Swallow everywhere...it's pretty sad

Balance Discussion
#1

Hello,
Glad to see the new expansion, I love the co-op missions and the new cards. However, I think the cards with Swallow ability are strong…like too op that it should be nerfed although the expansion just came out.

I think that Skywhale and Crystal Flower are very cheap compared to their abilities: the whale is 6/8 with removal, flying, and charge, and the crystal flower imprisons an enemy creature upto 6 turns at a cost of only 4 faeria. Sure they require a lot of speical lands, but it’s not a big deal if you put some elementals in the deck.

I think 1) they should be little bit more expensive, or 2) a whale can’t be played if a friendly whale is already on the field, or 3) make them legendary so only one card can be put into a deck.
Any suggestions? (or if you think they don’t need to be nerfed then teach me why?)

And this is one of games I played today. Pretty sad when this happened ;(

4 Likes
#2

I was wrecked by swallow today too. But it’s probably too early to balance the cards, at least wait until all the new cards are released.

How did your opponent get so many flowers?

1 Like
#3

He stole some from mine with a wish card, which makes me sadder D;

And I know that the expansion just came out and that not all new cards are out yet…but I have a strong feeling that, at this rate, the next monthly cup will be a total chaos(in a bad way). Oh well, we’ll see :slight_smile:

1 Like
#4

I have seen quite a lot of “swallow” cards being used lately, but I don’t think they are overpowered at all.

All “swallow” creatures have a certain number of hit points. The Crystal Flower has 6. If you reduce their life to 0, by attacking them with your creatures or spells, they will die and release the prisoner. Also, “swallow” does Not remove buffs, so an 8/8 Ruunin will still be an 8/8 after release!

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#5

I like chaotic monthly cup. :smiley: It sounds fresh and exciting.

Hopefully no one deck will dominate like blue jump a few months ago.

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#6

Sorry, if you take out a Ruunin for 5 turns then she is basically removed fro the game. Hard removal is only used when you get value from it. And green has difficulties to contest the swallows.

If I play a creature for lets say 6 fearia and it gets swallowed by the whale, that is worth 6 fearia I lost+ 6 fearia for the stats of the whale+ maybe losing more value by not collecting, so it is a difference of 12+ fearia, but my opponent only payed 6 fearia for it. Even if I play yellow or blue and have the nightmare/frogify on hand, my creature cannot move or collect this turn and after using the card the fearia value is somewhat even (even for yellow, slighty better for blue because the frog does not appear).

And if I do not have the counter- which is not really a counter because the trade is still only even- on hand, my opponent has a fearia advantage of 6 fearia over some turns. That is a huge advantage and snowball heavily. and if I had

I would even go so far and say the crystal flower and the whale are the best removal cards in the game by very far. Event though they are only temporary they beat every other removal in regards of cost.

Suggested changes: The swallowed enemy creature hits the swallowing creature for half his attack (rounded up) every turn. So big creatures break free more easily than smaller creatures. A crystal flower can hold a 6/6 for only 2 turns and that seems fair for me considering you have to pay 4 fearia but no land colur restriction and can potentailly deny the opponent form collecting. In case of the crystal flower there is no life loss of 1 every turn.

Swallow as effect should then cost 2 more fearia than the stats of a creature would usually suggest. A 6/6 (worth 6 fearia) should then cost 8 fearia. Since the enemy loses a collector swallow creatures in general should not be allowed to collect either. If an enemy swallow effect expires the swallowed creature dashes with his natural mobility to field that the owner of the creature decides on.

3 Likes
#7

Hah! Yeah I agree, swallow as it stands right now seems a bit too strong and undercosted. I think once a creature escapes the swallow it should be ready immediately. I also think crystal flower has too many strong effects rolled into one super versatile card that can (and should) be splashed into literally every deck.

Strengths -
1 - cheap and versatile removal - works on literally everything.
2 - cheap enemy teleport - a 3cc card that teleports an enemy creature to target friendly square might be worth the cost by itself.
3 - lasts at least one turn, even if countered, as the enemy creature can’t move or atteck the turn the flower is.
4 - no color requirement, just needs 4 lands, there are few decks that don’t routinely create at least 3 colored lands, this means the card fits into every deck.
5 - hard to counter/remove. Both the flower and the whale are hard to deal with. Destroying them often costs a lot of resources/tempo.

