Deflagration | Explosion

[aqwsz0]

fire nerf, YAY!

wait...


i was planning on playing fire in arena... FUUUUUUU---  *HEADS EXPLODES*

[RRQJ]

lack of foresight that was displayed when implementing this.

Did you consider the possibility that this change was done so that new forms of PC can be introduced?  As long as there is no revival of cards from the discard pile, destruction of a permanent is one of the strongest forms of PC. The only stronger form of PC would be steal, and PC-destruction-on-a-stick.  Any future PC idea will be weaker, so if explosion costs 1, how do you make a PC card that's not completely inferior but still balanced and useful?

[Pineapple]

What I'm seeing is a gradual move from creature based deck building to permanent decks, especially now with this Shard of Void I've been seeing.

What you're seeing is wrong.

I'm disgusted at this change and the lack of foresight that was displayed when implementing this.

I'm disgusted at your whining and the lack of insight that was displayed when you posted this.

IMO, Deflagration | Explosion deserved this nerf because it's a terrible card. When you splash two or three Deflags in a deck, you are aiming to kill the opponent before the opponent can get enough permanents out to garner field advantage. It's silly how Deflagration | Explosion and Steal is the only form of permanent control that cannot be countered. Repeatable permanent control is balanced in that the source can be destroyed (Butterfly Effect, Pulverizer) before it is used, but, as for direct spells, you can only hope the the opponent didn't bring them.
This isn't too bad with steals, you only have to keep your important permanents in hand while the opponent has more than 3 darkness quanta.
However, when the opponent always has more than one fire quanta left over, you really can't do anything to strategically hinder Deflagration | Explosion. I see no way to balance a spell that completely destroys a permanent, which was once a card that was put into and drawn from a person's deck, but increasing its cost is a step in the right direction.

[atomi]

Nova decks were already way too strong. A small nerf for them isn't a problem.

okay.

Um, and how is this a problem? Creatures are still used way more than non-pillar/pendulum permanents. Why not close the gap?

This divide in game play between permanent users and creature users is making matches too predictable.

I have no clue what you're even trying to say here. Most decks use both, and that doesn't even change predictability.

I think the idea is that creating a schism between these two modes of play will level statistical averages of wins/losses, which it does.

Schism between two modes of play? Seriously? Using permanents and creatures in the same deck is totally acceptable.

There really aren't many high level strategies to building decks on Elements.
You have
a. immo/nova/shrieker rushes  which are heavily creature based
b. quanta draining decks pests/black holes
c. heavy permanent use decks usually time that use hourglasses and sundials or SoG + Shield spam
d. misc gimmicky decks
 1. like sundials till you get your dragons and parrallel uni at last turn
 2. buffed wyrms/deja vus
 3. voodo doll decks

What happens is that if you have an A deck competing against a C deck without PC the match will be predictable (ie. A will lose most of the time)
D vs D decks will be good fun. B vs A decks will be over quickly but still interesting and mostly fair I suppose.
B vs C without PC will also be predictable (ie B will almost always lose)

I'm surprised that wasn't more obvious.

Eternity costs 6 quanta, Deflag costs 3. Who comes out on top? The deflag user.
And a pure damage deck can usually outdamage a stall.
And a 6 Eternity Deck wouldn't be very good and would lose to a lot of decks that aren't just immo or nova rush.

The problem is you only need one eternity to dominate an immo/nova rush deck

Fire has been the strongest Element for months. It still is. Nerfing Deflag and Explosion was a great change to bring Fire closer to the strength of the other Elements. If you don't want a balanced game, go somewhere else.

There are certainly many more ways to lower Fire's strength. Many of which don't require nerfing an important PC card.

[atomi]

IMO, Deflagration | Explosion deserved this nerf because it's a terrible card. When you splash two or three Deflags in a deck, you are aiming to kill the opponent before the opponent can get enough permanents out to garner field advantage. It's silly how Deflagration | Explosion and Steal is the only form of permanent control that cannot be countered. Repeatable permanent control is balanced in that the source can be destroyed (Butterfly Effect, Pulverizer) before it is used, but, as for direct spells, you can only hope the the opponent didn't bring them.
This isn't too bad with steals, you only have to keep your important permanents in hand while the opponent has more than 3 darkness quanta.
However, when the opponent always has more than one fire quanta left over, you really can't do anything to strategically hinder Deflagration | Explosion. I see no way to balance a spell that completely destroys a permanent, which was once a card that was put into and drawn from a person's deck, but increasing its cost is a step in the right direction.

I agree with a lot of what you say with respect to the lack of counter for PC spells. The problem is we don't have instants or a stack.
There is no way to counter a spell without having a stack. What we do have are protect artifact spells and quints - maybe these ought to be buffed in lieu of another PC card. This is after all a discussion. I'm completely open to sharing ideas.

What bothers me is that this was done without discussion or warning that I'm aware of. And seemingly without much thought as to the obvious consequences to the basic mechanics of the game. It takes so much discussion and voting for a new card to be added yet something like this was just shoved down my throat...

[atomi]

Did you consider the possibility that this change was done so that new forms of PC can be introduced?  As long as there is no revival of cards from the discard pile, destruction of a permanent is one of the strongest forms of PC. The only stronger form of PC would be steal, and PC-destruction-on-a-stick.  Any future PC idea will be weaker, so if explosion costs 1, how do you make a PC card that's not completely inferior but still balanced and useful?

