We need to talk about StV
Comments
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A quick history lesson of free mana in blue and the forum's reaction to that:
Omniscience
17 mana for a support that casts 4 cards for free and then *poof*, it's gone. Everyone lost their minds about how powerful and broken Omni is and demanded it be nerfed. It is a masterpiece that the majority of players don't have. To make Omni truly broken it required a very specific build that allowed it to be fetched continuously and never broken or else you had to start all over again.
Storm the Vault
11 mana for a support that creates decoys for support removal and eventually casts every card in your hand, every single turn. Lots of people are defending StV as not broken. It is a rare and the majority of players do have it. To make StV truly broke, it requires you to do absolutely nothing you wouldn't already be doing.
Omni needed to be built around to break it. StV just asks you to play it. My blue decks are already built to abuse StV because they all have card draw and they all have at least one creature in them. StV even has the added benefit of destroying your opponents supports for free. Any single shield support is rendered completely useless if StV is in play.
Here are the differences I see:
1. Most people didn't have Omni and did want it nerfed.
2. Most people do have StV and don't want it nerfed.
Just to be clear on what Vault does:
At the beginning of your turn, convert X gems to blue, where X is the number of supports you control times 2.
Fall of the Thran doesn't convert gems immediately, it converts them the turn after you cast it and on average it will convert less gems than StV. Not to mention it only converts gems for two turns while StV converts them indefinitely.
As Foretold is a mythic with "At the beginning of your turn, you gain X mana, where X is the number of supports you control." StV blows that out of the water. Converting gems is better than gaining flat mana and it does it at a 2:1 ratio.
The fact that even Koth can benefit from mass converting gems to blue should be enough to sway anyone's opinion of StV's brokeness.
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Omniscience needed to be nerfed because it was an instant effect. Once it hit the board, the next 3 cards were coming out, free of charge. There was nothing you could do to stop those next three cards. You couldn't cast an instant and shut it down. The cards that made it even worse were also in Standard for a very long time in order to completely abuse the card. It left a sour taste in people's mouths for months watching Omni/Whir decks rolls over them.
Storm the Vault is not instant. Vault of Cataclan is not instant. It doesn't trigger until the following turn. It can be prevented. Even if it's not prevented:
- It doesn't count support reinforcements. Therefor, if the only supports on the board are Vault of Cataclan and the four treasures that flipped it, it only converts 10 gems to blue. That's on par with Thunderherd Migration, a common. It can cause a cascade and get loads of mana, or it could match nothing at all and now there's just a bunch of blue gems.
- If it does cascade, it has a high chance of breaking those 1 shield treasures, reducing it's effectiveness the following conversion. At 3 treasures it converts 8, on par with Beneath the Sands, another common. Once Storm the Vault has flipped to Vault of Cataclan it no longer generates treasures to reinforce those 1 shield supports. It's a continual common level gem converter each turn but it's effectiveness is reduced the more of it's own supports it destroys.
- You need to build a support heavy deck, or a treasure based deck, to push it to "broken" levels where it's dropping a Hour of Promise every turn (8 supports on the field). So, just like Omniscience, it has to be built around to reach it's true potential. You need to build in card draw to keep supports on the board to maintain it's high conversion rates, or you need your creatures/spells to generate a constant flow of treasures. Treasures are prevalent right now because they are in standard. It makes it easier to build for it.
- It's susceptible to support destruction where gem conversion spells are not. It buffers itself behind some treasures but it can still be taken out. Unless you're running a white deck running sphinx's decree, you can't stop greens ramp spells. Every color has access to support removal (admittedly, black's is a MP and blue's is a rare or a PW ability).
