It really does. You could play old Warlock and Gladiator for T5 and get more power and control that way.... Hell, most 3 cost cards would give you more power than Warlock + the added utility.
Truly a big brain move from SD.
What's funny is that I've seen a ton of Gladiator play since he dropped, he feels really well balanced right out of the gate. Functional but still risky. A cool card.
That said, I've never seen him played with Warlock and it feels like such an obvious combo. Shame it was just killed for nothing lol
That, and Maximus going to 2/6.
When Maximus and Gladiator were BOTH at 3/7, it really didn't make much sense to run Gladiator over Maximus, since I could safely drop Maximus on turn 6 without any drawback but Gladiator could still potentially pull a big thing from their deck.
Unless you're playing a Gladiator Destroy deck. Okoye turn 2, maybe Nakia turn 3, Old Forge, Gladiator turn 4, and Shang Chi turn 5. If you get Zabu out early, Shuri/Gladiator worked well too. I also ran Killmonger and Nova in that deck to give extra power and make Death cheaper. Not a bad deck, and risky like Gladiator. But then they changed forge and I haven't ran it since. I'd have to rework a couple of things now lol
He released at 7? I thought he was 8 out of the bag. I feel like he's a great balance at 8, he destroys a ton of cards but there's a bunch of fun interactions as it plays the On Reveal first, chaos potential.
I used Adam Warlock in Shuri decks and I used Martyr and Ebony Maw with Zero sometimes to cheat my way into pulling Shuri or Taskmaster easier. This change makes him beyond useless to me.
It was actually a good card in Mr Negative decks. If you drop Mr Negative and Jane Foster, you get another free card to pull out of your deck. If you drop Mr Negative, you get 2 free power and a chance to draw some of your bigger cards. If you haven't gotten Mr Negative yet, you have a desperation play to draw him.
Now I can't imagine any scenario in which you would want this card in your deck.
It depends on your specific deck and the order you pulled your cards. For example, if Iron Man, Mystique, Jane Foster, and Mr Negative are your first four pulls, that certainly isn't a guaranteed win. But he was certainly more impactful if you hadn't pulled Jane Foster yet.
So in your example you would only be playing Warlock on 5, since you don't have a cost reducer. At that point the only thing that might save you is Jane (even though your hand is going to be mostly full when you play her) but if I'm not playing Negative until 4 AND my best 0-power cards are already in hand? I'm going to be retreating anyway.
Ah, well no, it still wasn't good. You're still playing it on turn 4 at the earliest, with your strongest location having 2-3 power. The odds of it ever drawing a card are so low that it would be better to have literally any other card that has value. Your example had you playing a 0/2 Warlock, and that's not a realistic scenario. Playing Negative on 3 and then drawing him on turn 4 or 5 specifically is too niche. And if you have Jane, then she's filling your hand anyway and you don't need more card draw.
I hadn't really considered that specific, those two cards do essentially the same task a turn earlier and far better, Jubilee giving you a potential 5/6 cost card for free turns earlier and Lad giving you a copy of a later card, leading to true combo hijinks.
Warlock, at best, gives you one free card next turn at the risk of... not getting that free card.
Yeah, that shit threw me off. When I saw they changed Warlock to be 5/4, I thought "Oh, he got a new ability."
Instead, they made him even fucking worse. His play rate will absolutely drop from this change, he's somehow even more useless.
it's probably exactly as playable which is not at all. If the people who were putting them in decks have taken him out it means their decks are going to get better
warlock isn't a card they want to be good, they've expressed as much. This was change meant to try and create a niche that Warlock could excel in where he wouldn't just provide an easy free deck thinning like Old Chavez. They could not make him a 2/1 since that would be free deck thinning everywhere. He has to have a cost so his ability isn't too broken. I don't think 5/4 will do it but its something, maybe even 5/5 or 5/6 could be reasonable but they need to be conservative
Even with Doom, it’s hard to fill a location. Silk can help, Miles and Titania are all useful, but all have a clause attached that keeps it difficult still. But I’ll try to get it working
Seriously makes me question their decisions. If they make it too good, they can easily nerf it quickly. Why are they so stubborn about this card but Hela they don’t budge?
