach. You have to draw removal, you have to cast the removal, then you have to pray they don't cast another before you can remove the bodyguard too.

    Hitting it 100% of the time would be nice, but it does not invalidate the over a dozen cards in standard that can remove it with a fair chance.

    Ob Nix? Yes! He's a mono black! Mono black has no support removal (okay, they have Pernicious Deed now but it's a MP). Mono black will get wrecked by every support, busted or not!

    It triggering once doesn't immediately swing the game. It can trigger and give all of 3 mana if all it has to trigger off is 4 treasures. It can actually give no mana. Seen it numerous times. Even were it to trigger the whole field due to a surplus of supports, you were already likely in a bad situation with all those non-land supports on the field.

    Nyx is completely useless on an empty board, this is true. But if the AI is playing Nyx, the chances of the field being empty of other supports is immensely low. It's a linchpin to a heavy control deck. It often doesn't come out alone. You could spend 30+ turns throwing support destruction and never hit Starfield or you could throw just one and take it out on the first shot.

    Dies to removal isn't dismissive. It's literally the counter to things.

    - "This card is really painful to deal with."
    - "Here's how you can deal with it at a fairly decent rate."
    - "But it's not guaranteed!"
    - "Neither is winning. The game has an element of chance to it. But the card has a counter and you can build for it"
    - "You're being dismissive."
    - "No, I'm being pragmatic. You need to build to counter other decks, not just throw big sticks in yours and hope you play them faster."

    The cards I consider op, are again, cards that subvert the removal argument because they've already done significant damage or altered the state of my hand in some significantly negative way without me having any opportunity to counter them prior to the effect.
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2018
    All I'll say about Storm the Vault is there's a reason Tolarian Academy (which is basically identical to Vault of Calcatan) is banned in basically every format.

    This card is proving to be really strong, possibly stronger than any other gem conversion card in the game. BUT I don't know that it's so over powered that it needs a nerf considering how powerful other gem converters in the game currently are. Thinking basically all the green ones, and the Verix Bladewing support that not only is currently dealing double damage, but also converting extra gems to red. It could theoretically be more in line with both the paper card, and less overtly powerful, however, if it converted 1 gem to blue for every support rather than 2 gems.

    Edit: I think my biggest issue with Vault of Calcatan is that support removal tends to deprioritize transformed supports. I'll notice often my Demolish will hit newly cast supports over a transformed land that has been out for several turns when it came to Legion's Landing//Andanto the First Fort. So if this support doesn't need to be addressed, perhaps allowing the player to target support removal is another topic that could be brought up in response to this card and others like it.
  • Mainloop25
    Mainloop25 Posts: 1,959 Chairperson of the Boards
    wereotter said:
     It could theoretically be more in line with both the paper card, and less overtly powerful, however, if it converted 1 gem to blue for every support rather than 2 gems.

    Yep  That was exactly my suggestion as well 
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
    In my interpretation "dies to removal" is irrelevant since literally every (creature or support) dies to removal. Gaes revenge? Dies to removal. So does Baral, Olivia, Ulrich, pig, omniscience, Emrakuel.. If you have to use this argument, then the card probably might not be balanced.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    This content has been removed.
  • jtwood
    jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards
    This thread should be a poll. 

    I’d vote to keep StV as it is. 
  • jtwood
    jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards

    wereotter said:
    All I'll say about Storm the Vault is there's a reason Tolarian Academy (which is basically identical to Vault of Calcatan) is banned in basically every format.

    This card is proving to be really strong, possibly stronger than any other gem conversion card in the game. BUT I don't know that it's so over powered that it needs a nerf considering how powerful other gem converters in the game currently are. Thinking basically all the green ones, and the Verix Bladewing support that not only is currently dealing double damage, but also converting extra gems to red. It could theoretically be more in line with both the paper card, and less overtly powerful, however, if it converted 1 gem to blue for every support rather than 2 gems.

    Edit: I think my biggest issue with Vault of Calcatan is that support removal tends to deprioritize transformed supports. I'll notice often my Demolish will hit newly cast supports over a transformed land that has been out for several turns when it came to Legion's Landing//Andanto the First Fort. So if this support doesn't need to be addressed, perhaps allowing the player to target support removal is another topic that could be brought up in response to this card and others like it.
    The lack of targeted support removal in this game will always bother me. 
  • Bil
    Bil Posts: 831 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2018
         I personally love playing the card in diferent kind of setups, and i don't mind facing when i have to. However, the card would be less controversial if there was some kind of limitation to his power because it goes crazy with support tokens.
       Anyway,  if it has to be nerfed it is important to guarantee that, once spent 11 mana and fulfiled the flip conditions, you get a decent payback in most cases ... 
       If we choose the 1 gem/support conversion, it will be generally not worth the effort as long as support tokens are not involved, which would be sad because support tokens are precisely the problem here.
      The impact of tokens should be reduced while assuring a reliable conversion when it comes to non-token supports.

       Both following options could reduce the OP aspect of the card while still making it worth the cost and flip conditions.

    -> Option 1 ( Itlimoc like ) :  "at the beginning of your turn, if you control 3 or more supports, convert 6 gems to blue".
       
    -> option 2 : (negate tokens) " at the beginning of your turn, convert 2 gems to blue for each non-token support you control"

    That being said, i'm going to log in and enjoy that ridiculously OP tezz2 deck before the hammer falls on it! ^^
  • Aeroplane
    Aeroplane Posts: 314 Mover and Shaker
    edited July 2018
    They're not going to change with it being a few sets back already. If you want to nerf it because you're losing to it then prepare for it. I have no problem with the card. When you nerf a card , you're nerfing the AI which needs all the help it can get. You're not supposed to get perfect scores.

Categories