How is Elder Gargaroth Remotely Balanced?
General forum
Posted on June 26, 2020, 12:48 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I would like to apologize in advance for frequently making this type of thread, but this is a subject that I must discuss, as it is severely bothering me.
Creatures have been becoming more powerful, recently, which is great, but I feel that some recent creatures have been too powerful, such as Baneslayer Angel, which is a 5/5 creature with five abilities for 5 mana; if she cost 7, or even 6, mana, she would have been balanced, in my mind, but 5 mana is too low for a creature of her power.
Despite that, in Core Set 2021, WotC has printed Elder Gargaroth, which is even more blatantly overpowered and/or undercosted than is Baneslayer Angel; a 6/6 creature with no abilities for five mana may once have been too powerful, but, today, it not; however, a 6/6 creature with three keywords and a triggered ability that provides three options for a mere five mana is so ridiculously overpowered that I must wonder if the staff at WotC were intoxicated when they designed it. Even worse, it is not even legendary! I feel that 7 or 8 mana would have been more appropriate for this creature (using Akroma, Angel of Wrath or Sphinx of the Steel Wind as guidelines), but this is simply too much for too little mana; did WotC not learn anything from Baneslayer Angel?
What does everyone else here say about this? How is Elder Gargaroth remotely balanced?
DemonDragonJ increasing the cc will make it unplayable outside of commander... This card is fairly balanced
January 7, 2021 3:20 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Omniscience_is_life, that is funny, because I actually think that Prophet of Kruphix is perfectly balanced, although I do agree that Uro is very overpowered.
January 7, 2021 4:29 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #5
Prophet is really not balanced at all.
Let's break it down: At the beginning of your end step, take X extra turns where X is the number of opponents you have. You skip your draw step during those turns, artifacts you control don't untap, and you can only cast creatures, instants, and cards with flash during those turns. You can't play lands during those turns.
What part of that is perfectly balanced? I mean, if you don't have any card draw, it's fine. Wow, you emptied your hand, not all that scary in EDH. But add something like, I don't know, Rhystic Study to back it up and you literally get to take 4 turns while your opponents get to play one each. It becomes a 4v3, where it once was a 1v1v1v1 or 1v3 or sometimes 2v2.
is it broken? Eeeeeh maybe in EDH if you run enough card draw and enough mana dorks and creatures that actually impact the game. But it entirely imbalances the game. That's what it does. That's its entire purpose.
Uro, on the other hand, is better in 1v1 due to the fact that it makes each of your turns 1.5 turns, meaning every two turns you've sort of taken 3 while your opponent has taken 2. He's fine in EDH because he'd be giving you 3 turns against a total of 6 turns, or 6 against 12, etc.
They're both imbalanced. Not really broken, but they are imbalanced.
January 7, 2021 4:48 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
TriusMalarky, Seedborn Muse is not banned in EDH, but is nearly identical to the prophet; is exchanging the untapping of artifacts for the ability to cast of creature spells as if they had flash really that significant of an effect?
January 7, 2021 10:40 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
At this point, the majority of users here seem to believe that Elder Gargaroth is not overpowered, so that many users cannot be wrong, so I shall concede that it is not overpowered, but I still feel that it either should have cost 1 more mana or had 1 lower power and toughness.
January 8, 2021 7:38 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
magwaaf, I avoid rotating formats, because I dislike needing to build new decks constantly; why are you asking? Were there overpowered cards in standard, at that time?
January 8, 2021 7:39 a.m.
Metachemist says... #10
DemonDragonJ consider at this point, that there have been more bannings in the last 12 months than in the last decade, iirc. Elder Gargaroth wasn't even part of a discussion of any of the bannings.
January 8, 2021 11:07 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #11
DemonDragonJ Seedborn Muse reads "you may activate Thrasios once each turn, unless you use that mana on countermagic"
Prophet reads "you have 4 turns, but you don't draw cards and you can't cast artifacts, enchantments or sorceries during 3 of those turns". I don't know about you, but having only one turn to cast my powerful artifacts enchantments and sorceries and getting to use everything else on my other 3 turns seems pretty fine to me, especially because half the creatures in the game get 100% better with the Flash keyword.
The difference between "extra countermagic and Thrasios activations on my 3 extra turns" and "I can play Thrasios and activate him at instant speed and also all of my combo pieces are instant speed and also most of my value engines are instant speed and also a significant portion of my ramp is instant speed and I still get 4 turns" is pretty big.
January 8, 2021 6:23 p.m.
@demondragpnj morphing was far more powerful and damn impossible to deal with and playing against it was a nightmare
Also I can't really take your argument serious if you are going to complain about a card's power in casual and edh only. you have to look at it from all angles outside of limited to tell its power level. Even in edh this card is nowhere near broken.
As far as real constructed goes, if a card has all this and it still isn't good enough to be played then its definitely balanced.
Keqing420 says... #1
if you think its overpowered, build a deck based around it for Modern format, and let us know your FNM results. please do this in the future "before" coming here to talk about "power creep". and i say this as someone who absolutely loves Elder Gargaroth and thinks its a powerhouse in standard and can be great even in pioneer, but i also don't think its so powerful as to warp either format.
January 7, 2021 2:20 p.m.