Cards that need attention (BALANCE)

demon wrangler
shaytan assassin +faeria
WINDSTORM CHARGER
SCOURGEFLAME SPECTER
AXE GRINDER
underground brigand
GRIM GUARD
SEIFER BLOOD TYRANT
ground shaker
hellfire
GARUDAN
crackthorn beast
forbidden library
gabrian enchantment
aurora’s disciple
PROPHET OF TIDES
MYSTIC BEAST
AURORA MYTHMAKER
gabrian archon
wavecrash colossus
Baeru the first wave
apex predator
(ice rock behemoth at 8f is good)
BONE COLLECTOR
sagami warrior
wood elemental
SAGAMI GROVECALLER
VOICE OF TRUTH
soul-eater

lower case = +1 faeria or -1 stat
upper case = bigger change to overhaul

I have to disagree with:
demon wrangler
shaytan assassin
SCOURGEFLAME SPECTER
AXE GRINDER
underground brigand
GRIM GUARD
gabrian enchantment
aurora’s disciple
PROPHET OF TIDES
MYSTIC BEAST
Baeru the first wave
apex predator
BONE COLLECTOR
wood elemental
VOICE OF TRUTH
soul-eater

I think a lot of cards you’re mentioning here are actually fine and maybe you’re just looking at the best case scenario for each when evaluating. Going to put the ones I agree with at the end but here’s some argument for the others

Demon Wrangler - Fine as is since it dies easily by itself and the 5/2 is usually not hard to deal with either depending what you’re playing. And it needs a target so its really weak when played by itself.

Shaytan Assassin - Fine as is since Emperor’s Command now exists and can kill it easily. Again requires a target so its very weak when just played by itself, even though it can gain a lot of value against big creatures.

Scourgeflame Specter - This is essentially R/Y Burn’s win condition and while it is strong, it requires their lands to be close enough to hit the Orb to deal big damage and 7f, so you should see it coming and be able to plan for it.

Axe Grinder - Not actually sure about this one, but it feels fine. Maybe it could get dropped a bit to like 3/3 and more stats put into it’s buff effect, but I don’t think its as big of a threat that it needs to see adjustment.

Underground Brigand - No reason to change this. It sits weakly stated at a 3f 2/3 and even with Gift of Steel, its a 5f 5/6 which is right on par for the stat-cost ratio. Nice effect sure, if you can get value out of Combat, but sometimes it gets removed with Events and you won’t get to use it.

Grim Guard - Another one that is fine. Dies to a lot of the popular mid/late game cards currently and that denies Burn value from the Combat. I’m guessing you’re again looking at this in combination with Gift of Steel.

Groundshaker - As powerful as this can be in certain spots, a fair portion of the time you will get maybe 1 or 2 dmg of actual value from the Gift. And if you have to play this with nothing on board, its basically just a 5/6 for 6f which is on par.

Forbidden Library - This can get a lot of value if you can protect it, but by turn 4 (or T3 with Water Ele) you should be able to have some set up on the board that allows you to react before they are able to start really cashing in. But maybe I just don’t think its that bad since it used to be much worse.

Gabrian Enchantment - This has some really good uses but that’s fine since it opens up a whole archetype. I don’t see the need for any nerf since it is always used in combination with other cards.

Aurora’s Disciple - Disciple needs a lot to get rolling and even then its a pretty inconsistent card, so I don’t see the need to make it even harder to play.

Mythic Beast - Beast is really weak if you aren’t able to play it by the Well. So currently, it looks stronger than it is because Blue is able to get that needed land position so easily.

Baeru - Big late-game creature with an interesting ability. Sometimes it pays off huge and sometimes your opponent can just kite around it. I don’t think any changes are necessary.

Apex Predator - Apex feels fine where it is, it needs another creature although they can use one of yours as well so its a delicate game of not overbuffing a single creature to play around it. Combinations are pretty costly with buffing something first or playing Aurora’s Creation.

Bone Collector - This is another one that is weaker by itself but can really snowball if the sacrifices line up the right way. This is actually kind of a needed card for sacrifice since they give up early game pressure in order to get the big late game Soul Eaters, so if you can get a Bone Collector snowballing it can actually make a huge difference for the deck.

Sagami Warrior & Wood Elemental - I haven’t noticed any problem with either of these currently. Both are really good early collectors but I don’t see either being in the broken category.

