Sinist | 2015-09-30 11:04:32 |
1. Chrono Engine. The most versatile card ever. Mana gain, spamming, rush, board control - it can do anything. And weak stats... well, for engine others fight) 2. Vampire Elder. Really, really hard to kill; essentially you get two (! immortal phoenixes for free. Which perfectly combine with mass destruction and prevent it from playing as well, not to mention blocking anything. 3. Threeheaded demon. Another very tough creature. Tornado protection. Very irritating in both forms 4. Ratmaster. While drawback may be huge (even critical sometimes), ratmaster grants extre,e board control; like double hydra which has additional 7 points attack. Now buffed even more. Makes common situations where goblin player has almost no mana left... and wins 5. Basilisk. Not as dangerous as before nerf, still very threatening to wounded creatures. And 54 hp is nothing to joke. 6. Drain souls. Usually may be played around (at least its easier to do than with death 5). However in some cases (air 7 for example) decisively wins the game. Both hates and loves elementals 7. Sonic boom. Good, universal spell, combines attack and defence 8. Cannonade. Almost the same 9. Angel. A bit too slow but tornado protected 10. Mindstealer. In theory the strongest card, in practice very vulnerable to flanking. And exchanging all special mana for hydra or titan is not as positive as it might seem to be 11. Insanian catapult. Too random. Countered by golems unlike its mech colleague 12. Oracle. Just very slow, not nearly as dangerous as a couple of illusion 3/illusion 4 13. Bee Queen. Somewhat decent for aggresive style, may be combined with arma 14. Reaver. Admittedly sometimes (water 11!) reaver brings victory... however mistimed reaver brings defeat (just look at archmage). No spells is very huge drawback; opponent can build his half of the board safely 15. Golem Guide. Saves golem and buffs it for a bit additional damage... thats all Modified by Sinist on 2015-09-30 21:16:40 Wavelength | 2015-09-30 20:11:48 |
To me the Rank 7s are a huge cluster of adequacy - very little that's great, very little that's terrible. The divide between, say, the best Sp7 and the third-worst Sp7 is tiny. My rankings: 1) Basilisk - Insane tankiness and a best-case solo potential for up to 16 damage to the creature in front of it per turn make Basilisk a winner. 2) Ratmaster - Nearly impossible to kill after its last buff. Once you're all-in, the mana loss rarely matters unless it bamboozles a critical heal that you needed. 3) Vampire Elder - Huge upside, as Sinist mentioned. Once it's on the board in a proper setup, it wrecks all comers. The problem is that it also provides your opponent the biggest opportunity in all of Vamp to play a life-pin game (V8 at least requires your opponent to also keep their life high, whereas V7 can't follow through on the threat). It also requires a lot of pre-setup, so it's not a good card if the opponent surprises you. 4) Sonic Boom - With Mana Burn's huge nerf, Sonic Boom steps up as Sorcery's main aggression card. I'm always happy to see this in my hand. 5) Chrono Engine - Would have been #1 before its recent nerf.
Now, it's a low-impact card much more often than before, and you need to
park it in front of a serious void slot for it to break the game open. UPDATE: Upon further play in this patch, I'm dropping it to #5.6) Three-Headed Demon - Would have been #2 before its recent nerf. 7) Bee Queen - A weak creature that plays extremely well to Forest's win conditions and often gets it a win. In a vacuum, this would be #16, but I don't rate cards in a vacuum. 8) Angel (Spirit) - Incredible value, great presence, a bit slow. I think it's marginally better in Spirit because Holy already has a couple of other mana gain tools, whereas Spirit's can be used for mana refund and then transferred directly into aggression. 9) Drain Souls - So hard to rate this one; its threat distorts opponent play (and even your own play) more than nearly any other card in the game but its actual impact when used is usually not worth the investment. 10) Oracle - As Sinist said, it's "just very slow". However, as FinalSlayer once said, "Before you know it this bitch has done 21 damage to you and she's still standing." 11) Angel (Holy) 12) Insanian Catapult - Very good if you can create an empty board, especially late game, but in most cases I'd rather have the more predictable Cannon. 13) Mindstealer - Best survivability of any card in the game, great pressure onto high-value creatures, the ability to utterly shut down spread attackers...which makes it even more amazing that this isn't a great card! 14) Cannonade - Steam Tank without the Steam Tank, anyone? 15) Golem Guide - I've occasionally seen people use this against me pretty well, often to save Golem at the end of a life race. But it feels very low-impact to me, since you can only do it once every seven turns. My suggested rework to Golem Master made this (with much, much lower stats and no attack bonus) into the Cost 1 card. 16) Reaver - Adequate in a lot of situations, very good with Elementals (and other edge cases like Mind Master)... but too often it either sits in your hand and does nothing, or grants your opponent a lot of time to develop their own strategy. Modified by Wavelength on 2015-10-06 13:00:08 Sinist | 2015-09-30 20:35:17 |
Attack is not that important for chrono engine (and demon still has tonns of hp). And vamp 7 heals you 3 hp per turn, so it is also the most stable vampire card Holy Angel so low? Huh? Reaver is banned with Astral guard. Not with Mind master though
Wavelength | 2015-09-30 21:08:02 |
Attack is not that important for chrono engine.
