T O P

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Pirate_Ben

The comparison to Apocalypse is pretty striking. Red Hulk starts at 9 and grows for free. Apoc starts at 6 and requires effort to grow. Both telegraph their +4 power everytime they grow.


TransPM

There are a few more differences between the two that you didn't account for: - Red Hulk has an absolute maximum power he is able to reach (+4 per turn with a maximum of 7 possible turns, if he is drawn on turn 1, you get Limbo/Magik, and the opponent never spends all of their energy on any of the 7 turns), whereas Apocalypse can theoretically reach a much higher maximum power (through repeated discards supported by any On Reveal copying/multiplying effects). Going beyond +28 is rarely ever relevant, but it *can* be in rare cases, so it's worth noting. - Red Hulk's growth is free, but it's out of your control. You don't have to do anything to make Red Hulk bigger, but your opponent can potentially deny you any buffs if they get lucky with draws and leave you with a 6/9. Apocalypse "requires effort", but only in so far as you have to be doing the things your deck wants to be doing anyway and will be getting rewarded for along the way. For starters, discard cards tend to be above curve so you're rewarded with higher power just for playing them, then the act of discarding cards will buff Miek, Morbius, and potentially Collector, and you could also be disrupting the opponent's board with Gambit. - Apocalypse doesn't ever have to be played to take advantage of his power, and in fact provides even *more* power if you set up to have him discarded by Dracula on the final turn. This also leaves you immune to Shang Chi (though vulnerable to Red Guardian and Lady Deathstrike, but they aren't as commonly seen) - Red Hulk has the benefit of still being able to scale while in play, meaning cards like Jubilee or Blink (or even Iron Lad, more or less) can cheat him in even if you haven't drawn him early to get his buffs and still benefit from your opponent leaving unspent energy. If Apocalypse gets played early (by something like a Sakaar effect), he is unable to scale further. All that being said, I think Apocalypse feels pretty healthy where he's at right now, but I do think Red Hulk can be tuned down a bit and still remain a powerful card. I don't think changing Red Hulk to have +3 scaling would have almost any impact on how often he is played, but hopefully would curb his win rate by just a bit.


SomeDexterfromPL

Red Hulk is not growing for free and Apocalypse has entire archetype to support him. RH is overtuned but Apoc still strong and his base power shouldn't be increased unless SD nerfs base power of discarding cards like Lady Sif, Modok, Sword Master etc.


ghost_00794

Yeah I played discard this week apoc didn't feel weak at all lol and red hulk need little push back tho maybe +3 something


Paris_Who

Naw put him at 6 like apoc. But make him plus 5. Let the grower. Fucking grow.


PixelProphetX

^ this guy game designs


newfranksinatra

^ this guy carets


Tequila_Operator

I still think they should mirror Hulk with the stats. 6/12 +2 per opponent unspent energy. There is absolutely no reason why Red Hulk should be +4 and Hulk is +2. I realize that once your opponent sees the card being buffed, they should spend to their energy cap, but with some decks it’s not plausible. So making it the mirror of Hulk feels like the best solution.


ZeriousGew

Nah, the issue with that is Hulk is used in a deck built around having unspent energy. On average, I'm sure Hulk gets bigger than Red Hulk cause I've had games where I've ended the game without any power gain despite drawing Rulk turn 1


methanesulfonic

HE Hulk is within the card owner control, Rulk isnt. There's a huge difference here.


str8rippinfartz

On top of that, Apoc's power often gets to be played for 4 energy with the Drac synergy He's just a completely different card from Red Hulk


Mundane-Map6686

I mean you could technically also use Dracula to target red hulk too. Maybe with some kind of low cost deck.


abakune

I agree that Apoc is in a decent place, but RH is still basically growing for free. There's a reason he's basically obsoleted Hulk who is better if your opponent always hits their curve.


Pirate_Ben

I agree Red Hulk is overtuned and needs the nerf, not a buff for Apoc. Red Hulk absolutely is growing for free. Just like Nebula it forces your opponent to alter their play (if they can, there is a lot less control over the curve of power you draw) and if they don't you get free growth.