If Vault of Cataclan was to be reduced to converting 1 gem per support, it'd convert less than commons. A possible "fix" for it would be to allow support destruction to be target-able. Why it isn't, I have no clue. If not targeted destruction, then running it similarly to Vraska's ability and have it destroy the support with the highest shield, or destroy the support with the lowest shield, or destroy a support with a shield of x or higher/lower. Something to alleviate the randomness of its selection.2 -
You forgot about New Perspectives which also didn't get a nerf, why would anybody think this will. It will not get nerfed and rotate out just like the cards mentioned above. We're all just spinning our wheels.ZW2007- said:A quick history lesson of free mana in blue and the forum's reaction to that:
Omniscience
17 mana for a support that casts 4 cards for free and then *poof*, it's gone. Everyone lost their minds about how powerful and broken Omni is and demanded it be nerfed. It is a masterpiece that the majority of players don't have. To make Omni truly broken it required a very specific build that allowed it to be fetched continuously and never broken or else you had to start all over again.
Storm the Vault
11 mana for a support that creates decoys for support removal and eventually casts every card in your hand, every single turn. Lots of people are defending StV as not broken. It is a rare and the majority of players do have it. To make StV truly broke, it requires you to do absolutely nothing you wouldn't already be doing.
Omni needed to be built around to break it. StV just asks you to play it. My blue decks are already built to abuse StV because they all have card draw and they all have at least one creature in them. StV even has the added benefit of destroying your opponents supports for free. Any single shield support is rendered completely useless if StV is in play.
Here are the differences I see:
1. Most people didn't have Omni and did want it nerfed.
2. Most people do have StV and don't want it nerfed.
Just to be clear on what Vault does:
At the beginning of your turn, convert X gems to blue, where X is the number of supports you control times 2.
Fall of the Thran doesn't convert gems immediately, it converts them the turn after you cast it and on average it will convert less gems than StV. Not to mention it only converts gems for two turns while StV converts them indefinitely.
As Foretold is a mythic with "At the beginning of your turn, you gain X mana, where X is the number of supports you control." StV blows that out of the water. Converting gems is better than gaining flat mana and it does it at a 2:1 ratio.
The fact that even Koth can benefit from mass converting gems to blue should be enough to sway anyone's opinion of StV's brokeness.1 -
the difference with omni is it's a loner that can cast 4 cards
the same turn as it's played. there is no restriction in what
you can cast with omni. omni does not rely on any other
card to work. whenever you get to play it, however you
get to play, just play it, it's a no brainer.
stv on the other hand relies on other cards. ideally you
would have a creature to help it flip. if you use treasures,
there are only 4 treasures. if one of the treasures is taken
by your opponent then you need another non land to make
it flip(not always true due to the game being gimmicky but
is how treasures are supposed to work from the text) stv
can't flip on it's own as it needs other cards. it's much more
prone to bad rng. it's plenty powerful once it starts working,
that is the reward for getting it to work. it requires a support
focused deck.
HH0 -
Not sure if this is a fix or not, but keep the two gem conversion, but have it work more like it’s paper counterpart and only count artifacts.
Token supports would still be a thing, but it wouldn’t trigger itself, nor would many other supports. But it would gain the trigger from some creatures.0 -
That comment about other OP cards being a larger problem is exactly that . I could care less what StV compares to in regards to Nissa's pilgrimage or the like... that isn't the point. The point is players are complaining about a card that I feel is insignificant to other more powerful cards. How they function is irrelevant for comparison and how they affect the match is. In the case of Lich... you cannot win unless you damage the player. At least in paper you can discard a library for the win if needed.Joybubbles said:Aeroplane said:
And the run of New perspectives? The most abused card in Quest history was never nerfed. People even quit playing the game when it left standard .
I don't think there's anything to be gained here be by comparing STV to other broken cards which have completely different functions. A direct comparison between STV and Nissa's Pilgrimage, or Legion's Landing, or even Rishka's Expertise would certainly be on topic for this thread, but bringing up Lich's Mastery or New Perspectives smacks of whataboutism. If you guys want to start threads for those cards, I'll be happy to go there and discuss their positive and negative effects on the game.Gunmix25 said:
Not to be off topic: but in my experience in PQ so far... Lich is far more OP than StV and Immortal Sun.0 -
It looks like the discussion is more about what should be the criteria for a card to be nerfed than whether StV needs to be nerfed or not.
If we go by the criteria set in Oktagon's developer post on card balance, it's a card of concern if it fulfils one of the following- The card is the cornerstone of a one-deck metagame, with the deck being linear AND unplayable by the AI.
