BG Ramp is toxic for deckbuilding

Balance Discussion
#1
  1. The deck is still viable after 4 consecutive nerfs (Whale/Tosser/Wood/Feed)
    -> this alone says a lot about the powerlevel of these cards.
  2. As long as these cards remain at their respective powerlevel, this will lead to BG Ramp being the best / only viable way to build BG.
  3. Ramp decks don’t focus on the inherent synergies within their cards and the playerbase looses out on potential, unique archetypes (for example a fighting archetype that uses Tossers and Spiders in combination with handbuffs).
    -> deckbuilding becomes more and more bland

Tell me your thoughts

6 Likes
#2

IMO, as long as neutral card will have hard removal (Whale and Cristal), there will remain a problem.
actually, there is 2 kind of players who want climb the ladder:
-rush player
-greedyramp players

If you play mid, you assume loosing often vs the 2 archétypes.

Miss you old midrange meta :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#3

I’ve always thought skywhale was the biggest bomb in any card game ever. It still is, even nerfed. The closest bomb is a 3/3 in hearthstone that does the same thing and also costs 6. However, you can’t run it all over the map in hearthstone.

However, it’s probably very hard to make new faeria cards as it is such a complex game and there are probably a lot of unforseen combos and OP decks. Still, I’m not really sure what crack someone was smoking when they decided skywhale was a good idea.

#4

couldn’t agree more. The current swallow cards need a rework and, IMO, the swallow mechanic needs to gtfo, like slam in the early-early days.

1 Like
#5

I wish they would rework the swallow mechanic and give it some sort of condition like “can only swallow an adjacent creature” or “can only swallow a creature with 5 life or lower”. this will help tremendously with how people feel about the mechanic.

However these suggestions have already been made by many people and it just doesn’t seem like the dev’s are willing to rework swallow. so alternatively now i think the best solution is to slow down the land ramp cards. e.g.:

  • Change Wood Elemental’s land requirement to 1 Forest and 1 Wild land.
  • Change Water Elemental’s land requirement to 1 Lake and 1 Wild land.
  • Remove the draw effect from Earthcraft and lower it’s cost to 1 faeria.
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#6

Won’t solve anything for the midrange decks, while making Rush even stronger against landramp.

Ew.

You just can’t ignore the elephant in the room that Swallow is, something the Faeria developers have done for far too long now.

(Edit: That would also weaken Mono Green, which happens to be the strongest deck against rush. Again, ew.)

#7

it’s fine if they don’t touch the elementals, it was only an example anyways. But i do think they have to nerf Earthcraft.

#8

In my opinion the root of the problem is due to the fact that two of the strongest dual color cards which were introduced are blue green.

#9
  1. earth craft should be 2F 2G 2W
  2. all elementals should be 2/2 and require 4F 1G or B or Y or R 1W. they are simply too efficient and need a severe tuning down.
  3. Whale= legendary.
#10

Don’t you think this would push Rush even more over the top?

#11

IMO rush is only so prevalent because ramp forces you to race to kill them before lands/whales and it’s over. Ramp/whales have 100% stopped all midrange/late game decks from existing.

There are LOTS of ways to beat rush, but the only way to beat ramp/whales is to rush

#12

In my experience (as a ramp player) late game decks such as GY sacrifice and BR 7+ have a better matchup vs ramp than rush does. On the other hand rush beats late decks very reliable, while still having a decent ramp mu. What is kinda right, is that skywhale prevents (other) midrange decks that are superior to rush from being relevant. IMO the problem here is whale and not the ramp cards.

#13

interesting. This is only my second season, so I know that I am lacking some experience, but I played GYsac for most of my run to God in this current season and have to say that I DREADED ramp/whales.

I see what you’re saying- but ramp negates the thing that is supposed to hold a card like whales in check (the high Wild cost) with no down side because with the elementals you get decent bodies with an ability (sorry mountain maker) and I think earthcraft is INSANELY overpowered; such low resource cost to place a land AND draw a card…there is just no downside to any of it. The land cost for a whale can be 50% complete on turn two and the ramp player will have drawn an extra card and have a collector. Nuts.

#14

I think that’s the nub of it right there. Colourless Whale can fit into any deck with enough land ramp, which means that it can be combined with many of a colour’s strongest cards - up to a point.

I think the devs are reluctant to nerf whale further because they see it as the signature card of the Oversky expansion.

One change I thought they might apply would be to change it’s requirements from wild lands to 2/2/2/2 like 3 Wishes. This would give a strong signature card for 4 colour decks and a reason to play them, and may even bring back 3 wishes as a support card. This would also mean it couldn’t be used effectively in a deck that ran Feed the Forest. What feels unbalanced most for me about whale decks is when your opponent chains Feed and then plays two whales on the same turn.

But I’m not sure this any kind of solution. This would make whales easier to draw with Ulani for instance which may compensate, and more, for the land change.

1 Like