Sagami Grovecaller - This card covers one of Green’s biggest weaknesses, having a lack of natural movement ability on their creatures. Without it, Green had always been really weak to other cards which could just kite around them. And the stats are fine for the creature left behind.

Voice of Truth - This covers the other of Green’s biggest weaknesses, having no hard removal in the colour. Without it, Green really struggled to do anything against other big creatures, and specifically GvG matches ended up being just whoever could get the most buffs. Now, there are actually decisions to be made on when to pre-buff or save it.

Soul-Eater - I think this is really close. At 5f, you can’t just play one every turn in the late game unless you have some collection going. I don’t like there’s a huge difference of going to 6f so I could see it getting just a 1f nerf, but I don’t think it needs it.

Windstorm Charger definitely needs something, either a stat/cost nerf or change in the Event synergy to only +1/0. Seifer needs even just 1f to take him back to 6f so its not a loss just using hard removal on him. Hellfire is really frustrating with the rng and the fact of how much Orb damage it can deal. I’ve seen some really cool suggestions about making this target an area on the board, similar to Meteor, and have the damage only in that space. Garudan is pretty close, I think you have counterplay since he costs so much, but I could also see his effect being only 2 damage instead of 3 because his value is pretty insane right now. Crackthorn Beast has ok stats but the rng is obviously the main spot here. Prophet of Tides needs to maybe just move the land once since it gives so much reach with the double movement. Aurora has been talked about for a long time since she is insane value and doesn’t really fit Blue thematically, and there’s been a bunch of cool ideas to change her. Gabrian Archon is pretty close as well since it’s weaker with Blue’s faeria generation engine being weaker. But even just going up to 5f so you can’t play one every turn without collecting could be huge. Wavecrash Colossus I think needs a big change, along with the other Colossus. The minimum cost is a band-aid fix instead of actually making the cards work in a proper way and its too easy for Blue and Yellow to trigger the conditions for discounting them.

Mostly I disagree. You could pedantically argue no card can be exactly balanced, but for the most part I think most on your list are within 1/2 a faeria of a good price.

I only agree with:

  • Windstorm Charger
  • Seifer (+1f)
  • Garudan (hard to balance - 2 AoE would be too small, but he’s a dragon so 6/6 & 10f is required - perhaps add a gift radius? or a mildly negative last word).
  • Crackthorn (+1f)
  • Mythmaker (+1f)
  • Grovecaller (teleported unit’s turn ends - can’t move/attack. -1f. or add a radius or something. or total redesign)

And there’s a few I’d add - notably frogify (say give +1/+1 to the frog).

If you don’t agree with many of my choices, (especially like axe grinder, grim guard, and mystic beast, amongst others,) I think it is because you are forgetting that there are a hundred other cards that don’t see any play.

the whole plains/neutral collection , for example , and half the collection for any given color after that.

I think there’s a bit of subjectivity in what the target point is from which you measure OP/UP, as it’s all relative. If you want to pick the median card as your target point, then you’re probably correct to some degree in your balance assessment. The issue is that if you pick the median target point, you then need to do a ton of balancing to get rid of all the OP ones - as OP is more of a problem than UP (because what cards are picked is more important than what cards aren’t picked). Whereas if you pick a higher target point you’ll see a few more UP cards but less OP, so there’s less balancing needed.

Since Faeria’s mechanics are so discrete it’s very hard to balance because you can’t make small adjustments. More balancing also means more stuff people need to relearn.


Cards don’t need to be played regularly to be balanced. They can be specialist cards that work for specialist decks. For example, Firebringer. If you’ve got a deck full of axe grinders, fire elementals, red devils etc then it’s great - but for most red decks it sucks. I’m happy for there to be quite a few that are specialist - but they’ll feel UP outside of decks crafted for them.

Neutral cards can have the role of providing a less powerful version of colored stuff just so that they can round out the holes in single-color decks - such as healing, punishment, etc. So you need to consider their value as hole-fillers, eg if you need healing in your deck but you’re going blue and don’t want to waste two special lands just for 1 or 2 cards.

Lastly, pandora does really show up specialist cards. For example, Krog, Krog’s Dinner, Firebringer, Illusion of Grandeur, and a few more ultra-specialist ones are terrible in Pandora as you can’t reliably get other complimentary cards. I don’t see an easy solution to that, though - unless you want to adjust cards for Pandora (which has lots of negatives, including lots of development/balance effort).

