Firestorm needs a change

Balance Discussion
#1

Hi everyone,

I find it interesting, that so many cards are mentioned here, but there’s no Firestorm topic?
Alright, so I’ll just open that one.

First off, I might be kinda new to this game (about a month now), but far away from being a newbie when it comes to games. In fact, I’ve played Vintage Magic for over 20 years and being a board/cardgame designer on my own.
That doesn’t mean I’m always right, but for sure I’m not crying for OP cards without no reason.

How can a single card have impact on all in game opponent’s cards? Yellow rush can just scoop, as Firestorm will sweep the whole board for nothing. It doesn’t help that red already has all the tools at hand to beat yellow rush easily.

Given, It’s weaker against other colors, but even there it’s a very good card, dealing way to much damage to different targets. Having cards that do 4 damage to a single card is one thing, but 3 to all? The math alone tells the story and even if I have to kill one or another creature with a 1/1 afterwards, I probably cleared the board because of it.

Cards that only affect one player have always been problematic and this one is no exception. This card gets rid of most small creatures and may clean the faerie pools in a single swing.

The only way I see to keep this effect as it is, it to do damage to ALL creatures (maybe for 5 then). That way you have to play with the card and time it perfectly. You still have the advantage of knowing when it will happen, which is a huge thing.

I somewhere saw a topic about this card and it was said, that you just shouldn’t overextend (sure, clever play is one part of a game), but you are just not in the position to play save and slow when you play rush. You opponent plays creatures too, so you have to play more and that’s where Firestorm decides the game. So either you make pressure, or you play safe, but with that card, you’ll lose both ways.

Another comment was, that it doesn’t see any constructed play. Well, if that’s true (which doesn’t mean it’s bad), why to pester the non-constructed games with it anyway? Just take it out or change it. Groundshaker and all those removal and taunt stuff red has, is already enough.

In the end, even if Firestorm is just a killer for yellow rush, for that matchup alone, it would be wrong to have that card available.

Now lets hear back ^^

#2

Area of Effect spells are necessary for the health of the game. If anything the game needs more cards like firestorm, not less. Having said that Firestorm is already a bad card, it’s only played because there are no other options. If it was made any worse, it would be unplayable.

It’s particularly bad against rush as well. Frankly, the game needs more good cards to defend against rush, not the removal of the few tools that are currently available.

#3

The biggest reason few people use Firestorm is that Garudan offers the same effect, along with a good creature. You often only need the damage once per match anyway.

I haven’t found Firestorm to really be a problem. The game needs cards to counter large amounts of small health creatures. Firestorm is one of the weaker cards that offers this, anyway.

I suppose Firestorm could be strong against yellow rush, but I don’t see why that’s a problem. The game has few anti-rush cards to begin with, so I’d consider Firestorm being one a good thing. Like Saluigi said, the game could use more of them instead of less.

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#4

Outside of Pandora, Firestorm is actually quite weak. Why? Because it doesn’t counter the meta at all. I mostly see 3 decks on the ladder at the moment :

  1. Yellow rush : The haste creatures already dealt the damage they were meant to deal. At 6 cost, firestorm might clear some, it still leaves your orb completly defenseless. At some point, yellow will drop his big creature that grows each time your orb is attacked and firestorm wont help you then.

  2. Red Burn : One popular red deck actually kills you without ever attacking your orb. With combat ability or “on death” dealing damage to your divinity, firestorm doesn’t do much. One of Red most important minion, the one that deals 1 damage to you everytime one of your creature dies, has 4 hp and thus, isn’t killed by firestorm alone.

  3. Apex Predator : Firestorm is useless against 8/8 and above predators. That deck also has a lot of healing so forget about burning your opponent down.

All in all, firestorm on ranked play suffers from what a lot of “board clear” fail to do : not only clear, but reverse the situation on the board. You wont gain any advantage with firestorm at the moment unless your opponent overcomitted with small creatures.

#5

I won’t question what you guys wrote, as I’m sure that it’s true, but that doesn’t help my other point. Even if FIrestorm is just a casual card, there it’s pretty harsh, especially vs inexperienced players, which may cause them to leave the game.

Yellow cards with less than 4 life are pretty much useless then, which doesn’t help the game at all.

However, I will watch it while growing my collection, as I’m far away from being able to build good decks at this point.

#6

Firestorm is bad because it is a board clear designed to kill lower hp minions? Have you not played Hearthstone?

I have not played Magic, but I would find it odd if that game didn’t have a 1 sided board clear as well.

If Firestorm is OP, then rock is OP in rock, paper, scissors, because it hard counters scissors.

