03/12 OTA Balance Changes
Scott runs through the balance changes and offers a few decks to try!
An all buffs OTA just dropped and Fourth Location has you covered for analysis and deck ideas for the new metagame! It's always interesting when Second Dinner decides to buff cards you already thought were good! Let's dig in!
- En Sabah Nur: 4/5 ⇨ 4/6, Apocalypse Celestials' Chosen: 4/8 ⇨ 4/9
- Debrii: 3/7 ⇨ 3/8
- White Tiger’s Tiger Spirit 5/9 ⇨ 5/10
- Ghost: 3/4 ⇨ 3/5
- Hydro-Man: 5/8 ⇨ 5/9
- Pixie: 2/2 > 2/3
En Sabah Nur: 4/5 ⇨ 4/6
Apocalypse Celestials' Chosen: 4/8 ⇨ 4/9
Both transformed and untransformed versions of En Sabah Nur got a point. It's really like a 1.1 point buff or something since you're generally always trying to transform him, but raising the fail-case is not totally nothing. I think this card was a bit underrated in its first week and I think it's premature to buff the card. By the end of the week I already saw quite a few more effective builds with him. I think they may have jumped the gun on this one a bit.
Tiger Spirit 5/9 ⇨ 5/10
The gun jumping continues? Or perhaps this was just a way to signpost more players into playing one of the better partners for En Sabah Nur. SafetyBlade pioneered a powerful ESN build that relied on the Tiger.
SafetyBlade Tiger ESN
The beauty of this build is how budget friendly it is. If you're missing any of the cards just replace them with Medusa, Jeff, Wolfsbane, Mystique, Jubilee, or any other relevant low-series card.
Debrii: 3/7 ⇨ 3/8
I know she wasn't seeing much play and I know that the rocks can technically be downside, but 8 Power seems like a crazy stat line for a card like this, doesn't it? A 3/8 that can discount Mockingbird? That can work in Zoo and En Sabah Nur decks? The rocks can be bodies for Blue Marvel or even Valkyrie. And that's not even taking into account the “rocks” archetype that is coming later this month with the release of Ozymandias. I feel like they jumped the gun three times!
Ghost: 3/4 ⇨ 3/5
This is not so much a real buff as it is a security blanket for players who may be concerned about End of Turn. It’s still a bad idea to put this into your deck. Unless you’re just really, really, sick of losing to this one deck, then go ahead and pop Ghost in. You’re more likely to get mileage out of Super Adaptoid across a selection of games, though.
Hydro-Man: 5/8 ⇨ 5/9
Poor Hydro-Man. He's got a big body and a powerful effect that can let you play a huge card for cheap and still people didn't give him a shot. Why would you discount your Fin Fang Foom inconsistently when you can just hard pay the 7 Energy with the help of Star Lord, MotS? I do think this card is under-explored, especially as a backup/redundancy/turbo with Pixie. Pixie…?
Pixie: 2/2 > 2/3
Pixie change! Pixie change! It’s not the insane change to 1/1 that I’ve long advocated (it would be fun!), but it’s always nice when one of your personal pet cards gets a buff. I think Pixie has been a bit underrated recently. She can provide incredible Cube equity with the way her decks can create a massive information imbalance. In fact, Pixie doesn't just provide Cube equity like some cards do, she specifically provides Snap equity. It's hard for an opponent to stay in against a deck that played a Pixie and snapped because the output range is high.
PixiePat
This is just a really solid Pixie Patriot deck that I've personally been using for a couple of months. You can swap Ant-Man in for Nico and Dazzler in for Invisible Woman for the more traditional build.
Pix of Foom
Final Thoughts
So if you're keeping track that's four cards that were already good, one that was under-explored, and one that will still absolutely not be worth playing even with its buff. That's an underwhelming OTA, but it's also not one that will have no impact. I expect the play rates of all of these cards to rise in the coming week, especially that is En Sabah Nur. It's a weird OTA and one that feels a step behind and too eager in many ways, but it's not actively negative in any way. Surely they'll nerf Shou-Lao and the new Gambit next time, right?
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