The difference between broken/OP and just "Really good cards"

[Shinki12345]

I feel as though this forum needs a thread like this that really identifies the main difference between what constitutes as "Overly powerful" and just "Powerful."

In my opinion, cards like dim shield in vanilla are absolutely not over powered. It's a powerful card, but calling it over powered is totally not fair. Tons of things get rid of dim shield; momentum, explosion, Midas, steal, pulvy, BE, poison, silence, spell damage, and probably more that I can't think of. On top of that, dim shield sucks vs a lot of stall decks. If your deck doesn't pack at least one of those things and you get mind gated, that's your fault, not the cards fault.

So, why nerf it? Well, I feel like maybe there is a lingering mentality that just because a card is powerful means it's OP.

Another example of a good card that isn't OP is Blue nymph. Blue nymphs are arguably one of the most powerful creatures in the game, being able to essentially deal 26 damage a turn at the cost of 8 quanta plus 4 extra a turn. Now, this might seem incredibly good on paper, but these nymphs are incredibly slow and while not fragile, are definitely vulnerable to CC. They die to lightning, take a major hit from RT, cost a lot, can be lobo'd, UG can be reflected, and most importantly can be easily out rushed. This card does not deserve to be nerfed, it is a very well designed card and just because it is at the top of the food chain doesn't mean it's too powerful.

(Additionally rather then nerfing cards, buffing other cards in the past has proven to be far more effective since it can potentially kill two birds with one stone. Sosac used to be incredibly broken, so Zanz buffed very weak card and it suddenly became a staple in arena. That card was purify.)

However, as you know, there was a point where several shards really DID need a nerf. Sosac used to be usable in almost any popular deck, same with SoG, SoB, and SoFo. Have these cards become any less powerful after the nerf? Barely, SoG took the biggest hit of all (and I even consider that to be unfair from my perspective). They continued to be powerful and used in many decks and still are today, so then what was the point? Well, they were broken, they functioned in a way that the game is not compatible with and faced the same problem that countless other overpowered cards in other games faced: they were too easy to use. Cards that are super easy to use but still incredibly powerful are the cards that truly deserve nerfs, not cards like dim shield and blue nymph who require you to build the deck around them due to their heavy cost.

Another example is sundial. Remember when sundial lasted two turns? The damn thing was free and yet it was better than dim shield which cost 5 upgraded. If sundial cost 4-5 time quanta, it would absolutely not be broken, but the thing was that it was free and able to be used in almost any set of cards. In its current form in vanilla, it's just a very good card since it was nerfed.

Sundial and shards is also a good example of HOW to nerf something. Increasing the cost or decreasing the effectiveness is a bad way to nerf something(unless it was implemented for testing purposes). Making them harder to cast cast/use in interesting ways is far more productive. Zanz added a nerf to SoG requiring life mark and making it require life quanta, which is far more effective(and interesting) then just increasing the cost or decreasing the effect. Sundials were handled a little differently, but what effectively happened is they became a one turn stall button rather than an almost-better-than-dim-shield rip off, which might seem simple but reducing the effect by one turn more less changed the way it was built into decks in the same way the other cards are.

Summary: Just because a card is super good doesn't mean it's broken. Nerfing cards is bad and promotes degeneracy, implement well and nerf as little as possible. Before nerfing something, consider buffing something else first in order to balance it out. If something is inherently broken due to its easy accessibility and powerful nature, nerf it in a unique or interesting way rather than changing the cost or effectiveness.


I would like to say that some of the nerfs/buffs I've seen aren't all bad, I liked the approach to nerfing sosac and SoD in order to make them more tournament friendly. But some of the other approaches don't seem quite as good, I'm not big on the dim shield nerf nor am I fond of the nerf to SoG(although, this wasn't "exactly" a nerf, I still don't like it).
 

[OdinVanguard]

The trouble with buffing something to handle a card that needs a nerf is that you can run into powercreep issues.
You buff one card to nerf a card that is too powerful and then the buffed card becomes too powerful.
If you keep buffing other cards to handle a card that needs a nerf, you just end up creeping up the power on a whole bunch of cards rather than fixing the card that needs it to begin with.

There is another issue to consider as well, sometimes a card can be relatively well balanced but just make the game a lot less fun to play. Dim. shield and SoSac were prime examples in their time.
Its true, there were several counters, but there were points where if you didn't pack a counter specifically for that card, then you would end up losing.
I can look up the quote if needed, but it has been said that one of the surest signs that a card is OP is if its impact is so significant that it requires players to either include it in their decks or specifically include counters to it just to make a deck competitive.

Another issue to consider is that there should not be a card / strategy that can make a deck unbeatable by an entire element... This was part of the issue people lamented about over dim. shield. There were some elements that just couldn't deal with it alone.
For instance, in vanilla, mono-time simply could not compete with Dim. Shields when coupled with SoW'd phase dragons (note that there is no midas in vanilla).
Sure plenty of elements did have counters to dim shield, but not all of them did.
That situation is pretty well resolved in oEtG thanks to the broader card base, but its a good example of why simply giving a handful of counters does not necessarily mean that a card is balanced.