- The card creates the feeling of a Pay Wall, due to rarity limitations and its part in a truly overpowered deck.
- The card is overshadowing all other strategies and stifling all player options in certain events.
The criteria is actually pretty specific so I'm sure both camps will be quoting specific bits to support their case. Relevant criteria would be points #1 & #3.
I do think StV overshadows all other ramp options. Whether that is the same as all other strategies is debatable. It doesn't really stifle player options cause it's a ramp card rather than a control card so the effect on the match depends on what else is in the deck.
Personally I'm indifferent as to whether StV gets nerfed. I can see why it should be nerfed since it is so ridiculously strong a ramp option in a colour which isn't supposed to be known for that. At the same time, it seems to just be ridiculous power creep as opposed to a card which fulfils one of the criteria above.
This way of comparing with gem conversion spells is entirely misrepresentative. By this standard of comparison, all gem conversion supports except Itlimoc and Catlacan convert 'less than commons'. By this measure, Desert of the Indomitable is better than Nissa's Pilgrimage. Which it isn't, by far.Brakkis said:Omniscience needed to be nerfed because it was an instant effect. Once it hit the board, the next 3 cards were coming out, free of charge. There was nothing you could do to stop those next three cards. You couldn't cast an instant and shut it down. The cards that made it even worse were also in Standard for a very long time in order to completely abuse the card. It left a sour taste in people's mouths for months watching Omni/Whir decks rolls over them.
Storm the Vault is not instant. Vault of Cataclan is not instant. It doesn't trigger until the following turn. It can be prevented. Even if it's not prevented:
- It doesn't count support reinforcements. Therefor, if the only supports on the board are Vault of Cataclan and the four treasures that flipped it, it only converts 10 gems to blue. That's on par with Thunderherd Migration, a common. It can cause a cascade and get loads of mana, or it could match nothing at all and now there's just a bunch of blue gems.
- If it does cascade, it has a high chance of breaking those 1 shield treasures, reducing it's effectiveness the following conversion. At 3 treasures it converts 8, on par with Beneath the Sands, another common. Once Storm the Vault has flipped to Vault of Cataclan it no longer generates treasures to reinforce those 1 shield supports. It's a continual common level gem converter each turn but it's effectiveness is reduced the more of it's own supports it destroys.
- You need to build a support heavy deck, or a treasure based deck, to push it to "broken" levels where it's dropping a Hour of Promise every turn (8 supports on the field). So, just like Omniscience, it has to be built around to reach it's true potential. You need to build in card draw to keep supports on the board to maintain it's high conversion rates, or you need your creatures/spells to generate a constant flow of treasures. Treasures are prevalent right now because they are in standard. It makes it easier to build for it.
- It's susceptible to support destruction where gem conversion spells are not. It buffers itself behind some treasures but it can still be taken out. Unless you're running a white deck running sphinx's decree, you can't stop greens ramp spells. Every color has access to support removal (admittedly, black's is a MP and blue's is a rare or a PW ability).
If Vault of Cataclan was to be reduced to converting 1 gem per support, it'd convert less than commons. A possible "fix" for it would be to allow support destruction to be target-able. Why it isn't, I have no clue. If not targeted destruction, then running it similarly to Vraska's ability and have it destroy the support with the highest shield, or destroy the support with the lowest shield, or destroy a support with a shield of x or higher/lower. Something to alleviate the randomness of its selection.
The whole difference is that gem conversion spells trigger once while gem conversion supports are recurring every turn until destroyed. Because of that, Catlacan doesn't need to convert as many gems as Hour of Promise per turn to match up to it, or as many as Thunderherd Migration per turn to match up to it.
You'll be gaining mana from Catlacan every turn without having to recast it whereas you have to both draw a second copy of a gem conversion spell and pay its casting cost to use it again. If you count the amount of mana gained on top of the casting cost over the course of the entire battle, Storm the Vault beats every other gem converter by far.3 -
As always, I think we are at a stall with strong and reasonable advocates for both sides.
Independently of the motivations I have seen the following proposals, which I think make sense:
- leave it as is
- remove the multiplier
- cap the number of gem converted to a max
- change support to artifact
- make it lose a shield each conversion
I'd be happy to create a poll to see where the community sides, if I listed the options correctly.