#7

You didn’t get my point. The math behind the spell is simpy wrong and the ability to take out a small creature deck with ease doesn’t help, no matter if those decks are bad. You cannot just look at the handful of tournament decks.

No, I did not play HS and will never do, as it’s just a random mess which I despite. Yes, there have been 1 sided sweeps in Magic but at a much higher cost and/or drawback (like losing life for each creature died this way).

If you see a connection between this and rock/paper/scissors, you just don’t understand my point, nor the game…

#8

The thing is, small minions in this game are really advantageous in the way that you get extra resources by having them near the wells. I only know a little bit about Magic, but I am unaware of any advantages of having lots of small minions other than having more tempo or board control. But do enlighten me on the pros of having small minions in Magic.

#9

Cheap expendable blockers (at least when there is no trampling in front), multiple targets for buffs, low-cost cards to play on curve, synergy between types (my Goblins or Elves buddies want a chat with you if you think they’re useless :wink: ).
If there is no AoE, then swarming the board is the best option as it’s usually better to have 5 2/2s than a 10/10 …

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#10

Foxclear already named some, but forgot the most important one --> effects that bother your opponent. Some of the cheap creatures have low stats, but a great ability that stop your opponent by adding extra cost, not allowing them to search their deck, exchanging stuff and what not.

However, MtG is quite different from Faeria, so that doesn’t help us at all.

In a nutshell: I don’t think that Firestorm is OP at this point, but it has potential depending on the future of the game. My main points are, that the math behind it is wrong and that this card is no fun for beginners. “You got 5 creatures with 3 or lower helath on the board, well no more…”

Sure, you can’t compare these cards directly, but if you take Flameburst, FIrebomb, Seifer’s Wrath and multiply their cost until you get as many damage out of it, as you do with FIrestorm, you would cry…

The same was true for Vampire (which finally got changed). For 7 Faeria and 2 Deserts you get a 7/8 creature that deals 4 damage when it comes into play? This card was completely off the charts.

Bombslinger is yet another card with too much value for it’s cost.

Gabrian Enchantment, a card for 2 Faeria that gives a creature +6 / +0 (common use on Willow) and nets you card, with the option to ruin an opponents creatures stats instead? This got to be a joke compared to other cards like Gift of Steel or even Ruunin’s Presence.

As you can see, it’s not about the useability, but the math behind the cards that I dislike.

#11

You should be careful when you’re doing the maths. The same argument could be used for when opponent has no creature in play, then Firestorm does nothing, Bomb Slinger is a 4/2 for 5, etc.
Yes, some cards have more values than others, some can have incredible value in some situations and be useless at others (which means they’re dead cards in your hand meanwhile).
Yes, Vampire was off the charts, just like Bomb Slinger is, but the real problem with Vampire is that it offered Yellow an AoE effect, which it certainly didn’t need. the same Vampire in Red would be regarded as strong, but maybe not OP.
Anyway, you can hardly estimate the value of a card by looking at it in a given situation (the statement : “but if you take Flameburst, FIrebomb, Seifer’s Wrath and multiply their cost until you get as many damage out of it, as you do with FIrestorm, you would cry” is already a mistake in itself; most often you’ll hardly do more than 7-8 effective damage with Firestorm, and that is a good case scenario)

#12

Yeah, I agree on all that, but to me the game is still far away from being balanced. Firestorm is just a small part of it, especially as it doesn’t see much play. Also, regarding situational play, I’m pretty sure that those cards are rarely bad, as you can play and plan them accordingly with ease.

Will the last changes get yellow down to a fair level? I doubt it. Will green be playable now? I doubt it. There needs to be done much more and it’s much easier if you do it from scratch instead of trying to fix everything afterwards.

There have been many people complaining about yRush and the small change to the Ranger won’t change it. I agree that it gets boring if everyone is just rushing your orb and start playing lands just then. This may not be a problem to the higher tiers, but that’s just a small part of the game!

Who needs Wild Growth with Earthcraft in the game? Not being able to put the lands where you want them kills that card completely. Sure, the Forest cost needs to be 2 then, to keep it away from other colors splashing it, but right now it’s crap.

Voice of Hunger, the worst card in the game, but no change. If atleast it had haste…

and so on, and so on…

Taking a look at the decks getting played on tournaments make me zzzzZZZ… always the same old handful of decks, as other decks are hardly playable, yet no real changes.