The lowered attack has meant 1-2 turns less of survivability in about a third of the games I've played in since the nerf - because it can't efficiently clear whatever's in front of it. Along with support from spread attackers or sweeps, you often get these 4-attack creatures winning their slot against Chrono Engine now, whereas they didn't in the past. Attack is important for every creature in the game. demon still has tonns of hp
Its base form has less than any other Sp7, except the "three creature" ones (V7, Fo7). The -3 HP on that base form is huge because the second form produces so little threat. Holy Angel so low? Huh?
Yeah. Wouldn't you rather get Archangel 75% of the time? I would, at least! Reaver is banned with Astral guard. Not with Mind master though
My bad, meant Mind Master. Corrected. BTW, your list omitted Golem Guide, and I'm utterly confused as to why you'd place Bee Queen at the bottom when it contributes to so many winning games. Modified by Wavelength on 2015-09-30 21:11:35 Sinist | 2015-09-30 21:14:45 |
Hmm, how often chrono engine manages to kill anything (apart from stuff like air 1 which no one would summon opposite to time 7), anyway? And 55 total hp, even if we deliberately forget overkill. Second form is not harmless at all - would you ignore younger brother of earth 11, come on? I would prefer angel most of time, honestly. Combines with holy 4 and less hot-and-cold Bee Queen so low because very very rarely saw her winning games... But our experience may be very different
Modified by Sinist on 2015-09-30 21:15:24 Wavelength | 2015-09-30 21:51:47 |
Hmm, how often chrono engine manages to kill anything (apart from stuff like air 1 which no one would summon opposite to time 7), anyway? In combination with Time Stop, Sweeps, etc. (being able to play these alongside creatures is the reason Chrono Engine is good in the first place), I used to reliably score creature kills with Chrono Engine, which adds additional pressure to the board and keeps it safe for 1-2 extra turns. It's much harder to do now.
MikeBnDe | 2015-10-01 17:49:35 |
Hi Wave :-) Regarding Chrone Engine: Are you sure you are level 24? (Kidding, you are a good player). But i think you are dead wrong here. The attack value of chrone engine is almost irrelevant in 90% of the games. Its strength is that it breaks a fundamental parameter in the game: Only one turn per player in a row. This, and only this is the reason why its so brutal. And 33 life is good enough to defend that slot for an aedequate time. Its defense value is much more important than its attack value.
Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-10-01 17:50:43 CyberneticPony | 2015-10-01 21:48:21 |
Hi Wave :-) Regarding Chrone Engine: Are you sure you are level 24? (Kidding, you are a good player). But i think you are dead wrong here. The attack value of chrone engine is almost irrelevant in 90% of the games. Its strength is that it breaks a fundamental parameter in the game: Only one turn per player in a row. This, and only this is the reason why its so brutal. And 33 life is good enough to defend that slot for an aedequate time. Its defense value is much more important than its attack value.
