Oh? I actually use him in more decks now than before. He is no longer a one-trick pony breezing through cheap spells ad-infinitum.
I agree he is no longer the center of attention. But that is actually what makes him powerful. I find the AI targeting my other creatures while I happily gain 5 mana to all spells every turn.
shteev said: Well, clearly a guy who can only generate 28 mana a turn is going to be a lot worse than one who can generate well over 100.His problem now is that he competes with another clearly broken card: Startled Awake. You're generally better off getting something broken right now than something REALLY broken in a few turns time, and SA can accelerate into other broken stuff like Deploy and BTB.
Yeah, I used Baral him in 2 of my 3 BP event decks. Old Baral would have been in 0 of my decks. Olivia managed to make it into all 3 decks. Sphinx made it into 2.
Interesting how the meta has shifted a bit, as Sphinx had been collecting dust for months until recent weeks.
But yeah, SA is definitely the burstier card... even if he gets killed the same turn he is cast, he has done his job. I found with Baral that if he could stay on the board for 1-2 cycles he pretty much won me the game. Stuff like passively filling Engulf or the awaken side of Ruinous Path were unbelievably helpful if the enemy couldn't dispose of Baral 2.0 quickly.
Mainloop25 said: I do miss the explosiveness of his charging 5 mana to every spell in your hand upon entry. I wish they would bring that back. As of now, I find myself using him less and less.
Steeme said: Mainloop25 said: I do miss the explosiveness of his charging 5 mana to every spell in your hand upon entry. I wish they would bring that back. As of now, I find myself using him less and less. It was 3 mana per spell. Now it's 5 mana per turn. I suppose you have access to all the other key cards. I don't have SA, CoT, Engulf, yadda yadda yadda so Baral will end up in any blue deck that doesn't have a restriction on spells cast.