Should they nerf BSZ?

Brakkis

Yes

Dkrone said:
“I don’t like using it so no one should be able to”? Come on, you can build winning decks without it.

No one said that.

Dkrone said:
All of this talk about how it hurts the game and everyone uses it is junk. All I hear is “I’m losing games waaah”, so what.

Your reading comprehension is severely lacking

Dkrone said:
Don’t act like you guys are all about the purity of the game, you want to win every game and it bothers you when you don’t. 

No one is acting like that. No one has even mentioned losing to BSZ. Not one person saying it should be nerfed here in this thread is claiming losses to it as the reason. But good on you for trying to ignore the actual reasons in order to make up one of your own so you can straw man the conversation.

Dkrone said:
The real issue that needs to be addressed is the crashes. That does actually impact everyone. 

Theros said:

Why not nerf lags and freezes instead? What about the screw ups Octagon has made to the game

I'm sorry but card balance is the least of my worries.

One issue does not preclude another issue from being an issue. Working on one issue does not prevent the discussion and actions of fixing or preventing another issue from taking place. Discussing and working towards preventing global warming does not mean we can't also focus on wildlife preservation, or on clean running water in numerous countries, or the prevention of disease outbreaks, etc.

If only one thing at a time could be done, patches would be a single thing. One new event, or one new planeswalker, or one bug fix. That's not how it works. Cease acting as if your singular focus should be everyone's singular focus. 

Theros said:

There is no evidence that bsz offers competitive advantage to either Greg or the user for that matter. it doesn't even offer competitive advantage in events unlike Cycling which guarantied secondaries.

Come to think it,  all my loses from totps this week were not  from bsz but prism array, unwalden hydra, rishkar and GR.

Once again, how Greg (the AI opponent) plays with a card is irrelevant. What you lose to most is just as irrelevant. It is entirely about how the card is run and operated when in the players hand.

Many of those voting yes are top players within the game. They're in the top coalitions, dominating the leaderboards in every event. They're pointing at BSZ and saying "This thing right here, it's absurdly powerful and it's in damn near every deck I run because it simply warps them into near-instant win decks." Now, they could run different cards and challenge themselves. Some have begun to do so simply out of a need to not give themselves such a crutch and they have the collection and know-how to do so. That doesn't make BSZ any less absurd.

Theros said:

In before mirror and killer instinct join the need to nerf list. It's just a matter of time since the set is relatively new. I'm not saying they OP, but scarier than bsz. 

Mirror March and Killer Instinct are great cards. Very powerful ones. People aren't calling for nerfs on them because they don't warp the entire game around themselves. They don't break out of their own color pie. They don't do something that their color isn't supposed to do. Mirror March isn't converting gems, Zacama is. It's a crazy combo. You'll notice many of us have access to those as well and yet we still think BSZ is absurd.

wereotter

No

The only time I've seen it be a problem is when my opponent has created some kind of Sarkhan loop deck that the AI can abuse because everything basically just infinitely triggers off of each other and kills you in one turn. Blue Sun's Zenith is just another tool in that deck and would be replaced by some other draw or mana gain engine in that deck if it didn't exist.

But as it currently is, it's the only spell that really lets me feel like I'm storming off Izzet style in my red-blue decks since the hand size limit makes it so Thousand Year Storm can't really be effective at doing that, and makes for some interesting decks where you restrict every card to 12 or less mana so that the card can draw you a full hand then play all the cards. This is something I know other players will never see the other side of because the AI won't empty out its hand in preparation to cast the spell.

To me, it's hardly a worse offender than something like Day's Undoing.

Gilesclone

Yes

Days undoing gives half the mana.  And it’s a very powerful card.

Brakkis

Yes

Gilesclone said:

Days undoing gives half the mana.  And it’s a very powerful card.

More like a fifth. Day's Undoing gives 5 cards 3 mana each. BSZ gives 6 cards 12 mana each.

Gilesclone

Yes

Right!  I was thinking of Behold the Beyond.

arNero

Yes

My primary reason for supporting a nerf to BSZ is probably explainable by dragging Baral into this mess.