Let's not any of us forget the maximum number of deflags/explosions you get in your deck is 6.
Yet it's possible to have 60 (sixty) permanents in a single deck.

[RRQJ]

What bothers me is that this was done without discussion or warning that I'm aware of. And seemingly without much thought as to the obvious consequences to the basic mechanics of the game. It takes so much discussion and voting for a new card to be added yet something like this was just shoved down my throat...

...Seriously?  You didn't see all the complaints about fire being OP? About those super heavy PC decks being annoying?  Sure, they stemmed mostly from the arena, but I'm pretty sure they had discussions about explosion's (im)balance.

Edit:

Let's not any of us forget the maximum number of deflags/explosions you get in your deck is 6.
Yet it's possible to have 60 (sixty) permanents in a single deck.

 Not sure what you're trying to imply here.  It doesn't even seem like it's responding to my post.

[atomi]

Let's not any of us forget the maximum number of deflags/explosions you get in your deck is 6.
Yet it's possible to have 60 (sixty) permanents in a single deck.

 Not sure what you're trying to imply here.  It doesn't even seem like it's responding to my post.

Sorry that wasn't the reply I meant for your post.

If we were to look at creature counter/control for guidance we would see there are a lot of ways to introduce new forms of PC.
We can do something like a 1 fire quanta cost deflag for permanents that costs less than 5 quanta for example.
Or how about a rewind for permanents. Or a freeze/basalisk blood type spell. But we need more PC that much should be clear.
The main thing here is this all should have been ironed out before introducing the nerfed deflag/explosion.

[RRQJ]

you can't look at CC for the complete picture because permanents don't have HP.  And all your examples are still inferior to explosion because they don't get rid of the permanent.  And if they are inferior, they should cost less.  But if explosion costs 1, what are you going to do?  Zero cost is too OP.  1 as well? 

[RootRanger]

There really aren't many high level strategies to building decks on Elements.
You have
a. immo/nova/shrieker rushes  which are heavily creature based
b. quanta draining decks pests/black holes
c. heavy permanent use decks usually time that use hourglasses and sundials or SoG + Shield spam
d. misc gimmicky decks
 1. like sundials till you get your dragons and parrallel uni at last turn
 2. buffed wyrms/deja vus
 3. voodo doll decks

You're missing half of the metagame, and you've generalized the other half, but whatever. I'm not going to explain the whole metagame just for one silly argument. And if you actually want to know what the metagame is like, there are threads for that.

What happens is that if you have an A deck competing against a C deck without PC the match will be predictable (ie. A will lose most of the time)

A is your attempt to name a rush, and C is your attempt to name a timebow stall. Are you forgetting that SoGs recieved a huge nerf in timebows? Definitely a bigger nerf than Deflag and Explosion. And even before 1.29, A definitely had the advantage. Stalls are made to beat Domins, not Rushes. CC Domins are designed to beat Rushes.

I'm surprised that wasn't more obvious.

You just don't understand the metagame, which causes you to think that there is a problem.
Go read up about the metagame. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,30797.0.html)

The problem is you only need one eternity to dominate an immo/nova rush deck

1.) Eternity's main use is to counter Immo/Nova. Against anything else, it isn't even that good.
2.) Immo and Nova decks often even beat Eternity because of their speed. It takes 0 turns to play a Lava Golem or two, but it takes 2-3 for an Eternity and another 1 turn to use it once. And it will probably take another 3 to lock off their field, but without healing, you will still lose. Eternity definitely isn't OP.

There are certainly many more ways to lower Fire's strength. Many of which don't require nerfing an important PC card.

Deflag was one of the main cards that made Fire OP and it was also OP by itself. Nerfing overpowered cards allows for more strategies to thrive and makes the game more interesting.


Based on your posts it really seems like you're upset about your favorite decks being nerfed and you're forgetting that the game is improving in quality.

[Pineapple]

What bothers me is that this was done without discussion or warning that I'm aware of.

There was plenty of discussion in the chatroom and around the forums. The changes were made in beta for around a week before the update went live. Even before the changes in beta, there was talk about nerfing fire in the forums.

And seemingly without much thought as to the obvious consequences to the basic mechanics of the game.

Deflagration | Explosion has always been used to, and still can be used to, destroy up to 6 key permanents that would kill your strategy. A small increase in cost only truly affects how soon it can be used, what other things can be used with it in that turn. Sure, pillarless decks that don't use immolation have to pack less, but those decks remaining powerful is not part of the basic mechanics of the meta-game.

It takes so much discussion and voting for a new card to be added yet something like this was just shoved down my throat...

Actually, it doesn't take as much discussion for a new card to be added. Zanz finds an idea of inspiration he likes (yes, usually from the Armory, but it's not like Zanz only checks those cards by law), implements his interpretation of the balance-able idea into the trainer, people play around with it, suggest changes (like people did with the Deflagration | Explosion nerf), Zanz takes note of those comments, makes some decisions (like keeping the nerf as is), and after going through the commenting and reviewing phase a few times, the new card goes into the real game.

[atomi]

Okay everybody I appreciate the discussion/input.

Maybe some policy improvements can come out of this, maybe not.
But, I think I got out most of my concerns so that at the least they are on print.

Sure, pillarless decks that don't use immolation have to pack less, but those decks remaining powerful is not part of the basic mechanics of the meta-game.

This was my gripe. I'm sure the meta-game has some unique decks but I loved my pillarless deck so much that it being made nearly useless by this small change was extremely upsetting.