Currently game feels over-nerfed

JamesGam

As the title suggests, the game has become much more dull due to an over-nerf / limit to cards.

Mechanics have become slow and far too time consuming to set up. A lot of the mechanics (devotion, graveyard gems) require dedicated decks, which with a 10 card deck limit already waters down a lot of decks. Underpowered mechanics still remain far to expensive like proliferate. Overall the casting cost vs actual power-level of cards is underwhelming.

We should NOT go back to the overpowered pre-BSZ nerf days but we also should NOT be suffering from underpowered post-BSZ. We need to up the power level of cards a tad and also make more functionally useful cards.

Kinesia

If all the currently completely useless cards are raised up to usable things would change a lot (and the new meta would be unpredictable), so it would be good to boost currently unusable things rather than improve in any way stuff that is grudgingly used.

mayor

Changing useless cards in a new pack in order to support previous mechanics would work wonders. Currently we just get new mechanics supported by few cards to be abandoned at the next release. Waste of effort producing shallow content. Designer needs to up his/her game a lot.

Last pack, I hardly find any card individually strong enough to replace others in my packs. It's like there's a looming fear of creating strong enough cards that could need nerf in the future or a mechanic like cycling, so they make a collection of useless cards. At least cycling needed some effort to collect all the cards and buy a planeswalker to make it work.

Kinesia

@mayor unfortunately what the cards actually _are_ depends on the ones Wizards of the Coast release in the set. They are not made for this out of thin air, they have to be recognisable as a version of the paper card.
There is definitely space for adjustment in the implementation though!

mayor

I thought WotC don't dictate exactly the workings of the mechanics, but if it matches the nature of the design. For instance Nissa doesn't throw flames, Red doesn't go full defense, etc etc. I don't think they care if the graveyard mechanic takes ages to work, but if it matches the way it should work. I understand there's not complete freedom, but the whole workings are screaming of lousy implementation. Who would play the card game with this kind of mechanics?

JamesGam

Kinesia said:

If all the currently completely useless cards are raised up to usable things would change a lot (and the new meta would be unpredictable), so it would be good to boost currently unusable things rather than improve in any way stuff that is grudgingly used.

Yes, as mentioned before during the BSZ nerf.

We would be buffing a numerous number of cards at all rarities, not just commons/uncommons. As a result, some cards will go from utterly useless to less than average, some will go from borderline usable to medium-frequency usable, some will go from mediocre to strong, and still others will go from mediocre to powerful. This will "flood" the current standard market with more useful cards. This flood will cause more card choices when building decks. Currently, it feels like there are specific staple cards when building a deck. It's not that there aren't other choices; it's that there aren't enough good choices competing against one another.

Additionally, these buffs will spur the discovery of new card combinations. Hopefully, the new card combos will generate a more varied competitive deck market; as opposed to the constant domination by a small number of decks. The meta will start to be shaken and maybe even shift. And regardless of the existence of BSZ, it is something that is direly needed to diversify the meta.

<https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/872644#Comment_872644&gt;

Aeroplane

Its unfortunate, but the game can barely be stabilized than buff previous cards. I always thought they could release novelty cards from sets past with little tweaks to create some flare. Many people request changes , fixes and other suggestions , but with updates coming every 2-4 months , you start to see the lack of resources Oktagon has. I play PaD and they have updates weekly with new stuff and buffs even with cards from 3-6 years back.
 
The nerf to the availability of good cards with Booster crafting being pushed back , VIP looking very undesirable and the lack of rewards from the new set has created a wide divide between the rarity of cards. 


Devotion and Graveyard Gems are very slow mechanics . There is a lot of words on these cards , but not much substance.

Aeroplane

Also, I believe Oktagon focuses too much on making monetary gains on the new set when they have vast resources from the past.

They could have an evolution or buffs of previous PWs that have become obsolete by giving them an increase mana boost or ability buff. Make them minor and include it with 500-1000 yellow crystals to do it. This wouldn't take a lot of coding and would give more options to spend funds. They could to do it some stable cards , too , changing the card from a rare to a mythic or reverse and decrease the mana cost a little or something else.


There are some many ideas to utilize older PWs , cards, story mode that would create interest and benefit Oktagon greatly by expanding how we could use our yellows and pinks. They tried it with Vanguards with different artwork but that is only fluff and no real substance to the game.

