Bigger body and higher cost. The problem in my view is the effect not the body. Either make the awesome dispellable or make the cost remotely close to the effect. Make the bbs cost 7 for 2 5/5s or a horde of 4/4s make it so that we have to choose between being awesome or playing out of hand.
edit: Good gaze change though props. Rip free gauntlet wins.
edit2: Title change in honor of excogitator.
edit3: Examples http://i.imgur.com/Y2aeoWj.png http://i.imgur.com/sjIARL8.png
I see why your not a dev, if your solution is to make it cost 7
Thanks for the input how about 6 or 8 I’m not really getting anything out of your comment.
Perhaps 5 mana is more fair for both players
Alright so we agree that the bbs cost could be adjusted.
Yeah i aggree, although still being a hugee amount of value for 5 mana, it will atleast seem fair. I also do think that the bbs spell should have a limited amount of charges such as only being able to be used 4 times before going back to its usual form. This would add purpose to multiple Variaxxes. If they used a charge system i thinknit would be cool with the cost being 3
If there was a limit I could live with the bbs being under-costed as is if it’s unlimited I’d rather it’d be at or over-costed.
Misread you at first , thought you was just another new player being salty because they got blown out by Variaxx. Apologies
Sadly though i doubt CPG will be revisiting Variaxx after this considerably meaningless rework
No worries, I fear this card will blow out new players and they won’t come back.
I just want to pitch my voice here about something
CPG although a starting studio are very great minded people and I think their very well programmed game is more than meets the eye. For each time Variax is played or summoned or even flashed they have counters behind the scene that goes up for how it was summoned on which turn etc.
What I would say happened is that they didn’t find it marginally overplayed in any way (and it definitely isn’t; in high ranks) but at the same time they found it being summoned a fair bit in earlier turns and found that those games almost closed out exclusively to Variax’s summoner. Meanwhile when it was summoned on its appropriate turn or even late by a turn the winning chances weren’t out of their “safe limits” which leads to the idea that Variax’s ability is not the issue but the fact she can be summoned very early, and they dealt with that rather efficiently there.
Yes Variax might blow out some new comers but so might Zurael, and so might Red Synja and so might Dark Nemesis and so might even our very beloved meme-y Paddo, but that in no way means any of them is “unbalanced” or overpowered and it shouldn’t be why cards are nerfed
All of your suggestions make the card 100% unplayable. As it stands, the card won’t see much play if any in the higher ranks, as it’s super slow.
If you lose to Variax, they either got a god hand and ramped it out or they were going to beat you anyways. If you find Variax overpowers you in the lategame, your deck has no win condition, since Variax starts snowballing around turn 10.
If you have really ANY wincon in the game, you can beat them before that happens. If you can’t, then your opponent outplayed you anyways.
I can see where you’re coming from but I don’t feel like the added 1 cost really fixes the issue as an early game snowball. However jacking the price on the bbs does. If they cheat him in early they won’t nessessarily have the mana to use the bbs immediately to say drop 3 wraithlings then bbs for 5 5/5s.
This seems incredibly nebulous to me. Why do my changes make the card unplayable? Why would you lose anyway? Why does it mean you had no win-con.
Once again your weak solution to a card or balance is to play an aggro deck. Also changing the bbs to having charges while maintaining the cost makes the card in no way unplayable, if making a card behave in a balanced way is unplayable in your eyes then idont know what to say to u man.
Secondly the only reason the card sees no play in higher ranks such as diamond is because the majority of diamond players are magmar, faie, lyonar and sometimes cass. Just because the meta is hyper aggro as it always is does not mean the card is currently balanced. Just means we are lucky
Edit: I have never had a personal issue with Variaxx, as seen from how i defended the card in the original nerf thread. However due to DFS i see an issue with the card as stands.
Making the ability attached to the minion makes Variax unplayable due to the extreme tempo loss. Spending 8 mana to play a single minion is a huge tempo loss already, as you don’t develop your board much or remove any of your opponent’s threats at all, plus the next turn you’re likely to just drop 2 5/5’s, again not dealing with your opponent’s board whatsoever. This is balanced out by your Awesome BBS having infinite value. If you spend 8 mana to drop a single body only to have it removed by any number of 1-3 mana spells the next turn, you’ve just lost the game, since your opponent essentially got 2 free turns to develop their board or just straight up kill you. It makes Variax useless.
Making the BBS cost more doesn’t have much of a point. In the lategame you just play your BBS only most of the time anyways. If you make it cost more, 2 5/5’s just aren’t worth the mana, it’d be better to just play cards from your hand. And if your BBS isn’t worth it, why play Variax to get that BBS at all?