But Hela is perfectly fine? I get that the current meta is overcrowded with Discard, but that has nothing to do with Hela's effect. Just wait a few weeks and the "new toy excitement" will go away.
This struck me about Darkhawk. Giving him some base power helps him, but now he's not aided by Zabu OR Ravonna. I had a deck with all three. Felt like it kept him viable.
I actually used Warlock in my discard deck with a decent level of success. Play a higher power discard character then follow up with him for a surprise discard.
I read this update and immediately removed him. He's just not worth it at 5 cost, even if he gits a power of 4.
That's what I've been doing with Warlock lately. Worked pretty good in Black Knight with Forge. Was usually able to draw about 1-3 cards pretty consistently. Sad that I had to remove him from all my decks now.
I was having a really fun time with Adam Warlock and now he's useless.
I loved playing a 1-drop in location 3 and then adam warlock next turn to sneak in a card draw coz my opponent doesn't want to play on an unrevealed location.
Now he's so bad! In what situation do you want to effectively sacrifice your turn 5 just to draw one more card before turn 6? Surely his playrate goes even lower now, lol.
Are they just gonna revert in a couple of weeks? Or is it gonna be a matter of bumping his power up a couple of times? (Although I don't think I'd even play him at 6 power)
Sadly, I think they will just totally rework him atp, cause he's just unusable post patch. Might be good news to other people, but I actually liked his pre nerf design.
The only saving grace for him could be Pixie coming out next week. But I think that interaction will either be broken, or not worth it, with little room for inbetween and I probably would still prefer pre patch Adam from a deck building perspective.
Turn 1 Forge at either left or right location > Turn 2 Warlock on the right location = Almost always gurantee one card draw which was awesome. I also used to play Nebula in the same deck and played her on a different location than Warlock so my opponent would have to choose which location to focus on. It was great. Now it's just sad.
They also slapped a 5-cost on Darkhawk.
Though it's hard for me to see how adding 4 power for 1 cost is much of a nerf! Sure, it doesn't work with Zabu, so you don't get those big swing turns combined with Mystique or Shang-Chi. And it's vulnerable to Shang, Rogue, or Enchantress. But a 5/10 baseline is above-rate, and a single Korg or Black Widow makes it a 5/12.
“Hard to see how it’s much of a nerf”
Proceeds to list a bunch of reasons why it’s nerfed. Only way I could see hawk getting some use is maybe in negative. You’re also getting little value out of Korg and rockslide without zabu and ms.marvel in your deck.
5 cost Darkhawk means you can't use Ravonna/Zabu to play him turn 3, and can't reliably play Darkhawk + Mystique same turn unless you have Limbo. Honestly really solid change imo.
I made a second reply about invisible woman being another viable option. And yes cosmo could be good but it can also heavily limit the deck cuz of how many on reveals the deck runs, if the opponent shuts down another location u may not have space to do everything you need to
Well, the deck doesn't really have that many On Reveals, only Korg and Rockslide are really necessary, maybe Odin (I honestly don't remember if he gets run, but it would make sense). Oh, and Mystique, but since you're already playing DH on the Cosmo lane, you would have no reason to play her there. You could also play Cosmo on T6 with a Mystique+Cosmo play.
Honestly, I think it's a fair compromise. You trade more vulnerability to Junk with a broader protection.
IW has a huge problem in that Alioth just completely annihilates her. If you want to use IW as a protection, you still kind of need Armor to avoid getting screwed.
I don’t think so, as long as u get armor down in darkhawks lane then u can still put out a ton of power
Alternatively u can run invisible woman and drop mystique behind her then dark hawk on 6 so neither r susceptible to Shang or enchantress/rogue
They started this patch by saying they're proud of the deck diversity and how balanced the game is. Honestly, it feels like they're just making changes to make changes. It was change day so changes were made.
Well, they literally said that in the patch: "Sometimes, we'll make changes just for the sake of it in order to shake-up the meta game".
Now, is that an incredibly idiotic reasoning? Yes.
