Should they nerf BSZ?

Mburn7

Yes

Tremayne said:

Mburn7 said:

starfall said:

My prediction is something equally as broken will pop in in WAR, in order to encourage people to sign up to the new subscription service. Maybe multiple somethings.

Oh yeah.  Olivia 2.0 is on the horizon.

I have heard rumours about Piglivia of the Krallenhorde

Really?  My insiders tell me of a Pigrakul the Fading Light en route.  Need to keep digging 

Mark_Tedin

No

• Blue Sun Zenith (M19 - Spell)
• Mana Cost changed from 6 to 10.
• Stored Mana changed from 10 to 6.
• Value changed from "...Stored Mana. Then, give those cards X plus 2 mana" to "...Stored Mana. Then, give those cards X plus 4 mana."

Our 2 hours of daily games will become 4 h. or more ...
As expected, the card was unused. BSZ was the only card that accelerated the current standard. good luck with your Traxos and Thunderherd Migration now.

As consequence, I will be playing just the weekends coalitions events. 

I have a mate who spent almost a year and some money to get BSZ masterpiece ... now he will uninstall the game.
Congratulations to the noisy minority! You got it. 

Mburn7

Yes

Mark_Tedin said:

• Blue Sun Zenith (M19 - Spell)
• Mana Cost changed from 6 to 10.
• Stored Mana changed from 10 to 6.
• Value changed from "...Stored Mana. Then, give those cards X plus 2 mana" to "...Stored Mana. Then, give those cards X plus 4 mana."

Our 2 hours of daily games will become 4 h. or more ...
As expected, the card was unused. BSZ was the only card that accelerated the current standard. good luck with your Traxos and Thunderherd Migration now.

As consequence, I will be playing just the weekends coalitions events. 

I have a mate who spent almost a year and some money to get BSZ masterpiece ... now he will uninstall the game.
Congratulations to the noisy minority! You got it. 

I really don't get this position.  You want stupidly overpowered cards because you hate playing?  If an extra 3 turns per match or whatever is going to make you uninstall the game I don't know why you'd be playing anyway.

And besides, there are plenty of decks you can make without BSZ that still win in 5 turns or less.  So if you really need to play your 12 daily games in 10 min (plus loading) you still can.

It wasn't a "noisy minority" asking for the nerf, it was a minority asking NOT to nerf.  Sorry you were on the wrong end of it.

wereotter

No

Mburn7 said:

It wasn't a "noisy minority" asking for the nerf, it was a minority asking NOT to nerf.  Sorry you were on the wrong end of it.

The results from just this poll show this statement to be incorrect with, at the time I’m making this comment, 40% of respondents in favor of nerfing the card, and 51% opposing. Meaning the majority of players were not in favor of it. And in fact, you asking for the nerf puts you in the minority, though still a sizable number, of players demanding it. 

nerdstrap

No

Lol at “nerf”. Still amazing and the best card in standard. Still autocasts ball lightning. Doesn’t come back via expansion and that’s good. 

//Removed Insult -Brigby

Mburn7

Yes

wereotter said:

Mburn7 said:

It wasn't a "noisy minority" asking for the nerf, it was a minority asking NOT to nerf.  Sorry you were on the wrong end of it.

The results from just this poll show this statement to be incorrect with, at the time I’m making this comment, 40% of respondents in favor of nerfing the card, and 51% opposing. Meaning the majority of players were not in favor of it. And in fact, you asking for the nerf puts you in the minority, though still a sizable number, of players demanding it. 

We're talking a difference of 9 votes.  That makes this poll basically a 50-50 split.
Based on comments in the many other threads on this topic (plus what I've heard in the various discord chats) most players agreed that the card was overpowered and needed a nerf, even if they didn't want it to happen.

But I'd rather not start this argument going again, since it got pretty nasty at times before.  Lets just let it be and see how the new changes work out with WAR.  BSZ still looks to be very strong, just not infinitely loopable.

Matthew

Yes

The card was super unhealthy for the game. People complaining about the upcoming change are just lamenting the loss of their easy button. Now they'll have to do a lot more work for a win. Oh noooo, how terrible...

It needed a nerf. If you didn't think it needed a nerf, then you were an oblivious part of the problem.

EvilDead

No

Matthew said:

The card was super unhealthy for the game. People complaining about the upcoming change are just lamenting the loss of their easy button. Now they'll have to do a lot more work for a win. Oh noooo, how terrible...

It needed a nerf. If you didn't think it needed a nerf, then you were an oblivious part of the problem.

That is not a correct statement. All the calls for nerf are very obtuse honestly.

