I think it is a tad too early to be claiming gg op on half the expansion when we don’t even know all of the cards yet, let alone have them released. If anyone plays or has played hearthstone when goblins vs gnomes was releasing then you can draw some parallels. Everyone in hs thought that dr boom (the most op card in hs history) believed it was going to be crap on its announcement, and people were all on the Troggzor train all the way up to its release, at which point troggzor was never played or talked about again, whereas dr boom was put in every deck. Lets wait to see if the ship is truly sunk before we hop overboard please.
Only if it’s a friendly swallow AFAICT. I got confused by this and lost a co-op battle because the enemy sky swallower moved immediately after release.
The FAQ says:
So I think that only applies to friendly swallows.
I don’t see this logic in any other games. Most games try to release balanced content. Why increase required balancing hours and add a period of imbalance when you don’t have to. Certainly they often get it a bit wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s (almost) never deliberate. At least, I’ve never heard of that before - although this is my first CCG/TCG game (IMHO it’s a board game with cards, but whatever).
Are you saying you’ve actually seen it being deliberately done?
If you release it as OP then it’s already broken, by definition. If it’s balanced people will want to play it simply because it’s new. Sure, you might find unusual synergies slightly faster, but I don’t think that’s worth the negatives.
Note, I’m not thinking Abrakam deliberately made them OP. And it’s all IMHO so far. I’m guessing at least some of my current opinions will change in the coming months.
I have seen fairly deliberate examples of imbalance as well, not just for the reason Bobross mentioned but also for the sake of a cash grab at times.
Rise of Mythos is an infamous example of a cash grab card game.
I am sure it’s not only friendly swallow, I was at the receiving end last game.
Corin (dev) on Discord just now:
A creature released from swallow no longer collects faeria that turn (summoning sickness applies)
Good morning Xaxazak!
Some cards are certainly really really REALLY good! But I think it is too early to start nerfing cards. The new cards might help us deal with some of the cards that you feel are too strong at the moment. For example, Grappling Hook might become a really useful tool to deal with Crystal Flower.
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Emerald Salamander. The effect of Salamander is very powerful, but it requires POSITIONING which is something we all have cried for - we WANT more cards that require really thoughtful creature positing and land placement! I maybe shouldnt compare it to Crackthorn Beast because that card is by many already considered overpowered, but Crackthorn Beast has the ability to clear harvesters on the other side of the board, it can be played on an empty board, it has mobility. Emerald Salmander is certainly a strong card, but it does have downsides aswell. If you manage to hit just one creature with it though its already gona be pretty good. But then again its a 4land requirement card, it should be on similar powerlevel as Forbidden Library etc (or 4x stronger than Library because it cost 4times as much).
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Frog Tosser. Yeah Frog Tosser has insane value.
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Ulani. Ulani is a legendary card that also requires 4 different special lands. That alone qualifies her to have powerfull ability. If Ulani was a 0cost 4 (different!) landrequirement 2/2 legendary creature, would you play it? Probably not, its not good enough. Pay 4F extra to draw 4 cards is however defenitely worth it! The fact that it draws a card of each color is most of the time an advantage, but it could also mean that you sometimes draw fewer cards because you have none left. Ulani is a good card, but she is a also a legendary that only works in certain types of decks
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Crystal Flower. Its a good card. But as I said, the new cards might help us deal with structures (Grappling Hook for example)
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Curious Biomancer should be much much much better than wisdom because it requires 4 lands instead of being neutral. I think curious Biomancer is gona be a pretty popular card, it seems to be very solid and at the same time a card you dont really want to play around (unless your opponent plays blue red).
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Skywhale is a good card but it comes very late and takes 5 damage from punishment.