What did I mean by already losing? If Variax gets out and you don’t have the board control to put your opponent in a serious predicament (forcing them to deal with you instead of swarming awesome wraithlings) then you were going to lose the game anyways, Variax or not. What this means is even without Variax, Spectral Revenant would’ve likely ended the game anyways, or some combo of swarm or deathwatch minions or any other big threat. Variax is generally effective when you’re already winning the game.
What did I mean by no wincon? Every single win condition in the game can be played by the time Variax comes out. Every single one. And most can be played a good 1-4 mana before that, or even multiple times. If your opponent’s win condition is Variax and they slap it down before you’ve played your win condition, you’re either spending the whole game responding to their board (aka losing the game and playing no threats) or you just don’t have a win condition. Your opponent playing Variax will give you a chance to lock down the board 10/10 times in an even matchup. You have 2 turns after Variax is played to take control of the board and play your win condition, if you haven’t already.
If you have no win condition, that means you play an extremely control oriented deck that just wins by outlasting your opponent, and that’s exactly the kind of deck Variax is designed to beat. Therefore, if you’re having trouble with Variax, make your deck a little more dangerous and a little less boring. I played control Lyonar to S rank and didn’t lose to Variax once, because every time they played it I was able to surround them and threaten lethal next turn.
I agree variax is a win-more card.
I’m having trouble parsing your first two paragraphs. My suggestion was either tie the bbs to variax or jack the bbs cost not both. Also your second paragraph suggests you think 2 5/5s for 3 mana is at cost?
As for your win con posts you’re suggesting that variax should be the timekeeper for decks?
Go no slower or be Variaxed!
Edit: Just to clarify thanks for taking the time to type that all out.
Actually summoning her on 6 mana is already pretty late and you can compare her to other 6 mana minions if you please, I am going to list a few
Her brother from another mother, Grandmaster Zendo, is a pretty underplayed card that has a super immediate effect that would in the best case (for you) scenario deal 4 damage to your face plus screw up your positioning completely for the next turn AT LEAST which can be enough to close a good amount of games
Just throwing Jaxi Truesight on the table for any faction with a good chunk of buffs is already game over in most cases
Even the good old common First Sword of Akrane, though it looks lame it has a much more immediate effect than Variax even at turn 6 where it can lend you 2+ extra damage that might be the game finisher if not, then there is a big body to deal with
Now all these are solo cards and not combos and thus their power HAS to come as a close second to hers IF combo’d (that’s how combos work, hence Songhai’s 1 turn OTK with backstaby thingies) ((although honestly if you’re indeed playing a control deck where mistakes cost you games [control is the one more focused about positioning and playing things right, right?] then being mispoisitioned by Zendo will more often than not be much worse than some 5/5s being dropped next turn))
Now there seem to be something a lot of players don’t pay attention: counters. If Variax is weak against Aggro and some controly cards and you keep facing her and losing but you refuse to tech in these cards or switch to Aggro then you need to understand, you’re being countered. There is no way to create a perfect deck in this game and if you go to almost any top tier S-ranked player with a deck or card in mind and asked them, this thing keeps beating me, they will give you a deck or a card that completely counters it in such a way it becomes mostly a “don’t laugh challenge” for you when you are facing it again. (whyb0t did a great job at explaining this but I had to elaborate a little bit more)
Oh and yes, this is why Healing Zir’an was top tier last month where there were a lot of burny burny decks as she was their hard counter, even if they were overpowered last month (less so after Gaze’s nerf this month)
My first two paragraphs state why those two balance changes would be terrible for the card. Each paragraph addresses one of your balance suggestions. In the second paragraph what I mean is that 2 5/5’s for 3 is good value, but when the mana cost goes up the value becomes pretty poor, making the awesome BBS not worth it, and therefore making Variax a bad card.
As far as wincon, Variax IS a timekeeper for the match if that’s the kind of deck you’re playing against. Variax’s inherent infinite value makes it a timekeeper, there’s no other way to go about it. But the clock you’re on allows you enough time to play any other win condition in the game, which is why Variax putting you on the clock is manageable. No deck should be so slow that you aim to win the game on turn 15+. I’ve played that slow control meta. It’s not fun.
Hmm, thats kinda interesting. So Variax is supposed to be more of a “tech card” against pure attrition decks?
Variax eccentric deck is already risky and inconsistent before the nerf. You can’t consistently pull off a turn 3 Variax. If you pull off a turn 5 Variax, your BS will only take effect starting at turn 7, because you BBS on turn 6 and you wraithlings need a turn to be ready to move and attack. Indeed, Variax’s ongoing effect is dominating in late game, but how often do you see a game that goes pass turn 9?
Now that Variax costs 1 more, meaning that the altered BBS requires 1 more turn to be in effect. The nerf is well done - no more and no less.
