Seriously, f*** crackthorn. RNG shouldn’t be top tier. Its power level is about right for a two color card (while other two colors are a touch too weak for the most part) but the RNG just straight up feels bad. Crackthorn is just bad design. Fix these design errors. RNG just shouldn’t be top tier.
Sorry, is this satire? I’m used to seeing long, thought out arguments from you. Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but there’s not much here to debate about.
I think of it more as performance art in literature. The goal is to create the affect of a person who ‘feels bad’ after playing with/against crackthorn.
Ultimately, I don’t think there is much to debate about here. Nor am I particularly trying to. Not all of my posts can be exploratory deck building and game theory. Sometimes, I’m just going to make a straightforward claim like, “RNG is a spice best not served in a competitive dish.”
RNG effects have their place in basically all games, and there are certain places in every game where people expect and allow RNG to impact the game. In card games, its ‘draw variance’. To play a card game is to sign up for the fact that sometimes, you just won’t draw well. That’s fine.
In general, when you attempt to add randomness on top of ways that are already accepted, you simply create feel bad moments for players. I can probably generate examples of this indefinitely, but the most recent example is Aetherworks Marvel in MTG. Aetherworks Marvel is a card in mtg that lets you look at the top 6 cards of your library every turn and cast a card for free from among them. As a result of various details of the Standard meta, this card became a top tier competitive card. Literally the best deck in standard was just trying to play a marvel on turn 4 and just hope to flip over an Ulamog. Usually, it didn’t. Sometimes it did though, and just won the game on the spot. This experience simply isn’t fun. The extra rng introduced by the card put off many players, who ended up leaving the standard format. Many stores stopped being able to regularly fire standard events at FNM. Marvel was eventually banned because of this.
Simply put, if a card is competitively costed and isn’t fun for competitive players, then the card is a bad design. Either its cost needs to be changed to make the card non-competitive or its design needs to be changed to be more enjoyable for competitive players. (Crackthorn is such a card)
I liked your first post better 
How about this?
“Crackthorn Beast
6f 3F3M
Dash 2
Gift - Deal 4 damage randomly split among the closest enemies. Give +4/+4 randomly split among the closest friendly creatures.”
Now it’s only random if there are more than 1 of friendly/enemy creatures equidistant from where you place Crackthorn.
[quote=“Serrakura, post:5, topic:7790”]among the closest friendly creatures[/quote]I like the idea, but this makes it more reliable so more powerful. As IMHO it’s already too powerful, it probably needs a nerf at the same time.
Also, the +1/+1s can target the crackthorn too. So you need some way to avoid the crackthorn simply being the closest thing to itself and getting all the goodies.
Also, the +1/+1s can target the crackthorn too. So you need some way to avoid the crackthorn simply being the closest thing to itself and getting all the goodies.
Lowkey make it so it only buffs itself if you have no other creatures.
Post title edited.
Constructive criticism is welcome, but let’s avoid the vulgarity.
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lol! I like the new topic title.
But yeah, Crackthorn is a bit too RNG.
Maybe reduce its buffs/damage by 25% but that you can select the targets yourself?
Possibly increase the stats of Crackthorn to 4/4 to compensate, but on the other hand sending 3 damage straight into the opposing orb while spreading buffs around is powerful in its own right.
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