Compare to frogify - an excellent removal card that works on everything, requires 3 lakes (one fewer land than flower, but limited to blue) and leaves the opponent with a frog, which could still be useful as a collector. It also costs one more faeria than flower.

Compare to Last Nightmare - also excellent removal, as generally useful as flower, more permanent, fewer lands required, but requires 3 deserts. It also costs twice as much faeria.

Possible nerfs

1 - make creatures release from swallow able to act immediately.
2 - higher cost
3 - lesser duration on flower
4 - restrictions on targets for swallow - needs attack/hp lower than a certain amount like choking sands
5 - remove the teleport - needs to be standing on friendly land, which is where the flower/whale is summoned.
6 - specific land requirements - the 4 special land requirement is interesting, but should not be on such a universally strong card. The cards need to be made specifically useful otherwise it’ll be played in every deck and will take away a lot of the uniqueness offered by different colors. It also compensates for many of the weaknesses of red and green, while stepping on the strengths of yellow and blue.

2 Likes
#8

Agreed. Swallow is bad. Plus I don’t know it yet, but what happens if you swallow a swallower or transform a swallower :smiley: ?

1 Like
#9

You can’t swallow a creature that swallowed another creature. As of transform…I’m not sure, but I think it will kill the swallowed creature.

2 Likes
#10

Yep, transformation kills swallowed creature. It’s a very cheap way to remove whales when you have blue jump :slight_smile:
Anyway the swallow mechanic by itself is not bad when both players have prisons. Whales aren’t big problem too if you are prepared to deal with them (removals and punishments mostly). But… if they jump in at round 4 with some 3 wishes decks then you have pretty much already lost.

The real big problem is Frog Tosser. If you don’t have it you are going to loose most of the times. If you both run it, then the first who plays it is going to win… It’s just OP. A 4 damage removal with 2 summoned creatures and possibility to add an other collector or to place a very aggressive land on the other side of the map… Of course I use it but from my point of view I’m exploiting the unbalanced state of the game to be honest with you…

I’ll also add an other aspect of the swallow mechanic that is very important for what I can see. Prisons are a very useful tool to defend against rush decks. It can easily destroy the rusher economy in the match. I learned to defend against rush, so I don’t mind really much about them but still I don’t love them at all. For me are just an easy attempt to grind victory fast making the game pure mechanical for the rusher (he has to manage 3 mechanics at best and nothing more) and pure frustrating for the defender. In a game that has hundreds of combinations and interactions the rushes are just the poorest strategies you can find. So the cheap prison for 3 faeria is welcome in this prospective :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#11

It’s just cancer, really. Both whale and flower are very strong tempo cards, allowing hard snowball effects. In addition, whale is very hard to remove for most decks, especially when your best creature is swallowed and the whale has charge 3. The only cards right now that can really counter whales are Nightmare and Punishment.

I’m done with Faeria for this week. I won’t play against that cancer or join it. Considering that they wanted the whale to get additional life at first, one sees that they really have no clue what they are doing balancewise.

3 Likes
#12

Completly agree. I also only play to get my daily quests done and try to do them wit blue, since blue is the only colour that does okay with these op cards (not great tho, because the flowers are not that easy to crack, although mobility helps).

Nightmare does not counter whales. If you have to pay a 6 fearia to remove a 6 fearia card and the card you got back can neither move nor collect this turn, you still lost value there. The best counter by very far is Transformation, since you can remove for less Faeria value. Punishment does fine, but not great. also blue has relatively cheap cretures so it does not hurt so much that you lose a frog to a whale.

1 Like
#13

I really… really despise swallow. I’d like to say I was outplayed, but it’s the 3rd time something similar has happened.
It’s far too cheap for what it does.

