Duelyst Forums

Grimes' card pool needs a tweak

#1

So Grimes is a card that when summoned and destroyed, summons a random minion from any random tribe. There is nothing that regulates what this thing spawns, it could pull anything ranging from worthless cannon fodder, to massive game ending minions.

I’ve always been saying to myself that this card needs to be tweaked, I play him in my dying wish decks, and I honestly feel bad when I get something as powerful as a juggernaut and My opponent watches in dismay as it tramples over him. However I never really said anything about it since being such a huge RNG card, no one really plays it anyway, however after recently seeing this thread I realize just how big of a problem this is.

In the replay, Grimes initially summons a sol, OK, that’s pretty worthless, no big deal.
However, his opponent then kills the Grimes, and it summons a GATE TO THE UNDERVAULT. Which then Instantly summons a Klaxon and Vorpal reaver (due to the deaths of sol and Grimes) and the Abbysian player wins immediately next turn.

Something has to be done about this, it’s card pool ranges from a 1/1 battle pet, to minions that can single-handedly win you the match, this level of RNG is just insane. He should only spawn minions within a certain range or something, also, he shouldn’t be able to spawn build minions already built, i’m sure it goes without saying how overpowered that is

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Is gate to the undervault supposed to spawn prebuilt from Grimes?
#2

The biggest problem in the game linked is that Unbirth gives Rush to the Abomination because Metaltooth is on the board. Even though Metaltooth does not have rush. That’s just a straight up bug.

The second problem is that Dying Wish triggers before the minion dies. This is unintuitive - minions like R9M has a dying wish that triggers after it dies. Dying Wish happening immediately after minion death is how most players would understand it. I mentioned this previously at Horror Burster - Malice (Maehv BBS) interaction and think it should be fixed to be consistent.

Not to detract from your main point though. I think Grimes is a meme tier card and not too much of a problem right now. However, when Battlepets rotate out in the new year, Grimes will just be broken.

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#3

Okay, Juggernaut is fine. However, I think we can all agree that Gate to the Undervault is just too much.

I don’t want to do that to someone (and Grimes is one of my favorite meme cards) and I don’t want someone to do that to me. CPG, pls remove Gate from the Grimes card pool OR change Build minions so that they appear as Buildings when summoned from anywhere. It’s just too strong.

Edit: this is also a problem with the Build minions getting Rush when played not from hand. That interaction needs to be fixed ASAP, its not fun or interesting. While we’re at it, fix Metaltooth’s interaction with Unbirth.

Edit2: Please don’t say “oh, gokun is whining about card balance, its an interaction in the game and we should just play around it, its not even that good.” Look, I love jank and broken interactions, but not when it feels so meanspirited. At some point, we have to put our foot down on how much damage you can combo out of hand without setup, and I draw the line at this expansion.

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#4

You all do realise how non sensical this topic is right? You want CPG to literally go against the cards’ rules and text which clearly states “Summon a random minion from any tribal nearby” just so it doesn’t have the high roll possibility? It is literally meant to be a random gamble card. Why have special rules implemented because it wins when it works as intended?

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#5

There is most certainly a faction here that detests RNG of this nature.
No need to call them non sensical for simply wanting a redesign.
Besides, you’re forgetting that this wouldn’t be the first time a card’s text has outright lied. Take Khymera or the Vetruvian, “Dying Wish: Spawn a random Obelysk.”; they don’t pull from all expansions.

#6

I’m usually on the side of RNG. I think Bloodsworn Gambler is funny and I love running Grimes. Gate is a disgustingly strong card when you cheat it out, and I hate that it can get out via Grimes.

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#7

I didn’t mean to be insultive so apologies. But I don’t consider stating other examples of where CPG failed to stay true to their card text without stating so officially in game is the real problem there. Especially since Grimes isn’t exactly meant to be a competitive card, I would actually like to know what cards were removed from khymeras pool

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#8

So, much like prior cards, you believe Grimes should not pull from further expansions (that is, Immortal Vanguard)?

#9

The cards I listed there never had their card pools updated, so they’re 1-2 expansions behind (in the case of Khymera, who is never touched, I think he’s still core only).

#10

Having something be a high risk doesn’t mean it deserves to be THAT powerful when you get lucky. Would it be acceptable to have a card that says “opening gambit: you have a 20% chance to instantly win the match”?

And on the grounds of being a competitive card, I really don’t see what that has to do with anything, competitive or not it still exists, and can still be played. Not being “competitive” doesn’t mean it will never be played and thus won’t be a problem. A card doesn’t become less powerful simply because you choose not to use it.

#11

I like Grimes as a card enough that I use it in my Dying Wish Vet deck. But I do agree the ability to pull out Gate (or other building type minions) without having to actually build them is too strong. I like the idea of allowing buildings to be summoned as the 0/10 token and then have the build countdown, rather than just getting them straight away. I will say its not just Grimes but if Reaper of the 9 Moons pulls Gate, that also has the same problem as it summons Gate and a 6/6 demon as well, because Reaper’s death summons the 6/6.