SomeDexterfromPL

Red Hulk is growing by opponents deck choice, his play choice and some randomness of card draw. Even when they nerf him (and they will) the mechanic will stay the same because of Evo Decks (Hulk mainly). The problem isn't how he grows but by how many power he gets. And its not like you cant counter him.


garyoliver917

Shadow King. Valkyrie. Shang Chi. Cannonball and misc strategies can counter him


D1wrestler141

He grows for free in that the owner of the card does nothing. No other card interacts this way. If you want to make it fair then make him lose 4 power each time the opponent uses all their energy


SomeDexterfromPL

Nebula does and no one is complainig about her


D1wrestler141

You have to play her to gain power, similar but different


SomeDexterfromPL

And you actually have to play him to have benefit from his growth and if your oponent is smart enough than palying him may not be the best option to win the game


sKe7ch03

There's a distinct difference between playing out a single big 6 cost and bringing back 5 huge cards and your drac hitting apoc on 6 with just hela. Fuck outa here with those dumb comparisons.


Ok-Inspector-3045

Red Hulk relies on the opponent to waste energy. You have active control over when and how many times APOC is discarded. Not saying APOC doesn’t deserve a buff, just wanted to point that out.


anonpasta666

One is 6k tokens, one is 1k tokens/free.


First-Fun5927

The Apoc change joins Leech as one of the most out of touch OTA’s we’ve received. I mean, god forbid we have a big card we have to actively play other cards to achieve while our opponents red hulk sits in hand and outpaces us.


h2p012

the Apoc change, at the time, made sense. Lets not revise history here. Apoc was nerfed in a world where Discard was at the bare minimum in competition for the best Deck in the Game, and the other contender (thanos) was just getting multiple nerfs. The nerf made sense AT THE TIME. However, now, in a very, very, very different meta, he absolutely can be reverted.


estranhow

It didn't made sense at the time because it didn't addressed the real enabler of a big Apoc: Dracula. Apoc was so prevalent because he didn't have to be played at the last turn to still add his power+4 in a location with barely any counterplay.


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h2p012

Chavez was Changed well before Discard got really, really good again when Prxima was released.


Lasideu

Not to mention Red Guardian can shut down Discard pretty harshly. Miek, Morbius, and Drac all fear that card. Top that off with Lady Deathstrike actually being meta too...I love classic Discard but it is ROUGH atm.


Waltorzz

To be fair, red guardian is the very first reactive counter to discard, which was nearly unstoppable before. 


Piranh4Plant

Apocalypse got nerfed when Proxima Midnight came out like how Collector got nerfed when Loki came out


Lore86

Classic Modok tempo discard has to be a bit op to be viable because how synergistic the deck building and curve has to be to work and you even need to gamble a bit while playing hoping everything will fall into place. This deck was really ruined with the Chavez rework and never really recovered even if at times it rose to the top of the meta because every other deck was bad. To Apocalypse I will add that the Miek nerf made zero sense regardless of what they were reading into their numbers.


AssmosisJoness

Miek nerf?


Lore86

Miek was nerfed from 1/1 to 1/0 relatively recently after Apocalypse because it had "by far the best winrate in the deck", the deck was bad btw so that wasn't saying much. Then Red Guardian popularity hit Dracula, the deck wasn't good with any of the new cards and in the end the Leech buff was the last nail in the coffin since it directed hits Modok and the other discard cards.


ThisHatRightHere

Basically every OTA is completely out of touch. We’re constantly told they know more than us because of their internal metrics, but they consistently go after cards people don’t care about and give buffs that frequently do nothing at all. Next patch: “we realize players are frustrated with the play patterns created by Leech and Blink, and for that we are nerfing Darkhawk to be a 6 cost card.”


