Balancing some shards

[SnoWeb]

IMO the following shards are not yet balanced. Here are my suggestions:

Shard of Wisdom

• Suggestion 1: Change the text to:
  The target creature gains +4/-2 and if immortal its damage is switched between physical to spell.
  This would avoid a hard counter from reflective shield, the accumulation of to many shards on the same creature and to be obliged to carry a reflective shield to deal with it.
• Suggestion 2: Change the text to:
  The target creature gains +4/+0 and if immortal deal spell damage and can target immaterial creatures/permanents only.
  This would weaken immaterial creatures/permanents in general in a way which compensate their gain in being buffable.

Shard of Freedom

• Suggestion 1: Reduce the gain to 10% chance
  This would avoid to decks having no PC to face untargetable creature with unstoppable 150% atk.
• Suggestion 2: Change the "and" for a "or". It means creattures affected by SoFr would either deal +50% damage or ignore shield or be untargetable next turn (only the owner of the creature would be aware of the last one).
  This would slightly weaken SoFr to the point it could be dealt with without PC.

Shard of Focus

• Suggestion 1: Change the text to:
  Erosion (active): destroy a permanent and reset stats to 0|1.
  Accretion (passive): gain +0|+15 at the beginning of each turn (except when just played) and turn into a blackhole if HP>45.
  This would let the player chose between the high HP/denial strategy on one hand and the ability to destroy on the other but not both at the same time. The destroy ability would be unlimited but with the drawback of having the low stats maintained.  The accretion being passive it could not be lobotomised (contrary to erosion).  This could need a lowering of the cost.
• Suggestion 2: Change the text to:
  Accretion: destroy a permanent, gain +0|+15 and +1 in activation cost. Turn into a blackhole if HP>45.
  This would expose SoFo to denial and weaken the synergy SoFO/GP.

Shard of Sacrifice

• Suggestion 1: Change the text to:
  Reduce your maxHP by 24|18 and swap damage and healing for 1 turn or 2 turns if your mark is .
  This would let the player play SoSac even with 1 HP but he would never recover from his sacrifice.
• Suggestion 2: Change the text to:
  Inflict 24|20 damages to yourself and remove all but your quanta. Swap damage with healing. Last 1 turn.
  This is half the reward for half the sacrifice. Still you can use it later in the game It might require a lowering of the cost.

Note to the mods: If this has to be posted in three separated nerf thread let me know I'll do it. I just thought balancing the shards is a global work. I find it sad that all shards are still baned from tournaments because 4 of them are still unbalanced.

Please discuss.

[Rutarete]

• Suggestion 2: Change the text to:
  The target creature gains +4/+0 and if immortal deal spell damage and can target immaterial creatures/permanents only.
  This would weaken immaterial creatures/permanents in general in a way which compensate their gain in being buffable.

I like the idea of spell damage on weapons still in their slot. But when flown, would they lose the extra buffs?

[SnoWeb]

• Suggestion 2: Change the text to:
  The target creature gains +4/+0 and if immortal deal spell damage and can target immaterial creatures/permanents only.
  This would weaken immaterial creatures/permanents in general in a way which compensate their gain in being buffable.

I like the idea of spell damage on weapons still in their slot. But when flown, would they lose the extra buffs?

You misunderstood me: "can target immaterial creatures/permanents only" refers to the target creature not to SoW. For example if targetted by SoW, an immaterial (i.e. with quintessence) devourer with BE would be able to destroy immaterial permanents but not the other permanents. In the same manner, if targetted by SoW, an immaterial otyough  with a high HP would be able to devour a phase dragon but not a normal Devonian. In any case, in this scenario, no permanent could be targetted by SoW.

[serprex]

Your first SoSa suggestion makes it even more important to use SoSa with SoD
Idea to target SoSa/SoD and arena use: remove 48%|40% rather than 48|40

[ColorlessGreen]

Your first SoSa suggestion makes it even more important to use SoSa with SoD
Idea to target SoSa/SoD and arena use: remove 48%|40% rather than 48|40

Assuming you mean percent of max hp rather than current hp, that's actually a pretty fantastic idea, and possibly my favorite sosac solution I've heard so far.

[rob77dp]

SoW
- I do not feel this Shard needs any changes.

SoFr
- changing to "or" would be my preferred change to this Shard, but "no change" is a close second.  (10% is too much chance reduction in my opinion.)

SoFo
- I voted the first suggestion but would support increasing the 0/1 starting (and post-erosion usage) stats.  Not too much but maybe a bit so it isn't such an "auto-kill" for any bolt or CC spell/option.

SoSa
I hate the idea of nerfing my favorite PDials SoSac but facing the truth it needs another change.  I voted Other and hereby state that to represent a change resembling that suggested by serprex.  The suggested VALUES of the HP reduction are too high but the IDEA of max-HP reduction is superb and I concur with CG on this - best idea for SoSac 'nerf'/change I have come across.

The goal of removing SoSa from splashing into too many decks was righted by the play cost increasing from ZERO and now I only encounter over-saturation of SoSa being paired with SoD.  Rarely do I build or encounter a deck playing SoSa without SoD's and decks using both are VERY tough to beat with anything but Purify.  This max-HP reduction angle (I ran a few numbers tracking max-HP with varying common play orders of a deck containing x6 SoSa and x4 SoD) would be a non-destructive but probably effective revision.  (These results indicate commonly ending the game with less than 30 max-HP after playing all SoSa/SoD's - to me this is over-nerf.)  I feel 40% | 30% max-HP reduction to be more fair where the mentioned end-game max-HP for 6 / 4 SoSa/SoD to be 40-50 HP (upped SoSa with Light mark).