Don't worry about the nerf side has more options and risk to get it's votes diluted. In the end everybody can do the math.0 -
It really isn't though. Storm is a better gem converter than pretty much any other card, if it gets going. But, only if you maintain the supports to run it.span_argoman said:It looks like the discussion is more about what should be the criteria for a card to be nerfed than whether StV needs to be nerfed or not.
If we go by the criteria set in Oktagon's developer post on card balance, it's a card of concern if it fulfils one of the following- The card is the cornerstone of a one-deck metagame, with the deck being linear AND unplayable by the AI.
- The card creates the feeling of a Pay Wall, due to rarity limitations and its part in a truly overpowered deck.
- The card is overshadowing all other strategies and stifling all player options in certain events.
The criteria is actually pretty specific so I'm sure both camps will be quoting specific bits to support their case. Relevant criteria would be points #1 & #3.
I do think StV overshadows all other ramp options. Whether that is the same as all other strategies is debatable. It doesn't really stifle player options cause it's a ramp card rather than a control card so the effect on the match depends on what else is in the deck.
Personally I'm indifferent as to whether StV gets nerfed. I can see why it should be nerfed since it is so ridiculously strong a ramp option in a colour which isn't supposed to be known for that. At the same time, it seems to just be ridiculous power creep as opposed to a card which fulfils one of the criteria above.
This way of comparing with gem conversion spells is entirely misrepresentative. By this standard of comparison, all gem conversion supports except Itlimoc and Catlacan convert 'less than commons'. By this measure, Desert of the Indomitable is better than Nissa's Pilgrimage. Which it isn't, by far.Brakkis said:Omniscience needed to be nerfed because it was an instant effect. Once it hit the board, the next 3 cards were coming out, free of charge. There was nothing you could do to stop those next three cards. You couldn't cast an instant and shut it down. The cards that made it even worse were also in Standard for a very long time in order to completely abuse the card. It left a sour taste in people's mouths for months watching Omni/Whir decks rolls over them.
Storm the Vault is not instant. Vault of Cataclan is not instant. It doesn't trigger until the following turn. It can be prevented. Even if it's not prevented:
- It doesn't count support reinforcements. Therefor, if the only supports on the board are Vault of Cataclan and the four treasures that flipped it, it only converts 10 gems to blue. That's on par with Thunderherd Migration, a common. It can cause a cascade and get loads of mana, or it could match nothing at all and now there's just a bunch of blue gems.
- If it does cascade, it has a high chance of breaking those 1 shield treasures, reducing it's effectiveness the following conversion. At 3 treasures it converts 8, on par with Beneath the Sands, another common. Once Storm the Vault has flipped to Vault of Cataclan it no longer generates treasures to reinforce those 1 shield supports. It's a continual common level gem converter each turn but it's effectiveness is reduced the more of it's own supports it destroys.
- You need to build a support heavy deck, or a treasure based deck, to push it to "broken" levels where it's dropping a Hour of Promise every turn (8 supports on the field). So, just like Omniscience, it has to be built around to reach it's true potential. You need to build in card draw to keep supports on the board to maintain it's high conversion rates, or you need your creatures/spells to generate a constant flow of treasures. Treasures are prevalent right now because they are in standard. It makes it easier to build for it.
- It's susceptible to support destruction where gem conversion spells are not. It buffers itself behind some treasures but it can still be taken out. Unless you're running a white deck running sphinx's decree, you can't stop greens ramp spells. Every color has access to support removal (admittedly, black's is a MP and blue's is a rare or a PW ability).
If Vault of Cataclan was to be reduced to converting 1 gem per support, it'd convert less than commons. A possible "fix" for it would be to allow support destruction to be target-able. Why it isn't, I have no clue. If not targeted destruction, then running it similarly to Vraska's ability and have it destroy the support with the highest shield, or destroy the support with the lowest shield, or destroy a support with a shield of x or higher/lower. Something to alleviate the randomness of its selection.