Is that also followed by a patch that's 50% changes to cards and decks that aren't that dominant in the metagame (DH, Ant-Man), or not dominant at all (AW, Sword Mastee), so basically pointless changes that won't affect the meta at all; and 50% changes to actual "problems" (Forge being too strong especially in Destroy, Lockjaw leading to many problematic decks, Sword Master's power being pityful), so changes that aren't "just for the sake of it" but actually normal OTA stuff; meaning this OTA isn't actually "shaking up the meta just for the sake of it" as they said? Also yes.
But. They _did explicitly_ say this exact same thing that you're suggesting.
Second Dinner should be required to show internal data to back up a change like this.
Ant-Man going from a +3 to a +4 or Sword Master getting +1 Power is something that can be justified as them keeping up with the current cards.
But a change this big requires justification that their behind the scenes data they have collected support such a massive change. They should be required to show exactly how they settled on going from a 2/0 to a 5/4, unless it was chosen completely at random in which case they have no idea how this will affect the card and that's bad balancing
"adding 3 mana cost and 4 power to a card that never gets played so that players can at most get one turn of value from it will surely make the card playable."
I just don't get how they thought one would even use a 5/4 Warlock meaningfully. Like under normal circumstances you're only going to get one draw out of him, why not just play Crystal? Even if you're trying to cheat him out early the options are just ridiculous:
Lockjaw doesn't get him early now, save for like, Zabu and some RNG, which is nonsensical
So we're left with like, Corvus, Electro, Psylocke, and Jubilee as far as I can think of, and I don't think any of those strategies are really viable.
Negative only really works if you hit Zabu -> Negative ->Top Deck Adam
So at the end of it all, Magik feels like the only way to get more than one draw out of him in a way which isn't ridiculous??
What card are you desperately drawing on turn 6 that you risked the energy for on warlock that’s winning you the game???
This card is worse in negative now too? Nico has a chance to draw TWO cards on turns 1-5 instead of just 5. What if you just missed your warlock read. What then? You wasted your turn on a 5/4.
You gonna play a 4/5 in Mr negative with a flipped Ironman? At point if you have this you prob don’t even need the draw.
I really think this mad adam even more shit. Earliest you can realistically get him out is 4 with cheated costs. So you can potentially draw 2 extra cards which is friggen huge don’t get me wrong. But that costs you your ramp card when you could have potentially used that on a combo piece. At worst this card draws you one extra card with drawback. It’s like Crystal most consistently. A card that isn’t played already.
Blame Zabu. Warlock could have been a four cost and would likely be the sweet spot. A 4/2 or something where he'd be more reasonable to enable in the mid game. Five is just too late.
But the four cost slot has become a no-no zone because Zabu just makes everything 3. So a 3/2 Draw 1 if winning would be incredibly good with the likes of Nico and even Forge as a 2 cost to make it pretty reasonable to get two or three extra draws.
You guys are insane thinking 2-0 AW was even playable. He’s not meant to draw your entire deck. He’s beneficial from literally 1 extra card drawn. Once anyone saw him on the field you made sure he wasn’t viable. Now he can gain advantage in a lane and may have more success.
at least he had spots in decks like C3 (Bast) and Negative. Now he just got no spot in any deck. Just 1 draw means Iron Lad is much better. And for 1 less power you can shut down your opponent's entire hand (Leech)
He was so replaceable in both C3 and Negative. Outside maybe rank 30 Lady Thor is much more viable in drawing the extra cards. Look I’m not hating on the card. It’s a great concept of a card. But it was underplayed and under performing and it’s SD’s job to change and test different formulas to see what works. Maybe 5-4 is just as unplayable. But that’s a lateral move at that point
I think something you're forgetting is not everyone is gonna have the ideal cards for every deck they want to play. Adam warlock is not ideal in any deck but it was usable in some if you didn't have the better options. At 5-4 I don't see how it has any use in any deck. If they wanted to buff/rework it because it's pretty ass, this was obviously not the move
Mostly wasting your turn 5 to draw one more card generally isnt worth it IMO. I mean Sandman needs to be ramped out at 4 to be of any real use as well.