Okay, I do understand that Baral is a mere mythic whyle BSZ is a masterpiece, but aside from that, the gist is the same: Those cards, even when played by a supposedly stupid AI, still have a disturbingly high chance of setting off infinite chains resulting in a very dead player (both from having -129 life and from having to sit through the LPS fuse), and in particular, this is regardless of how well or poorly the player plays 90% of the match. Those cards (and many of its kin) have reduced the game into a roulette game hoping you can get enough cascade to win on turn 1 (sometimes literally) or you get OTKed. There is no more strategy. There is no more planning. There is only speed.

wereotter

No

arNero said:

My primary reason for supporting a nerf to BSZ is probably explainable by dragging Baral into this mess.

Okay, I do understand that Baral is a mere mythic whyle BSZ is a masterpiece, but aside from that, the gist is the same: Those cards, even when played by a supposedly stupid AI, still have a disturbingly high chance of setting off infinite chains resulting in a very dead player (both from having -129 life and from having to sit through the LPS fuse), and in particular, this is regardless of how well or poorly the player plays 90% of the match. Those cards (and many of its kin) have reduced the game into a roulette game hoping you can get enough cascade to win on turn 1 (sometimes literally) or you get OTKed. There is no more strategy. There is no more planning. There is only speed.

This is why the loop prevention system existed. But too many people whined and complained till it was nerfed into impotence. I can still create a deck that will kill my opponent in one turn once the engine is going without triggering the loop prevention.

The loop prevention, for standard, is what kept the power of certain cards in check. Especially considering how poorly the game balances other issues such as card power level and a lack of benefit to playing a planeswalker with fewer colors as opposed to playing Sarkhan or Bolas with three colors. 

wereotter

No

starfall said:

wereotter said:

Especially considering how poorly the game balances other issues such as card power level

I'm very surprised to hear you say this given you voted 'no' on the poll.

Some cards are indeed overly powerful. Blue Sun's Zenith in a vacuum is one of them, but in the greater context of cards in this game, you can't just point to that one, and ignore all the others. There needs to be a full overhaul of the power level of cards in this game if they want things to be more balanced. They also need to address the lack of disadvantage in playing a three color planeswalker versus a mono colored one. For starters, I think Sarkhan shouldn't be allowed to play any cards outside of his color identity, like Trostani or Bedevil, ditto Bolas for Razia or Journey to Eternity. Also I think three color planeswalkers should have, at level 60, -2 on their off colors for mana gains, and only +2 for their on color.

But I digress....

Revamp all the over powered cards and reassess all planeswlkers skills, mana bonuses, and health totals, and I'll get on board with including Blue Sun's Zenith in that group. Leave all the other cards as-is, and I saw leave this one too.

ZW2007-

Yes

The easiest way to start rebalancing all overpowered cards is to start with the most overpowered card. Once upon a time it was Omniscience, which needed to be nerfed and never was. Now it is BSZ which needs to be nerfed and won't be. I've owned both for a very long time and advocated for Omni to be nerfed a very long time ago.

Pointing to bugs and saying we shouldn't discuss game balance is nonsense. That's like saying WotC needs to solve the issue of foil cards warping before they bother with balancing a new set. Different guys do different jobs. I highly doubt that the person in charge of game design is the same person that is building code and fixing bugs.

The existence of this card isn't a threat to me, it makes my enjoyment of the game lower because it is boring to jam the same shell into every single deck I make. The goal is to win games, which I typically do. The best way to ensure I continue winning games is to continue using the most broken cards I own. In events where rewards or losses are meaningless, I run more fun and experimental decks. In the competitive weekend coalition events, I stick to boring BSZ combo monstrosities that just win. Hardly the exciting game play I want for a game I love (to hate).  

ZW2007-

Yes

Theros said:

There some interesting data I found about people who voted YES and NO despite the vote being 50/50.

People who voted YES have:
Total Points: 14603
Total posts: 13921
Total Badges: 267

People that voted NO have"
Total points: 3348
Total posts: 4138
Total Badges: 176

This is interesting, people that voted NO have the least stats by a large margin.
This is beautiful. If I had time, I could add date joined, number of likes and insights, number of visits to get some charts. 

