Sorry about being bold.. but are you guys gonna complain about every viable card in the game? I can see 3 nerf threads in the home page.
Some cards need to be strong for the game to be fun you know?
I don't think the card is toxic by any means, there are worse offenders in the game.. like Unyielding Spirit, Will of Ionia and Atrocity, this card is an understated card that if left unchecked wins you the game if you can't deal with it you need to make your deck.. be able to deal with it, it's a 5 mana , 4 hp backline "engine" which brings almost no tempo gain since your opponent is not gonna defend or attack with it.
I think a card needs to be nerfed when it's just too good as stand alone/auto include(Will of Ionia, old Deny), doesn't have a way to interact with it or overcentralizing(like pre nerf Hecarim).
There are tonnes of ways to deal with 4 hp backliners in every region and this one even comes kind of late as in turn 5.. if you lose to this card a lot maybe add more ways to deal with the card?
To be honest, yes. I think the meta is very unfun to play currently because people just look for the most uninteractive and auto pilot ways to win games and then put the onus of "well if your deck can't deal with it" when the game currently has an extreme shortage of answers for these uninteractive plays. I'd rather the game was more fun and a bit harder to play than everyone playing solitaire auto win decks that require to be countered in specific ways which in turn make deck building incredibly monotonous and uncreative.
I think you broke it down pretty well. I think if they remove Merchant's discount, Upped Pilfered's cost to 3 and made it steal from the bottom it would be really good. I think they could also leave in Merchant's discount and up him to a 3 cost 3/2, it would make it so stealing isn't as cheap, the advantage you get would require higher value plus you would have to do it a bit later in the game. Also you wouldn't be able to chain all these cards so easily if Merchant and Pilfered cost 1 more each.
Everyone here talking about highly synergistic and what not is kind of forgetting about the fact that most top decks literally just have good cards in them with synergy being the second checkmark they fulfill, not the main one. Unless you're playing vs Deep most of the time whatever card you steal you can use. As someone who literally climbed to Masters in 6 days with Tempo Sejuani, I can tell you the number of times I *didn't* use a stolen card was less than 5% of the cards. This bullshit of "it's a card from your opponent's deck so it isn't as good" needs to actually analize what's being played and how much synergy really matters to current top decks.
Unless this game gets a much needed meta balance change to make synergy more important decks will still just run really powerful cards that just happen to synergize well.
Edit: If you want more experience about this, I normally make my own decks and reached Plat 1 with 2 completely unique decks I made myself. When playing a friend who plays Yoink TF/Lee Sin, he started stealing cards from my deck and as he was using them they kept giving him almost 0 value and his literal words where: "Wow, this has never happened to me. I have never played against a deck that is so well built to counter it's own cards, it's like I can't use what I steal".
The reason the above happened is because I enjoy making truly synergistic decks, where synergy > card effectiveness (it's why it can't beat top decks unfortunately) and when he drew the cards they weren't as powerful without the rest of the synergy present in my deck, the fact it doesn't happen to him when he plays ranked is because top decks don't really do synergy > card effectiveness. They play good cards that happen to synergize well, but the fact that the cards are good on their own mean that when stolen they can still be used pretty effectively even when they don't synergize at all with your own deck.
I mean, using your turn 3 to summon Prankster means you have less blockers out for what is probably the turn where you summon the most amount of blockers. I don't think Prankster being 2 less mana actually affects in any way it's efficiency vs NC. As it stands NC is better in every single way, I don't think there's one scenario where I'd rather have Prankster over NC (unless you have some 1 turn combo with ephemerals that playing NC would be exactly 1-2 mana short of).
NC is incredibly non-interactive and way too efficient, it definitely needs a nerf. Possibly a reduction in health or making it more costly. I could see the card even becoming a 4 cost but losing 2 health so it can be removed much easier.
Honestly, I think Atrocity should just become a slow spell card so it can't be chained. That or Endure needs to lose overwhelm. As it stands the card basically counters it's own counter play unless you have Frostbite.
Just wanted to say, after 1 week of playing about 2 hours a day, I will stop playing until this issue is resolved. I know I am fairly new but I am moderately experienced at many card games. The current health of the card game is very horrendous and toxic to the point where only 3 factions are actually playable: Ionia, Noxus and Shadow Isles.
Trying to make a deck that doesn't contain any of those 3 will just get you obliterated by burn/aggro decks which are currently extremely overpowered. The biggest issue is, it's not fun playing against unavoidable damage, since the vast majority of burst/fast removal is only present in those 3 factions and also the vast majority of the most cost efficient sustain/heal is present in those 3 factions as well.