The whole difference is that gem conversion spells trigger once while gem conversion supports are recurring every turn until destroyed. Because of that, Catlacan doesn't need to convert as many gems as Hour of Promise per turn to match up to it, or as many as Thunderherd Migration per turn to match up to it.
You'll be gaining mana from Catlacan every turn without having to recast it whereas you have to both draw a second copy of a gem conversion spell and pay its casting cost to use it again. If you count the amount of mana gained on top of the casting cost over the course of the entire battle, Storm the Vault beats every other gem converter by far.
By the same logic of having to draw a conversion spell, than get the mana for it, and repeat; you have to draw the supports, get the mana for them, and keep them on the field. Storm converts before the beginning of the turn so if you don't have a support drawn and in place to receive the mana, storm wouldn't fill it until the next turn. Prior to that turn, Storm can destroy other supports driving its conversion, or those supports could be removed by the opponent. Both decks often rely on card draw to maintain their momentum. While storm can generate more consistent mana, it's also susceptible to more counters.
Convert spells and storm aren't a 1:1 comparison certainly; but, Storm has weaknesses which spells don't have that allow it to be a close comparison that people don't want to acknowledge.
I acknowledge that with a full field of supports the card is insane. That something other than converting 1 gem per support should probably be done about the card.0 -
Drawing supports and casting them while having StV in the deck isn't similar to drawing a spell and casting it because you put in supports in your deck because you have a use for them anyway. They continue to serve their purpose even if you don't have Vault of Catlacan on the board. So the requirement of Catlacan is a bonus for any supports in the deck.Brakkis said:It really isn't though. Storm is a better gem converter than pretty much any other card, if it gets going. But, only if you maintain the supports to run it.
By the same logic of having to draw a conversion spell, than get the mana for it, and repeat; you have to draw the supports, get the mana for them, and keep them on the field. Storm converts before the beginning of the turn so if you don't have a support drawn and in place to receive the mana, storm wouldn't fill it until the next turn. Prior to that turn, Storm can destroy other supports driving its conversion, or those supports could be removed by the opponent. Both decks often rely on card draw to maintain their momentum. While storm can generate more consistent mana, it's also susceptible to more counters.
Convert spells and storm aren't a 1:1 comparison certainly; but, Storm has weaknesses which spells don't have that allow it to be a close comparison that people don't want to acknowledge.
I acknowledge that with a full field of supports the card is insane. That something other than converting 1 gem per support should probably be done about the card.
Spells on the other hand are drawn and cast for their effects. There is no bonus effect to account for here. Ie. You don't get a 2-for-1 when you put gem conversion spells in your deck, but you do when you put StV together with other supports in your deck.
Also StV will help fill up any supports that you draw. Thunderherd Migration is not going to fill itself up when drawn. Ramp cards are all about how much profit in mana you get from them. That Catlacan is persistent means the profit potential (and reality) is way higher than a gem conversion spell.
Yes, StV being a support means it can die to support removal. That hardly matters considering its condition for flipping is for there to be 4 other non-land supports on the board. Until the meta sees play of more mass support removals or the introduction of new support removal cards with effects akin to Vraska, this isn't really a significant weakness.
On a side note, I find the defence that one has to build around StV to make it insanely powerful a flawed one.
One had to build around pre-nerf Baral to make it abusive too, otherwise it was just strong or even near worthless if you have no spells in the deck.
If you don't build your deck around Deploy the Gatewatch, it doesn't do that much either. 23 mana to summon 3 Screeching Skaabs is a terrible return.
The point is nobody should be evaluating cards based on their worst case scenario. I would think we be looking at it in the case of how a decent deck builder would handle it or if we're talking about abusive/exploitative builds, how the top players might approach it.
That said, I'd consider StV to be around the power level of Olivia in terms of its ability to help me turn around and win a game. And if the game managed fine when Olivia was around, we would be able to manage fine with StV around. To me, the issue here is still more of people trying to figure out what power levels would lead to a nerf being reasonable. And I'm guessing people won't ever be able to come to a consensus on that.0 -
Why is it that the only times people talk about cards are when we want a nerf? I’m not specifically targeting someone, but a general point I noticed in these forums.
