Why did u change ruunin

Balance Discussion
#1

I see Ruunin everywhere and now she much too cost efficient.

Compare to before: Ruunin costed 6 fearia, which means she had 66% cost efficeincy on the first time, 100% on the second time and 133% on the third time. So she is only worth the costs if she is played at least four times. Only after playing her four times she started to become cost efficient, if we consider the previeous costs. After 3 times we got a 4/4 a 6/6 and a 8/8 for 18 faria, which is 100% cost efficient, withe the fourth summoning she becomes a 10/10 for 6 which is 166% cost efficient, resulting an an overall efficency of 116,5%, which is about a verudan force.

Now Ruunin starts at 80% cost efficiency and is already 120% cost efficient on the second time, meaning we are already 100% cost efficient after the second time. the third time gives her a cost efficiency of 160% and an overall efficiency of 120%. The fourth time gives her a cost efficiency if 200% and overall a cost efficiency of 140%.

Also the lower cost now means you can get with less effort to the high cost efficiency summon. If you really felt the need to buff her and increase her cost efficency you could let her start as 5/5 for 6 fearia. But I do not think the buff was necessary at all and this way you not only did increase the efficency but also accelerated the play of getting there.

Before the buff ruunin was a scaling late game card and playing her meant to lose impact on the board. So you had to sacrifice something for the late game. That is not really the case anymore.

Especially since combinations like with feed the forest now make her 100% cost effective from the beginning.

The only was to counter a Ruunin was the frogify card. So now we have card, that is nearly impossible to deal with for three of the four colours. and even Frogify means you have to pay 4 fearia and take 2 damage on a creature or play another event just for a five fearia card.

Also the interaction with voice of truth is bad. After getting reduced to a 4/4 and then killed the next summon lets her start with the unreduced stats.

2 Likes
#2

I dont know if Ruunin has gain a lot of traction since the buff. I havent played against her yet, altough i dont play that much, so im not a reliable source on that regard.
The thing is, you say before she was at full value the on the second iteration (6f 6/6) and that now, she is somewhat overstated (5f 6/6). I dont believe that’s the case. If you look at other green creatures, 5f 6/6 is pretty standard. Grove guardian is a 5f 3F 5/6 Taunt, same as new second Ruunin but changing one stat for Taunt. Deepwood Grizzly is a 5f 1F 3/8; again 11 stats total, and the last one to make up for the low land cost. And dont forget Verduran Force: vanilla 6f 2F 7/7. Objectively better in every way than the old second Ruunin, and definitely not a broken card.
From that we get that old Ruunin was horrible the first time, bad the second and good the third. New Ruuning is bad the first time, standard the second and pretty good the third. But to that add the extra forest, not the biggest setback, but it’s there nonetheless.

However i would aggree that it’s uncomfortable having the only true counter to Ruunin (transform effects) limited to one colour and just a few cards at that (Frogify, Mirror Phantasm). Because it’s true that while other similar legendaries can always be removed with soft removal, Last Nightmare or even brute force, Runnin is above all that…

And lastly, im not sure on-board buffs/debuffs should affect Ruunin’s “counter”. That thing works by itself. It probably just counts how many time she has died and adds the consecuent amount of +2/+2’s to the vanilla 4/4. Imagine if it accounted for the actual stats when she died and then added +2/+2 to that. It’d be horrible. You could just buff he on board to grow her faster and keep the value of every single Elderwood Embrace/Ruunin’s Guidance/Tiki Caretaker etc.

#3

The reason for the change wasn’t balance, it was consistency.
That said, I don’t really see why there needed to be consistency between those 4 (seifer, ruunin, khalim, aurora) - I never even grouped them in my head before.

The other 3 did deserve their land increases - especially Aurora. But they felt Ruunin didn’t need the nerf (and I think most people would agree) so they changed cost. IMHO they’d’ve been better just giving her 5/4 base stats or something - or better yet just leaving her at 2 lands.

TBH I almost always run with lots of transformation and rarely with Ruunin so it hasn’t been an issue personally.

#4

Well before the reset i have seen Ruunin quite often and I play her myself.