I think you guys are misunderstanding what he's saying. The difference between a 3-atk and a 4-atk card is the "hole" in the presence the 3-atk card creates. Whereas before Chrono Engine was its ability + a slot creature, its reduced attack now means it gets it attack but it now "blocks" a slot. Chrono Engine is still strong, but because of that hole, its value as a game breaker is no longer so heavy. Creatures are very much limited to the slot count and that means that while Chrono Engine has its versatility, it is only in speeding up the portion of the game directly after it. While the compression is huge, there later comes a stagnation phase; and while this is fine in Spectro if you have a huge mana pool, any player against time will have given you so many existing threats by the time Chrono Engine is played, you probably wish you had Time Dragon instead. In essence, the nerf actually did hurt Chrono Engine pretty hard; while it used to be a "play every time" (Plynx never played any card but the Chrono Engine if he had it in his hand, he refrained from using anything else.) It is now probably in the realm of "play most of the time". Compare this to the new usually invincible Ratmaster, which is the current number 7 game-dominating card, I don't think Chrono Engine has the top spot anymore. I don't think Basilisk is better than Chrono Engine though. Wavelength must have a particular dislike for this card.
Wavelength | 2015-10-02 03:45:41 |
Mike, didn't we play a game yesterday where (I claimed) Chrono Engine's attack nerf cost me the game because I needed to overcommit to kill the Faerie Apprentice that was about to kill it?
You guys are all misunderstanding my point (and instead making other also-valid points about the card). Of course its strength lies in its ability and not its stand-alone board presence. That's obvious. What's a little less obvious, but has loomed large in a ton of games I have played since the nerf, is that the lowered attack causes Chrono Engine to lose its slot to low-mid level creatures much more often than before.
Losing the slot means you lose Chrono Engine and its fantastic effect. Winning the slot means there is usually one, sometimes two or three turns where Chrono Engine will not sustain damage and you are getting all of the bonus turns during this time. Even losing one bonus turn is huge. Imagine if Time Dragon were simply an 8/40 creature that attacked when summoned, and didn't grant a bonus turn. That's essentially the deal you're getting with new Chrono Engine in about a third of games, from my relatively extensive experience this patch.
I have no dislike for Chrono Engine (at least since it became a banned combo with E2; it was broken before that). It's a cool card. I use it a lot, especially if my third card is T6. Chrono Engine in the last several patches was "always powerful, occasionally gamebreaking". This nerf dropped it to "usually decent, often powerful, occasionally gamebreaking". It's much more situational now, because it requires a serious void slot to do better than break-even. If I had to rate the card (where 10 is the best card in the game and 0 is Golem's Justice), it was an 8.5 before this patch, and a 6.8 now. Basilisk would be a 7.5, by the way.
MikeBnDe | 2015-10-02 11:17:37 |
Ok, maybe i am underestimating the effect of the nerf of T7. But i still think that the impact is quite low: we could look at 20 RANDOMLY selected wins of T7 before its nerf and analyze if the outcome could have been different with the new attack value. I will admit when i am wrong but i am still not convinced that it is very important. At least for me personally, i never lost against Time thinking 'Oh fu*ck that T7 has attack 4 and broke its opposing slot! Now i will lose! Now i feel so much more pressure!'. It was rather having the feeling that i was playing in slow motion against my opponent after he cast the card. Edit: I reread your post Wave, and get your point, even if my last post suggests otherwise and does not elaborate on your argument, because the rest of my reply would still be the same Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-10-02 11:26:36 Sinist | 2015-10-02 16:39:55 |
Maybe once a year this nerf will result in significantly worse situation. Otherwise not. Reducing its hp would have much bigger impact. Or banning mana growth from several skip turns But rate Chrono Engine as 6.8... Still one of the most broken chrono cards imho (not that this class has any balanced cards, besides time 1 and maybe time 5)
Modified by Sinist on 2015-10-02 16:40:37 CyberneticPony | 2015-10-02 18:17:15 |
Maybe once a year this nerf will result in significantly worse situation. Happens more than you think. MikeBnDe | 2015-10-02 19:11:00 |
I agree with Sinist and to find out who is right we would have to look at some games.
MikeBnDe | 2015-10-03 17:27:24 |
@Wave: Not wanting to rub it in your face, but the match we watched in the tourney showed, in my opinion, the typical reason how irrelevant T7 attck value is most of the time. Again, i will admit that i was wrong when you can find 5-6 games where the attac value was crucial. I would be curious to see that.
