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.
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.
Deepwood stalker is a relatively new card (released in May: https://www.faeria.com/the-hub/article/36-card-review-deepwood-stalker). Green existed for a year without it, and without any way to damage creatures across the board aside from neutral cards and teleports. I think it was introduced as a way to shore up green’s main weakness, and it was fine at that. Frog Tosser doubles down on this, and turns that weakness into a strength.