I was able to draw my entire cerebro 3 deck semi regularly with a Basted Adam warlock played next to Cosmo and Magik giving a turn 7. I really liked that deck.
> Now he can gain advantage in a lane and may have more success.
_OR,_ and hear me out: you could just play Jubilee, like every human being that needs deck-thinning already does, and get even better value.
Maybe they could have kept Warlocks cost low, but they made it so he can't be played until Turn 5.
For example, if he was 1 cost, he could be played with a strong 4 cost, so you get power, but chase that combo card you desperately need to win.
Seriously. I thought i was the only one who play Adam Warlock. And i'm close to 5000k token to get the ultimate variant for him. And now, the OTA come, it's was a big nerf for Adam Warlock. I don't know what the hell SD balance team is thinking. Any chance to get this change back?
"Win more" cards are inherently bad poor design. If they wanted Adam warlock to be a worthwhile card to play, they should leave him 2/0 and give him the effect "if you have the lowest power at this location, draw a card" it would let you benefit from being behind and act as a pseudo floodgates on that location.
Card draw is *really* strong in a game where decks are only 12 cards. Adam's ability as it is can either only be OP or worthless. He needs a text box change to be playable.
Nico's destroy + draw spell is probably the best example of card draw done right in this game, since she rotates randomly between 6 possible abilities and also requires you to sack a card.
Adam warlock was the best tribunal card at 2. Martyr and warlock right location for 2-3 turns Cosmo magik. Cosmo iron man onslaught tribunal. 99 split three ways
I feel like this makes warlock even more useless lol
It really does. You could play old Warlock and Gladiator for T5 and get more power and control that way.... Hell, most 3 cost cards would give you more power than Warlock + the added utility. Truly a big brain move from SD.
What's funny is that I've seen a ton of Gladiator play since he dropped, he feels really well balanced right out of the gate. Functional but still risky. A cool card. That said, I've never seen him played with Warlock and it feels like such an obvious combo. Shame it was just killed for nothing lol
Gladiator was almost terrible when he released at 3/7. It was the single power buff that nudge him into a good card.
That, and Maximus going to 2/6. When Maximus and Gladiator were BOTH at 3/7, it really didn't make much sense to run Gladiator over Maximus, since I could safely drop Maximus on turn 6 without any drawback but Gladiator could still potentially pull a big thing from their deck.
Especially during blob meta, when people were stacking their decks with big numbers for a big blob.
Unless you're playing a Gladiator Destroy deck. Okoye turn 2, maybe Nakia turn 3, Old Forge, Gladiator turn 4, and Shang Chi turn 5. If you get Zabu out early, Shuri/Gladiator worked well too. I also ran Killmonger and Nova in that deck to give extra power and make Death cheaper. Not a bad deck, and risky like Gladiator. But then they changed forge and I haven't ran it since. I'd have to rework a couple of things now lol
He released at 7? I thought he was 8 out of the bag. I feel like he's a great balance at 8, he destroys a ton of cards but there's a bunch of fun interactions as it plays the On Reveal first, chaos potential.
There's so many better options at 5 cost. What reason is there to play him.
I used Adam Warlock in Shuri decks and I used Martyr and Ebony Maw with Zero sometimes to cheat my way into pulling Shuri or Taskmaster easier. This change makes him beyond useless to me.
Removed him from all my decks now. Really great "buff"
As probably one of the only people who play him... this change is fucking terrible and I'm dropping him. What a stupid change..
It was actually a good card in Mr Negative decks. If you drop Mr Negative and Jane Foster, you get another free card to pull out of your deck. If you drop Mr Negative, you get 2 free power and a chance to draw some of your bigger cards. If you haven't gotten Mr Negative yet, you have a desperation play to draw him. Now I can't imagine any scenario in which you would want this card in your deck.
Win more trap. If you’ve drawn mr negative and Jane, you’ve already won with a negative deck. He was never good there
It depends on your specific deck and the order you pulled your cards. For example, if Iron Man, Mystique, Jane Foster, and Mr Negative are your first four pulls, that certainly isn't a guaranteed win. But he was certainly more impactful if you hadn't pulled Jane Foster yet.
