I have been playing since day 1 and founded MTGGoldfish but do not talk much on here. I am frustrated so I figured I would say something. I bought Baral and he was nerfed because of his repetitive mana gains. After facing and losing to a lot of Omniscience decks I am truly wondering why this card has not been nerfed. I think it is better then Baral due to the fact that it can pay for multiple 20+ mana cards and be a turn 2 kill. Not big on complaining but this seems like a blatant oversight.
Some of my guildmates went perfect in HoD with Omniscience decks except for Samut. Anyone who says the card isn’t amazing in competitive play is perhaps not utilizing it properly. The card is super broken rather you use it as a loop engine a deploy spam engine or simply an amazing complement to virtually any high mana curve deck.
Just one remark : Baral was nerfed not because it was too powerful but because players were facing long AI loops
https://forums.505go.com/discussion/63079/v2-0-release-notes-4-27-17
“This change will remove the infinite cycling ability Baral has while keeping his strong affinity for spells”
So the fact that it was too strong had nothing to do with it. But they should consider it is a really good reason to nerf a card and Omniscience and Swarm should in my opinion get the treatment also. And let’s hope Ixalan will not come with new obviously overpowered cards
Broken as broken gets. Somehow the dev team missed this. I bought Baral and it was so broken the game became unplayable/no fun. Omniscience is even more broken than Baral. Not sure how this was missed. I love compiling loop decks that are a pain to deal with. But it takes out much of the fun in working these out when you just need one card for everything - Omniscience. As much as I hate to say it, the card does need the nerf hammer. Sorry, but a game needs opponents worth fighting against. Rage quitting games takes out the meaning of the game.
I have not faced a deck that does not use it as a crazy loop engine.
It feels like a "rage quit "card, for sure.
That said…
I just won the lottery and plucked one from the Masterpieces vault, so please don’t nerf it until I have had my way abusing all of you with it.
@Esdjco82
Thanks for founding a great website. Saffron’s article about Puzzle Quest is what originally led me to this game. I very much enjoy your content.
Sorry not the website the coalition. Richard started that site and cleared all the naming stuff with him. I was such a fan that i named my coalition that. So no official ties just casual.
These game designers have been slow to recognize the dangers behind free mana (Baral, Cycling, Omniscience), and the abuse that comes with it.
I have to disagree with you slightly. New Perspectives is the issue rather than cycling itself. Without New perspectives, there isn’t any “free mana” for cycling.
Yes, I should have been more explicit. When I said cycling, I meant NP, which is the engine. MtG the card game has been burned by printing “Engine” cards over the years, cards which completely break the game.
MtG:PQ should learn from these examples, and be extra careful when it comes to creating cards that could potentially be used as “Engines”.
Yeah, but nope.
I do find it hilarious that Hibernum increased the cycling cost of all the cards in HOR, but left all the cycling costs on AKH as they were. Did they think they were fixing something? Or did they just not care by that point? Thinking about it, they also printed a 2/2 zombie for 2, didn’t they, although you don’t draw a card off it…
[edit]Tried to get that card link working, but I gave up in the end.
I totally agree that Omniscience should be nerfed. And I own the card. The question is “how.” Do you just reduce the cost of cards by a certain number? 12? 16, even?
As for a fix I do not have an answer. Will think on it. I just know that when I see it drop onto the board I have 1 or 2 turns to win and that is too powerful for this game.
The difference between Baral and Omni is that one is a mythic and one is a masterpiece — I maintain masterpieces should be more powerful than mythics and they shouldn’t be compared as to which is more broken. Also again — Omni is only broken if you have other key cards to make it sing — and also if you pull it. I have insane Omni decks that have lost simply because they depend on it and it wasn’t pulled.
Which is why I say you need lots of card draw and/or Whir of invention in every Omniscience deck. If the AI could pilot my Saheeli deck, and was widespread like baral Niblis decks, the call for nerfs would be way louder.
I contend AI can pilot omniscience decks (Just not as well as humans) to a win at a rate that is above healthy standards. This is a slippery slope card and just wanted to bring it to light.
Omniscience in this game is, interestingly, weaker than its paper counterpart as in paper magic it just makes every card you play free until the enchantment goes away (or support in this case). It doesn’t get weaker based on how many spells you cast for free.
Granted, they needed to adjust the card considering how this game works, most notably because of your limitless library. I’ve yet to run up against it, but on the surface, even I would say that the card is correct for what it’s based on, and it’s all the other cards you can play alongside it that break it. Omniscience, like many other cards, would be more balance if deck size limits were a thing. If you couldn’t just tutor up 8 copies of it with Whir of Invention to keep the free spells engine running, then it wouldn’t be broken. If it could potentially make you lose the game from drawing out your library, then it wouldn’t be broken.
Side note, I will say that just because it’s a masterpiece doesn’t give it an excuse to be an overpowered card, and that regardless of rarity, no card should be overly oppressive.
It’s stronger in paper MTG if you ignore the fact it costs 7UUU. Which, I guess, you can do with Vintage/Legacy cards like Show and Tell. Does Omniscience see any play in Modern?
WotC learned that rarity is not a good reason for power. So power is now balanced by mana rather than by rarity. I do stand that “unique” cards can be rare due to some specialized effect … but not because it is so powerful it can make a player call it “daddy” by the end of the match. haha
The funny thing is, Omniscience (and Swarm) are actually post-nerf, if you think about it. The first broken support combo was Gonti’s Aether Heart, which could go (relatively) infinite fairly easily. The nerf was to make it “count down” each time it triggered, thus solving the problem. The devs probably figured the same solution would work in this case. It would work, too, if not for cards that fetch out supports.
I still think the only really broken card is Era of Innovation