It's almost like the players that support it being nerfed are the ones that have been playing the game for a very long time and are better at recognizing which cards are unhealthy for the state of the game because they have experienced a lot of things that were unhealthy for the game...

In all honesty, there were a lot of things that were bad for the game. Two of the biggest offenders that were fixed were Baral and Cycling. I seem to recall a lot of threads about those two things at the time. Just saying.

Azerack

No

Just because people don't post on the forums doesn't mean they haven't played for a long time...
And Baral was fixed because it was a major loop, by itself, at the time, by the AI, given certain cards. Cycling was nerfed once it went to standard and wasn't a problem with the AI, it was because people complained certain card mixes were "Easy buttons" in Cycling.

And, my fellow players, I pose this... Do you think Oktagon is really going to work on this card any time soon and even more importantly, do it properly?

Extra: Just a few mins ago, had a Bolas vs. Bolas in Rising Tensions, we both had BSZ in our decks, which I thought was funny right after I posted this comment. I still managed to win. Just saying, it's not an instant-win card.

jtwood

Yes

I voted for a nerf, but I’d rather see Starfall constantly whine about real problems, like the massively unstable and buggy architecture of the game itself. 

Ampersand

No

wereotter said:

starfall said:

wereotter said:

Especially considering how poorly the game balances other issues such as card power level

I'm very surprised to hear you say this given you voted 'no' on the poll.

Some cards are indeed overly powerful. Blue Sun's Zenith in a vacuum is one of them, but in the greater context of cards in this game, you can't just point to that one, and ignore all the others. There needs to be a full overhaul of the power level of cards in this game if they want things to be more balanced. They also need to address the lack of disadvantage in playing a three color planeswalker versus a mono colored one. For starters, I think Sarkhan shouldn't be allowed to play any cards outside of his color identity, like Trostani or Bedevil, ditto Bolas for Razia or Journey to Eternity. Also I think three color planeswalkers should have, at level 60, -2 on their off colors for mana gains, and only +2 for their on color.

But I digress....

Revamp all the over powered cards and reassess all planeswlkers skills, mana bonuses, and health totals, and I'll get on board with including Blue Sun's Zenith in that group. Leave all the other cards as-is, and I saw leave this one too.

I voted no, mostly because I don't expect Oktagon to nerf it and get it right, and also because I generally agree with @wereotter that it would be better in the context of a major rebalancing - which they have done in the past with land supports etc.

wereotter

No

ZW2007- said:

The easiest way to start rebalancing all overpowered cards is to start with the most overpowered card. Once upon a time it was Omniscience, which needed to be nerfed and never was. Now it is BSZ which needs to be nerfed and won't be. I've owned both for a very long time and advocated for Omni to be nerfed a very long time ago.

Pointing to bugs and saying we shouldn't discuss game balance is nonsense. That's like saying WotC needs to solve the issue of foil cards warping before they bother with balancing a new set. Different guys do different jobs. I highly doubt that the person in charge of game design is the same person that is building code and fixing bugs.

The existence of this card isn't a threat to me, it makes my enjoyment of the game lower because it is boring to jam the same shell into every single deck I make. The goal is to win games, which I typically do. The best way to ensure I continue winning games is to continue using the most broken cards I own. In events where rewards or losses are meaningless, I run more fun and experimental decks. In the competitive weekend coalition events, I stick to boring BSZ combo monstrosities that just win. Hardly the exciting game play I want for a game I love (to hate).  

I speak from owning both, and I would say Blue Sun's Zenith is hardly the most powerful card in the game. I'd put that at Killer Instinct. I can play BSZ and it gives me a lot of advantage, but that's all. On the other hand, I never have lost a game after getting Killer Instinct in play.

Also I find it interesting you support nerfing it because you think it's boring... and from what I'm reading, because you aren't willing to do anything different or creative in events, and just do "stuff my deck full of all the monstrosities" Changing Blue Sun's Zenith won't change your issues if that's how you play as once this is lower in power level, then I would expect you to just play whatever is the next most powerful, and then new threads will pop up calling for those to be nerfed too.

