Nudging the tiller - balance

You seem to be missing the point of the “starter deck” concept. The starters are balanced as a whole. Purple not having a 1-drop is a big part of making it not way overpowered, Scorch has to cost 3 to keep the most aggressive openings in check (or other changes could be made), StW is supposed to be black’s answer to untargetable things, since it lacks the size or speed of other colors, and Careless musketeer is weak but fine. Try it sometimes against blue, green, or white.

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Red musketeers is never a worker in the first few turns against blue.
Not gonna let that illusion bird roam unchallenged.

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Fruit Ninja is a always-worker, I don’t see how having a “no option card” could be fun at all.

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4 is a lot of changes for the starter decks! I think it would be reasonable to do something that nudges up blue and takes black down a bit, but even that feels scary to me.

With that said, StW is a cool card and seems well balanced to me. Deteriorate is what makes the black starter so strong, so that’s probably where a nerf would need to happen.

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It’s not a bad T1 play. Fruit Ninja can kill any non-Rook opposing Hero in Squad Lead with the aid of Spark, Bloom, or Wither in your second hand.

It’s not necessarily my first choice play, but I’ve definitely played him when it made sense to.

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I’ll say that Deteriorate and Sac the Weak both only hit units; overall, the Black Starter is weak against heroes. It’s the fact that Vandy is perhaps the best hero in the game (and is strong against heroes particularly as Player 1) that makes the whole thing feel so mean.

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As long as Sirlin is unable to send balance patches that we download to automatically update the text on our physical cards, I don’t see much benefit to keep discussing balance changes.
Why not keep making topics such as that debilitator alpha discussion topic.

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They’re fun and enjoyable conversations to have and they could potentially have a positive outcome on the game if a new version happens in the far future.

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Plus, it seems at most only around 20 cards could use minor adjustments, so an update wouldn’t require entirely repackaging the game, just copies of those cards.

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It seems pretty clear that all of this is just for fun/a thought experiment. It’s incredibly unlikely that any balance change will actually come, given Sirlin’s previous statements.

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Which would be a real shame. He did it for all his prior games, why arbitrarily stop now?

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Because he received a ton of irrational hate from people because of it. I agree it is a shame.

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IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY CODEX

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You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing?

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Well, it would mean no Fantasy Strike…

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Reaver is one of the big ones in the Red Herring thread that needs something, thought the KotC suggestion I made would probably take care of the problem.

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I think fact that there are so few cards being suggested on this thread is a really good sign!

Reaver would indeed get a nice buff from KotC…would other forecast units get too much help from your suggestion of adding/removing 2 runes upon arrival? Could it target Prynn to give her more nuke fodder?

If I were going to buff the red starter, I wouldn’t touch Scorch or Musketeer - they are both fine, and while often workered early, they both see enough play (Scorch at 2 would defnitely be too strong).

I don’t think the red starter needs help, but if it did I’d give Bloodburn Haste. Bloodburn is really only viable P1T1, and it’s a very weak opening, as you’re unlikely to be able to use it until T3. After T1, paying 3 and a card for something which has literally no board presence is just never a good option. Maybe against Blue if you’re expecting a lot of illusions, but by playing Bloodburn you’re telegraphing to your opponent to just tech something else…

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Yeah, Scorch belongs where it is. The entire point of Jaina having a cheaper equivalent spell is that you are trading away the versatility of a spell that doesn’t require one specific hero.

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I don’t agree with you, Scorch is crazily a bad play as it is. On a SQ patroller, you have the same effect than Deteriorate for 3 more gold !
And Scorch isn’t much more versatile : ok you can hit building (anyway, who would do it on the beginning of a game) and patrolling heroes (does that worths 3 gold ?), but you can’t hit non patrolling units (so almost all you’d want to hit : your opponent knows it and won’t patrol Spectral Aven (sad because your only other answer is Musketeer, which needs to survive 1 turn to target… at the cost of 1 base damage)).

Scorch is crazily weak, and it costs a card for no board presence ! Costing a card isn’t a problem with Deteriorate because Black has so many ways to get back to 5 (skeletons on technician slot, Garth’s midband, Dark Pact, Graveyard…) but with Red, it is ! Desesperation is a desesperate late play and protecting a Surplus with Phoenix and ephemeral units is very difficult.

Black starter is overplayed in tournaments, and I’ve rarely seen [Red spec]/Black spec/any being insanely top tier… But [Black spec]/Red spec/any have very good tourney results, despite non adapting to opponent’s gameplan :confused:

People have an affective value for each specs, but yeah if they would bet 500$ on their matchs I don’t think we would see many Blue, Green and Red starters :x
Hopefully Red has Zane and Drakk for early game, which are very good heroes.
But most of Mono-Red games rely the same few cards (Chaos Mirror, Kidnapping, Bloodlust, Crashbarrow, Pirate Gunship) and Red strategy range isn’t as wide as decks which don’t have 3 bad cards on starter, 2 bad Tech I, 2 bad ultimate spells and 2 bad Tech III.

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