Meta Shakeup: Random Balance Suggestions

Balance Discussion
#1

There’s actually not too much to complain about in the current meta; I would argue that the game is in a healthier place than it’s ever been. However, it’s been stable; too stable, for my liking. We do have the expansion rolling in sometime in the next few months, which will be a great way to shake things up. However, for fun, I’d like to throw out some suggestions for tweaks (buffs) on cards that don’t see any play.

Azarai: Same cost, drain -2/-1 from all creatures (buff from -2/0) Alternative, -3/0. Rationale: All the other dragons are at least playable (Orosei) or quite strong (Garu, Tethra). Azarai has needed some love since its LN effect was replaced with the 2 dmg drain from all. The power-drain is a fun, unique effect, but in practice Aza is unplayable; Make Azarai Great Again!

Wind Wisp: Up from 1/2 to 1/3. 2 life is not enough for 4 cost; at 3 this becomes a powerful collector with great mobility and upside.

Hilltop Archer: Up from 2/2 to 2/3. Again, 4 cost, 2 health, will never see play. At 2/3, it’s probably still niche, but can at least have a chance of finding play in some sort of deck that abuses ranged creatures.

Ruby Fish: Up from 1/1 to 1/2. Will this make fish see more play? It’s possible but shell is likely still better. However, this also buffs Gabrian Noble, quite possibly enough to boost it from interesting idea to good card.

Tiki Cheftain: Up from 2/2 to 3/3. Probably still never played.

Tiki Totem: Cost down from 3F to 2F.

Seed Sower: Drop cost to 5F for a 4/5 (so it doesn’t compete directly with verduun), or at 6F (or even 7F), spawn two adjacent forests. All of a sudden we have a great green ramp card.

Wild Growth: Raise cost to 3F, add effect, “Draw a Card”. There isn’t enough of a reward for green ramp right now other than Thaurian Golem (oak father, prim colo don’t see a ton of play currently). It’s hard to justify 2F and losing a card for 2 forests; drawing would at least give us a replacement card to find out rewards for creating so many forests faster. Alternatively, if Wild Growth let us place both forests (2F, double earthcraft without the draw) it could be nice.

Crumbling Golem: Up from 6/6 to 7/6 (7/7?). Drawback on this card is huge, let’s give it some stats to compensate.

Malevolent Spirit: Drop cost from 5F to 4F, or increase life drain from 2 to 3. Seriously, this card sucks right now. It’s so awful it shouldn’t even count as a card. Another option would be to make the drain able to target creatures (cost up to 2, or 3D); this would be quite strong though.

Oblivion Rider: Rebalance to 5/4. 3 health for 5F just can’t be played. Which is a shame because it’s a sexy charge-3 beast that I would love to play.

Feral Kodama: Let it collect faeria. Removing slam was a big nerf. Kodama is fun to mess around with; with collection it would for sure see play again. Alternatively, reduce cost to 3 forests.

These are just random suggestions. We’re not in Early Access anymore, and the devs have their hands full pumping out new content. But the meta has felt a bit stagnant lately, and revisiting some cards that have fallen out of favor in the meta (some, like crumbling golem, have been collecting dust for quite some time now :wink: ) could be an inexpensive way to spice things up again.

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#2

Additional Ideas:

Defender of Homeland: Buff to 1/3. Then it can see play as a decent turn 1 collector in games where the ability isn’t as relevant.

Shaytan Vampire: Bring back the old vampire, potentially with a lifesteal cap like the one on kodama. Monstrosity is pretty awful :P.

#3

I like these ideas a lot. I’ve seen a lot of complaint threads recently calling for the butchering of Frogify, but I prefer your suggestions of buffing bad cards to make the metagame a little more interesting.

1 Like
#4

Yellow should get the drain mechanic to be the same for soul drain, malevolent spirit, shayton montrosity, and Azarai, Wrath of the Desert to make drain a consistent tactic to choose from in yellow decks. Deciding what drain consistently does is up to the devs. There’s multiple versions of it to choose from. Except, drain shouldn’t be like red burn damage to god due to that’s a red advantage and healing the player’s god is greens advantage. I’ve read a dev post stating something like that.

Tiki Chieftain cant compete with the other taunt cards in green due to it’s low stats and ability to give taunt comes with no buffs. Shamanic Dance is a better pick due to 2 cost and +4hp with taunt. Living Willow is a better pick due to 7HP taunt at 3 cost and it’s a great feed target. Flowersilk Faeria is better than it too due to 2 cost flying, on event gain charge 2, +1/+4 and taunt. Wood Elemental 4 cost taunt 3/4 with gift to create a forest. Tiki Chieftain needs something more to stand out from the other four creatures.

Seed Sower needs a +2 power card that works with the forests it creates to be made for green to justify it’s 6 cost. I don’t use this card due to that missing 2 attack.

Wild growth would be good for a forest spam deck if there was more cards that benefit from the +2 forests but they’re isn’t. It’s a Everbloom Wisp card which I don’t use Everbloom Wisp due to it’s slow ramp up and it’s investment not being worth it when it gets removed.

I think Crumbling Golem should be a cheap fodder card that is meant to be summoned to take out a threat but die in the process. Reducing it’s cost or maybe increasing it’s attack power could be good. If it becomes a low cost creature maybe it can become a creature that can be summoned by another card so red will have a creature that can be spammed but they take damage when other creatures are summoned.