The only time we campaigned about a card getting a buff was on Gilded Lotus. And that was within the context that it was a bought card that got nerfed.
Pretty much every extremely powerful and feared card is a requested nerf. I think that destroys the game. Albeit there is that rare moment where the threat is real and a nerf is required, but I think it has gotten a little excessive.
Can’t we just get agreement that decks need to think with being blown away by the card? And then plan ahead?
This discussion would have been really fun if it was about how to use the card and how to deal with it when facing it. You know, a constructive discussion to help players have more fun?
Can we please focus on constructive ideas for this game, rather than focusing on stops and cutting back on card functions?
Thanks. Have a nice day everyone.4 -
Look, that trope that managain is the sole province of green is just untrue in PQ. I've listed many cards in a previous post in this thread disproving your point.Mburn7 said:loo
The issue is more how it effects the strengths and weaknesses of Blue than anything super-specific with the card itself. Blue's main weakness is supposed to be damage and mana gain. Gem conversion is supposed to be the sole dominion of Green. Turn to Frog is firmly within Blue's color pie abilities (transmogrification), so it isn't an issue.andrewvanmarle said:So? the fact that all your blue decks contain something means...zilch....
all my blue decks contain turn to frog. is it OP? needs a nerf? no
bad logic, sorry
The equivalents I can think of is if there was a green card that was a 7 mana "destroy target creature," or a 3 mana black "destroy a support" card. Neither are super ridiculous as a card, but they fill a major weakness of their respective colors and would thus be seen as overpowered.
Trying to fit PQ into a paper-shaped hole doesn't work.0 -
Excellent point @span_argoman
If we go by the criteria set in Oktagon's developer post on card balance, it's a card of concern if it fulfils one of the following- The card is the cornerstone of a one-deck metagame, with the deck being linear AND unplayable by the AI.
- The card creates the feeling of a Pay Wall, due to rarity limitations and its part in a truly overpowered deck.
- The card is overshadowing all other strategies and stifling all player options in certain events.
The only card that is currently violating those criteria is arguably Naru. If you want to see one of several ways to break her, check out my video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S9t5G0pQ8A&t=3s And it seems like the nerf hammer is likely coming down on her or some of her component pieces with the next patch.
And although I usually come up with egg on my face when I start disagreeing with a bunch of my coalition mates, I don't think STV is truly a meta-warping card. The only cards that have eluded the nerf hammer, which I think should have been nerfed, are cards that can lead to infinite combos. These include Omniscience and Hazoret's Undying Fury.
Does anyone actually panic when they see STV? What about when the AI cascades into HuF? Omni? I certainly know that I do.. and usually for good reason. Most well designed decks that get these cards off, end up finishing the game that turn.
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You didn't disprove his point by listing a few blue cards that give free mana. Green is the color of mass gem conversion. You cannot argue that fact. Just like red is the color of mass gem destruction. Sure, other colors get it here and there but at a much smaller scale and less frequent scale.andrewvanmarle said:
Look, that trope that managain is the sole province of green is just untrue in PQ. I've listed many cards in a previous post in this thread disproving your point.Mburn7 said:loo
The issue is more how it effects the strengths and weaknesses of Blue than anything super-specific with the card itself. Blue's main weakness is supposed to be damage and mana gain. Gem conversion is supposed to be the sole dominion of Green. Turn to Frog is firmly within Blue's color pie abilities (transmogrification), so it isn't an issue.andrewvanmarle said:So? the fact that all your blue decks contain something means...zilch....
all my blue decks contain turn to frog. is it OP? needs a nerf? no
bad logic, sorry
The equivalents I can think of is if there was a green card that was a 7 mana "destroy target creature," or a 3 mana black "destroy a support" card. Neither are super ridiculous as a card, but they fill a major weakness of their respective colors and would thus be seen as overpowered.
Trying to fit PQ into a paper-shaped hole doesn't work.
Here are the cards that supposedly disproved the point:
-SA giving 13 mana was just the weirdest change from a paper card I've ever seen and I suspect they only did it because mill is useless here and they wanted a cool mythic flip card in blue.
