Halloween patch mainly Mobuis thoughts
The second dinner Halloween patch will be a treat or trick. Patch notes can be found here.
Mobuis M Mobuis
- [Old] 2/3 – Ongoing: Your Costs can’t be increased. Your opponent’s Costs can’t be reduced.
- [New] 2/3 – On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, your Costs can’t be increased and your opponent’s Costs can’t be reduced.
Developer Note: Mobius M. Mobius has had a massive impact on the metagame, forcing a changing of the guard among top decks that saw perennial powerhouses like Zabu, Sera, and Death fall from grace in favor of decks that could push Power by just playing cards for their normal Energy Costs. While we were eager to see the world Mobius would create, we expected to make an adjustment down the road in order to welcome Cost reduction strategies back into the sunlight. Today is that day, as we’re shifting Mobius to provide a temporary counter that requires good timing to maximize the effect. This makes him trickier to set aside Energy for, kind of like Shadow King, and also opens up counters like Magik for decks that are hyper-vulnerable to Mobius being played on turn 5. We’re also interested to hear your feedback on our approach here, using a new card as a tool to create a new play environment temporarily.
There are loads to unpick here let’s start with what is changing. Mobuis is redesigned and being changed from ongoing to on reveal.
He was designed as a counter against cost reduction and cost increases. As a card, trying to do two jobs at the same time. Tech cards are cards designed to counter a specific archetype.
Here is a list of all the cards that interacted with him.
- Baron Mordo
- Beast
- Death
- Evolved abomination – High evo
- falcon
- Iceman
- Loki
- Mile morales
- Mister negative
- Quin jet
- Ravonna renslayer
- Sabretooth
- Serra
- She hulk
- Spider ham
- Stature
- Swarm
- Wave
- Zabu
The result wide range of archetypes was impacted. Therefore seen in 1/3 of decks on release before reaching settling at 1/4 of decks. A powerful effect that the game needed but overpowering. Which is why something needed to change. Now we can talk about the notes provided with this change.
Developer Note: Mobius M. Mobius has had a massive impact on the metagame, forcing a changing of the guard among top decks that saw perennial powerhouses like Zabu, Sera, and Death fall from grace in favor of decks that could push Power by just playing cards for their normal Energy Costs. While we were eager to see the world Mobius would create, we expected to make an adjustment down the road in order to welcome Cost reduction strategies back into the sunlight. Today is that day, as we’re shifting Mobius to provide a temporary counter that requires good timing to maximize the effect. This makes him trickier to set aside Energy for, kind of like Shadow King, and also opens up counters like Magik for decks that are hyper-vulnerable to Mobius being played on turn 5. We’re also interested to hear your feedback on our approach here, using a new card as a tool to create a new play environment temporarily.
The most interesting line here is we expected to make an adjustment to bring cost reduction back. Maybe I’m misreading this but strikes me as naive developers expected a shake-up but were surprised by rapid change. They knew this card design would most likely mean more balance changes are needed later down the line. I don’t think they fully understood or considered the far-ranging impact would be so quick.
When I saw this card I knew it would be impactful, I was shocked because even limited cards I owned it hit some hard. I’m still surprised that he was never a temporary effect with a body but an ongoing 2-cost card. Of course, if you have a deck based around cost reduction you would include him. If the meta is full of cost reduction that counter just makes sense.
I don’t know what the hell second dinner was thinking here. Maybe we get a better statement but the damage has been done. Mobuis should be split into two cards and something should be given to players who picked him up.