Wavelength | 2015-10-04 01:27:10 |
@Wave: Not wanting to rub it in your face, but the match we watched in the tourney showed, in my opinion, the typical reason how irrelevant T7 attck value is most of the time. Again, i will admit that i was wrong when you can find 5-6 games where the attac value was crucial. I would be curious to see that. I don't really understand why you want to use a single game where Chrono Engine went completely unopposed from its appearance (in the lategame) to the final turn as some kind of evidence to contradict my claim that "the attack nerf looms large in about a third of games". There are all kinds of nerfs you could have placed on CE (-10 life, no bonus mana for skipping turns, etc.) without it making a difference in that particular game. I've already played in over 5 games where the attack value was
crucial. Of course, most of these were before I realized my observation
is the minority opinion, so I wasn't saving each one. I'll try to record them all in the future and take general mental notes about how often this happens.
Modified by Wavelength on 2015-10-04 01:29:23 MikeBnDe | 2015-10-04 07:34:32 |
@Wave: Yes please record some, i will freely admit that i was wrong then. But please keep the percentage in mind - we just played 4 chrono games and the attack value was never relevant ;-)
Sinist | 2015-10-04 14:06:01 |
or we might just ask Cooler a month later how much has dropped percentage of Time 7 winrate
Wavelength | 2015-10-04 16:27:07 |
@Wave: Yes please record some, i will freely admit that i was wrong then. But please keep the percentage in mind - we just played 4 chrono games and the attack value was never relevant ;-) I thought it was only 3 games, but even if it was 4, you Tornadoed one, and unnecessarily exploded one as well (handing me the win by doing so, when it would have been a game where its 3 attack would have caused the slot loss vs. Troll). I feel like you're really reaching here. Modified by Wavelength on 2015-10-04 16:35:49
i agree with wave. my gut feeling is that the T7 nerf is more important than it seems at first glance
CyberneticPony | 2015-10-05 10:26:56 |
My list:
1. Ratmaster - The Rat Man Lives! After the buff, it's pretty much unkillable with G0, and strong otherwise; the best way to deal with it is to cause pressure earlier, but once this is out, its malus barely matters since it provides so much power on the board and you're not going to be playing bigger threats anyway. Anti-synergetic with elementals, so this card is not necessarily a must play, but when it does come out it will do serious work.
2. Vampire Elder - This card provides partial invulnerability (blood drain still happens) in 2 slots, 2 slots which are played without the cost of a turn, and all the cards have decent stats. In addition, the payback is much faster than with all the other blood cards due to the drain happening on all 3 played creatures. Only way to sabotage this card is to make the opponent keep a full board. Along with heal support, this is honestly one of the strongest cards in the game. Even when tornado is used vs it, I often see this card as a straight value play.
3. Chrono Engine - This card generates more temporal efficiency than all the other time cards, and that's a huge asset! The downside is your time mana is being dumped into a card with no stats; meaning that you spend a turn to play the engine and "block" a slot, you get the extra slot to pay for it back on the next turn, and so the value only really starts to take hold after that point. Creatures are limited to 6, meaning that although a lot of pressure can be generated in the short term, especially on an emptier board, your mana efficiency still will end up capping your strength and Chrono Engine does not contribute to this; a good player will not tornado this card and instead use it on a higher cost card to potential avoid a bomb hasten (which Engine can feed into.)
The way I analyse this card is that it's a great breaker when playing a hand with plenty of spell spam. With the attack nerf it's definitely gone from "play all the time" to "play most of the time" instead, so it's no longer my top pick. Rather than fearing your opponent playing heavy into it, try exploiting the opponent's rushing. The biggest danger in my experience is actually when E1 is with this card; because E1's super mana efficient but temporally inefficient; and this card practically makes it lose that weakness.
4. Three-Headed Demon - Splash creatures are great; but a splash creature that provides even more value when removed is huge! I see this card as being similar to Hydra in potency.
6. Sonic Boom - Sorcery's blowout card; it's a power sweep with direct damage and the stun buys a turn on every slot. Really huge when well timed.
7. Cannonade - This card's high damage is actually a huge tipping point and it'll generally land a kill on anything you need. Add a Dragon for extra rage. I really like this card, not sure why you guys don't! (Haters gonna hate.) Doesn't quite have the utility Sonic Boom has though.
