| Zannoland | 2010-01-13 01:01:05 |
this thread about is about the three card combination of astral guard/mind master, nature ritual, and holy 5/control 6. it has always irritated me, and seems situationally overpowered. after thinking about it for a long time, i've come up with an easy way to fix this issue without actually changing any of the cards themselves as far as i've been able to infer, the maximum amount of any elemental mana you can start with is 7. over the past month or two i've realized that starting with a high water draw can be more beneficial than any of the other high elementals draws, because there are certain high water draws which, when paired with control 6, or holy 5, can be virtually automatic wins. the reason for these wins is because, due to the timing, the only counter available is to use your sweep. unless the opponent got lucky with a high elemental draw in wherever his counter card lies as well, then there is really nothing the opponent can do. the end result is that you're forced to eat 3+ turns of mana loss/gain, perhaps more, depending on how long the opponent is willing to nature ritual stall, and even if you're up 3 slots in board control, you likely can't summon anything beyond a 4 damage creature so are doing miniscule damage to the opponent compared to your mana loss. when opened with elf hermit, this can be absolutely disastrous. either you don't kill the elf hermit and lose, or you do kill the elf hermit and lose anyway. however, i don't think any of the cards involved are actually the culprit. rather than ban any of the combinations involved and tinker with things that don't need tinkering, i came up with a much easier solution: reduce the maximum possible water draw to 5. a few side effects i've been able to come up with are that there are a couple of other very strong openings that are weakened by this: goblin/turtle opening becomes less viable, and ice golem+illusion 2/holy 4 into quick arma/stone rain for unbreakable board control is also much more difficult. however, you could make an argument that these openings need to go as well. the only legitimate drawback i can see is that if water elemental is among your heal cards you are even more vulnerable to rush than you already were in the first place, which could be bad. this is something that has been bugging me for a while, and i think this rather minor change would correct a lot of unwinnable draws. these draws are rare, i admit, but they exist and they allow fluke victories, completely irregardless of player skill. i strongly believe that no game should be imminently unwinnable, and weakening the water 11/12 rush would remove a lot of those draws. Modified by Zannoland on 2010-01-13 01:05:35 | garcia1000 | 2010-01-13 03:37:17 |
Would it be ok if water mana was equal for both players? As you play more you'll realise that water mana is flat out better than all other manas, and I think it sucks when you start with 3 and your opponent starts with 6.
| Zannoland | 2010-01-13 05:46:11 |
i really don't think it would in matchups not involving holy 5/control 6 rushing the high end of the water deck requires a pretty rare draw to pull it off. there have been games where i have done it and won and there was literally nothing the opponent could do, but to be fair, i had a miracle draw with inferno, tornado, stone rain, armageddon, and nature ritual all at once. the problem is that these two cards push the threshold 2 turns in one direction or the other, to the point where they're frequent enough to be annoying, so whatever counter to mind master/astral guard you did draw won't be available to you when it hits the board. so while equalizing the water mana would probably be better for gameplay overall, it probably won't matter for the instances i'm talking about in this thread, as someone will end up with 2 extra water somehow. there's really not much you can do to change the problem where you just happen to have drawn all the counters, but putting a lower cap on the water draw will solve the problem where you have a counter card and you never at any point have the mana to use it. Modified by Zannoland on 2010-01-13 05:51:52 | soldat12 | 2010-01-13 06:01:55 |
seems fine for me. hovewer it will provide less inf oabout opponent cards :)
since now, if you see water=6 or 7 thats 90% meant he has water5 to go
and sometimes its an important factor to know.
| Wavelength | 2010-01-13 06:54:51 |
I want to say that the first player never starts with more than 6, and will have 6 on their first turn, and that the second player can start with 6, and have 7 on their first turn. I could be wrong there.
I could get behind having the first player never start with more than 5 water mana, and having the second player also never start with more than 5 (thus getting 6 maximum on their first turn). I wouldn't go lower than that for either player.
It's a fine idea, but you'd have to monitor things closely. Since water is nigh impossible to pump, we already don't get to play its high cards very often. If the 11 and 12 became less potentially overpowered via explicit or implicit card adjustments (or if any of the other three cards you mentioned became somewhat less generalizably usable), then this "max 5 water" rule would no longer serve much purpose and would be dulling the variety for no good reason.
| Wavelength | 2010-02-08 05:03:10 |
In light of the "Sacrifice" card, I think this topic deserves attention again...
| Zannoland | 2010-02-09 01:36:06 |
In light of the "Sacrifice" card, I think this topic deserves attention again... yup
| Wavelength | 2010-02-10 18:36:37 |
By far the most dangerous thing about Sacrifice is that a Turn 3 Mind Master or Astral Guard is nigh insurmountable. I don't think I've lost a single game where I've accomplished this (maybe 5 or 6 times? I know that's a small sample size but the games haven't even been close.). I suppose right now I'd really be in favor of capping starting Water mana at one less than it's at right now, or at least adjusting the algorithms to give a (3 or 4) starting Water value when Sacrifice is drawn. It's not elegant but it would prevent a nearly unbeatable combo without needing to nerf cards that are fair in and of themselves. Modified by Wavelength on 2010-02-10 18:38:53 | Estarh | 2010-02-11 00:57:33 |
or at least adjusting the algorithms to give a (3 or 4) starting Water value when Sacrifice is drawn.
Such thing is already done.
| Zannoland | 2010-02-11 05:23:36 |
... Such thing is already done.
cool
| Wavelength | 2010-02-11 14:12:05 |
... Such thing is already done.
VERY cool. Nice job anticipating this. I think that would make th absolute earliest you could get Mind Master be Turn 3 second player, and Astral Guard Turn 4 second player. Now that I think about it that does seem consistent with my memories. Either way they are still pretty brutal! :-)
Modified by Wavelength on 2010-02-11 14:13:33 | 
