by /u/YoggOfTheGame, aka Shino





The Nerfs and the Philosophy Behind Them

The Prime Dragon Keeper Nerf

The Council of Card Knights Nerf

The Ephemera Nerf

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After a grueling month filled with dragons and swords, the scheduled balance patch finally hit the game and toned down the previous top two offenders, PDK Dragon and Aggro Sword, but seems not everyone is happy with the outcome. Let’s take a look at the nerfs, and talk about the possible reasoning behind them.Although everybody knows the changes at this point, let’s list them for clarity’s sake:1.will now cost 4 instead of 3, and its defense will be lowered from 5 to 3 (evolved: 7 to 5).2.will now cost 6 instead of 5.3.will now cost 5 instead of 4.Prime Dragon Keeper, of course, was the biggest talking point in the last month. A card that everyone initially dismissed eventually found its way to be the strongest card of the expansion. The deck had everything; consistency, power and speed, so the nerf was imminent. Despite ultimately being happy that the card got adjusted, a lot of people seem to be upset with the way PDK’s change was handled, suggesting that it was lazy and heavy-handed.I disagree. While increasing the cost of the card does indeed seem like the most “lazy” option to fix a card (a similar argument will come back while talking about the other 2 cards), I sincerely doubt that Cygames just sat down to talk about the nerfs the day of the announcement, and not feeling like trying anything, decided to just up the cost and leave it at that. I believe that multiple options were tested, but weren’t sufficient, like making PDK attackable, or changing the stats of the Knights. Ultimately, it’s better to just overnerf the card, rather than risk people putting up with a broken deck for longer than they had to. Does anyone remembers the old Midrange Shadow? Despite two slight hits to key cards in the deck, one of them,, was still seeing play, and is to this day.nerf didn't do much to dethrone the deck from its top status. It's understandable that lately Cygames is doing for a more direct approach.Now, let’s talk about the change itself. PDK now costs 4, instead of 3, and has 3 health, instead of 5. What does it mean for the deck? It’s certainly much weaker now. PDK swing turns are now more awkward, since it's harder to use up all your play points efficiently due to the card costs not lining up so well. She’s also much more vulnerable to removal, being able to be killed by the most common 2PP deal 3 damage cards, while being only 5 after evolving also makes her killable by, or an Enhanced. Does it make the card unplayable? Initially, I thought so, but after thinking about it, and testing a little once the nerfs hit, I believe the deck will stay playable, although its power will be heavily diminished.You have way less options of playing out your PDK turns. Before the nerf, on 7PP, you could play PDK, alongsideand, or any other combination of 2-drops. Now, you can only play PDK, a 2-drop, and your final card has to be, or nothing at all, which makes the turn much weaker. Later on, it’s also tough, as you can no longer PDK + double 3-drop on 9. All of this pretty much means that your powerful swings are now pushed a turn back, giving other decks more time to respond or develop their board further, making it more difficult for you to clear with PDK. Also, PDK herself will now stick around on the board less often, which admittedly, is not that big of a deal, since the deck couldn’t often sustain 2 full turns of machinegunning, so her staying around was more of a nice perk than anything. Even now, that most removal kills her, a lot of decks still can’t easily deal with her, because not every deck plays those removals in the first place.Overall, the card is weaker, but most likely not dead. It went from busted to good, and the remaining parts that made the deck powerful, notablyand, weren’t touched, so a lot of the power is still there. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if people moved back to regular Ramp Dragon plan, becauseand similar cards might be better for the deck now. We’re getting mixed signals, a lot of people claim PDK is dead unplayable, others claim to still find success with the deck. We’ll see what unfolds in the following weeks.Let’s move on to the Sword nerfs. Council of Card Knights is now comparable to. You’re trading stats from the Storm and Ward followers to get an extra follower with Bane. Is it worth it? Sadly, with the way Sword decks are built, I don’t believe so. Big power of Council was coming down so early. An aggressive Sword deck will now rather have the Command on 6, since it pushes more damage, but I could see 1 Council being a tech choice if big Wards become common and the Bane part of the card is needed. If it goes for Midrange Sword, it might still opt to play it because of the utility, but again, I believe Alwida’s Command is just better. Mid Sword has access to Bane on turn 6 in form of, which it might opt to play an additional copy of if it’s so desperately needed. To fill the void in the 5PP slot, the deck might go back to playing, the old-school turn 5 board filler.And finally, Ephemera. Oh boy how glad I am that the card is gone. Nerfing it to hit Aggro Sword caused a lot of collateral damage to lower tier aggro decks, like Shadow and Forest, but it was a necessary sacrifice. Compared to other similar cards, likeor, the NEET angel provided way more power for a lower cost and no conditions whatsoever. Coming down on turn 4, she usually buffed 2-3 followers’ attacks, essentially being a 4PP 3 damage Storm card, which is a pretty good deal in itself. But then, she stuck around later, further buffing any Storm followers you might play, or whatever your opponent might not remove. It wasn’t uncommon for Ephemera herself to essentially deal 6-7, if not more, damage to the enemy player. That was simply too much. And yes, Cygames could have done multiple things, like make her Stealth only temporary, or make her have different stats, but those wouldn’t really solve the problem. Making her have Stealth only for a single turn still gives you 2 turns of her effect, which more often than not, is enough to make her worth 6 damage or so, and making her for example a 1/2 makes her more vulnerable to some AOE removal, like, but most of those cards are barely played as is. Instead, Cygames decided to up her cost to 5, which essentially killed the card.But sadly, in Ephemera’s case, killing her was pretty desirable. She was the definition of uninteractive gameplay, so attempting to nerf her just slightly could have resulted in a similar situation as with Midrange Shadow back in Tempest of the Gods . Them making her unplayable is pretty much them admitting their mistake of printing her in the first place. But that’s alright. It’s fine to make mistakes. There’s one thing we gotta realize: Cygames’s testing team is small, compared to the playerbase. In pretty much every game, the playerbase will figure out things faster than the designers would have. They will also see things designers hadn’t, because they have a fresh perspective on the subject. It’s easy to tunnel on a vision, and forget about other possibilities.Takefor example. While designing it, and Romeo and Juliet, Cygames intended it to be played with the couple, or maybe to grab Mars alongside some other Commander. I wouldn’t be surprised if the possibility of playing only Juliet as your Round Table target, to ensure face damage, hadn’t crossed their minds. Seems they decided that a change to either of those cards isn’t needed, and I agree, since without Ephemera backing Round Table up, it’s a much weaker, albeit still a powerful play.That’s just my 2 cents on the nerfs, and the philosophy behind them. Do keep in mind it’s purely my opinion, and you don’t have to agree with it. It’s actually better if you don’t, healthy discussion is a big part of card games after all. Until next time!