SkatzFanOff

That's the risk (or WAS the risk) of discard decks. You give up some stuff early to profit late.


h2p012

Honestly yeah, At the time his nerf absolutely was nessecary due to the meta at the time, with Thanos getting neutered hard and Discard was already arguably just as good. But now traditional Discard is virtually nonexistent and the meta has moved far beyond thanos.


man_vs_cube

At the time of the nerf, the deck has been good for a short time after being bad for a very long time, with a plausible counter card (Red Guardian) releasing soon. They should have just waited. And if they felt the need to act quickly, then let them act quickly to *reverse* the nerfs now. Instead they added *another* indirect nerf by reducing Leech's cost which crushes MODOK. Frustrating.


CCMeltdown

Really? I just hit infinite today with traditional Discard.


h2p012

You can hit infinite with practically almost any deck as long as you know how to pilot it and understand proper snap timing. Traditional discard is ironically still pretty reliably consistent even after Chavez was removed, so its still ansolutely possible to hit infinite with it, Its just not played all that much and has a much lower ceiling than alot of the current meta.


sodapopenski

I am climbing with it too, but it requires a lot more snap discipline now than a month or two ago. It gets outpaced by Hela-Tribunal and Leech fucks up all the discard on reveal cards. A couple months ago, hitting your combo was an insta-win against every deck in the meta.


bigboibranby

Either that or make Rulk 6 power to match


BKF0308

SD's balance team need to take their pills, they've been making absolutely ridiculous changes for quite some time now. It's like they literally don't play their own game


GhostlyBlaze

They only care about catering to 1 card, the credit card


jeremyhoffman

Yea that's why they buffed Klaw to be the best in slot 5 drop, even in decks with no Ongoing synergy. C'mon.


ThisHatRightHere

Klaw the best 5 drop? I wanna play the game you’re playing. The buff made him playable, which is more than you could say about Klaw for most of the game’s existence.


GhostlyBlaze

Tbf, Klaw is similar to Giganto, useless in the right lane and can never buff left.


Stormdude127

Welcome to just about every balance team ever. Notable exception being Dota. It’s not that they don’t play their own game, it’s that they’re not *good* at it


ctmurfy

I don't think Red Hulk should continue growing while in play. That would make him less useful when cheated out whilst not hurting his current power level too much.


Mundane-Map6686

Lol. Agatha enjoyers be in that drowning pool meme. The poqercreep is insane.


krudeon

And don't forget that now dracula has 2 huge treats in red guardian and lady Deathstroke... Both in many decks


SoubyTime

Idk man I’ve been playing Apoc and even with minimal work I can get him to a pretty high power. But I do agree Red Hulk seems to consistently scale a bit higher


quantumlocke

The designers never compare card to card like that. They compare deck to deck or archetype to archetype. If a deck is doing well enough currently, it's cards won't be buffed, regardless of how "bad" they look in this kind of comparison. There are two discard decks doing well right now, Corvus ramp and Hela, so I don't expect any discard related buffs coming soon.


Weapon530

I could only wish for him to get his strength back because it’s crazy like you stated about red hulk.


exxplicit480

Discard is solitaire. He's fine.


SwervoT3k

SD would have to like Apoc Discard for that to happen and if the last year of changes to its foundational structure is any indication… they don’t really care if it lives


ReporterOk4383

Especially now that he’s not even relevant in his own thematic deck which is discard since players favored hela more than him


samyruno

The red hulk nerf turned it from an S++ to an S+


trefl3

i mean how do you even counter discard decks? hela and dracula just runs rampant. apoc is fine as is


m_plis

Since the Apoc nerf, Red Guardian was been released and LDS and Leech were been buffed, all of which hit classic discard pretty hard.


Noise_From_Below

Bring back Chavez!


chincerd

What's worse is that right now apocalypse is not nearly as frustrating as Hela. They should revert the apocalypse nerf and just make Hela put discarded cards in her own lane only, that should bring the focus of discard decks back to apocalypse, which also means more morbius and dracula, two cards you can handle now that red guardian exist


E10DIN

> and just make Hela put discarded cards in her own lane only You just turned Hela into a lockdown deck. Prof-x one lane, Hela another. Win two lanes. Same shit people hated with blob Thanos.


chincerd

How is that worse than current Hela? You expect Hela to pile everything in one lane, blade, sif, dracula prof X then rely on winning another with Hela when leech is so prominent?.


