The terrain damage screwed me last game. Basically you've taken away most of Sylvan and Elemental's answers (Teleport and Cloudburst) to insta-kill cards like Negate, Volcano, Landslide, and Lysis. It's a dumb move. A really dumb move.

Teleport and cloudburst shouldn't be the equivalent of lysis. That is what we were fixing. We want to be able to make cards that move creatures around or change terrain without having to make them as expensive as Lysis. This is why we changed the way water works.

If Elementals or Sylvan now need new removal cards that is a separate issue. If they are short on removal now the solution is to give them cards designed to do that rather than cards designed to move creatures around the map but kill as a side effect.

They aren't the equivalent of lysis because they don't instantly destroy another creature. You still have plenty of time to deal with the effects of the creature being in water. However, it also gives you creative ways of dealing with a rampaging Epic Veteran, for example, and makes you opponent think strategically when it comes to moving their creatures, taking into account how much flux you have and how many cards are in your hand.

Removing water kills does away with one of the more interesting and strategic aspects of this game.

I know this is a beta, but if cloudburst wasn't designed as a removal card, why does it have such high cost and double domain. So much of the cards have run thru changes, did you do any testing of gameplay at all in the alpha or did you go windows style on this. This kills the game till there are more card available. I forsee Dark Legion dominating in the current game state nearly unopposed, since ive seen the elemental rush style dwindle.

Simply "changing it back" is not a valid solution to the set of problems we have. There are lots of other creative ways to address these issues. I think our time would be better spent thinking about other options, rather than drawing out the "to insta-kill or not to insta kill" debate.