Mburn7

As someone who hasn't played in almost 2 months I can't really comment on the current state of the game, but as someone who has been playing for several years I can provide some historical perspective.  So here goes:

This exact discussion began in earnest after Kaladesh was released.  Many players felt that after the blatant power creep of the Innistrad blocks (Emrakul, Deploy, Olivia, Piggy...ect) Kaladesh felt deliberately toned down and useless.  The energy mechanic was seen as dumb and too slow to get going, vehicles were too weak for their cost with Crew not doing enough to offset that (since it didn't count tokens), and the Energy planeswalkers were too dependent on the underwhelming energy mechanic to be any good.
By the time Amonkhet came out the discussion shifted to how stupidly overpowered energy was and how several key cards needed to be nerfed (Pummeler, Gonti's Heart, Boomship/HoK...ect).

When Ixalan and RIX came out we had the same discussions.  Everyone felt that the brand new dev team had chosen to err on the side of caution and vastly underpower the entire set.  Everything felt slower after a year of nothing but Kaladesh/Amonkhet block cards, and many questioned the usefullness of most of the rare + cards.  Raid was seen as a pretty lame mechanic, treasures and tribal synergies were meh, and enrage and ascend were way too slow and tricky to trigger to be any good.  By the time those blocks rotated out there were a ton of cards that were seen as powerful staples (most famously StV and Ghalta, but many others as well).  The mechanics were still mostly useless, though.

When M19 and Dominaria came out we went through this again.  M19 felt like a lame Core set that was underpowered, and Dominaria's Historic emphasis was seen as mostly a gimmick.  Outside of BSZ we didn't feel like there were many good cards there at all.  I think you can see where this is going so I'll be brief, but it turns out there were a lot of fantastic cards in those sets too.


To make a long post short:  Its probably too early to really judge the power level of Theros.  A lot of new sets seem underpowered until you really start digging in and brewing with them.  And although the new Standard rotation will make it a bit trickier to see (since old sets stay in longer), I'm sure in a few months there will be calls to nerf all sorts of Theros cards.  We've done this dance before, and we'll do it again too.

ArielSira

Ixalan, being the first set by Oktagon, *was* bad at first though. They then changed the manacosts of a lot of cards and it became a good set. Did this happen before with Kaladesh as well? To me Kaladesh, Amonkhet, M19 and Dominaria always felt like great sets and I dont recall bad reception other than with Ixalan.

jtwood

I can’t help but giggle at the parallels in this thread with how people complain about paper Magic. This is almost verbatim but with Oktagon thrown in in place of Wizards of the Coast. 

It’s often said that the only thing Magic players like more than playing Magic is complaining about it. Still rings true in MTGPQ, apparently. 

Tilwin90

The power level hasn't necessarily decreased as much as games have become super centered around the board and delayed effects or half mana gains rather than burst spells and supports. Here are some of the historical decks and power cards that still completely wreck opposition in legacy:
- Prism/Waterveil combo - Prism Array draws you cards immediately, Waterveil gains you mana out of nowhere.
- HUF/Deploy - Put a huge board presence with hasty creatures, win on the spot.
- Zombie decks that flood the board and can win blazing fast
- Approach of the Second Sun that grows bigger and bigger with each turn (okay, we have Beacon Bolt in standard but without the combo support it's nowhere near as explosive)
- Immediate mana gains thanks to Rishksex, Nissa's Renewal, Startled Awake, Omniscience et al

Another reason why games drag so much more nowadays are because removal is rather powerful (though nowhere near where it was in the last standard thanks to River's Rebuek & Plague Wind) and planeswalkers having so much HP (Sorin used to be one of my power walkers, now he is trash!)

In contrast here are my most successful standard decks at the moment:
- Green decks that rely on The Great Henge, castles, Nyxbloom Ancient, Beanstalk Giant, Deathsprout, Casualties of War. If you look at my core you already see some very powerful cards but that require turns to pass and a board presence to be obtained. It also HEAVILY relies on board state - if you have a very bad board state, you can't circumvent that with Rishksex or anything of the sort to speed things up.
- Food decks that use some of the power cards above in combination with Goose, Troll, Wolf, Trail of Crumbs and Gingerbread House. Those also rely on the board state a lot and take a while to assemble.
- Tezz2 Artifact deck with Urza, Emry, Golos, Mirror, Midnight Clock, and general supports around them (Casualties and Deathsprout again, black/blue castles etc.). Notice once again the board presence and the requirement to set that board up before you can go off.
- Koth Kaalia with Razia, Rakdos and Avaricious Dragon. Koth is by far the most explosive thanks to his first ability and the red mana gains but even so takes a bit to setup and relies on boards. No bombastic wins here either.
- Ral spells that finishes opponent with his ultimate + beacon bolt, and uses Niv Mizzet and Avaricious Dragon to draw extra cards and better control the board. By far the fastest deck but due to the nature of Beacon Bolt takes a bit of spell casting, and because it relies so heavily on the hand you can end up spending some dead turns trying to cast something (those green + loyalty gems boards kill Ral). Somehow I remember the deck being more powerful prior rotation in spite of its composition not changing much (we only lost River's Rebuke in that deck).

