Mind Control

[Isaria]

Tidal wave is easily more predictable, Tidal Wave is only going to come out based on board control and mc is going to come every match reguardless of board control. You bring up Tidal Wave and Blood Frenzy but both those have collateral damage and MC is totally one sided.

A cost of 5 is a far justification for the lack of restrictions this spell has. Bigger they are, Harder they fall cost 4, have reqs, restrictions, no free targeting, and do 0 direct damage. Winthill Sentinal cost 4 to summon and 2 more for ability and is restricted to cost of 3 or less. Dragons Tooth cost 6, only good on 5+ and does 0 direct dmg. The hero cost 4 se and is restricted to 4 or less, does 0 direct damage. So for the cost of 4 you dont get unrestricted targeting or any direct damage but for 1 extra resource Elementals get to add both.

Not a single logical response other than it cost 5? Elementals need it because they are elemental? MC compared to any other similar or semi similar spell is hands down the most OP. Amber, if you understood anything at all about balance you would know that spells have to be on the same scale to achieve balance. When 1 spell like MC is way off the scale then how is that balance? Mind Control needs to be on the same scale as the rest of the spells and thier is no reasonable explanation of why it shouldnt be. Why not increase fireball to 5 cost and let mages autokill an ally everytime they mashed your hero for 4 dmg? Atleast MC wouldnt be on a scale by itself anymore.

[danae]

I find that Mind Control is always the most controversial card that new players pick on. I can understand why. However, I would recommend what tolerance suggested and try to play your own Elemental deck with those cards. You'll find that the card itself is hardly OP. Yes it's probably something that you would want to include in your deck in most cases but it's hardly the card that makes or break your Elemental deck.

If you search the forums for this card, you will see several threads that have been dedicated to saying that Mind Control is OP and majority of those threads have been created by new players. If those new players are around and still active, I wonder what they would say now that they're more experienced?

[BlastMan]

Mind Control has been around since 2011. the original version was op, especially when the game was not so advanced. only about half of CotC cards were out. a big portion got changed before all of CotC was out. this version of MC has been around for several years (since that change in 2011). its not OP but new players complain about it a lot. play zaladar and see. its not an easy card to play. it may seem like it, but its not. it can hurt you as well. an experienced player wont give you a good target to use it on. or will bait you with one fatty and then cast another fatty that is more effective. the lost of a round, where you cannot cast an ally, hurts you as well.

as i said, this card has been around since 2011, elementals do not dominate the meta (eventhough they probably have the most complained about cards, MC, Soul Reaper, Eternal Renewal, etc.) that alone should tell you the card is not OP.

comparing it to similar cards in the game, doesnt really matter but even in doing so, its fairly balanced. Tman507 put up a list in his post. none of them cost 5. death from above is more powerful in what it can do compared to its cost.

[tman507]

Maybe you know something I don't about Isaria, but the forum account was only made a couple of days ago to ask a card ruling (which was actually a bug), but it is seeming a lot like Isaria is a new player.

Let's be a little friendlier please!

I get that he's new, which is why we are trying to explain from the point of long time players why it isn't OP. We haven't insulted him, just explained our points. I even complimented his use of Will to Fight + Divine Connection on Fristar's thread about Will to Fight. We're just explaining the valid points on MC.

[Isaria]

Im not that new of a player, thats an assumption that was made because I only recently registered here to participate on the forumns. Compared to any other 5 cost spell in the game it is OP. No other card lets you do that much direct damage to a hero and change the board control that much at the same time. A spell that averages 4+ direct damage to a hero with potential for more and no top limit would be powerful by itself. A spell that autokill any target ally would be considered powerful by itself. MC is exactly both of those combined into 1. Its not rocket science, its weighing a simple spell, if your so "experienced" that shouldnt be that hard. Its not scaled right and it needs fixed. MC is a combo spell of direct damage and autokill so for the cost of 5 if it were scaled properly would be like a 2-3 cost direct damage spell combined with a 2-3 cost autokill spell but instead its like a 4+ cost direct damage spell combined with a 5+ cost autokill spell.