The reality is, new players who have gathered a healthy Standard collection of cards including BSZ are screwed over in Legacy events. They didn't bother nerfing Omniscience/Whir at the same time. So right when there is at least some competitive ability in Legacy events, they decide to diminish new players ability to compete. They also didn't bother to nerf QuasiNaru so that's still a thing and Primeval and Gisa/Geralf loops are still going to be a thing. Legacy events are going to suck a little more after the nerf. There are others as well but I can't think of them right now, something to do with Prism Array. 

Regardless, Standard gets nerfed a little but now Legacy is even more broken to new players. Very short sided solution and not well thought out.

I worked hard to get those cards so I could compete in Legacy PvP events. Now I still have them, they just are not going to be as good. Sad times.

For PvP, they really just needed to make a list of ineligible cards just like a paper tournament. Even though the card is in Standard or in Legacy, if it's too powerful it can't be used. But in the meantime, we still have those useful cards for defeating PvE bosses etc.

Plague Wind? Whatever I guess. Should have just changed it to kill 1 or 2 creatures and added City's Blessing or something like Vona to kill all 3. 

Also, we're talking about Masterpiece cards. Since when are they not supposed to be bad **** in the first place. Don't necessarily belong in PvP but let us kill a 400 hit point PvE Boss with them........

Mburn7

Yes

EvilDead said:

Matthew said:

The card was super unhealthy for the game. People complaining about the upcoming change are just lamenting the loss of their easy button. Now they'll have to do a lot more work for a win. Oh noooo, how terrible...

It needed a nerf. If you didn't think it needed a nerf, then you were an oblivious part of the problem.

That is not a correct statement. All the calls for nerf are very obtuse honestly.

The reality is, new players who have gathered a healthy Standard collection of cards including BSZ are screwed over in Legacy events. They didn't bother nerfing Omniscience/Whir at the same time. So right when there is at least some competitive ability in Legacy events, they decide to diminish new players ability to compete. They also didn't bother to nerf QuasiNaru so that's still a thing and Primeval and Gisa/Geralf loops are still going to be a thing. Legacy events are going to suck a little more after the nerf. There are others as well but I can't think of them right now, something to do with Prism Array. 

Regardless, Standard gets nerfed a little but now Legacy is even more broken to new players. Very short sided solution and not well thought out.

I worked hard to get those cards so I could compete in Legacy PvP events. Now I still have them, they just are not going to be as good. Sad times.

For PvP, they really just needed to make a list of ineligible cards just like a paper tournament. Even though the card is in Standard or in Legacy, if it's too powerful it can't be used. But in the meantime, we still have those useful cards for defeating PvE bosses etc.

Plague Wind? Whatever I guess. Should have just changed it to kill 1 or 2 creatures and added City's Blessing or something like Vona to kill all 3. 

Also, we're talking about Masterpiece cards. Since when are they not supposed to be bad tinykitty in the first place. Don't necessarily belong in PvP but let us kill a 400 hit point PvE Boss with them........

First of all, of course new players won't be able to compete at the highest level in Legacy events.
Same reason in paper I can't show up to a Legacy tournament using only my Post-Innistrad collection and expect to compete.  You're talking about almost 4 years worth of cards and strategies.  You can't seriously expect to be caught up with it in a couple months.

And as for the slight nerfs to Plague Wind and BSZ, both cards are still extremely powerful.  Plague Wind just isn't great anymore only killing one creature and BSZ just can't go infinite anymore (although I agree Naru should have been nerfed, and Gisa/Rebirth is definitely a bug that they just won't/can't fix).  This is hopefully just a start to a much larger card balancing initiative, so how about we see how it goes for now and then worry about what else needs to be fixed.

OmegaLolrus

Yes

I'm kind of confused by the four hours mandatory play time a day... I mean, yeah, that's how much I play. But I also usually have 10-15+ games after my wins TG playing with decks, that type of thing.

I mean, I don't have BSZ, but you have to recognize that when it is absolutely always the card you pick of your PW is blue... Something's not right.

wereotter

No

OmegaLolrus said:

I'm kind of confused by the four hours mandatory play time a day... I mean, yeah, that's how much I play. But I also usually have 10-15+ games after my wins TG playing with decks, that type of thing.

I mean, I don't have BSZ, but you have to recognize that when it is absolutely always the card you pick of your PW is blue... Something's not right.

I have it, and most my blue planeswalkers don't run the card.

But that might just be because I prefer not always doing exactly the same thing every time I play... and prefer my decks to have some kind of theme other than "Here's all the most broken cards I could play!" People who were complaining that they were always playing the card always had the choice of simply not always playing it rather than call for the card to be nerfed because they have no self restraint. 