Most of the power cards out there are not explosive but take time to setup and go off. Look at all these names: Emry, Kaalia, Urza, Golos, Nyxbloom Ancient... they all come on the board and do nothing that turn, hence are completely inadequate for combos. And don't get me started on vanguards - they slow down the game SO MUCH since you have to tap on them, select the ability, activate it... They are my least favorite fundamental mechanic by far as they require even more actions from the player...

I would be curious to hear of ONE reliable combo deck in the current standard. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad - there are fewer situations when Greg kills you out of nowhere, but on average I have found the games to be dragging A LOT. This has turned from this super fast game to spending my time in the S-Bahn (around 30 minutes) playing AT MOST 2 matches. And that's with all the crazy loading times, animations, etc. 

mayor

So we get slower matches with events becoming more time/effort demanding... no wonder people are burning out.

jtwood

I've said it before. I'll say it now. I'm sure I'll say it again one day.

If you're not spending hundreds on this game, then you want games to be as fast as possible so that you can get the rewards as quickly as possible. But making the game fast also makes it uninteresting. Think of the recent Standard with BSZ/Scapeshift/Spire and three-color 'Walkers. That was an excellent farming environment - but it was super uninteresting. I remember falling asleep while playing (no hyperbole there).

The game is slower now, but I think it's more fun at this pace. Also, the power level is a little more flat, so you can win with a greater variety of decks. Unfortunately, it's also more time-consuming to farm the dailies, and that eats at me.

I doubt this will ever be solved in a game like this. We will either get fast grinding or fun gaming - but not both.

FindingHeart8

it's pretty slow until you open your wallet.

I bought a few items and it significantly improved my matches.

happy to support future game developments...but winning because of purchased cards doesn't really feel like victory to me

Stormcrow

It's true that Oktagon has moved pretty hard away from spells that convert mass gems and towards lands which convert a trickle of gems every turn, and that slows things down. I'm not sure I buy that the sets are underpowered though, I think it's more that they're under-explored, and/or that most people still don't have that many of the Mythics and Masterpieces to play around with.

I think that's especially because Oktagon has done a very accurate job of pulling out some of the key cards that make the new mechanics really *zing* and making them exclusives (e.g. Eidolon of Blossoms) which means they're still something most players don't have access to, which makes the sets as a whole feel weaker. 

I can also tell you I'm sick of Haktos already. That guy basically instantly became a mainstay, for good reason, he's an absolute powerhouse.

Nyarlathotep

There are some pretty fun new combos around. Infinite pegasi combos, clickless damage loops and it's all in standard.
But yeah overall the lands feel really slow compared to older spell conversion looping decks, especially when combined with the power that bsz gave to us until the last rotation. 

jtwood

Nyarlathotep said:

But yeah overall the lands feel really slow compared to older spell conversion looping decks, especially when combined with the power that bsz gave to us until the last rotation. 

But, man, that has really allowed Deathsprout to shine right now.

Nyarlathotep

jtwood said:

Nyarlathotep said:

But yeah overall the lands feel really slow compared to older spell conversion looping decks, especially when combined with the power that bsz gave to us until the last rotation. 

But, man, that has really allowed Deathsprout to shine right now.

Please don't get me wrong, i still use the lands all the time. There are simply not enough other options around. And deathsprout into a land is a fine combo in the current standard. 

I just love building loops way too much.
I did it for jaya with a conflux build before they changed her abilities and made that deck unolayable. Clickless damage loop. Dead. 

My next creation with some help of my alliance was the 10to12 cmc Sunbird Invocation, Blue Sun's Zenith loop, back when BSZ had a base cost of 6 and could charge cards up to 12 mana.
Clickless loop that kills as soon as it stops looping. Dead. 

And yet there are some build around that loop just for the Sake of looping, they dont do much, except wasting our time,bjt greg refuses to stop them. 
And those decks never get hit as hard... 

And while i understand the need to nerf specific cards every now and than, at this point it feels like the devs just hate my creations. 
😂 
Everytime i found a totally busted combo, that does not take like 5 turns to set up, that kills in 60 to 90 seconds they nerf the **** out of it. 

And it could be just me, doing stuff that was never intended, like killing too fast instead of just annoying my opponents, but i love my loops and the lands feel slow compared to them. 
😉