8. Drain Souls - I think this card is actually better when it's used as a threat than when actually played; but the heal is really what makes this card really good; it makes it a suitable reset for a situation you'd normally lose in; a fine use of a lot of death mana.
9. Basilisk - When well timed, this card provides a huge clearing presence and a moderate body for a 7. I think the issue with this card is that I'd rather play an Elephant a lot of the time.
10. Angel (Spirit) - Value play; solid and will win games that go long. Can do nicely if played along with utility; but really that just makes this card break even anyway; the versatility of this card is lovely, but spirit is full of good earlier cards and games of Spectro don't often last long enough to justify this as anything but a middling card.
11. Oracle - I love this card because it's potentially got the hugest potential power of all of the 7s. The problem is just that it's a little slow.
12. Reaver - Play with a set of elementals and this becomes a time bomb; as long as you have a health bank accumulated this card is great; best synergy is with W10 by far. Reason this card is not better is that time bombs that take time to develop aren't great.
13. Bee Queen - This card is really solid aggression but is mostly let down by the fact it's running in the class where slot availibility is a major problem. This is great at punishing sweeps though.
14. Mindstealer - Doesn't really fit with the rest of the class strategy; its entire power relies on shutting down a potential hydra rather than actually being a good asset in its own right. It does win games, but against a DD strategy this is useless. Too many potential weaknesses to make this a highly rated card; which is surprising since it appears strong on first impressions.
15. Golem Guide - This card is fine when it saves golem at the right time; but this often barely breaks even.
16. Angel (Holy) - This is awful in this class; you're giving away you do not have Archangel and that card is such a blowout I'd take that over this any day. Holy's just not so versatile as spirit.
MikeBnDe | 2015-10-06 08:33:57 |
Well Wave, i am stating that the nerf is basciall irrelevant. So in a game where i Tornado him, this is actually proofing my point. This game belongs to the high percentage of games where the nerf was irrelevant. And regarding the slott loss vs Troll? Troll heals for 4 - how could the nerf be relevant there? Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-10-06 08:51:05 Wavelength | 2015-10-06 11:02:13 |
Well Wave, i am stating that the nerf is basciall irrelevant. So in a game where i Tornado him, this is actually proofing my point. This game belongs to the high percentage of games where the nerf was irrelevant. It's irrelevant or small in at least 2/3 of games, but looms large in the other third of games. Yes, the nerf to T7 is completely irrelevant if you Tornado it while (threoretical situation here) Dragon is sitting there ready to finish you off with a single E6, but all that proves is that you've overrated it. And regarding the slott loss vs Troll? Troll heals for 4 - how could the nerf be relevant there? It's been several days now but I believe the kill opportunity in question was a Hasten play or perhaps a Hasten-sweep combo. With the attack nerf, it became impossible to kill Troll, and the game would have been yours had you not exploded Troll to kill Chrono Engine. But my single clearest "T7 Nerf Looms Large" game so far (I will post the collection once it grows large enough) was my win against you - yesterday - that simply wouldn't have been a win if CE still had 4 attack. I pointed this out in game - Ice Guard dies one turn earlier if CE has 4 attack, so not only do I take additional damage, but it also becomes nearly impossible for me to ever kill Chrono Engine! Having been the victim of it yesterday, I don't see how you are still denying it. This kind of gamebreaking impact is somewhat uncommon but it is not a fluke. Replay attached.
the T7 nerf only needs to affect the outcome in 1 game out of 10 in order to influence the class winrate substantially (ie reduce it by 1%) just think about that
Modified by filip on 2015-10-06 11:38:27 CyberneticPony | 2015-10-06 12:23:18 |
the T7 nerf only needs to affect the outcome in 1 game out of 10 in order to influence the class winrate substantially (ie reduce it by 1%) just think about that
Precisely this; the nerf is actually a big deal; it doesn't make the card far less playable, but it actually did add a weak point.
MikeBnDe | 2015-10-06 13:22:50 |
Ok, lets end this discussion and compare the winrates of time after 2 months with the winrate before the nerf. If it has changed more or equal than 1%, i will admit that it made a big difference.
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