I suggest Volcano be removed and replaced with a Firestorm-like mechanic. I have never liked this card and now that it is more common (on more items) and more enticing (with Accelerate Time) it is becoming a plague. It is the only attack that requires no LoS (line of sight) and cannot be blocked. I understand that there are counters after the fact, but you cannot proactively defend against a volcano attack. I would envision either the single change of adding a range OR requiring LoS. It think adding a range makes the most sense since LoS would allow the caster's party to be exempt which is an important mechanic to keeping Volcano from being OP. I understand it is a Gold card and should be powerful, but it completely changes the match when someone has a volcano wizard. If everyone played a Volcano centric build this game would be super boring. Anyone who is pro-Volcano want to weigh in? I am sure there must be players who like it otherwise I would never see it in MP.
I've personally never had much problem with Volcano. Volcano can be countered if you play carefully, saving movement cards and noticing when your opponent passes when they should be moving to a Victory square. Losing to Volcano is very similar to losing to a buffed Laser Thrust, or some AoA combo. Sometimes you just lose. And sure, Volcano is powerful, but I don't think it needs to be nerfed.
This pretty much applies to every build there is. Removing / nerfing Volcano would decrease the build options and make the game more homogeneous.
Volcano can not simply be "played around" reliably now that Accelerate Time exists. Decks like this can render most builds totally helpless with a good draw, and that shouldn't be possible. Volcano was powerful before, but I'm convinced it needs a nerf now that Accelerate Time (which otherwise is not overpowered) has been introduced. Please note that I'm not stating these "accelerated volcano" decks are unbeatable, but they do make for very, very poor, one-sided games when they work. Much like "burft" decks (which I think almost everyone would agree need a swing of the nerf bat), they're capable of ending matches before teams even gain line-of-sight of one another. This is not fun and should not be possible. All that being said, I'm not sure what the actual nerf should be. A range requirement seems like the most straightforward, but I'm not sure it could help enough without making the card useless. Perhaps it should instead generate 'molten' terrain that only deals 5 damage?
I think it really depends what you want to have. Yes, the decks are much more swingy. You play a high risk deck with a high peak. It is a lot like the combo decks in Magic the Gathering. Or the land destruction decks. Both have been nerfed in Magic for Standard and now everything is Midrange. Midrangy Midrange, Midrange Aggro, Midrange Control, ... I am not happy with these changes. I like diversity in games. And you definitly can play around volcano. There are plenty ways to get Team Walks, Sprint Teams, Force Fields and other things. Edit: Should Sprint Team also be nerfed than? It is possible to play around, but often enough you can not effort to.
Is there anything more satisfying than killing the wizard in a 2x Priest, 1x Wiz deck, and then watch them spend hand after hand of Cleansing Ray and Bless with little ability to do damage?
Man I miss playing my land destruction deck, nothing like watching someone's veins pop out of their forehead as they look at a hand full of spells they can't cast especially with the artifact that did damage for high number of cards in hand... But then inevitably you would have the LD duel which became the MtG equivalent of taking turns watching paint dry. Even before Accelerate Time I thought Volcano was out of balance (and I never liked lava doing 8 points of damage with wizards having the only immunity to fire damage before the expansion) and now the signs of OP are starting to show. Volcano went from a card on 6 items to 10 and with 9 items with AT there are lots of different ways to gain access to this combo. Compare it to Sprint, Team! and the difference is the ST! doesn't do any damage. I've had plenty of chance to play against ST! and it backfires pretty often and the most you can have is 6 and that is stacking 3 Human Warriors which I haven't seen once (note to self Thundercats on the move build). Compare it to Burfst style builds and you require a build specifically tuned for a card combo and an interaction between 2 characters and even then you can use blocks, you can be out of range and you don't have to hold onto moves like they are Emerald cards. Excluding Team Walk there are no single card counters to Volcano and that is another gold card which is harder to get than Volcano... Maybe the issue isn't Volcano but with the fact that someone could load up and have 12 on a wizard, assuming Electroporter Novice (which is OP) and a 1 trait pair of booths that 12/32 cards, which means the odds of drawing 1 is less than 1 in 3 meaning the expectation is that you should have 1 or more in your initial draw and certainly have drawn one by round 3. Thankfully not many players have 2 Mordecai's, but will it become the new VP where you get one and instantly your rating grows? Well this was food for thought and not me expecting a change until the meta becomes flooded with Volcano based builds.
Bless works for priests, but is very pricey. For wizards, one Smoke Bomb may work depending upon positioning. Team Shift is another option, but is as difficult to get as Team Walk. Are Volcano/AT builds dominating top tier? I don't keep track, but I wouldn't really expect to see nerfs unless that happens.
Elvish Scamper is also a single card counter, but yeah, you're not going to be able to counter all the Volcanoes.
Mana denial is a bad mechanic in every card game I've seen where it exists. There's no fun in being stuck unable to play cards indefinitely. Back on topic... Yes, Sprint, Team! is overpowered as well. My personal opinion is that it should move teammates (not push them) and all Sprint cards should only move 6.
^^^LOL... I was going to agree with the 6 not the move... but the move part can be dangerous, because then you can have flight aura for example allow someone to Fly across the board.
I think volcano makes for very interesting games for a lot of the reasons already mentioned. It's also not a top tier strategy, so I don't really see a reason why it should be nerfed... I bet it totally could have been OP if that one X2 accelerate time item made it through the EttSC testing though
well as usual i am in the minority opinion... so i will end my whining... but i think we will see if this changes over time... okay NOW I will stop whining
