Ruuin is OP? It’s rated in the worst Legendary tier. It doesn’t really get good until its fourth reincarnation.
I agree more or less with your other suggestions. I was thinking it’s strange that Firestorm costs less than Hellfire, but can deal more damage. Garudan is powerful, but doesn’t necessarily win games alone. Frogify is OP, yeah I feel that way too.
this green/yellow sacrifice is insane and virtually impossible to beat (unless you are a rush direct-to-orb aggression player, really no chance in hell of beating this deck.)
Just because a card is good, does not make it broken. Your personal results do not determine the objective reality of whatever situation you are in. Playing around cards is a thing. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last to complain about cards being broken before trying to figure out if you did something wrong, and how your play could improve and adjust to improve your matchups with these cards. This post does not just apply to you, but everyone who makes pointless complaints that add nothing constructive or reasonable to a conversation about game balance. Saying “should” after making a claim doesn’t constitute evidence.
why even have a ‘balance forum’ if half these guys are just going to nag you for having an opinion?
nag nag nag.
Are you aware the same has been said about you? Mayhaps it would be good to reflect on that.
Maybe some of you should consider some more criterion to judge cards. Let’s discuss of the weaknesses of these “OP” cards.
Aurora : it requires 2 lakes and 4 faeria : for one more than the piper you can buff up to 5/5, but it has little downsides : you can’t buff big units, it she can’t buff herself. Which means that you can only use it if you have another unit, therefore her cost isn’t that low. A strong card, though.
Garudan : it surely is overwhelmingly powerful against blue or yellow, as most of their creatures commonly played have 3 health or less. As red rarely plays so expensive cards, it can be foreseen, but it doesn’t mean you can shield yourself from it, which is a real problem. As waiting to reach 10 faeria is no longer as punitive as it used to be, it might be too strong as you get a firestorm, which is often welcome, an a 6/6 charge 2 flying body. The fact that it can be played alone in mono-blue or mono-green, however, hints us of a problem. Before, I’d have said it was a strong, but a deserved reward for having reached 10 faeria, but with the recent windfall nerf I think it might be too rewarding. Maybe unable him to gather faeria, as the dune drake ?
Krogg is a joke. Really. But with the windfall and stormspawn nerf buffing him might make purple bargain viable again.
oradrim monk is good as it is : for 3 and a condition (your land is near enough, no taunt) you get a card drawn and a 2/1 body (and 2 damage to the opponent). It is strong if it stays alive, but it rarely happens with 1 life. No need to nerf it.
triton banquet is nice as it allows easy mobility and a slight buff in otherwise slow decks. Seems decent.
frogify : it might seem strong to newcomers, just as last nightmares, but you usually don’t take into consideration 2 things : first, as long as your opponent doesn’t land big threat, it is a dead card. And dead card are a real obstacle to your victory. Drawing a frogify instead of a shifting tides has cost me many games. It means that you won’t have 4 cards in hand, but 3 + 1. And running 3 frogify might seem strong, but it is more often than not an handicap. Second, it doesn’t make the unit disappear, and it gives it jump. Which mean that it won’t save your 1/2 life units, but it also means that is becomes an efficient harvester and a potential target for aurora or elderwood embrace, which is not really what you want. For these reasons, frogify is balanced, or more accurately can’t be nerfed.
Last nightmare : Same as above, and as it doesn’t leave any creature it costs 2 more. It means that it can’t be played at any turn, and therefore it seems fairly priced for a most of the time dead card.
Soul eater : it takes a long time fot it to reach such stats, but for a 6 land bicolor card, seems fair as it gives GY sacrifice a winning condition (as most champions) where it most often lacks card advantage. It can be even more easily dealt with now, with voice of truth (it’s only a 1/1, remember). The time (and land investment) it takes to be efficient make it fair-priced.
Ruunin : Too much tempo loss, and you can only play it every other turn. Becomes strong in the long run, but too slow, and useless against blue (clearly explained here : Ruunin the Relentless buff?)
thing about frogify, if you have a 6f creature and play a 3f buff on it, that’s 9f 2 card investment that frogify turns to mush for only 4f. Immediately killing the frog then is usually not a problem for mono-blue, that easily fills the board with jumpers. (but I guess the lesson is that you shouldn’t buff bigger creatures vs blue.)
For only 4 mana, I don’t see it ever as a dead card, but almost always guaranteeing an edge in board control. With a little bit of card draw in synergy (lore thief,) I certainly would not have any problems running x3 frogify.
But I am not really invested in nerfing the card. I just think it is stonger than you think.
…however… this crazy green/yellow sacrifice deck with soul-eater… it is insane. There is a guy rank 2 (probably higher now,) playing it, and I think entering a match-up with him is an auto-loss for me.