[Shinki12345]

The trouble with buffing something to handle a card that needs a nerf is that you can run into powercreep issues.
You buff one card to nerf a card that is too powerful and then the buffed card becomes too powerful.
If you keep buffing other cards to handle a card that needs a nerf, you just end up creeping up the power on a whole bunch of cards rather than fixing the card that needs it to begin with.

There is another issue to consider as well, sometimes a card can be relatively well balanced but just make the game a lot less fun to play. Dim. shield and SoSac were prime examples in their time.
Its true, there were several counters, but there were points where if you didn't pack a counter specifically for that card, then you would end up losing.
I can look up the quote if needed, but it has been said that one of the surest signs that a card is OP is if its impact is so significant that it requires players to either include it in their decks or specifically include counters to it just to make a deck competitive.

Another issue to consider is that there should not be a card / strategy that can make a deck unbeatable by an entire element... This was part of the issue people lamented about over dim. shield. There were some elements that just couldn't deal with it alone.
For instance, in vanilla, mono-time simply could not compete with Dim. Shields when coupled with SoW'd phase dragons (note that there is no midas in vanilla).
Sure plenty of elements did have counters to dim shield, but not all of them did.
That situation is pretty well resolved in oEtG thanks to the broader card base, but its a good example of why simply giving a handful of counters does not necessarily mean that a card is balanced.

Well, the point of buffing a card to deal with another card is to try killing two birds with one stone: buff a weak card and nerf a stronger. It would not cause a power creep if done correctly because you would be giving a nearly useless card a use.

If a card requires you to build around it, then that doesn't mean its broken, it just means its good. In MTG(Modern), I have to build my deck around the assumption that I will have to face birthing pod, but that doesn't mean its broken and should be banned, it just means its good and I need to be ready for it. If a single card causes degeneracy in the meta game, then yeah it might be broken and should probably be fixed. Dim shield never caused degeneracy in the league scene, I never even FACED a deck with dim shield in my 50+ games in leagues last season. Also, lots of cards are unfun to play against if you didn't come prepared, that doesn't mean they should be nerfed. Disco is a major pain in the ass to play against, but that doesn't mean it deserves a nerf.

I'm afraid I don't really understand the point about elements not being able to beat certain cards. Certain elements not being able to deal with specific cards sounds completely natural to me, it would only be a problem if everyone was using a specific card and nobody could beat it without certain elements.

[FrozenEspithel]

The thing about dims is to remember that it's a "so good it's bad" card, in a sense, especially in league.
It's so good that everyone makes an attempt to counter it.
With birthing pod, you anticipate it because you know it's powerful, and so it helps you to have an answer to it and things similar to it.
With dims, you anticipate it because if you don't, you'll lose to it 100% of the time.

You >have< to counter a dim spam to beat it. You can't brute force it and pretend its not there, or try and build around it so it has less of an effect - you have to counter dims, or you lose. At least in vanilla - in open, it's much easier to pierce through the cracks thanks to the reduced turn.

That's my definition of something that's OP: If you have to counter a tactic or card somehow, then it's OP. Also if it outclasses most alternatives, but that's another story entirely.

Just my two cents.

[Shinki12345]

Just saying, his isn't a discussion as to whether or not dim shield is OP, it's a discussion on what counts as OP, so try not to get too focused on the topic of dim shield.

[serprex]

Just saying, his isn't a discussion as to whether or not dim shield is OP, it's a discussion on what counts as OP, so try not to get too focused on the topic of dim shield.

This is why I haven't replied. It's a deep topic that you've supported with examples. We can argue about all the examples, but the idea remains. League anecdotes are questionable; if you played a lot of games, people would've picked up that your set of decks feared dims, & so wouldn't run dim decks against you. You're also making the same fallacy that's repeated throughout the nerf dims thread in original; listing counters is the wrong route

CG talked me down from plenty off buffs/nerfs

Making bad cards counter strong cards moves towards rock paper scissors (anything beats purify, purify beats sosa, sosa beats anything. Yes, I'm exaggerating "anything")

Appreciate the feedback, the distinction you're describing is important to remember

[Shinki12345]

Just saying, his isn't a discussion as to whether or not dim shield is OP, it's a discussion on what counts as OP, so try not to get too focused on the topic of dim shield.

This is why I haven't replied. It's a deep topic that you've supported with examples. We can argue about all the examples, but the idea remains. League anecdotes are questionable; if you played a lot of games, people would've picked up that your set of decks feared dims, & so wouldn't run dim decks against you. You're also making the same fallacy that's repeated throughout the nerf dims thread in original; listing counters is the wrong route

CG talked me down from plenty off buffs/nerfs

Making bad cards counter strong cards moves towards rock paper scissors (anything beats purify, purify beats sosa, sosa beats anything. Yes, I'm exaggerating "anything")

Appreciate the feedback, the distinction you're describing is important to remember

Well, the thing about listing counters is that the counters to dim shields are not useless when facing non-dim shield decks. Explosion and steal are used all the time and are not exclusively good against dim shields.

If my deck loses to dim shield, it also probably loses to other very good cards like dusk shield and eternity.

Edit: also, thank you for the appreciation, i hope I'm not coming off too strong in my first few posts.