-The deserts were all land cards in paper so they made them all give mana in spell form. It just so happens that the blue one ended up being the most powerful because they didn't balance them properly.
-Admiral's Orders is a strange take on the paper version getting a reduced mana cost. Essentially it becomes a free spell that gains you 2 mana, hardly comparable to StV.
-As Foretold, as I already said, is essentially a weaker StV and exactly how StV should work; and again, it gives mana instead of converting gems.
-Bounty of the Luxa has ramp because it is a blue and green card and it still doesn't convert gems or produce copious amounts of mana. (plus the paper version drew a card or gave mana every other turn, one blue effect, one green effect.)
-Days Undoing gives 3 mana as a way to offset the fact that you just shuffled away your entire hand and drew 5 new cards. It is a way to make up for any mana lost when shuffling away your hand and 3 mana per card is hardly oppressive.
-Dreadwaters is another weird take on mill similar to SA and is a very unique card effect (and similar to Kiora's first.)
-Jhoira got the mana addition as a means to make her worthy of being a mythic. She pales in comparison to other cards that draw when you cast something. Her paper version only draws on casting a Historic card and nothing else but in paper drawing a card is vastly more powerful than it is in PQ.
-Jodah has an alternate casting cost effect and really doesn't even fit in this discussion since he also nerfs your mana gains at the same time.
-Kumena's Awakening is simply a Fevered Visions that gets one sided when you jump through hoops. They added in mana to make it more appealing yet again.
-Muldrotha is also green so the mana gain makes sense and ties into the fact that green is all about ramping out lands. (Her paper version lets you cast one card of each type from your GY per turn which isn't easy to do in PQ unless that card also gets some free mana into it.)
-Naru is simply a "copy target spell, you may choose a new target for that spell" card. Since they couldn't do that in PQ, they made her copy a card already in your hand and it gains full mana so that you can cast it for free (much like you would cast the copy for free in paper.)
As you can see, not a single one of these cards converts gems to blue. PQ does have a color pie independent of paper and this card breaks PQ's color pie.
For the record, I never said that I think StV should be nerfed. I'm simply saying that no one should argue that it isn't overpowered. Ironically, Gilded Lotus was nerfed because of its ability to fit into any deck and simply improve that deck with no extra effort. StV functions nearly identically to that. The differences being that Gilded Lotus was colorless and had an immediate but small payoff while StV is limited to blue/red with a slow but massive payoff.
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I'm about to go craft StV, so I'll add my nerf idea before that. What if it destroyed non-blue gems instead of changing them to blue (the same number probably)? That's a red mainstay in PQ, it would still get some mana and set up matches, and it would be even better for getting rid of your opponent's non-blue supports.
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Anything this format defining needs a rethink, especially with the way loyalty is generated its way off the charts and makes pretty much any deck you can slot it into better.
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I think one of the reasons that you see StV so often that hasn't been discussed is that it is a dual-color card and is thus accessible to far more planeswalkers. In paper, multicolor makes something more exclusive, which is the exact opposite of what it does in PQ, where it makes it far more readily playable.
More so than the mana gains, StV tends to fuel loyalty ramp, which is why you see it so often ran by Koth and others with very low blue gain.
Given that we now have the Artifact subtype, I feel the best way to help balance out the extreme ramp would be to make it care about the Artifact type instead of supports, especially since that is how the paper version operates. This would require more deliberate use, as StV frequently nukes the treasures upon transformation and only counting artifacts means you'd need either a ton of artifact supports or multiple artifact creatures to get it to the level of ramp it currently offers.