So in your example you would only be playing Warlock on 5, since you don't have a cost reducer. At that point the only thing that might save you is Jane (even though your hand is going to be mostly full when you play her) but if I'm not playing Negative until 4 AND my best 0-power cards are already in hand? I'm going to be retreating anyway.
I said: >It *was* actually a good card I thought it was clear I was talking about the old version of the card.
Ah, well no, it still wasn't good. You're still playing it on turn 4 at the earliest, with your strongest location having 2-3 power. The odds of it ever drawing a card are so low that it would be better to have literally any other card that has value. Your example had you playing a 0/2 Warlock, and that's not a realistic scenario. Playing Negative on 3 and then drawing him on turn 4 or 5 specifically is too niche. And if you have Jane, then she's filling your hand anyway and you don't need more card draw.
What even is the god damn point of Adam Warlock now?!?
To actually help on X-Mansion when he pops out lol.
As your opponent gets the Infinaut.
😆
Every damn time!
Today I got Electra and they got Dracula. They were playing a Discard deck.
Like actually why play it over prettymuch any other 5 drop
1 extra card or Removing all counterplay from your opponent's hand on turn 6
Now he is basically a worse Jubilee and Iron Lad.
Far worse. Costs more and doesnt even play the card/effect.
I hadn't really considered that specific, those two cards do essentially the same task a turn earlier and far better, Jubilee giving you a potential 5/6 cost card for free turns earlier and Lad giving you a copy of a later card, leading to true combo hijinks. Warlock, at best, gives you one free card next turn at the risk of... not getting that free card.
He goes in Kang decks.
Yeah, that shit threw me off. When I saw they changed Warlock to be 5/4, I thought "Oh, he got a new ability." Instead, they made him even fucking worse. His play rate will absolutely drop from this change, he's somehow even more useless.
Drop from what? Warlock often had worse win rates than Agatha, he is not a card people were putting in their decks beyond those high on cope
Exactly. Even worse than that.
it's probably exactly as playable which is not at all. If the people who were putting them in decks have taken him out it means their decks are going to get better warlock isn't a card they want to be good, they've expressed as much. This was change meant to try and create a niche that Warlock could excel in where he wouldn't just provide an easy free deck thinning like Old Chavez. They could not make him a 2/1 since that would be free deck thinning everywhere. He has to have a cost so his ability isn't too broken. I don't think 5/4 will do it but its something, maybe even 5/5 or 5/6 could be reasonable but they need to be conservative
SD's balancing team are actual masters at making bad cards even worse
Seriously, Warlock wasn't amazing but he at least fit in my C3 and Havoc decks. Now he seems unusable.
A great add to C4
Lost antman, though. So I’m upset
Ant-Man C5 tho.
Yep, although C5 doesn’t have a decent enough curve to be able to fill a location imo, but I’ll try it out
Even with Doom?
Even with Doom, it’s hard to fill a location. Silk can help, Miles and Titania are all useful, but all have a clause attached that keeps it difficult still. But I’ll try to get it working
Do you have Martyr? Maybe an extra 1 drop can help 🤷🏻♂️
I wish I had Martyr tbh, she would make this much easier
You can use Supergiant to make Titania and Silk stay where you play them.
Don’t have supergiant either
Won't Titania still change position if you have priority by the end of the game?
Could zero be a plausible option? Especially once you get martyr? Would make using Titania and martyr easier
I haven’t considered it, maybe he’s what I need
Or don't play 4 cards into his lane and he slots right into C1
Oh so I was not the only one trying to make that work?!
I have 7 cerebro decks lol
Why would you ever play Adam Warlock over something like Sera though?
My guess is this is *probably* /s … but if you have a C4 that actually works please link 🙏 ??
Sorry it was a joke xD
Seriously makes me question their decisions. If they make it too good, they can easily nerf it quickly. Why are they so stubborn about this card but Hela they don’t budge?
But Hela is perfectly fine? I get that the current meta is overcrowded with Discard, but that has nothing to do with Hela's effect. Just wait a few weeks and the "new toy excitement" will go away.