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Gift of the Rakoa. I think Elderwood Embrace is strictly better because in Faeria the early game is crucial. Setting up a stronger economy/pressure than your opponent is easier done with Embrace. Gift of Rakoa seems fine to me
– ofcourse I might not agree with any of what I just posted in a few days 
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I agree that they should try to start out close to balanced, but they can’t expect to get it perfect. For example, it’s hard to predict how good swallow will be, or how much of a hindrance excessive land requirements are without extensive playtesting. Let’s imagine they could expect a spread around the spot that they aim, with some cards starting exactly as balanced as they planned, but many turning out weaker or stronger than they initially hoped. Lets imagine 40% land exactly where they aim. If that initial aim is at balanced, then maybe 30% area underpowered and 30% are overpowered. If instead, the initial aim is at exciting and powerful (although possibly OP), then you may still wind up with 40% balanced cards but you will have 60% OP cards. That leaves you in a better position to start balancing.
They won’t get any playtesting with new cards if they release them and they appear underpowered. Not only that, but people will be disappointed. So releasing cards that appear underpowered hurts their brand and hurts their development timeline. I have seen cards released in other games that get ignored for a year because they’re underpowered, then people demand buffs, they get buffed, then they’re OP, then people want a nerf…I’ve also seen this done with overpowered cards that appeared balanced (easy to do with card interactions), where no one thought to make a deck around the card for a year, and then when they did, everyone quickly saw how broken the card was and then it got nerfed.
The results are far better when the first iteration of a card is slightly OP, as opposed to underpowered, or seemingly underpowered (as many balanced cards might be). So my point is that it’s actually to be expected, and even good practice if the new cards are slightly (and only slightly) OP. A good company will start that way and then balance the cards well before releasing a new set. It’s a problem when they don’t bother to balance the new cards before releasing new and more OP cards - that’s when you get into bad power creep.
If you repeatedly shoot for some point you’ll typically end up with something like a normal distribution centered close to that point. If you aim for something other than the center, you’ll get less results around the center. Even if you add discreteness (eg, rounding stats to whole numbers), you’ll still end up with less around the center (on average). Also, the average distance from the center is higher.
I get your point that the more a card is played the quicker it’s balanced, and the more OP a card is the more it’s played. But the further a card is from being balanced, the larger the change required to make it balanced. Balancing attempts aren’t always perfectly accurate, and I would assume that the resulting error scales somewhat proportionally to the size of the change. So the worse the balance was when you started balancing, the worse it will likely be when you finish - given the same amount of effort.
But I think the larger point is still that you should be attempting to have the game balanced at all times. Having periods where the game isn’t balanced will discourage players, which can end up making them leave and make it harder to attract new players. I’d say having the game contain a number of OP cards that are always being used in OP ways is far more discouraging than getting new UP cards and having the game remain mostly balanced. OP cards break stuff. UP cards can be ignored.
I somewhat disagree. People will want to try out the new ones for a while after release. And while they’ll end up being played less, they’ll still be played occasionally. There are many cards you could consider UP currently. Almost all of them get some playtime. And if a card ends up almost never being played, it’s probably either UP (IMHO eg Tiki Chieftain, Walking Fortress) or very situational (IMHO eg Imperial Engineer, Baron Thulgar). About the only cards I never see are Ruunin’s Shrine, Architect, and the Longhorn and Prairie Yaks (and even then, sometimes they’re in Pandora).
My bad, I was confusing released on the opponent’s turn (via Production) with released by destroying the structure on the same turn. You’re right that it’s unusable on the turn that you destroy the swallower.
It might be an interesting effect. But even if you made the released creature instantly win the game I’m not sure you’d flip the balance. The swallower would still be very useful for ending the game.
One more thing about swallow balance - Swallow creatures also have the advantage of being unswallowable, which is another big plus.
Yes, I agree the swallower still has the initiative, but feature like this would make the player think twice before they swallow. It would also put the swallower under a little pressure if he/she cannot finish the game before the flower disappears.