Theros

No

BSZ is not the problem but the game itself. The game has some underlying issues we all forget: grindiness, bad cards, bad rewards/rankings. Those issues interact among each others.
If we were to rank cards and plot a distribution, it will be severely skewed to the right. This is caused by the fact that most cards are barely playable, regardless of rarity. The game has some few outliers which are so good compared to the majority of cards and BSZ is one of them. 
When outliers exist, people will naturally/obviously chase them because of their usefulness, simplicity and ease in addressing the game issues mentioned above. 

Most of decks I see on FTA slack are similar. Even decks greg plays seem familiar, bsz or not. Its so rare to see something radical that is as  good as not using the most useful cards. It's just a natural tendency for people to chase them outliers and the game developer is to blame. The prevalence of bad cards make good cards look very unusual. 


When I saw the bsz nerf, the first thing that crossed my mind was the amount of time to finish my dailies and games.

The mtgpq community is diverse and each players have a differently play style. Some people like me want fast games, others like to more take their time ot tinker with cards. The game as it is does not really satisfy the group that cannot bear the grind or long games; the options are very limited. Reaction to such groups as largely been like  "This is not how mtg should be played",  "game is not for you play something else" or something like "this is a card or deck building game".
Our love for bsz is not necessary for competitive advantage. 

The BSZ nerf wont make the suddenly balanced; the next outlier on the list after BSZ will be meta-wrapping or considered broken and the cycle continues. For how long?
Needed not to mention other offenders or outliers.  What will be the next outlier to cry for nerf?
Ideally, you want most card to be playable like DOM set. However that may not make sense business wise.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

wereotter

No

Theros said:

Ideally, you want most card to be playable like DOM set. However that may not make sense business wise.

To be fair.... Dominaria has its fair share of broken cards. The deck I've been playing for Tamiyo really abuses what Raff can do when paired with Jhoira. But also, that relies on having two cards paired up together rather than one card by itself.

Dkrone

After reading what folks said early in this thread I’ve played for the last month with it in mind. Here is my conclusion, BSZ is not the problem. I added it and removed it from every blue deck I have. Unless the PW had blue and green in the colors it was somewhere between semi-useful and in the way. The BG color combo was a different story and we all know why - the card combos can generate so much mana, loops, and extra turns that it gets old fast. Couple that with insane walkers like Sarkhan and Tamiyo and it’s hard to play with any deck but your best if you want to win. But that’s the walkers and color combos issue, they are just as good without BSZ. BZS just speeds up the process. I’m not saying it’s isn’t a great card, but I don’t think it breaks the game.

Its done now so no worries. My only complaint is how much money and time I spent getting resources to get BSZ. It’s like bait and switch, “do everything you can to get this card! Now we are going to make it weaker.” Disappointing. And Plague Wind...I have to ask myself now, why chase any good card if they are just going to nerf them? If you release a card that is too good, in my opinion that is too bad. Once the possibility for someone to spend real money on it occurs it should stick around in its original form unless there is a catostaphic bug.

SolRing

I used up a good 75% of my orbs and pinks I've ever accumulated to nab BSZ.

Why not? It was clearly the most powerful card not bundled into the huge pool of legacy cards. And I considered myself lucky to get it. Had it about a month now, feel slightly guilty reading posts where folks spend much more trying to get it.

So I guess its still really good, though...? And only half these m19 mythics are useless...? I suppose it could be worse.

Which is the sad part. No recourse or do overs, just should be happy it could have been worse.


Maybe we wouldn't get so attached to the good cards if so many weren't unplayable filler.

FindingHeart8

No

Less talk of nerfing cards and more talk of buffing the Origins planeswalkers.  They need it badly, especially with this new set around the corner.

Laeuftbeidir

Yes

I like the change - I've got to admit that it's likely because it's rather close to my idea how to balance it. It's still immensely powerful, it just pulls it from the range of being the keystone for several decks and strategies to the point where it only boosts them by far. The change to pw.. It's still more powerful to some more expensive comparable legacy mystics, so not bad at all.

The time they needed to do this, and no indication on avance that they see it as a problem on the other hand make this a bit more difficult, though. I also agree that there are other issues in terms of card balancing.. But this change is good for the Meta and even pulled one or two players back into the game

wereotter

No

FindingHeart8 said:

Less talk of nerfing cards and more talk of buffing the Origins planeswalkers.  They need it badly, especially with this new set around the corner.

This is an attitude that we should have in general toward this game. There shouldn’t just be half a dozen powerful, good cards, and 2,000 cards collecting dust in everyone’s collection. 

Cards of all rarities should be viable with higher rarity cards doing things that are interesting but not overly powerful. As is now, I feel like all the commons are exact replicas of their paper counterparts with only higher rarity cards getting any real attention. 

andrewvanmarle

No

@Brigby
isn't it time to close this thread? BSZ has been nerfed, so any discussion about it now would only serve to inflame tempers....