[suxerz]

I remember someone suggested the percentage thingy when SoSac first went live. As much as I'm incline to agree that it's a great suggestion, but I couldn't ignore the fact it would reduce the user's experience. What I'm saying is it's quite tedious to calculate how much HP you would sacrifice when using SoSac, especially when your max HP has been altered by SoD/SS/SoV. I like playing casually thus I would prefer to avoid this... math.

[serprex]

Okay, since 48%|40% is ambiguous, here's ways of interpreting it:
48%|40% of max HP removed from current HP (what I thought)
48%|40% of max HP removed from max HP (this interpretation seems more difficult to weigh for me, and the values would definitely need to be lowered)
48%|40% of current HP removed from current HP (worst idea ever)
& for completeness, 48%|40% of current HP removed from max HP (this doesn't even make sense)

So there's really only a and b. a nerfs SoV, b buffs it. SoV already do okay against SoSa with Vamps+Steal
I'm don't know how to reason about b. Lowering the cost of future SoSas makes it confusing. If maxHP lowers by 40 when one has less than 40 current HP, does it kill? SoV logic says no. It mostly seems like an attempt to nerf SoSa by making one unable to store the damage to go a round without chaining another SoSa, a decision I feel is critical to making SoSa require critical thinking

PS the idea isn't my own creativity, I based it off of someone's suggestion to buff SoV to reduce maxHP by a % (with a flat minimum) rather than a flat amount

[ColorlessGreen]

Okay, since 48%|40% is ambiguous, here's ways of interpreting it:
48%|40% of max HP removed from current HP (what I thought)
48%|40% of max HP removed from max HP (this interpretation seems more difficult to weigh for me, and the values would definitely need to be lowered)
48%|40% of current HP removed from current HP (worst idea ever)
& for completeness, 48%|40% of current HP removed from max HP (this doesn't even make sense)

So there's really only a and b. a nerfs SoV, b buffs it. SoV already do okay against SoSa with Vamps+Steal
I'm don't know how to reason about b. Lowering the cost of future SoSas makes it confusing. If maxHP lowers by 40 when one has less than 40 current HP, does it kill? SoV logic says no. It mostly seems like an attempt to nerf SoSa by making one unable to store the damage to go a round without chaining another SoSa, a decision I feel is critical to making SoSa require critical thinking

PS the idea isn't my own creativity, I based it off of someone's suggestion to buff SoV to reduce maxHP by a % (with a flat minimum) rather than a flat amount

The first option is how I interpreted it, and the option I would prefer.

edit: With regards to the concerns about having to do math in your head about the percentages, note that it would only apply when you're at something other than 100 hp, and also note that I can pretty much guarantee there'll immediately be a chart showing what 48%/40% is when you've played any given number of SoDs, which would mean the only time you'd have to do any actual mathings is if you're hit by SoV or you're spamming SS, and seeing how most of the time SS doesn't go well with SoSac (due to losing all your quanta when you SoSac), the problem of having to do math wouldn't actually be a big problem IMO.

[rob77dp]

-snip-

edit: With regards to the concerns about having to do math in your head about the percentages, note that it would only apply when you're at something other than 100 hp, and also note that I can pretty much guarantee there'll immediately be a chart showing what 48%/40% is when you've played any given number of SoDs, which would mean the only time you'd have to do any actual mathings is if you're hit by SoV or you're spamming SS, and seeing how most of the time SS doesn't go well with SoSac (due to losing all your quanta when you SoSac), the problem of having to do math wouldn't actually be a big problem IMO.

Also, note that the game does the math for you and that any percentage of HP at-this-present-time (in-game) is > 0 (no worry on "will this kill me?").  Did I miss the reason for a player to have concern over having to do math in-game?

[ColorlessGreen]

-snip-

edit: With regards to the concerns about having to do math in your head about the percentages, note that it would only apply when you're at something other than 100 hp, and also note that I can pretty much guarantee there'll immediately be a chart showing what 48%/40% is when you've played any given number of SoDs, which would mean the only time you'd have to do any actual mathings is if you're hit by SoV or you're spamming SS, and seeing how most of the time SS doesn't go well with SoSac (due to losing all your quanta when you SoSac), the problem of having to do math wouldn't actually be a big problem IMO.

Also, note that the game does the math for you and that any percentage of HP at-this-present-time (in-game) is > 0 (no worry on "will this kill me?").  Did I miss the reason for a player to have concern over having to do math in-game?

It's percentage of max hp (at least according to how I want it to work), so if you have 100 max hp, you will pay 40/48 hp regardless of your current hp, and if you have 200 max hp, you will pay 80/96 hp regardless of your current HP. It nerfs the synergy with SoD/SS rather than directly nerfing SoSac itself.

The math-in-head problem is concern over people who played a stoneskin and are now at 137 max hp (or whatever other arbitrary number) and don't want to have to math out that 40% of 137 is 54.8 when they're sitting there at 56 hp and wondering whether or not they've lost.

[suxerz]

Firstly, my understanding about the percentage thingy is the same as how ColorlessGreen did -  percentage of max HP removed from current HP.

I admit that my concern about the math was a bit flawed earlier. My main concern is the interaction between SoVs and SoDs. To be specific, using the usual Poisondial deck against any SoV decks. I have no doubt there'll be somebody helpful enough to share charts, SoSac calculator etc. but I still feel it's a hassle to use that. The only thing that I can think of right now is to tweak the percentage to something easier to calculate - 20%|30% for one turn perhaps?

Or, maybe I just need to sharpen my math and stop being lazy...