Burn decks require immediate removal that is literally not achievable through slow cards or units as they will have already done their damage anyways. Not only that but the "unavoidable" damage is extremely high, with most burn decks being able to win by turn 5 even when their opponent is playing efficiently/well against them. So many cards are able to deal 1/6th - 1/4th of your total hp of unavoidable damage by turn 4 while ALSO being units that can attack (dealing even more damage) and defend. Then you add in the fact that most of these units have relatively high health pool which further diminishes the amount of possible decks that could even try to contend with it as you must be able to play monsters with enough damage to take them out as soon as possible.
I hope this gets patched soon but the current game is very unfun to play and these decks comprise about 2/3rds of the decks I face against at the very least.
This. It isn't a contradiction at all.
To be honest, yes. I think the meta is very unfun to play currently because people just look for the most uninteractive and auto pilot ways to win games and then put the onus of "well if your deck can't deal with it" when the game currently has an extreme shortage of answers for these uninteractive plays. I'd rather the game was more fun and a bit harder to play than everyone playing solitaire auto win decks that require to be countered in specific ways which in turn make deck building incredibly monotonous and uncreative.
I think you broke it down pretty well. I think if they remove Merchant's discount, Upped Pilfered's cost to 3 and made it steal from the bottom it would be really good. I think they could also leave in Merchant's discount and up him to a 3 cost 3/2, it would make it so stealing isn't as cheap, the advantage you get would require higher value plus you would have to do it a bit later in the game. Also you wouldn't be able to chain all these cards so easily if Merchant and Pilfered cost 1 more each.
Everyone here talking about highly synergistic and what not is kind of forgetting about the fact that most top decks literally just have good cards in them with synergy being the second checkmark they fulfill, not the main one. Unless you're playing vs Deep most of the time whatever card you steal you can use. As someone who literally climbed to Masters in 6 days with Tempo Sejuani, I can tell you the number of times I *didn't* use a stolen card was less than 5% of the cards. This bullshit of "it's a card from your opponent's deck so it isn't as good" needs to actually analize what's being played and how much synergy really matters to current top decks.
Unless this game gets a much needed meta balance change to make synergy more important decks will still just run really powerful cards that just happen to synergize well.
Edit: If you want more experience about this, I normally make my own decks and reached Plat 1 with 2 completely unique decks I made myself. When playing a friend who plays Yoink TF/Lee Sin, he started stealing cards from my deck and as he was using them they kept giving him almost 0 value and his literal words where: "Wow, this has never happened to me. I have never played against a deck that is so well built to counter it's own cards, it's like I can't use what I steal".
The reason the above happened is because I enjoy making truly synergistic decks, where synergy > card effectiveness (it's why it can't beat top decks unfortunately) and when he drew the cards they weren't as powerful without the rest of the synergy present in my deck, the fact it doesn't happen to him when he plays ranked is because top decks don't really do synergy > card effectiveness. They play good cards that happen to synergize well, but the fact that the cards are good on their own mean that when stolen they can still be used pretty effectively even when they don't synergize at all with your own deck.
I mean, using your turn 3 to summon Prankster means you have less blockers out for what is probably the turn where you summon the most amount of blockers. I don't think Prankster being 2 less mana actually affects in any way it's efficiency vs NC. As it stands NC is better in every single way, I don't think there's one scenario where I'd rather have Prankster over NC (unless you have some 1 turn combo with ephemerals that playing NC would be exactly 1-2 mana short of).
NC is incredibly non-interactive and way too efficient, it definitely needs a nerf. Possibly a reduction in health or making it more costly. I could see the card even becoming a 4 cost but losing 2 health so it can be removed much easier.
Honestly, I think Atrocity should just become a slow spell card so it can't be chained. That or Endure needs to lose overwhelm. As it stands the card basically counters it's own counter play unless you have Frostbite.
Just wanted to say, after 1 week of playing about 2 hours a day, I will stop playing until this issue is resolved. I know I am fairly new but I am moderately experienced at many card games. The current health of the card game is very horrendous and toxic to the point where only 3 factions are actually playable: Ionia, Noxus and Shadow Isles.
Trying to make a deck that doesn't contain any of those 3 will just get you obliterated by burn/aggro decks which are currently extremely overpowered. The biggest issue is, it's not fun playing against unavoidable damage, since the vast majority of burst/fast removal is only present in those 3 factions and also the vast majority of the most cost efficient sustain/heal is present in those 3 factions as well.
Burn decks require immediate removal that is literally not achievable through slow cards or units as they will have already done their damage anyways. Not only that but the "unavoidable" damage is extremely high, with most burn decks being able to win by turn 5 even when their opponent is playing efficiently/well against them. So many cards are able to deal 1/6th - 1/4th of your total hp of unavoidable damage by turn 4 while ALSO being units that can attack (dealing even more damage) and defend. Then you add in the fact that most of these units have relatively high health pool which further diminishes the amount of possible decks that could even try to contend with it as you must be able to play monsters with enough damage to take them out as soon as possible.
I hope this gets patched soon but the current game is very unfun to play and these decks comprise about 2/3rds of the decks I face against at the very least.