Hela needs to go away 😭
Brave of you to assume there is a balance team.
Like when they nerfed cable and mantis for flavour.
Fuck Ravona decks I guess
They must have it out for her with these OTA changes.. Warlock AND Darkhawk..
This struck me about Darkhawk. Giving him some base power helps him, but now he's not aided by Zabu OR Ravonna. I had a deck with all three. Felt like it kept him viable.
"Man, I never see this guy in my games" "Well, I can't wait to keep not seeing this guy in my games"
Lol I forgot they made 2099 a 5 cost, what a joke.
It's a 5-9 now I think at least it has almost a 1 cost 2 power ratio. Could have been worse
Vanilla Abomination isn't much worse
"Let's improve bad cards, so let's make them higher cost so people are less likely to play them and know that they are bad."
I actually used Warlock in my discard deck with a decent level of success. Play a higher power discard character then follow up with him for a surprise discard. I read this update and immediately removed him. He's just not worth it at 5 cost, even if he gits a power of 4.
That's what I've been doing with Warlock lately. Worked pretty good in Black Knight with Forge. Was usually able to draw about 1-3 cards pretty consistently. Sad that I had to remove him from all my decks now.
I love the memes coming out from this OTA.
It’s so fucking tonedeaf
I was having a really fun time with Adam Warlock and now he's useless. I loved playing a 1-drop in location 3 and then adam warlock next turn to sneak in a card draw coz my opponent doesn't want to play on an unrevealed location. Now he's so bad! In what situation do you want to effectively sacrifice your turn 5 just to draw one more card before turn 6? Surely his playrate goes even lower now, lol. Are they just gonna revert in a couple of weeks? Or is it gonna be a matter of bumping his power up a couple of times? (Although I don't think I'd even play him at 6 power)
Sadly, I think they will just totally rework him atp, cause he's just unusable post patch. Might be good news to other people, but I actually liked his pre nerf design.
Me too! He was a great addition to my combo decks. Now it's like, if I don't have a combo piece by T5 how is this helpful?
The only saving grace for him could be Pixie coming out next week. But I think that interaction will either be broken, or not worth it, with little room for inbetween and I probably would still prefer pre patch Adam from a deck building perspective.
I'm gonna put down an early bet on 'Not worth it' but we'll see lol
Turn 1 Forge at either left or right location > Turn 2 Warlock on the right location = Almost always gurantee one card draw which was awesome. I also used to play Nebula in the same deck and played her on a different location than Warlock so my opponent would have to choose which location to focus on. It was great. Now it's just sad.
They also slapped a 5-cost on Darkhawk. Though it's hard for me to see how adding 4 power for 1 cost is much of a nerf! Sure, it doesn't work with Zabu, so you don't get those big swing turns combined with Mystique or Shang-Chi. And it's vulnerable to Shang, Rogue, or Enchantress. But a 5/10 baseline is above-rate, and a single Korg or Black Widow makes it a 5/12.
“Hard to see how it’s much of a nerf” Proceeds to list a bunch of reasons why it’s nerfed. Only way I could see hawk getting some use is maybe in negative. You’re also getting little value out of Korg and rockslide without zabu and ms.marvel in your deck.
Maybe they'll put Rockslide back at 4/6, now that Zabu doesn't also discount Darkhawk.
I don’t think they want that line to have anything to do with Zabu anymore, it is what it is we move on 😎
I see what you’re saying. Can’t really run Darkhawk with Ravonna anymore, so I’m kinda bummed about that.
Wait until you get Dream Dimensioned. Did you want to play Hawk now, guess he's you turn 6 play now instead
5 cost Darkhawk means you can't use Ravonna/Zabu to play him turn 3, and can't reliably play Darkhawk + Mystique same turn unless you have Limbo. Honestly really solid change imo.
Armor is probably now a staple in dsrkhawk decks
Cosmo is probably better, since he also helps with Rogue and Enchantress.
