[Official] Plate Armor | Heavy Armor

[Pineapple]

It's not that the magnitude of the mechanic is lacking, it's that the mechanic itself has (almost) no niche in the current meta-game because HP doesn't really mean much.

[dragonsdemesne]

I voted 'other'.  My suggestion is to have the card grant +1 attack on both versions, and leave the cost and hp modifier unchanged.  The +1 attack could maybe be justified by all those spikes on the armour.

[Contrary]

@Plate Armour

I don't think the health buff can be improved because of stuff like Otyugh. However the problem here is that you are using one card and it can potentially negate another card, but maybe not. Reverse Time directly and immediately negates one or more cards from the opponent whereas Plate Armour has to be used preemptively and the opponent may simply decide to use their spells on another creature.

Say you have it running off the mark to cover your Phase Spiders and you're facing an Air guy with Shockwaves. Yeah you can cover one Spider but your opponent can just target the unarmoured one next to it.

There is also the consideration that your opponent may not even be packing damage based CC, Freeze and Basilisk Blood are great CC. Then all your armours are dead cards.

Even in the best case scenario when you opponent attacks your armoured card with a health targeting card, reducing its health but not killing it, you are only getting a one for one card cancellation at best. In fact a lot of the time the opponent will only have targeted your card because he has another spell in hand to finish the job.

My suggestion would be to grant health to all of your creatures on the field, giving you a better chance at it being useful. That would be my suggestion if not for Fractal Sparks. Another solution might be to let you armour two or three guys, but there's not multi targeting. You could make it so that playing Plate Armour lets you draw a card as well, that would work- but how would you fit that in thematically?

[Jocko]

Eh, 9-health Otys for 2 cards and 5 quanta? It's definitely counterable but in no ways helpful to the metagame. It just improves already-strong cards cards and decks like Firestall, Flying Titans, Graboid, Fractal, Poison, RT, and Discord while making it even harder to run the already less common decks lacking damage based CC resistance..

How does this improve firestalls, flying titans, fractal and poison?

[Naesala]

I think if it also made the creature either immune to spells or reflect spells, it would be a good buff. as is, this is almost exclusively used to make scarabs and otys bigger faster.

[Contrary]

How does this improve firestalls, flying titans, fractal and poison?

Because those types of decks aren't as vulnerable to Otys?

[mesaprotector]

This seems to me like one of those cards that isn't used much, but for no good reason. It combos well with Grav Shield, Otyugh, Ball Lightning, or any fragile creature. We just need to publicize it a bit more.

[RootRanger]

How does this improve firestalls, flying titans, fractal and poison?

Because those types of decks aren't as vulnerable to Otys?

Yup. Whenever a new type of deck becomes more popular, everything that counters it becomes stronger.

[Hyroen]

True. It needs a buff.

Maybe along with an HP increase change from [+3 | +6] to [+6 | +8] it could also decrease damage taken to it by 1?

[Tea is good]

No one uses it because the concept of buffing a creature's defense is the most up strat in the game. It only stops opponents from killing your creatures, which is very, very rarely a factor in games. summoning a second creature is, for the most part, much more useful than actually buffing the first. In earth for example, why put heavy armor into a shrieker deck? It would ruin hands. Other earth decks don't need heavy armor, because creatures are already tanky.

Other decks wouldn't splash earth just to add more hp to creatures, except for a gravity deck, which is still not popular if this is buffed. Another option would be cremation golems, but that is nerfed and this would just clog up the hands.

[aristalis]

I voted 'other'.  My suggestion is to have the card grant +1 attack on both versions, and leave the cost and hp modifier unchanged.  The +1 attack could maybe be justified by all those spikes on the armour.

Yeah I like this. Keep the scorpion/doll offense rolling infinitely harder!

[Xenocidius]

Added the option to have both versions give +1 ATK. Feel free to change your vote.