If we do the cards one at a time, we're just going to be playing whack-a-mole with these cards. There needs to be a large-scale adjustment of cards rather than one at a time.

Mburn7

Yes

wereotter said:

ZW2007- said:

The easiest way to start rebalancing all overpowered cards is to start with the most overpowered card. Once upon a time it was Omniscience, which needed to be nerfed and never was. Now it is BSZ which needs to be nerfed and won't be. I've owned both for a very long time and advocated for Omni to be nerfed a very long time ago.

Pointing to bugs and saying we shouldn't discuss game balance is nonsense. That's like saying WotC needs to solve the issue of foil cards warping before they bother with balancing a new set. Different guys do different jobs. I highly doubt that the person in charge of game design is the same person that is building code and fixing bugs.

The existence of this card isn't a threat to me, it makes my enjoyment of the game lower because it is boring to jam the same shell into every single deck I make. The goal is to win games, which I typically do. The best way to ensure I continue winning games is to continue using the most broken cards I own. In events where rewards or losses are meaningless, I run more fun and experimental decks. In the competitive weekend coalition events, I stick to boring BSZ combo monstrosities that just win. Hardly the exciting game play I want for a game I love (to hate).  

I speak from owning both, and I would say Blue Sun's Zenith is hardly the most powerful card in the game. I'd put that at Killer Instinct. I can play BSZ and it gives me a lot of advantage, but that's all. On the other hand, I never have lost a game after getting Killer Instinct in play.

Also I find it interesting you support nerfing it because you think it's boring... and from what I'm reading, because you aren't willing to do anything different or creative in events, and just do "stuff my deck full of all the monstrosities" Changing Blue Sun's Zenith won't change your issues if that's how you play as once this is lower in power level, then I would expect you to just play whatever is the next most powerful, and then new threads will pop up calling for those to be nerfed too.

If we do the cards one at a time, we're just going to be playing whack-a-mole with these cards. There needs to be a large-scale adjustment of cards rather than one at a time.

Hmm, I don't find Killer Instinct nearly as powerful as BSZ, since it can't infinitely loop and ends up a net negative on your board (since it kills a creature the turn you play it, and then goes 1 for 1 every turn after that).  It is still extremely powerful (and slightly bugged to be even better), but its not on the same level as BSZ, at least not in Standard.

wereotter

No

Mburn7 said:

wereotter said:

ZW2007- said:

The easiest way to start rebalancing all overpowered cards is to start with the most overpowered card. Once upon a time it was Omniscience, which needed to be nerfed and never was. Now it is BSZ which needs to be nerfed and won't be. I've owned both for a very long time and advocated for Omni to be nerfed a very long time ago.

Pointing to bugs and saying we shouldn't discuss game balance is nonsense. That's like saying WotC needs to solve the issue of foil cards warping before they bother with balancing a new set. Different guys do different jobs. I highly doubt that the person in charge of game design is the same person that is building code and fixing bugs.

The existence of this card isn't a threat to me, it makes my enjoyment of the game lower because it is boring to jam the same shell into every single deck I make. The goal is to win games, which I typically do. The best way to ensure I continue winning games is to continue using the most broken cards I own. In events where rewards or losses are meaningless, I run more fun and experimental decks. In the competitive weekend coalition events, I stick to boring BSZ combo monstrosities that just win. Hardly the exciting game play I want for a game I love (to hate).  

I speak from owning both, and I would say Blue Sun's Zenith is hardly the most powerful card in the game. I'd put that at Killer Instinct. I can play BSZ and it gives me a lot of advantage, but that's all. On the other hand, I never have lost a game after getting Killer Instinct in play.

Also I find it interesting you support nerfing it because you think it's boring... and from what I'm reading, because you aren't willing to do anything different or creative in events, and just do "stuff my deck full of all the monstrosities" Changing Blue Sun's Zenith won't change your issues if that's how you play as once this is lower in power level, then I would expect you to just play whatever is the next most powerful, and then new threads will pop up calling for those to be nerfed too.