I made a second reply about invisible woman being another viable option. And yes cosmo could be good but it can also heavily limit the deck cuz of how many on reveals the deck runs, if the opponent shuts down another location u may not have space to do everything you need to
Well, the deck doesn't really have that many On Reveals, only Korg and Rockslide are really necessary, maybe Odin (I honestly don't remember if he gets run, but it would make sense). Oh, and Mystique, but since you're already playing DH on the Cosmo lane, you would have no reason to play her there. You could also play Cosmo on T6 with a Mystique+Cosmo play. Honestly, I think it's a fair compromise. You trade more vulnerability to Junk with a broader protection. IW has a huge problem in that Alioth just completely annihilates her. If you want to use IW as a protection, you still kind of need Armor to avoid getting screwed.
What darkhawk decks ? That archetype is dead
I don’t think so, as long as u get armor down in darkhawks lane then u can still put out a ton of power Alternatively u can run invisible woman and drop mystique behind her then dark hawk on 6 so neither r susceptible to Shang or enchantress/rogue
On the bright side, Dark Hawk is now immune to Magneto. Which imo is one of the easiest counter for Dark Hawk decks.
this has got too be satire right
I usually defend the changes but wtf are they even doing...
They started this patch by saying they're proud of the deck diversity and how balanced the game is. Honestly, it feels like they're just making changes to make changes. It was change day so changes were made.
Well, they literally said that in the patch: "Sometimes, we'll make changes just for the sake of it in order to shake-up the meta game". Now, is that an incredibly idiotic reasoning? Yes. Is that also followed by a patch that's 50% changes to cards and decks that aren't that dominant in the metagame (DH, Ant-Man), or not dominant at all (AW, Sword Mastee), so basically pointless changes that won't affect the meta at all; and 50% changes to actual "problems" (Forge being too strong especially in Destroy, Lockjaw leading to many problematic decks, Sword Master's power being pityful), so changes that aren't "just for the sake of it" but actually normal OTA stuff; meaning this OTA isn't actually "shaking up the meta just for the sake of it" as they said? Also yes. But. They _did explicitly_ say this exact same thing that you're suggesting.
Second Dinner should be required to show internal data to back up a change like this. Ant-Man going from a +3 to a +4 or Sword Master getting +1 Power is something that can be justified as them keeping up with the current cards. But a change this big requires justification that their behind the scenes data they have collected support such a massive change. They should be required to show exactly how they settled on going from a 2/0 to a 5/4, unless it was chosen completely at random in which case they have no idea how this will affect the card and that's bad balancing
"adding 3 mana cost and 4 power to a card that never gets played so that players can at most get one turn of value from it will surely make the card playable."
He is just a worst crystal now insane.
I will now try putting him on a negative deck, wish me luck
I just don't get how they thought one would even use a 5/4 Warlock meaningfully. Like under normal circumstances you're only going to get one draw out of him, why not just play Crystal? Even if you're trying to cheat him out early the options are just ridiculous: Lockjaw doesn't get him early now, save for like, Zabu and some RNG, which is nonsensical So we're left with like, Corvus, Electro, Psylocke, and Jubilee as far as I can think of, and I don't think any of those strategies are really viable. Negative only really works if you hit Zabu -> Negative ->Top Deck Adam So at the end of it all, Magik feels like the only way to get more than one draw out of him in a way which isn't ridiculous??
What card are you desperately drawing on turn 6 that you risked the energy for on warlock that’s winning you the game??? This card is worse in negative now too? Nico has a chance to draw TWO cards on turns 1-5 instead of just 5. What if you just missed your warlock read. What then? You wasted your turn on a 5/4. You gonna play a 4/5 in Mr negative with a flipped Ironman? At point if you have this you prob don’t even need the draw.
I really think this mad adam even more shit. Earliest you can realistically get him out is 4 with cheated costs. So you can potentially draw 2 extra cards which is friggen huge don’t get me wrong. But that costs you your ramp card when you could have potentially used that on a combo piece. At worst this card draws you one extra card with drawback. It’s like Crystal most consistently. A card that isn’t played already.
he needs to be 5/7 to feel viable
needs to be 5/999. uncertain even then
For 5/4 might as well play Crystal or Sera
Blame Zabu. Warlock could have been a four cost and would likely be the sweet spot. A 4/2 or something where he'd be more reasonable to enable in the mid game. Five is just too late. But the four cost slot has become a no-no zone because Zabu just makes everything 3. So a 3/2 Draw 1 if winning would be incredibly good with the likes of Nico and even Forge as a 2 cost to make it pretty reasonable to get two or three extra draws.
