[Official] Devourer | Pest

[Angriness]

Obvious troll is obvious
1/10 for getting me to read the full 'argument'

[OldTrees]

Obvious troll is obvious
1/10 for getting me to read the full 'argument'

Sorry but I believe you are mistaken. Someone is not a troll merely because they have a different perspective than you.

PS: your post is unclear about who's argument you are critiquing (possibly for the best since you did call the author of the argument a troll.) However I believe I can explain their perspective if you identify the argument.

[Angriness]

^White knight maximum
The original post, obviously. Couldn't you tell based on the bad grammar and the fact that the account is a guest?

[OldTrees]

^White knight maximum
The original post, obviously. Couldn't you tell based on the bad grammar and the fact that the account is a guest?

The Shepard actually, White Knight requires gender to be a motive.

Bad grammer is common from some of our non english speakers.
The user was not a guest at the time of posting. (Guests have not been allowed to post for a long time) When the forums changed from .com to .org jacob0 did not follow. (See DrunkDestroyer as another example)

As for the OP's perspective, some people are prone to negative reactions against lockdown strategies. This causes them to inaccurately interpret the card to be more powerful than it is. (They remember when they were locked down better than when they were not locked down)

[ZellMetzger]

I'd suggest just one simple thing, it's barely even a nerf. Lobotomize should neutralize their ability. (as of now they're invulnerable to that as lobotomize targets the burrow ability)

[OldTrees]

I'd suggest just one simple thing, it's barely even a nerf. Lobotomize should neutralize their ability. (as of now they're invulnerable to that as lobotomize targets the burrow ability)

However since:

All activated abilities are active abilities
Burrow is an activated ability
Creatures cannot have more than 1 active ability
Lobotomize only removes active abilities

Your proposed nerf is difficult to implement.

[Tirear]

Creatures cannot have more than 1 active ability
Lobotomize only removes active abilities

Lobotomize doesn't just remove active abilities, it also removes momentum status. Now, we could go on about how Zanz likes to think of momentum as a a second active ability even though it isn't represented that way, but then you are allowing for a second active ability. Either way, you reach the same conclusion: lobotomize can remove an activated ability and something else at the same time.

The question  is whether or not devourer needs this level of worth, and if it is worth adding another exception like this. The bug forum already sees plenty of complaints by people who see lobotomize remove momentum and wonder why it doesn't remove adrenaline. Allowing a passive ability to be removed as well will make things even more confusing to beginners.

I do feel that it would be better to find a different way of nerfing devourer, if it even needs one at all. But his suggestion is certainly possible.

[SnoWeb]

Why discuss a nerf on a card which is well balanced and on which 87% of the voters believe no nerf is needed? Denial cards bring negative play experience for those who cannot handle them. It is the case for BH, QS, discord and devourer. It's not because you do not know how to deal with them or because your beloved deck is hard-countered by it that a card is unbalanced or so called OP. From the beginning it was one of the most hatted one. However, it is balanced. And the devourer is one of EtG most flavoured cards. So leave it alone. Please

[PoLdeR]

i think it would be enough if the chances of devourer eating a quantum is relative to the amount u have of  that quantum... so if i have 9 air and 1 light it will eat the air 9/10 times...

[blueberrymania]

Okay, I have two things to say.

1. I can't believe this is still up, and

2. I no longer think that a nerf is needed. It has several counters, including some in aether and time.

[serprex]

Reading the arguments, there seems to be something left unmentioned: how Pests choose which type of quantum to steal. OT has been arguing in terms of  , but not all are the same. From what I can tell, the implementation is that Pests pick a random element, and if it's greater than zero, steal it. I feel this is, in the end, unintuitive and too strong against splash decks

Here's a slight nerf, which doesn't disagree with all the calculations showing Devourer to be balanced in terms of quanta mechanics: The chance to steal some kind of quanta should be proportional to how much of that quanta the opponent has

Example: If you have 12 and 3 , it should be a 20% chance to steal , 80% for . Not 50/50

This would make Pests more useful in decks with Discord, as they would end up draining on the mono element more

[OldTrees]

OT has been arguing in terms of  , but not all are the same. From what I can tell, the implementation is that Pests pick a random element that contains quanta.

Clarification:
  is random quanta randomized by element not quantity. This is the definition of  .

Targeting  does hurt the smaller quanta pools first relative to targeting random quanta.

So if Pest needs a slight nerf, then changing how it targets the quanta would be a good fix. (Since that nerf would primarily target where pest is the strongest)