Regarding cost efficency: You compare Ruunin to a selected set of green cards and the big green creatures usually are more cost efficient than the creatures of other colours. Compare Vaerduran Force to Barbarian Ogre. Both are 7/7 with 2 lands as requirement. However the Barbarian Ogre costs 7 while the Verduran force only costs 6. The small and medium sized green creatures are not that good. Most of them are not that good at contesting the board, especially when compared to blue Jumpers, yellow demons and Windstorm chargers+ haste creaturs, and red events mana generating combat creatures, axe grinders and Grundshakers/Garudan/Bomb Slingers. The other colours have it far easier to contest the board and get a favourable value trade. Green is likely to lose a lot of value over the game and thus needs the more cost efficient creatures. However in the case of Ruunin it is a bit different. Because the second summon already makes her hyper cost efficient- more cost efficient than the Verudian Force- and before it was the third summoning. That is a difference of 8 faeria spent. That is a huge buff.

Also the only common creature that can reasonybly contest Ruunin after the second summon is the Verudian force and sometimes a Seifir Buff combo. And Verudian Force is then down to 1 Hp which menas he can get cleared without too much trouble. Almost every other creature loses the value Trade after the second summon. It is really hard to keep board control after the second time she gets summoned, especially when considering the dash. After the third Summon every colour except blue gets huge problems at contesting her, because of her 8/8 body. And because the second summon is already overall cost efficient the previously mentioned 8 fearia are 8 fearia that you have less to claim the board before she gets cost efficient.

Well but usually I tend o compare creatures to the cheap neutral creatures in regard of faria cost efficiency.

This has several advantages.

first: not every player plays green. So cost efficency is a measure how hard the creature is to remove from the board. We would have to reevaluate the cost efficency of creatures if every player plays green.

second: neutral cards have no land restrictions. So the land is a mesaure for you early game expenses and the time you need to summon that creature while the fearia cost says saomthing about how good a creature is at value trading (cost efficiency) and collecting (low overall cost).

Of course it is not a perfect system but generally speaking it gives a good evaluation of the cards.

Grove Guardian is a pretty decent creature but loses to many of the other medium cost cards pretty easily (for example groundshaker, but also the reduce collossi of blue and yellow). It is pretty good at keeping the mob down.

Deepwood Grizzly has a bad distribution of Attack and Life, which makes hard to contest the board against a medium sized creature.

But considering the debuffs you are right and yeah i forgot that Mirror Phantasm also can deal with Ruunin.

Also I do not have Problem with a card that is uncouterable. But there has to be a condition to it. It has to be significantly late. And 5 cost is not late. heck even the yellow removal costs 6.

#5

If cost efficiency is what upsets most people, Abrakam could change her stats to begin with 3/3.

I am not really certain that a nerf is needed though. There are a lot of ways to deal with her.

#6

Since the new set release, I’ve largely been dealing with Ruunin using Swallow effects. If you strategize well, it’s pretty rare for your opponent to get her back before you’ve cemented a win, at least in Three Wishes.

#7

Yeah, but the reason for that is that swallow is now the OP â– â– â– â– . Basically it is hard removal for a cheap price, Cost have to go up for these cards.

For me it was not so much about that everyone had to have counterplay vs Ruunin. Basically the counterplay was to finish the game before she became problematic. Before she was a late game creature due to her low cost efficency in the first 2 plays. Now the cost efficiency moved up and that is why she was way too strong (as we have seen in the monthyl cup).

The same for the new swallow mechanic. You cannot really tell me that a mechanic that removes a big creature and gives you a 6/8 for 6 fearia (hard removal + stats worth around 12 fearia, 200% cost efficiency) is somewhat balanced. As green player I replace my tharian golems with these cards, because the cost efficency is higher . This card needs heavy nerfs and the cristal also.

I don’t understand how such cards can be created. Everyone can make a calculation regarding cost efficency and they fucked it up that bad in both cases.

Verudian Force has 116% cost efficiency , but requires 6 fearia, tharian golem has 150% cost efficiency and is only okay because it requires 5 green lands and green has the hardest time to contest the board -so the late game efficiency is bought with early weakness- that is waht I call a concept. To give hard removal to every colour is NOT a concept, especially for that cheap price. And to buff Ruunin that you require 8 faeira less to make her cost efficient is just crazy.

#8

Ruunin is one of the most IMBA cards in the game, it need a BIG nerf, so boring to play vs if you dont have the right cards, it kinda force you to always have some cards in deck if possible, like frog or transform or swallow, bad design.

#9

An other way to deal will runnin is not to kill her, just block with taunt and/or low attack minions…

But I don’t see a lot of green decks those days. Mostly are red with flame burst, seifer’s wrath, firestorm, hellfire etc… and now havoc !!!
I really hate thoses cards because in faeria land placement is very important but not with thoses cards.