If we do the cards one at a time, we're just going to be playing whack-a-mole with these cards. There needs to be a large-scale adjustment of cards rather than one at a time.

Hmm, I don't find Killer Instinct nearly as powerful as BSZ, since it can't infinitely loop and ends up a net negative on your board (since it kills a creature the turn you play it, and then goes 1 for 1 every turn after that).  It is still extremely powerful (and slightly bugged to be even better), but its not on the same level as BSZ, at least not in Standard.

Play it right, and you'll end up ahead on creatures, being able to cheat out really high cost creatures for free every turn and end up with massive power in just a turn or two. Perhaps is how I'm playing them, but I don't have a deck set up that loops Blue Sun's Zenith, just use it in a red-blue wizards deck where everything in it costs 12 mana or less, then have to hope to find another copy wither when I cast it or hopefully within a couple turns...

Aeroplane

No

Naru is the most broken card in standard now. One card loop!!

Laeuftbeidir

Yes

wereotter said:

Mburn7 said:

wereotter said:

ZW2007- said:

The easiest way to start rebalancing all overpowered cards is to start with the most overpowered card. Once upon a time it was Omniscience, which needed to be nerfed and never was. Now it is BSZ which needs to be nerfed and won't be. I've owned both for a very long time and advocated for Omni to be nerfed a very long time ago.

Pointing to bugs and saying we shouldn't discuss game balance is nonsense. That's like saying WotC needs to solve the issue of foil cards warping before they bother with balancing a new set. Different guys do different jobs. I highly doubt that the person in charge of game design is the same person that is building code and fixing bugs.

The existence of this card isn't a threat to me, it makes my enjoyment of the game lower because it is boring to jam the same shell into every single deck I make. The goal is to win games, which I typically do. The best way to ensure I continue winning games is to continue using the most broken cards I own. In events where rewards or losses are meaningless, I run more fun and experimental decks. In the competitive weekend coalition events, I stick to boring BSZ combo monstrosities that just win. Hardly the exciting game play I want for a game I love (to hate).  

I speak from owning both, and I would say Blue Sun's Zenith is hardly the most powerful card in the game. I'd put that at Killer Instinct. I can play BSZ and it gives me a lot of advantage, but that's all. On the other hand, I never have lost a game after getting Killer Instinct in play.

Also I find it interesting you support nerfing it because you think it's boring... and from what I'm reading, because you aren't willing to do anything different or creative in events, and just do "stuff my deck full of all the monstrosities" Changing Blue Sun's Zenith won't change your issues if that's how you play as once this is lower in power level, then I would expect you to just play whatever is the next most powerful, and then new threads will pop up calling for those to be nerfed too.

If we do the cards one at a time, we're just going to be playing whack-a-mole with these cards. There needs to be a large-scale adjustment of cards rather than one at a time.

Hmm, I don't find Killer Instinct nearly as powerful as BSZ, since it can't infinitely loop and ends up a net negative on your board (since it kills a creature the turn you play it, and then goes 1 for 1 every turn after that).  It is still extremely powerful (and slightly bugged to be even better), but its not on the same level as BSZ, at least not in Standard.

Play it right, and you'll end up ahead on creatures, being able to cheat out really high cost creatures for free every turn and end up with massive power in just a turn or two. Perhaps is how I'm playing them, but I don't have a deck set up that loops Blue Sun's Zenith, just use it in a red-blue wizards deck where everything in it costs 12 mana or less, then have to hope to find another copy wither when I cast it or hopefully within a couple turns...

Now, make all the cards cost 1-12 mana, add sunbird and include expansion. Boom, you've got it. If you use Brokhan, you can use thunderherd, and the 12cmc creature exploring 1+2 to add higher cost creatures and keep the loop running. It's a one turn insta win.. If it just was an accelerator for decks, it would be fine. A slight balance act could throw it from insane to just very good as accelerator, not key card.

Your idea gives a lot of free stuff over several turns - bsz used that way doesn't need any turns