My list:

Neutral
Syland Horseman: change to has charge 3 itself, but no longer gifts it to other creatures. Syland Horseman provides an extremely easy out for colors with low maneuverability without having to go into another color.

Magda: Loses cost reduction power on Legends. She’s a huge card draw engine already and can create copies of herself. She could stand a tone-down.

Queen’s Guard: Stat change to 5/4. Gaining 1 is nowhere near as sexy as drawing a card for the same stats and cost.

Green:

Weeping Idol: Should be a damage reducer or auto heal. Gaining 1 mana while you are getting dinged isn’t even worth splashing into most hurt-me decks.

Grovecaller: I would put this into blue or yellow with the same stats and cost, but as is it overcomes green’s shortcomings too easily.

Voice of Truth: Also belongs in blue as a debuffer. Green is all about powering its way through problems this gives it an easy out.

Primeval Colossus: Super over-priced, especially with the likes of Frogify and Last Nightmare about. A cost of 12 is a bit closer to real, or at least add Taunt.

Blue:
Gabrian Enchantment: Loses card draw. This card works on offense and defense, the card draw boosts the archetype heavily.

Humbling Vision: Gains the card draw that Gabrian Enchantment loses. This card has always been underpowered, getting the card draw makes it a much better pick.

Aurora, Mythmaker: Should be 3 or 4 islands required. Its an incredibly strong effect for blue and shouldn’t be easy to utilize as a splash color.

Aurora’s Trick: Should be 2 or 3 islands required. Limit of 2 attack captured makes 5 islands overcosted for it to be considered.

Egg of Wonders: Should be “Activate: Drain all your faeria, produce a random non-legendary creature with cost equal to the faeria drained”.

Orosei, Dream of the Deep: Either “All other creatures half their life and power” or “Draw 3 Cards, Gain 3 Mana”. Its current power is by far the weakest out of all the dragons and has the highest chance of backfiring.

Red:

Carnivorous Plant: Cost 3 red, but does damage at the end of your turn instead of the Production phase.

Gift of Steel: 2 and 1R, only boosts attack power on a minion… no health buff to combat creatures. Red is attack and burn, but should be stuck looking elsewhere for health buffs and protection.

Herald of War: Should be 4/3 or 3/4.

Grim Guard: Does 1 damage to opponent, or 2 damage to random enemy minion. Auto-targeted ranged damage that takes away 10% of your opponent’s life negates most of the essence of the game, and adding taunt onto it is just nuts.

Garudan, Heart of the Mountain: Gift should be 7 damage to a minion, or 2 damage to all minions. As it is, its 2/1R undercosted and the strongest of the dragons by far.

Yellow:
Annoying Gnat: Cost 2/3Y , stats 0/3, flying with charge 2. At the end of your turn, the land this occupies becomes a desert.

Windstorm Colossus: Should be cost 12. The conditions to meet minimum cost are easily met and the Dash 3 is huge.

Multi:
Crackthorn Beast: Loses Dash 2. Its strong, but its not terribly OP outside of the Dash. Dash gives it more utility than it needs as a card.

1 Like

Generally, balancing tries to avoid qualitative changes and just adjust numbers unless there’s a real need to alter the mechanic. Many of your suggestions basically turn creatures into totally different creatures (e.g. horsemaster is THE give-charge unit - perhaps it needs less damage or give charge 2 or something - but giving charge is essential to its identity) - same goes for Grim Guard, Gnat, Orosei, Egg suggestions IMHO.

I’ll agree with some of your suggestions though. Garudan needs a nerf, and I guess something like that (with the option) might work since the only number nerf available (as it’s a dragon so needs to be 6/6 10f 2X) would be 2 to all, which is too little IMHO. Crackthorn doesn’t need dash 2 - although I’d rather just another faeria so that it stays the same otherwise. Windstorm colossus is also OP.

Khalim : Increase the desert cost to 3
Aurora : Increase the lake cost to 3
Garudan : Increase the mountain cost to 3

This should be very healthy for the game.

Up bad cards is not a priority since the extension is coming soon, maybe bad cards will have good synergies.

And i would like cards like Dream Reaver in others colors (highly colored cards).

PS : I hate the RNG, i dream about a crackthorn change.