I think swallowed creatures should be able to act when released - as it stands, even with the perfect answer to swallow, your creature is still stalled for a turn. In base, people would often play a cheap taunt creature like willow just for that effect, and consider it a good trade. If you can answer the swallow, you should also have the ability to make that snowball. Even if flower is answered the turn it’s played, it can still give more value than a well placed willow (teleport the creature out of position, stall it for one turn, absorb opponent resources destroying the flower).
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fair point on the normal distribution. So once you move the center away from balanced, you will have fewer balanced cards to start, but you’ll also have far fewer underpowered cards. I still say this is a desirable place to start. People trying to make an underpowered card work is nice, but it doesn’t give enough info to get it to balanced.
Regarding keeping the game balanced at all times - I think a better goal is to have a diverse meta. Balanced is really elusive, and there will always be stronger/weaker/more situational cards. One overpowered card/deck can kill diversity in a meta-game. So assuming there will always be the potential for that, I don’t think it really matters that much if they initially release 10 overpowered cards or 1. The important thing is that they take quick action to balance things, and the best way we can help is to give feedback on how the cards are being abused, and what specifically feels overpowered about them.
As all the cards are now revealed, I’m updating my opinion. I might throw a poll up later. All this is IMHO.
IMHO the expansion is currently still terribly OP - worse than when I posted the topic. Some cards are unbelievably OP. A 7 health structure that, every turn, gives the green creatures in your hand +7/+7. Yes, those are sevens. And it even does it at the end of your turn, so the opponent doesn’t have a chance to respond. It requires 3F 7W but that’s regularly achievable and doesn’t even slightly make up for its power.
A few new cards directly compare to old cards in ways that suggest either that this Oversky OP-ness is deliberate (maybe bobrossw is right and it was a planned temporary OP-ness, although that seems strange to me), or the analysis did not consider them.
Compare Blazing Salamander to Emerald Salamander. 1f & 2F gets you +2/+2 on every adjacent friendly creature, which isn’t too hard to plan especially if you just summon them on the same turn. Summons on forests, too. It’s well worth it for just 1 friendly creature but in practice it’s easy to get 2 or 3, or even 4,5,6 if you don’t care about hitting the enemy.
Frog Tosser is still quite OP and crazy compared to Firebomb (which is red, the color that’s meant to have the best direct damage).
I could go on for ages with examples. In fact I don’t think I can keep my interest too much longer if things remain this way - I really hope they’re working to significantly address this. If they announced another expansion now without drastically changing things, I’d think twice about getting it.
Frog Tosser requires six lands though. It is like comparing Thyrian Golem to Deepwood Grizzly. Both cost the same amounts of Faeria but the former has +2/+2 over the latter.
Frog Tosser does that in the shape of spawning a Frog, and is also a creature, so I’m inclined to agree Frog Tosser needs another nerf. On the other hand you have to consider that Firebomb is not a good card as it is pretty much directly outclassed by Flame Burst, which can hit the opposing Orb as well and is 1F cheaper. However, I still agree 1 Faeria compared to Firebomb is not enough (maybe make it 6F?).
Comparing Blazing Salamander to Emerald Salamander is not quite fair considering the former is a bad card to begin with and the latter is significantly worse than Crackthorn Beast.
All Emerald Salamander does is highlighting Blazing Salamander needs the buff it needed for a long time already.
Tree of Everlife is indeed quite ridiculous. Ten lands is a LOT, more than any other card, but late-game most decks have played ten lands to begin with so that really doesn’t matter unless a significant percentage actually were forests (which is not the case). I think the first change to the Tree should be 6 Forests and 4 Wild lands and then have another look at the card (as I’m pretty sure it’s still OP even with that change in mind).
For 8 Faeria you can get a red 6/9 taunt or an 8/8 taunt with protection. Funnily enough, even though the latter is clearly much stronger, we never saw it played in a ranked game. That’s what multi-colour cards are, they are much stronger because they support a unique archetype which means they also have costly land requirements. You wouldn’t play frog-tosser in a mono-blue deck, yet you would play Aurora Myth Maker in every blue deck, frog tosser with its higher faeria cost and much higher land cost would get butchered fighting auroras 6/6.