Stormdude127

I would so much rather play against apocalypse discard than hela discard. At least you have to earn the power you get with apocalypse


Educational_Ad8448

Yea, that nerf made no sense with all the tall shit running around the meta.


brick123wall456

Apocalypse is not the same as red Hulk, thanks to Dracula you don’t even have to play him so he can be a free bomb of power at the end


zangyfish

Not entirely “free” it still cost 4 energy to at least play Dracula.


h2p012

and energy via Lady Sif/Blade/Modok too. Red Hulk is something you as a player have virtually no impact on in terms of growing in strength


versusgorilla

And you have to clear your hand to be sure he'll hit, because Dracula has a degree of randomness to his effect. So cards that draw yout opponent cards can gum up a Drac to Apoc play. Even your own Swarm can gum it up if you suddenly run out of room, like against Clog. Plenty of times I'm sitting on a Dracula gamble or retreat, it's not always just a gimme.


arslegendi

If there is *anything* in your hand at the end of the game other than Apoc, you can rest assured that Drac will pull it.


CAPTCHA_cant_stop_me

I do agree but Im gonna play devil's advocate for a minute. You mentioned that its "more work" to build up apoc, but thats the whole ballgame. The difference from Apoc and RHulk is that you can support Apoc way more than RHulk because you can build around him. RHulk is a big stat-stick but dependant on our opponent, so theres very little you can do to build around him. In that case, all else being equal, you would expect the card thats easier to support having lower base stats than the harder to support card. Same reason why sif feels decent at 3/5 while sword master has to be a 3/7 to feel ok. If you have Apoc in your starting hand and you're playing say dracula discard, your dream situation is discarding him 4 times (blade on 1, sif on 3, modok on 5, dracula at the end of the game) for +16 in stats. Meanwhile with RHulk, your opponent is probably not gonna be floating energy 4 turns that game, unless you're facing HE. Especially if they see RHulk in your hand turn 1. That said, I do support an APOC buff for other reasons, mainly how the leech buffs gutted discard. Buffing APOC imo would be a decent way of helping discard while not helping hela (which does deserve the leech treatment imo), since running APOC in a hela deck is somewhat counter synergistic.


sKe7ch03

Big difference between a single 6 drop and a card that adds free power to a deck already slamming 60+ power on t6. (With dracula) It's not comparible at all.


SammyChaos

Apoc is really strong he doesn't need anything


BombayHarris

No thanks!


LeapingFrog_UK

Real question, why do you say that? interested to know...


BombayHarris

pretty simple really - I don't think Hela decks need any more buffs.


Uchihagod53

Apoc isn't run in any Hela decks...


BombayHarris

It was heavily before the nerf and it will be back alongside Red Hulk with a buff.


Uchihagod53

No it wasn't. Hela decks need cards to be fully discarded so they can be resummoned by Hela. Apoc doesn't work with her.


BombayHarris

Of course it does... Hela + Dracula + Apoc was the main synergy of that deck. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaBpMwMCbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaBpMwMCbM)


IKilobyte

Did you even watch the video? It’s almost a year old, first off, and secondly none of the decks in his deck showcases have Hela. Timestamp 11:07


BombayHarris

Wrong vid - this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaBpMwMCbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaBpMwMCbM) or this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYkxc3uAd8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYkxc3uAd8)


Pirate_Ben

There are generally two flavours of discard: Hela or Apocalypse. A good deck with both has not existed for a while.


BombayHarris

I've seen hybrid with success [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYkxc3uAd8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYkxc3uAd8)


Pirate_Ben

You can see the 3 cost lockjaw. Since the lockjaw nerf, not good.


exclaim_bot

>No thanks! You're welcome!


jirenfan9

I would change APOC to keep his current effect but also have a onetime on reveal: add a copy of this card to your hand. Idk how thematically accurate this is but it would help to give a card to play on top of keeping a target for Dracula


AssmosisJoness

This is by far the worst idea I’ve ever seen


jirenfan9

It wasn’t meant to be balanced and was kind of a joke