Turn whatever +1
-Played 6-11 Thyrian Golem
-Swallowed by whale

Turn whatever +2
-Played 7-13 Oak Father to counter
-Oak Father swallowed by another whale
-Face-slapped by first whale

Turn whatever +3
-Played Tarum, the Forest World to block whales
-Tarum swallowed by flower
-Opp. played Orosei
-Transformed both whales, lost both creatures, now have Bawru and Ogre Brawler on face

What I’m getting at is that for decks that don’t have structure remove, that is 3 Faeria for a 6 turn card removal (3 turn with Emperor’s Command). And it is really easy for the whales, such as if more than one. To count has hard removal. Because if the first whale cannot just straight kill your counter, just swallow the counter. And due to the land requirements of the swallow creatures they can be in every deck. I’m starting to see the whales as more of a 6-cost Magda’s Rose than anything.
/rant

Anyway, this kind of sucks for a first post. But I think I’m going to step back from PvP for a couple months, at least until the event is over and the balance changes come in. I’ll pop in for the Emperor’s Challenge of course to grab points for the Mythic cards. Only thing keepin’ me coming back is the thought that once the Oversky cards are disenchantable, I’ll be able to complete my card collection.
Ya’ll take it easy.

1 Like
#14

Orosei + Skywhale is a pretty powerful synergy I hadn’t thought of, although I have thought about froggifying my own injured whale.

Hopefully something will be done soon to improve the balance.

#15

Totally agree.
Typical situation
turn 1:
(3 faeria, 0 lands, Wood Elemental, Living Willow, Earthcraft, Explore)
Explore, Forest, Wood Elemental, Forest
[1 faeria, 2 lands]

turn 2:
(5 faeria, 2 lands, Living Willow, Earthcraft, Wild Growth)
Lake, Liwing Willow, Earthcraft(create Lake, draw Skywhale)
[0 faeria, 4 lands]

turn 3:
(5 faeria, 4 lands, Wild Growth, Skywhale, Feed the forest)
Wild Growth, Forest
[3 faeria, 7 lands]

turn 4: (8 faeria, 7 lands, Skywhale, Feed the forest, Skywhale)
Forest, Feed the forest on Willow (+ 6 faeria, draw any card), Skywhale, Skywhale
[2 faeria, 8 lands]

We get 2 Skywhales on 4 turn

3 cards(Skywhale, Crystal Flower, Frog Tosser) need a big nerf(as doomsday sometime). If developers make Skywhale 6/6 or charge 2, nothing will change. Some other cards(Gift of the Rackoa definitely) also need small nerf.

#16

Honestly, I think in a week people will be running more doomsdays, structure damage, and hard removal. In four weeks, after all the sets have released and we’ve all had time to get used to them, we’ll be back to complaining about rush decks.

Whales and crystals are strong cards that make previously unviable strategies work by being universal staple removal. You’ll lose to staple cards a lot because they’re good, but that doesn’t make them overpowered. Let the novelty wear off and you’ll be back to losing against the stuff you used to lose to.

1 Like
#17

I hope so, i really like the new cards and the new strategies they promote, i’m afraid the devs will hear all of this whining and go back to only making cards that promote burn decks, combat red, midrange green, yellow rush, green yellow sacrifice, red green crackthorn, and jumper blue. Which will lead to people complaining that this new pile of stats card has too many stats, and this other pile of stats card should get an extra stat.

1 Like
#18

Is it though? By transforming it you also lose your creature, the one he swallowed. Now if he takes something you are not interested in, I understand saying that a transformation is better, but if its a ruunin, garudan or a important creature, pretty sure you don’t want to lose it to a transformation effect.

Overall I do think the swallow feature with the whales is pretty OP, but if you read they’re announcements you can clearly see they already saw how OP 3 whises has become and an adjustment to it will surely follow. As for the whales with it’s first expansion coming out it was clear that some unbalanced cards wich will shake the meta will come out, but just wait (probably untill whole 5 islands of overskye get realeased) and they will fix it.

I do not know if frog tosser should have any changes made to him, its literaly the only removal card green has at disposal compared to all the other colors. Maybe change his attack to 3 but other then that I dont think the card is that unbalanced.

The cards I want to see some tweaking most are 3 whises and ruunin. Whales can still be dealt with punishment and a creature, but 3 wishes and ruunin are literally cancer atm.

#19

Three Wishes is the only card that I think might be too strong in a vacuum, though that’s only because it seems to really invalidate other control strategies. I think the best thing to be done with it would be to make it legendary.

#20

Also seriously don’t nerf Ruunin, it’s finally in a position where it’s doing what it’s supposed to do, but can be countered by good cards. Being a good card that sees play in the meta is not the same thing as being OP. Blue Rush was OP before its nerfs. A repeatable vanilla creature that’s dealt with by the most easily played removal in the game isn’t.