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please stop comparing paper and PQ, Every argument you make seems to hinge on either what a card was in paper or that the devs just didnt balance it right or translated the card in a strange way. I'm'not going card by card because that would make for an incredible boring post,ZW2007- said:
You didn't disprove his point by listing a few blue cards that give free mana. Green is the color of mass gem conversion. You cannot argue that fact. Just like red is the color of mass gem destruction. Sure, other colors get it here and there but at a much smaller scale and less frequent scale.andrewvanmarle said:
Look, that trope that managain is the sole province of green is just untrue in PQ. I've listed many cards in a previous post in this thread disproving your point.Mburn7 said:loo
The issue is more how it effects the strengths and weaknesses of Blue than anything super-specific with the card itself. Blue's main weakness is supposed to be damage and mana gain. Gem conversion is supposed to be the sole dominion of Green. Turn to Frog is firmly within Blue's color pie abilities (transmogrification), so it isn't an issue.andrewvanmarle said:So? the fact that all your blue decks contain something means...zilch....
all my blue decks contain turn to frog. is it OP? needs a nerf? no
bad logic, sorry
The equivalents I can think of is if there was a green card that was a 7 mana "destroy target creature," or a 3 mana black "destroy a support" card. Neither are super ridiculous as a card, but they fill a major weakness of their respective colors and would thus be seen as overpowered.
Trying to fit PQ into a paper-shaped hole doesn't work.
Here are the cards that supposedly disproved the point:
-SA giving 13 mana was just the weirdest change from a paper card I've ever seen and I suspect they only did it because mill is useless here and they wanted a cool mythic flip card in blue.
-The deserts were all land cards in paper so they made them all give mana in spell form. It just so happens that the blue one ended up being the most powerful because they didn't balance them properly.
-Admiral's Orders is a strange take on the paper version getting a reduced mana cost. Essentially it becomes a free spell that gains you 2 mana, hardly comparable to StV.
-As Foretold, as I already said, is essentially a weaker StV and exactly how StV should work; and again, it gives mana instead of converting gems.
-Bounty of the Luxa has ramp because it is a blue and green card and it still doesn't convert gems or produce copious amounts of mana. (plus the paper version drew a card or gave mana every other turn, one blue effect, one green effect.)
-Days Undoing gives 3 mana as a way to offset the fact that you just shuffled away your entire hand and drew 5 new cards. It is a way to make up for any mana lost when shuffling away your hand and 3 mana per card is hardly oppressive.
-Dreadwaters is another weird take on mill similar to SA and is a very unique card effect (and similar to Kiora's first.)
-Jhoira got the mana addition as a means to make her worthy of being a mythic. She pales in comparison to other cards that draw when you cast something. Her paper version only draws on casting a Historic card and nothing else but in paper drawing a card is vastly more powerful than it is in PQ.
-Jodah has an alternate casting cost effect and really doesn't even fit in this discussion since he also nerfs your mana gains at the same time.
-Kumena's Awakening is simply a Fevered Visions that gets one sided when you jump through hoops. They added in mana to make it more appealing yet again.
-Muldrotha is also green so the mana gain makes sense and ties into the fact that green is all about ramping out lands. (Her paper version lets you cast one card of each type from your GY per turn which isn't easy to do in PQ unless that card also gets some free mana into it.)
-Naru is simply a "copy target spell, you may choose a new target for that spell" card. Since they couldn't do that in PQ, they made her copy a card already in your hand and it gains full mana so that you can cast it for free (much like you would cast the copy for free in paper.)
As you can see, not a single one of these cards converts gems to blue. PQ does have a color pie independent of paper and this card breaks PQ's color pie.
For the record, I never said that I think StV should be nerfed. I'm simply saying that no one should argue that it isn't overpowered. Ironically, Gilded Lotus was nerfed because of its ability to fit into any deck and simply improve that deck with no extra effort. StV functions nearly identically to that. The differences being that Gilded Lotus was colorless and had an immediate but small payoff while StV is limited to blue/red with a slow but massive payoff.
The argument i disproved was not that blue is the king of gem conversion, but in PQ (important) it does have good managain in the color pie. If you read the post above it says "blue's weakness is managain"
Mana gain being the operative word.
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Guys...we can throw our detailed opinions around until StV hits legacy, but there's no reason to believe the developers will actually nerf this card. They didnt nerf new perspectives, they didn't nerf omniscience, they aren't going to nerf this card either.If yall want to keep fighting theoreticals for the sake of flexing your debate-muscles that's fine, but recognize that ultimately this conversation isn't going to change anything.1
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Just FYI, this card was stealth nerfed in 2.7.1:
- Support destruction will only target treasures if there are no more valid targets.
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