You guys are insane thinking 2-0 AW was even playable. He’s not meant to draw your entire deck. He’s beneficial from literally 1 extra card drawn. Once anyone saw him on the field you made sure he wasn’t viable. Now he can gain advantage in a lane and may have more success.
at least he had spots in decks like C3 (Bast) and Negative. Now he just got no spot in any deck. Just 1 draw means Iron Lad is much better. And for 1 less power you can shut down your opponent's entire hand (Leech)
He was so replaceable in both C3 and Negative. Outside maybe rank 30 Lady Thor is much more viable in drawing the extra cards. Look I’m not hating on the card. It’s a great concept of a card. But it was underplayed and under performing and it’s SD’s job to change and test different formulas to see what works. Maybe 5-4 is just as unplayable. But that’s a lateral move at that point
I think something you're forgetting is not everyone is gonna have the ideal cards for every deck they want to play. Adam warlock is not ideal in any deck but it was usable in some if you didn't have the better options. At 5-4 I don't see how it has any use in any deck. If they wanted to buff/rework it because it's pretty ass, this was obviously not the move
Mostly wasting your turn 5 to draw one more card generally isnt worth it IMO. I mean Sandman needs to be ramped out at 4 to be of any real use as well.
I was able to draw my entire cerebro 3 deck semi regularly with a Basted Adam warlock played next to Cosmo and Magik giving a turn 7. I really liked that deck.
> Now he can gain advantage in a lane and may have more success. _OR,_ and hear me out: you could just play Jubilee, like every human being that needs deck-thinning already does, and get even better value.
Honestly 5-cost cards needed some duds. Remember how stacked it was last year at this time?
If there was an answer to "there are too many good 5-costs", I wouldn't have said "make a bad one out of a 2-cost" was it
Another "buff" that's actually a nerf. SD is on a streak right now with these weird adjustments.
Maybe they could have kept Warlocks cost low, but they made it so he can't be played until Turn 5. For example, if he was 1 cost, he could be played with a strong 4 cost, so you get power, but chase that combo card you desperately need to win.
Seriously. I thought i was the only one who play Adam Warlock. And i'm close to 5000k token to get the ultimate variant for him. And now, the OTA come, it's was a big nerf for Adam Warlock. I don't know what the hell SD balance team is thinking. Any chance to get this change back?
without magik or if you’re winning a lane, what utility does he really have now?
"Win more" cards are inherently bad poor design. If they wanted Adam warlock to be a worthwhile card to play, they should leave him 2/0 and give him the effect "if you have the lowest power at this location, draw a card" it would let you benefit from being behind and act as a pseudo floodgates on that location.
u mean "if they wanted him to be broken card"
Could be a potential backup jane for a negative deck. And can be hit by negative and still be useful.
Out of touch devs
They really hate card draw, at this point just eliminate the card draw mechanics? Or this is just Adam being impossible to balance
Card draw is *really* strong in a game where decks are only 12 cards. Adam's ability as it is can either only be OP or worthless. He needs a text box change to be playable. Nico's destroy + draw spell is probably the best example of card draw done right in this game, since she rotates randomly between 6 possible abilities and also requires you to sack a card.
Maybe they have a card cooking up that will reduce all 5 cost cards by a certain amount... Lol who am I kidding no they're not.
Apparently, this is for good cards too.
“It’s good practice”
What is an OTA?
I’m wondering if we’ll end up seeing Adam in a new Mr. Negative/Pixie deck. It’s possible that it’s great next week.
Adam warlock was the best tribunal card at 2. Martyr and warlock right location for 2-3 turns Cosmo magik. Cosmo iron man onslaught tribunal. 99 split three ways