This got me thinking, but I didn't to clog up the thread with it. Brian Min didn't like the 2-mind rule and he had a very good reason for it.Bruce wrote:Intervention on existing rules and/or cards is justified whether its benefits are clearly greater than its costs. In other words, whether they fix unanimously acknowledged faults. Not by chance the only precedent was the Balrog 2-mind rule, which fixed an imbalance, and was welcomed by the whole community and didn't create any rift. Nevertheless, I consider this as a pretty unique case: an abuse of such intervention may lead to endless conflicts
The Balrog's character selection sucks. The Balrog has access to two 3 MP characters and two Unique 2 MP characters. That's it.
The first response is, "Well, what's the problem? Let him play them, then!
The problem is Balrog vs. Balrog. Given that whoever plays the Balrog first is likely to win, the fact that both players will likely be bouncing the big-name unique characters is a problem. The essentially free character MP was meant to mitigate this.
There really isn't a problem with the Balrog's ability to rapidly accrue character MPs any more than there is with a Hero Player's ability to rapidly accrue Item MPs.
The real problem is We Have Come To Kill. That is the thing that needs to be hit, not even with the nerf bat, but simply with the Rules bat. As long as We Have Come To Kill allows you to slide around automatic attacks by playing characters in the site phase and have an extra effective character without a corresponding increase in hazard limit, the Balrog's going to have a huge advantage by being able to a play a character with We Have Come to Kill from the sideboard. Take away that ability, and the Balrog's 3-mind from the sideboard during the organization phase really won't make that much of difference. You'll have a larger company to play hazards on.
I don't think the 2-mind limitation is necessary if we solve a problem that unbalances a whole lot more than the Balrog alignment.