Feral Kodama is a card that I use. The reason for It being limited to not collect faeria is something I don’t know why but I do see the power of it’s 5 hp heal to the player’s god. It can be spammed to win god hitting races which I like doing.

It costing four forests to use isn’t bad. It’s good to me because that’s not difficult to do for a mono green deck. Feral Kodama was explained to be a green deck advantage when it was balanced. Decreasing the forest requirement would let it be in color combo decks which the interactions could make a new balance problem. Having more green deck only advantages is good for the decks identity because green is being used in combo colored decks like three wishes, green/blue, sac, crackthorn, etc. Earthcraft has made green the best color to mix with other color decks in my eyes. Green having it’s own special advantages outside of these combo decks is good for the deck to have it’s own unique way to be played.

The deck I use Feral Kodama in is already on the hub if anyone wants to try it out. Don’t need Grovecaller when the deck has a lot of mobility creatures and can afford to use double neutral lands. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

nice post, i like mini balance changes to make underplayed cards more usefull - but some changes could be dangerous - windwisp as t1 collector with 3 health seems really strong , ruby fish with 2 health also hard to awnser for non r/y decks

crumbling golem as rush opener is also a bit scary and could just win games by not being able to get awnsered - other than those i can see those changes happen

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#6

Great ideas! Hope to see more. Improving bad cards definitely sound better than nerfing “OP” ones.

I mentioned some of these in another thread:

Wavecrash Colossus is too cheap. May be make all the 7/7 except Green’s starting at 10 and minimum at 5. Barbarian Ogre reducing with each enemy killed in combat, fitting in with red’s general theme along with Bloodfire Wisp and Volcanic Colossus.

I have never seen Tiki Healer picked in pandora or constructed. Why is it in green, the only colour where you can’t deal self damage?

Let Ruuin the Relentless’ reincarnations be influenced by buff and debuff in her previous existence on the board. The way it is now just takes too long for her to be worthwhile, and it’s boring that buff/debuff can’t make her grow faster/slower.

Improving Azarai’s drain attack sound really good. It’s the only card in the game with that ability, I wish it’s better or make it available for a few more cards too. Gameplay would be a lot more interesting.

Perhaps improve ranged creatures across the board. Only Yellow’s archers seem to see regular play, that’s just sad. Ranged would add another dimension to gameplay.

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#7

I’ll just repeat what I’ve suggested in another thread: Tarum should be made immune to Feed the Forest! It’s too easy to place him on the board, kill him immediately, cover the board with your own forests, gain 15 faeria and summon a couple oak fathers or everbloom wisps with insane stats. I believe it is quite enough that Tarum is the toughest taunt creature in the game.

Also, Orosei the blue dragon is very seldom used, because his gift is too unpredictable. If it were changed to “Give +1/+1 to every creature on the board” it would see as much use as Garudan or Azrai!

#8

Tarum will be less used if it can’t be killed after it’s summoned. Blue’s transform cards are too much of a threat to Tarum play. The amount of cards that can kill Tarum is not only feed the forest though. Plenty of sac cards could replace it.

The land requirement and faeria to summon Tarum is what balances him due to how long it takes per turn to get those requirements. Increasing the amount of forests required to summon him is all you need to do. That will enable player’s to get the lands they need down first before Tarum is summoned. Increasing it to 6 or 7 will do it. Maybe he can get a cost reduction with health reduction if his land requirement gets pushed up.

Orosei is in a good spot from my view. The transform has lower RNG if done to 6 cost creatures turning them into random 8 cost creatures. Most eight cost creatures have good stats or good card text to use. They could turn into Wavecrash Colossus, Baeru, Ogre Battler, Ignus, and Icerock Behemoth with protection. All five creatures are reasonable powerful in their own way. If a player keeps their 6 cost creatures alive they can be replaced with better creatures that are not damaged with Orosei. That’s fun and powerful. If there’s a problem with one of the 8 cost being weak maybe they should be made into a 7 or 9 to get out of Orosei’s best transform pool.

#9

I think I am going to move on to Gwent until there is a balance patch. The ladder system is utterly broken an unrewarding, and I think it will stay that way until mono-blue jumpers, windstorm charger, and perhaps some red-burn decks are balanced down.

I did mirror Luu90s snowstorm lancer/burn deck , took it to ladder and… the second natch I played was mirror. … I didn’t enjoy it and felt like I sold my soul for net-decking …

#10

Wood Elemental seems clearly better than its counterparts:
vs. Wind Elemental: 7 in attack/HP against 6 and more evenly distributed, making it safer against cheap removal. Then taunt against flying? Clearly wood elemental is better
vs. Fire Elemental: Even clearer - same attack/HP stats but again the distribution means that FE more often than not gets taken out before using its big attack, either by a cheap creature or cheap remove. On top of that WE has taunt and FE gets nothing in return!
vs. Water Elemental: Again, +1 in attack/HP for WE. Then balance taunt against jump - similar level of benefit perhaps? So it’s just the superior stats that make WE better.

I think Wood Elemental should be 3/3 so it can trade with a Syland Horsemaster of something like that, or be taken out with Flame Burst. Wind Elemental should be 3/3 to put them on the same level. Then Fire Elemental 4/3 or 5/3 to make up for the fact it has no additional benefit.