Hey all,
As usual, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the balance patch. No huge shakeups, so the meta is still largely the same, but some overall good changes to review. My one complaint is all the worthless leggy MJ cards are still worthless. Would love to see a few more spiced up into playable versions of themselves or just completely reworked.
GU patch nodes: https://blog.godsunchained.com/2022/11/16/balance-update-november/
Changes
Pyromancer Mentor
Pyromancy Mentor – Card Changed
Change mana cost from 8 to 4
Change stats from 1/9 to 4/4
Change text from:
After an enemy creature takes damage, give +2 strength to your weakest creature. Roar: deal 1 damage to each enemy.
To
Creatures damaged by this creature get burn +3.
It was trash tier. Now it's just in the "not good" tier, so I guess that's an improvement.
Lootable Corpse
Lootable Corpse – Card Changed
Change stats from 1/1 to 0/1
Change text from:
Afterlife: Give +2 strength to a random friendly creature.
To
Afterlife: Draw a card.
Had zero uses and now has at least one: combo magic. Any Lost in the Depths deck will probably want to run this. Nice tweak.
Crystaltech Scholar
Crystaltech Scholar and Crystaltech Warlock – Text Changed
Change text from
Echo. Roar: Unlock a mana lock. Empower 2: Also, draw a card.
To
Echo. Roar: Unlock a mana lock. Empower 2: Also, foresee 2.
A good change. Scholar is still strictly better than Mana Toad and Sip of Elixir, but at least not by as wide a margin. With the nerfs to Ekrilith and Moramag, hand size isn't quite as important to control magic as it was a few weeks ago, forsee 2 is actually pretty handy. Frey + Avatar of Magic decks anyone? Even in vanilla control magic, avoiding bricks or rushing through the deck to find the cards you need will be good.
Nerfs
Enlightenment
Enlightenment – Mana Cost Changed
Change mana cost from 3 to 4
A good change. Enlightenment is just incredibly powerful. Control Light has plenty of dead turns where your board is ordered and they just heal face and/or cast Enlightenment. They could also easily play Enlightenment to find Censure + Divine Judgment and play them all in a single turn. Now both of those use cases are a little more awkward.
Omox, The Mad
Omox, The mad – Mana Cost Changed
Change mana cost from 4 to 5
Solar (the owner of Omox) has been punished for playing Omox before it was locked. RIP. I think the deck will still dominate, but maybe solar holds off on playing it until after lock.
Bone Roller
Bone roller – Stats Changed
Change stats from 3/3 to 3/1
Did I miss something? Was Bone Roller tearing up the meta and dominating games? Unnecessary nerf to an already meme card.
Over the Line
Over the Line – Mana Cost Changed
Change mana cost from 5 to 6
I suppose it had to be done for the long-term health of the game. In the short term, aggro/midrange/zombie death is being punished. Anubians are unaffected of course, so expect a higher % of death to be them.
Recall that Death is a real problem for the design/balance team. How do you give Death new tools and archetypes without strengthening the various flavors of sleep death? Anubians (as toxic as they are), did check that box. OTL was also supposed to support Big Nether decks, but wound up single-handedly enabling the Rock Drake combo deck (which relies on sleep heavily).
Because Siren and Canopic are Genesis cards, the design team will face this problem in each new set.
Sneaky Bruiser
Sneaky Bruiser – Text Changed
Change text from:
Hidden.
To
Hidden for 1 turn.
Like the change to Switch Duelist, this isn't much of a nerf. Aggro Deception isn't waiting multiple turns to attack with this guy. Probably a good future-proof change to the card, though.
Buffs
Bestowing Saint
Bestowing Saint – Stats Increased
Change stats from 2/2 to 2/3
A good change. A slight nudge towards making heal light viable. MJ released several cards that combo nicely with healing, but the overall package just wasn't there to make it work. It still doesn't work, but it's one tiny step closer.
Loam Strider
Loam Strider – Text Changed
Change text from:
Frontline. Regen 1. Give +1 strength to this creature after it is healed.
To
Frontline. Regen 2. Give +1 strength to this creature after it is healed.
I may be the only one, but I'm really happy to see this change. It's a serious buff to the card's viability. 2 regen early game on 4 hp is a big deal. Most early creatures will be hitting for 2 damage, which will be healed back completely. Against magic, it's another creature (like Marsh Walker) that requires a Starshard Bolt to remove early, and they aren't getting more Starshard Bolts. Against War they prevent Wolf-Cult from immediately going 2 for 1 on the turn she's played, which protects key cards like Dagan.
I'll definitely give these guys another try in my flourish deck. Easy to get him to 2/4 in a single turn.
Conclusion
I can see the logic behind all the changes (except Bone Roller - unless the logic is still just to make sure Tempt Fate stays meme tier). Lots of solid changes, and I don't expect anyone to be overly upset by the patch. There will likely be some disappointment from the trash MJ legendaries that are still terrible. At least there is still time for these poor things. Hopefully, at least some of them see a rework.
I agree that the deck will still dominate. I have seen a video of the card in action if one has no experience playing it will just be routed (when I am not familiar with the card most of the time I have to read the text carefully and it took me lots of time).
Very toxic indeed.
Lootable Corpse can be used in Anubian decks too
Yep, good point.
Over the Line -- happily, I sold 40+ meteorite OTL a month or so ago after you mentioned that this nerf was discussed. Made 2x. :) +1 mana is a serious nerf but OTL is probably still playable.
Bone Roller, Lootable Corpse -- strange... But I am now at the stage of fatigue from the fuss around the game, I do not even try to understand why this was nerfed and that was buffed (especially after Faithbreaker was killed) and what will happen next. I just have fun every day and collect/stake IMX.
Omox - I've played against Omox twice. First time was the first time (I conceded soon)... But the next time I won. An interesting card.
Great review man !! this game is getting everytiime more complex and depth
Pyromancy Mentor was part of some really janky OTK combo. I remember someone sent a list to copperpitch.
Wow, that had to be maximum jank.
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