[Gondorian]

I get that he's new, which is why we are trying to explain from the point of long time players why it isn't OP. We haven't insulted him, just explained our points. I even complimented his use of Will to Fight + Divine Connection on Fristar's thread about Will to Fight. We're just explaining the valid points on MC.

I was talking to AmberFade. You've been very respectful and constructive as usual. Keep up the good work!

[tman507]

I did go ahead and watch your 3 most recent matches against Elementals Isaria, and I saw 3 MCs used in those games (maybe there's one further down where you got 3 or 4 thrown at you in a single game), but even saw one against Zal where he didn't use an MC the whole game. In another he used only 1 on your Scavenger dealing I believe 3 damage, in a game where he'd already hit you with a 10 attack Carniboar. The third game I watched he used 2 MCs against you, one spending his whole turn to kill your lone Seductress, and then toward the end to kill your Aeon (a bad guy to throw out against Elementals), but he already had a board with Kairos and Wulven Tracker that had him in charge anyway.

My point is, MC didn't win those games on its own. It helped of course (as any card worthy of putting in a deck should do), but the games were truly won by the rest of their deck.

Anyway, I've made all the points that there are to make on this, so if you still don't agree that's fine, is up to you to just continue playing and see what ways you can find to counter MC, or like me and others have suggested "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"

[Isaria]

Its more about the total effects of each use of MC, not how much of a factor it was in a couple games. 1st one your talking about does 3 direct damage and removes an ally. No other class can do that for only 5 resources or with only 1 card. On the board in this particular game I was behind and probably going to lose anyhow but I went from 11 health and a defender on board to 8 health and nothing on board. Thats a big swing for a single play from a single card.

The 3rd game that had 2, the 1st MC was huge it did 4 direct damage to my hero and removed they only ally in play stealing my board control. They play an ally 1st, I counter with seductress, they play a second ally, i counter with a buff to seductress to kill 1 and retreat the second. I had to use an ally with an ability, an attachment, and another abilty to gain control and with a single card they deal 4 damage to my hero directly and remove my ally. Thats a huge swing nobody else can do that for 5 resources or just 1 card. By time the next mc comes the game is about over but they remove Stormcaller, they do 4 direct damage and autokill a 6cc ally, nobody else gets to do that with just a single card or for only 5 resources.

[tman507]

Yes, they killed your Seductress and hit you for 4, but what else was on their board? Nothing. Therefore you had the opportunity to counter right back with another ally. As we've said, that's usually a big thing with MC, you're not improving your own board when you use it like that.

Also, you keep mentioning that "nobody else" can do anything like MC, when that's the whole point of having different classes in the game. If all classes could just use the same cards, the idea of classes would be needless. All classes have powerful things they can do that no one else can, doesn't make that thing broken. Each class has to be unique in some way.

Again though, we're mostly just repeating the same things at this point. You've heard what I've said already, so you can take it or leave it.

[Isaria]

When I said nobody else can do that I was talking about the ammount of damage and ally removal power for the ammount of resources and so few cards, not the MC spell directly. Thier is nothing unique about auto kill or direct damage, the only thing unique is the lack of restrictions and cost efficiency of this one. Its about how much damage and ally removal power MC can purchase for 5 resources vs the ammount of damage and ally removal, or simlarly effective counter measures other classes can purchase for the same ammount of resources. If you look at MC as just an autokill spell that lacked the restrictions due to the high cost that would be fine except how do you account for the direct damage then? If your paying 5 resources for unrestricted autokill that means your paying absolutly 0 resources for the direct damage part of the spell. If you look at it as a direct damage spell then your getting what would be a 3 or 4 resource DD spell and your getting an unrestricted autokill for 2 resources. And its all on 1 card which makes it high probability.

My opinion is the same, this is the only unrestricted autokill spell in the game and combined as DD spell it offers to much for to few resources. Thier are a lot of ways to fix this card but it needs a fix. Increase the cost to 7+, put restrictions on allys that can be targeted by cost, Make it a autokill only spell- creature attacks itself and dies. Make it a DD only spell-lower cost to 3 and Ally attacks its contoller but lives.