This is getting far away from the topic, but one is tied to the other…

#13

Well, Yellow had Ghoul nerfed a bit, the card is still playable, certainly still strong, but at least not broken like before. The Vampire got the axe as well, so in the end, Yellow rush and control both lost quite a bit in this patch. In the same time, some other cards have been upped (Soul Eater’s was a huge buff). So will these changes be enough to change the meta ? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s too early to say. As for tournaments, wait until the next one before saying that players haven’t changed their lists ><"
And voice of Hunger isn’t the worst card, people just haven’t found the right way to incorporate it in their decks, but comboing with Willow or Oakling, it might actually stand on the edge of being broken if it received a buff … and certainly never give it haste ! :angry:
and plz, don’t attack Wild Growth, it’s a fun card to play in a forest deck which floods the board with lands ,so it doesn’t matter where they’re created (it’s nice in combo with Wisp, but who plays that anyway ^^), would actually be nice to lower its cost as well :slight_smile:

#14

Haha, I was just making fun of Voice of Hunger getting haste, as I found it pretty hilarious (especially as it’s a green fattie). :smiley:
I still don’t see it being a good card, though, as all it does is consuming creatures to a big one, that says “now you only need a single answer!”…

Yes, there will be some changes of course, but I doubt you will see completely new decks, as all of them still work the same way. I dare to say that the Vampire won’t change yellow much. Players will exchange it, but still play the mobility way as before. Y-Rush may even care even less about it’s defense with the new Vampire being able to up your life.

I would’ve liked the Vampire with fitting stats getting +0 / +2 as a combat ability.

I like Wild Growth, too, but compared to Earthcraft it’s rubbish, even in Land decks. As you mention it, that Wisp would need getting the +1 / +1 whereever it is. You don’t want to play lands in the mid to late game, so why not? Firebringer gets up by just playing your deck, but stops once it’s out.

The decks may change with time (probably only one or two cards, though), but I saw the same decks at each and every tournament (browsing through youtube / twitch). The matchups and the counters have always been the same…

#15

That’s because there hasn’t been a patch for a while. Before last patch, it was mono-Blue random events dominating the meta, and before that (GO Faeria Clash) it was a mix of mono-Green and Blue/Red (brings back memories !), so yes, it does change sometimes. Anywya, we’re getting away from topic :smiley:

#16

Well, if you played ladder today, you’ll have noticed that G/Y sacrifice decks are all over the board. New deck type incoming, due to a single change to souleater.
I can also imagine people building decks around the new Prophet of Tides and Ruunin’s Messenger. Just take some time. :slight_smile:

Regarding Firestorm, the only problem I see there is that players are caught by a big surprise the first time they see it. If you know this card exists and that it requires 6 faeria and 3 mountains, you can see it coming. So just don’t flood your board with 4+ creatures that would die in the fire, if you play against someone with 2+ mountains on the board. :wink:

Btw, giving Voice of Hunger haste would turn Faeria into the Hunger Games.

#17

firestorm is way to strong for a 6 mana card. wait 2 turn to destroy the entire rivals board? GG

it should be at least 10 mana
or have another requierment like discard your hand
( or dmg your own stuff as well. non effective )

lost 3 dominated games so far to this, card only.
complete board controll rival below 7 health n than rip deck to a single card.
thats like rageki in yugioh n it got banned like 1st season xD

#18

Nah, that would just kill the card. Even at 8 Mana I’m sure it would be a dead card, even though that should do the math.

I still think it would be nice to make it a 4 Faeria 3 mountain card, that damages ALL creatures on the board. That would make the card a bit more interesting as you need better timing and probably a deck that works with it. That would also keep the ability of Garudan more unique.

Being a purely red card, a 5 Faeria 5 mountain version should work, too, but then Garudan would just do the same, which I find boring. A legend should have a unique effect.

#19

Well I got so say if you play yellow rush and firestorm bother you… You forgot about Death Walker and such… My point is, Even if I start with 3 firestorm in hand, rush 3 mountains and then only do +1 faeria. Yellow rush will kill me about at the same speed they do right now. Also take note firestorm is hardly splashable as it requires 3 mountain.

Also you got to take note that Firestorm is 2 turn worth of faeria if you don’t control/barely control any well. Thus said, Most aggro deck tend to have 6/5, 5/6, even 10/10 body (Im looking at YRush OPness) so firestorm is in most case, not that usefull. Unless you want to trade 2 cards on 1 Death Walker, that been summoned through a wind storm soldier or a monk.

#20

This is true and I completely agree, but only to those who know the game well and that is a problem that should get addressed. My Y rush would get killed by Firestorm, too, as I don’t have the cards I need, even missing commons…

That’s why I only do phantom runs right now and I’m half-through godrank 2 within 7 days.:poop:
No need to fight completely one-sided constructed matches. ^^