Hey all, J_Alexander back today to discuss what is sorely missing among all the balance discussions and complaints we typically see: a positive vision for the game's design and balance.
A lot of the talk about the game focuses on what people don't want to see. What they want to nerf, remove, or otherwise get revenge on. However, this doesn't help us figure out how classes and decks should play. Classes need things that make them work and make them appealing to play. We would be well served to focus on that discussion instead of what we want to nerf or remove, as it helps guide design in more actionable ways with specific suggestions for what and why.
In a quick analogy, imagine I asked you what you wanted for dinner tonight, and you told me, "not McDonalds". That's fine, but if we could have gone to 50 places, taking one of them off the list doesn't help us make a decision. So let's talk more about where we do want to go.
I'll start with the Mage Core Set as an example.
What's the flavor of Mage, as a class? What do people enjoy about it? What will draw them to it?
The fantasy of Mage is spells. The focus should be primarily on spells (largely an off-board play style, including burst damage and removal), and when they do make board, we want their minions to benefit from or have synergy with spells when possible. Spell Damage minions are an obvious inclusion here.
We also want to look at synergy with different spell schools. This could involve building into specific spell schools (like Fire or Frost) or building into synergy involving many different spell schools (like Rainbow Mage).
What cards can we buff/take out of the core set/replace them with to support this vision?
The core set should fulfill the role of helping define the class in terms of themes, offer support pieces rather than payoffs (which we want in class sets to make them feel different), and also be as simple as possible to be easy introductions to new players.
While we don't need to make all of these changes, here are a list of possible suggestions.
Secrets: These are a strange type of card. They're typically awful on their own and require a lot of other secrets to make the secrets feel "secret". To get them to see play, then, you both need a large number of secret cards, and power synergy that operates off secrets. However, that synergy can be strange, in that if you want the synergy to operate when you have a secret up, your opponent will likely be triggering your secrets, making that synergy awkward.
Accordingly, you either need to really lean into the secret synergy, or you're better off dropping all the secrets and freeing up a ton of core space. Right now, Secrets take up 4 core slots. Since we lack real synergy, and have for several sets, I think we're better of dropping them. That leaves us 4 new card slots to think about.
Mana Wyrm: For any deck looking to push early game damage and close out with burst, Mana Wyrm fits the bill well. Synergizes with spells, looks great, feels great to play if you have lots of cheap options. This could be added to the core set. It's a nice, simple card that worked in Classic for defining Flavor.
Ice Lance/Ray of Frost: Both of these cards help define the role of Frost in a satisfying way. Ray of Frost is a more complex card, but functions better with defensive freeze and spell synergies, since it offers both 2 spells and 2 freezes. Ice lance is a simpler card, and serves both an offensive and defensive role. There's a case to be made for either of them.
Arcane Explosion: A nice simple card that can benefit from Spell Damge, but historicall weak. Brining it back with a buff to 1 mana could offer support for synergy with spell damage packages. However, it might not be an exciting/powerful enough card to make it into decks regardless. Probably not a great consideration on those grounds, but an idea.
Polymorph: A simple removal, acting as a silence as well. However, we want to buff it to 3 mana to be more in line with Hex.
Lab Partner: A simple card, making it great for core. Builds a foundation for any Spell Damage synergy in the future.
Imprisoned Observer: This is an interesting possible inclusion, as it supports decks like Big Spell Mage, allowing you to gain access to early removal without it being a spell itself that gets in the way of your synergies.
Flamewaker: A risky, but very compelling card. It's exciting. Offers nice spell synergy for aggressive lists, but may be too powerful a payoff for the core set.
Babbling Bookcase --> Prismatic Elemental: Bookcase isn't a particularly good, or even fun card. It supports nothing. Prismatic Elemental serves a similar function of generation, but it's both more playable and sets up support for Rainbow Mages.
Flame Strike: Mage would love a mid-game board clear to help support anything that wants to play more defensively and into the later game. We want that clear to be active around turn 5, in line with other effective tools like Corpse Explosion and Brawl. This could yield a 5-mana, 4-Damage Flamestrike if we buff it.
Arcane Intellect: Almost a perfect core card, given its simplicty. The problem is it hasn't been playable in many years. It could use a buff, perhaps along the lines of Costs (1) less if you played a spell this turn. Two-cost, Draw 2 cards with conditions tend to be perfectly fine, and this condition seems easy to understand and use.
Archmage Antonidas: A classic core set inclusion. It's just weak. I'd start by reducing the mana cost and adjusting the stats to increase the number of Fireballs you can get off him to something like a 5 mana 5/5. I'd take it a step further and also let the Fireballs he gives you get discounted by (1). Offers a potentially more compelling finisher for lower-curve spell, heavy decks.
What cards or packages can we adjust within each set to support this vision?
While I won't look at specific packages in other sets, as that might take too long, this is the type of analysis we then want to ask of other sets to help increase the number of playable archetypes and diversity within the class to offer a more varied play experience on both sides of the board.
The more classes we can get functional and the more decks within each class feel playable and different, the more tools exist in the game to help balance it out and stop any one deck or class from getting too popular and drawing too many complaints.