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#12

build works on opening gambit and egg rules
if it comes from action bar, it turns into a building
otherwise it just comes out as if hatched from an egg despite being pulled by RNG from somewhere else.

i think they knew about this and thats the reason why they changed it so that the building is sent back to your hand instead of the build unit. that way if the building was killed you couldnt just keeper it back when the building is answered for a completely built unit. i mean imagine if you killed a gate before it built only for them to play keeper and get it back fully built.

the only way to fix that is to make build work on bond rules instead. this makes resurrection and steal cards 10x worse, for the sake of slightly nerfing one card that sometimes shows up where its not supposed to. true its OP in the 1 in a 666 chance you pull it, but i cant see any changes that fix the whole problem that doesn’t cascade into ruining lots of other cards. the egg/rush bit on the other hand would be an easy fix since they just need to tie the unit activation to the building instead of the unit like they do with egg minions. (you dont see young silithars getting rush when stolen from reaper)

on a different note

i think metaltooth is working as intended actually. it has the keyword rush, but its only active on the unit when it meets the condition of having another mech on the board. real example that happened to me. i summoned metaltooth, summoned another one, both had rush. i attacked with one, killing it, and the other no longer had rush anymore. it works the same way as crestfallen and is probably the same reason crestfallen has a constant provoke FX even when not in zeal range. because it has provoke, its just not active because the zeal condition isnt met.

you can even look at the card in play. underneath the card text where the buffs go, it shows it has rush, but its greyed out showing its inactive. then play another mech and its white, like all other buffs. the same thing happens with crestfallen.

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#13

Um lets not pretend its anywhere near 20% for grimes to instantly win the match. actually even if he does land the 1 in 200 chance of landing Gate it isn’t even instantly game winning so thats a pretty weak argument there champ. Secondly the player who played the grimes should be rewarded for taking the chance when he does manage to high roll otherwise what would even be the point of random cards like these? So that they could be consistent right… because that’s what we play 6 mana 3/3’s for. If you had stats as to how often a Grimes instantly swings the game in his favor and the numbers were warranting a change I could take you seriously.

That seems like a problem imo. We shouldn’t be looking at problems for examples as to what cards should strive to be. Khymera and Allomancer being outdated seems like Cpg more so being lazy as compared to them balancing the cards. Not counting the fact that Allomancer cannot summon Trygon. But the obvious difference between Allomancer and Grimes is the fact that one has an extremely varied cardpool where he can pull from and the ratios for that card pool actually favor the negative outcomes.

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#14

Honestly, no. I only exclusively actively hold issue with Gate to the Undervault.

#15

Considering other crazy stuff there is in the game, especially from the last exp, I think Grimes is nowhere being a problem, even with the Gate. He’s very much a meme, and memes are not competitive.

Grimes will rotate out too, eventually (which is a bit sad). Also, even without Pets he still has a lot of meh minions to summon.
What would be broken (and funny) if he’ll summon rotated out minions.

I do think that erroneous descriptions are a problem. But what’s an even bigger problem is the overall CPG’s liking for that random/meme/discoverable/“healthy frustration” crazy mix they balance the game around. It’s rather offtopic in this case though.

#16

Maybe Grimes should only trigger his affect upon death. Basically, by removing opening gambit you limit your chances to get an op minion and at the same time sacrifice tempo since the card would be too slow. A 6 mana 3/3 minion that might win you the game but most likely will cause you to lose it. Furthermore, another solution would be to remove token and build minions. Why? because those are usually too stong which is why they had a complex and hard to complete summoning process from the beggining (ex. Mechaz0r, Gate of the Undervault). So far we reduced the chance of getting a game ending minion by 1) Lowering the minons you get from two to one (not including any other minions that might spawn afterwards) and 2) Limiting the card pool. No tokens and no build minions. However, although I do agree grimes is a problem, we have to be honest. Would grimes be playable if these changes occured? I think not. So is it worth it to destroy such a fun card? The replay you saw was indeed disgusting but it took me… a lot… A LOT of tries to get it and thanks to that one card I won the game. Was it fair? Not for my opponent but for me it was because I lost 10 games by playing grimes and to me that 1 game was worth it all. To conlude, DONT nerf Grimes TOO hard just applying one of my suggestion would be enough. To me grimes is my favourite card and personally I dont mind If my opponent wins thanks to Grimes pulling out a Gate of the Undervault and a Juggernaut. I would simply laugh at the chances of that happening :joy:.

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#17

Also I just tested it, you can get memetic hulk from cascading rebirthing a 1 mana minion, pretty funny.

Definitely not on the same power level but something to keep in mind about build minions and future effects that summon random minions

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#18

Time to make another magmar meme deck…

#19

I feel like I should include this

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#20

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