Maybe his is simply a strong ‘counter-deck’ to my own main deck, and I think he would be susceptible to direct-to-orb aggression decks (if he doesn’t pull a shaytan assassin/fodder combo early draw…) but I think there is something wrong with that deck.
it runs something like:
village elder
bloomsprite
shaytan assassin
bone collector
(that 2f sacrifice another card to make a 5/2 creature)
last nightmare
soul drain?
soul eater
…something along those lines, anways.
can you comment on this hand? maybe give some advice on beating it, in case I am missing something obvious? …best I can hope for is charge right in, which is really contrary to my defensive-oriented deck…
Frogify’s big other bonus is removing last word:
I’ve almost never had a time when Frogify or Last Nightmare felt dead. It’s usually the opposite. There’s almost always something that valuable to kill.
Some of my balance issues were really just long game balance issues. I guess you could argue that they’re therefore situational, as they’re not useful on short games. However, I don’t feel like there should be hard counters against short or long games, because game length is too big a category.
ooooh yeah… last word… great mention…
In respect, I think Last Nightmare is a fair card at 6f 3d, and I use it myself at x2. I think the fact that I use it at x2 instead of x3 is fairly indicative that it is not OP, (though definitely no question that frogify goes to x3.)
Another interesting discussion/opinion on balance.
And my thoughts on Wavecrash Colossus being too cheap:
Wavecrash Colossus is so good, all the jumpers and faeries are great at collecting faeria and Colossus’ cost come down in no time. It’s a bit OP I think. Blue is best at collecting faeria so this requirement of collecting from enemy wells is very easy for blue. Add to that Wavecrash Colossus’ initial cost is 2 faeria cheaper than Windstorm Colossus and 1 faeria cheaper at minimum, it seems like blue has an unfair advantage, even though Windstorm Colossus has Dash 3. The Barbarian Ogre (same stats, 7/7) really got the short end of the stick when you compare all the 7/7…
frogify: 13 mentions in this thread.
Abrakam is trying to remove cards that are unfun to play against like the old Lord Of Terror but hard removal is in my humble opinion much worse since there is no counter play involved. You can destroy large 10/10 creatures eventually but you can’t undo a frogified creature.
Cards like Aurora or Garudan are only so strong because they have an immediate effect. But the ability to remove high Faeria cost creatures instantly make cards like Tethra less valuable because of the removal makes large faeria investments unappeeling.
I agree with xplorings link to the reddit threat. It should come either with an high investment or an additional condition to play it. But the way it is now it’s way too efficent. And Faeria is based on board control and making efficient trades.
For Garudan, for me it’s more their total damage.
For me, Garudan / firestorm deals on average - at a guess - ~3 kills, ~5 targets, ~12 damage.
Effectively that’s 5 flame bursts most of which do full damage. Sure they’re necessarily simultaneous, but that’s the effect of ~15 faeria with a cost of 6.
For me, most of the annoyance feel of hard removal is because there’s only 2 cards and thus lots of hard removal means an expensive hand rather than skill. It doesn’t annoy me in pandora.
Ideas to make hard removal less “cheap” feeling.
My idea for frogify would be that the target creature turns into a frog and gets -3/-3 but can’t kill a creature. So it will turn a 3/3 creature to a 0/1, or a 7/7 will turn into a 4/4.
Another idea I was that frogify could only applies to the base stats. So if you use Elderwood embrace on Garudan it turns it into a 8/10 (6/6 plus +2/+4) and now if you use frogify it turns it into a 4/6 (2/2 plus +2/+4).
I think that would be fair.
If the target doesn’t turn into a frog, then it’s just another version of humbling vision. I like your first suggestion better.
I really like these 2 ideas. Sounds kind of fair but does the removal job as well. The new Last Nightmare’s implementation is very fitting to its name. 
No it does turn it into a frog 
just the effect is different instead of a 2/2 frog it could be a 4/6 frog
The picture would still change
The thing I dont like about his first suggestion is that it doesnt turn the creature into a frog
So it would be a totally different card
That’s true. May be turn his creature into a frog and give him back the original card?.. May be not.
Your idea sounds good then.
Frogify needs to stay the way it is. You mess with hard removal and then big creatures and green just get out of control. HS has removal and it’s fine
GOD I AM SO SICK OF THIS MONO-BLUE JUMP HAND
Sorry, that’s what I intended. The target becomes a frog and you get the original card back.
However, this could be abused when the unit has a gift - eg, Tiki Healer or Garudan.
Maybe you’d have to make it enemy-only.
I’m not sure. IMHO I think it reduces its value too much. Especially your second idea, which you could almost use it as healing + give jump.
As a mono green player i’m having a hard time vs frogify, but then again it is supposed to counter big creatures and probably is less valuable against other decks. A card i would like to see nerfed is wavecrash colossus. As you already mentioned its too easy for blue decks to reduce the faeria cost. My solution is making the minimum cost 5 faeria.
