[Official] Black Hole | Black Hole

[plastiqe]

Everyone stay on topic and don't say anything unless it isn't inflammatory.

Inflammatory.. what if we're talking about fire cards?  : P

Hard counters like Black Hole and Purify are not good for strategy in a CCG.  If I guess correctly that my opponent is playing a rainbow deck, then I should use Black Hole because it destroys a rainbow. 
guess right
play counter cards
win
..that is rock paper scissors style gameplay.  And when you can use a Black Hole to its full effect (-36 quanta +36 life for 3 or 4 ) it is an overpowered counter card.  The real problem is rainbows, but instead of reducing rainbow power by nerfing something like Supernova we get an equally OP counter like Black Hole.

[Malduk]

Hard counters like Black Hole and Purify are not good for strategy in a CCG.  If I guess correctly that my opponent is playing a rainbow deck, then I should use Black Hole because it destroys a rainbow. 
guess right
play counter cards
win
..that is rock paper scissors style gameplay.  And when you can use a Black Hole to its full effect (-36 quanta +36 life for 3 or 4 ) it is an overpowered counter card.  The real problem is rainbows, but instead of reducing rainbow power by nerfing something like Supernova we get an equally OP counter like Black Hole.

This man speaks truth.

Though problem is a bit more complicated. We can discuss those things all we want in this subforum, but to make any shift away from rock/paper/scissors metagame, Zanz needs to do some serious rebalancing of certain cards, as well as adding new cards in the game.
I wrote a post about power of Supernovas some time ago, but I dont think nerfing those now would solve anything. Rainbows, having access to all types of creatures and control in the game, are the only decks that are NOT pure rock/paper/scissors. On the other hand, due to card limitations, mono/duo matches often can be decided before the coin flip.

At current state of the game, I only find nymph to be OP. Black hole as a spell card is powerful against rainbow, but still managable. I would nerf healing a bit though.

[WhiteTigerShiro]

At current state of the game, I only find nymph to be OP. Black hole as a spell card is powerful against rainbow, but still managable. I would nerf healing a bit though.

Perhaps make it so you get 1 health for every 3 quanta drained?  If that feels like too much, then 1 health for every 2 quanta drained.

[Sigh]

...Why are we all talking about nerfing the only way to heal Mono, or Duo Gravity users?

[jmdt]

...Why are we all talking about nerfing the only way to heal Mono, or Duo Gravity users?

Well they must all play rainbows and are annoyed by black hole.   The last thing gravity needs is any nerf.  Its sitting as the weakest element right now after all the new cards.

[Glitch]

...Why are we all talking about nerfing the only way to heal Mono, or Duo Gravity users?

Please refrain from talking about deck strength, element strength, AI strength, or player liking when talking in these threads.  They are for card discussion and only card discussion.

[coinich]

I kinda understand what you are trying to get here, objectivity, but aren't you losing something by trying to separate the relationship between the card and the cards in that card's element?  I'd say Black Hole's worth IS increased because of the lack of healing cards.  As an example, I think Heal would be considered in a different light if it were instead of competing with Feral Bonds.

And before I get yelled at, back to the topic.  So there's a hard counter to one of the most popular deck types in the game.  Why is there a big problem again?

[smuglapse]

Please refrain from talking about deck strength, element strength, AI strength, or player liking when talking in these threads.  They are for card discussion and only card discussion.

AI strength = agreed
player liking = agreed
deck strength = sometimes is necessary to put into context
element strength = I actually consider this a core component of a card's power level.  Consider why dragons have different strengths, or bolts, or vanilla creatures.  I think that is why most people aren't in a hurry to change Cockatrice or Lightning, because when you consider the rest of the element, they are OK where they are.  It's also a reason Graboid should be changed--you don't see Golems or Antlions getting much use because of it.

Now to what you were responding to, I don't think because this is Gravity's only healing that it shouldn't be touched.  If it is deemed OP, then it has to be changed.  Healing can remain independent of the effect or can be given to another Gravity card.

[LootPinata]

Not to mention that you're assuming that Gravity "should" have a healing card, even though other elements don't have any because they don't need them.

I think the reason Black Holes (and Gravity Nymphs) need to be tweaked is that they essentially are two cards in one. As a healing card, you get anywhere from 1 to 36 life depending on what your opponent is playing. As a quanta control card, you drain your opponent's entire pool in the first few hands, and a significant portion of it later in the game. For only three quanta, that is absurd. I'd vote for raising the cost to 4 or 5, so that at least it can't be spammed every turn.

Gl1tch keeps yelling at people to not talk about deck strength ( ), but I would argue that forcing users to change their entire deck to be mono, dual or triple element just to counter a single card is the best sign of it being overpowered. And I agree that element strength factors into the discussion; a single-element combo like RoL/Hope is a lot more effective than one of multiple elements like Elite Queen/Fahrenheit, simply because it's more likely to fit in decks without needing to restructure them entirely.

[jmdt]

I think deck strength, element strength, and current player preferences, i.e. metagame, all play a HUGE role in what makes a card OP/balanced/UP.

Player preferences seems to be the biggest thing getting cards in the nerf section in the first place. If a card is A.) used in a popular 'good' deck, or B.) shuts down a popular 'good' deck it seems it ends up here.   Supernova, Graboid, and fractal fit in 'A' and Black hole, Hope, and Earthquake fit in 'B'.  If supernova powered speedbow's weren't a hugely popular deck in PvP and the game had a larger mono/duo scene, no one would complain about black hole being too powerful.  3 quanta and 3 healing are an afterthough to a mono user.  The current metagame is what makes black hole so annoying, not the overall power of the card.  The card was designed to counter rainbows and it does a perfect job at what it was designed for.  If black hole is annoying switch to a different, non rainbow deck and you will not have the same feeling.

An opposite example of this is pufferfish: its commonly agreed up that its a powerful card, but noone uses the card,so it gets buffed into a more powerful version of itself.  The card probably still wont get use in the game as powerful as it is due to the fact that there are so many faster decks in the metagame and slower decks are at a disadvantage from the get go.

From a gravity perspective, it needs black hole based on the cards that go around it.  Mono gravity is really a painful element to use.  Gravity is a slow element without any hard hitters other than charger.  It doesn't have a lot of great things going for it other than momentum, oty, and black hole and it doesn't really have that many great targets for momentum.  Its only CC, gravity force is useless if momentum is out.  Black hole makes mono gravity strong against 1 thing...rainbows.  Pack chargers, otys and black holes and you will lose to a lot of decks, but you will stop rainbows cold.  I always look at gravity as the anti-rainbow element because that's about the only thing it is really great at as a mono.

The only strong deck that I've seen that utilizes black hole is the flying discord black hole deck.  This deck sounds great on paper and sometimes is.  I've beaten opponents without them being able to play a single non tower card.  The deck can also epic fail geatly.  Surprisingly...it is weak to rainbows.  Even with 6 black holes, it doesn't have enough other cards to keep up with a rainbow since the discord are not causing a stall.  It is also weak to quanta denial, and CC (for 1 quanta, shockwave, fire lance and lightning bolt can all kill discord).

If anything, we need more cards like black hole to shift the balance in PvP away from rainbows and we'll see that this card isn't that OP at all.

[Kejixu93]

Black Hole I think is situational.  It is killer vs rainbow decks but falls short against mono or even dual decks.

[masterada]

why not change gravity nymph's ability to grant momentum instead?
its really OP right now, espec if u got 2 or 3 grav nymphs + i really miss a creature that can momentum others