You compare Emerald Salamander to Blazing Salamander, if the Oversky cards were as strong as Blazing Salamander nobody would play them, nobody would care about them, it would be a complete waste of everyone’s time. Instead the new cards have the potential to be strong but can only be played in specific contexts, and that’s great. A decent number the cards are also weak, that’s why we don’t pay attention to them, I haven’t seen any paradise seeds or sky anemones or even revellers (cool ability).
Cards with 5 land costs are considered quite heavy and late-game in a mono-deck, which is why creatures like thyrian golem are significantly stronger than others, but Frog Tosser has even higher land costs, so it’s not a good idea to compare them to mono-colour cards with low land costs that are too weak to be played.
I think it’s partly intentional and partly a miscalculation regarding the cost of land. I discussed this in another post in more depth, but basically, if you’re already making 8 lands for whale, then 6 lands for frog tosser cost you nothing.
I don’t think the design team fully considered this as land requirements have been a feature of balance for much of the game. But basically, Thyrian Golem is great value, but still balanced because of the 5 forest requirement. UNTIL you add in a card that is great value with a 4 forest requirement, and one that is great value with a 3 forest requirement, and one that is amazing value and requires 6, and cards that help you easily ramp up your lands. When all of those cards exist together, then the forest requirements on any one card are met in service of all the cards, and they no longer serve as a drawback to your deck.
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This probably hits the nail on the head.
Thyrian Golem used to be very expensive in land costs but great value, and same for Crackthorn Beast, but now we just got to the point land cost do not really matter anymore.
Something else that does not help is that Wild Lands requirements have been overrated by the dev team. I feel they considered a wild land to be about as high of a cost as a forced tile (say, Forest), whereas in fact it is less. A Wild Land requirement only really adds that a creature cannot be summoned too early. A card that requires 3 Forests and 3 Wild Lands can still be included into many, many decks as its land costs aren’t really hindered. Whatever you go Crackthorn, Thyrian Golem or Apex Predator routes (or even Soul Eater if it works with sacrificing), it can be included…
I do think I’m seeing the balance from a medium player’s perspective, which is slightly different than the top ranked people. This means I see land costs as less important.
There’s also a big difference between tournament decks (where you often know what you’re going against and vice versa) and games via matchmaking. I’m guessing that these would play faster (I haven’t watched enough to know), so land costs would be more important.
But I think Oversky cards scale far faster with lands than pre-oversky ones. Wild lands are IMHO the main cause. I also think bobrossw got it very right with his explanation above. Once so many high-land-cost creatures become ultra-powerful the game becomes a land race, because every land is helping you get not just Thyrian, but 13 other cards too. It’s not quite as bad as that since you still need early cards, but the focus has been tilted heavily toward land creation.
It’s now hard to get really long games, as (with at a guess 1 land per ~1.5 cards) you get maxed lands around halfway through the deck if not earlier, and now that just means piles of ultra-powerful cards that end the game quickly.
I probably was a bit off in my assessment of Emerald Salamander, it’s probably my playstyle that makes it work well for me. I still believe the value difference between Emerald and Blazing is large, but maybe Blazing should get a buff - maybe 3 attack? (although that adds another difference between the Salamanders).
Frog Tosser I still believe is OP. But actually the bigger problem might be that it’s OP and color-identity-breaking as a green/blue card, making that color combo too versatile. If it’s cost became 2M 2L 2W (mountains instead of forest) it would fit in better. Red-blue needed (and still probably needs) a boost.
As you noticed, Oversky wanted to add two cards for each color combination. So two cards for 2F / 2L and for the other combinations as well.
Making Frog Tosser 2L / 2M would remove that symmetry.
You could flip Dream Keeper to blue/green to preserve that. Although card cost reduction is red’s specialty, both blue and green have it, kinda. Taunt is more green than red.
