Aetherfish | Aetherfish

[Higurashi]

NAME: Aetherfish ELEMENT: Aether COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 1|3 TEXT: : Nothingness	NAME: Aetherfish ELEMENT: Aether COST: 3 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 1|3 TEXT: : Nothingness

ART: David Fleetham/Mira.com (http://miraimages.photoshelter.com/image/I0000N9QsmA9Pc7s) (I'd love to use this one since it has the perfect tiny/dumb/cute expression, but it's copyright of National Geographics: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/9f/1d/65/9f1d65b095ee1f17d737750d7ac72cc0.jpg) IDEA: Higurashi NOTES: Legends say the aetherfish is an ancient, ancient, ancient creature living at unfathomable depths. That one of its drooping, sunken and indifferent eyes can see through all of eternity and that it would be omniscient... ...if it wasn't a fish. Comes from the No-Bazaar Challenge: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/general-discussion/%28nearly%29-no-bazaar-challenge/msg1121252/#msg1121252 In his youth, aetherfish was spunky and curious. Even then it spent most of its time watching TV and being lazy. Thanks to its centuries of TV-watching though, it knows how to act in most situations. You never know if the aetherfish is actually feeling anything, but it's good at showing what looks like surprise, excitement, hopefulness, happiness, disappointment, juvenile sadness, intimidation, seriousness and so on. On the card: The lore around aetherfish has developed to describe a small, dumb yet unkillable and ancient little thing that also harbors the infinite powers of aether. It can't control them very well at all though, so they manifest randomly. Why is it called nothingness? Because nothing goes on in that little head. It's achieved not only Nirvana, but complete nothingness, and it has no idea. Effects it can cause: Lightning effect on a random creature on the field Parallel Universe effect on a random creature on the field Duality (Mindgate ability) (This could actually apply on either player, because aetherfish is dumb. It would read its own mind and end up thinking the same thing twice) Lobotomizer effect on a random creature on the field Silence opponent Quintessence effect on a random creature Fractal effect on a random creature Shard of Wisdom effect on a random creature More effects that could be added: Fluctuating Universe effect for a turn (can occur simultaneously with the random Lightning effect) (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/card-ideas-and-art/fluctuating-universe-unstable-dimension/) Vitapulse effect on 5 random creatures on the field (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/card-ideas-and-art/vitapulse-arcanopulse/) Dimensional Gate effect (toned down) (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/forge-archive/dimensional-gate-dimensional-portal/) Any other cool aetherial effects SERIES: N/A

[SpikeSpiegel]

I like the concept, and the card imho is balanced.

But, considering that the skill is a "random" skill, a cost in  quanta would fit better.

[Higurashi]

Aether and Entropy work together to create randomness sometimes alright. See PU on mutants. Fate Egg and RT on Skeletons are other examples of non-Entropy randomness.

However, this has deeper thematic roots than that. Aetherfish is purely aetherial and the entire process, from summoning him to using his abilities, is fueled completely by aetherial energies. There's no way to justify the use of entropic -quanta- even if you feel like randomness belongs to Entropy (which isn't entirely true either). His ability is only random because of his own incompetence. If he could control himself, he'd be Lightning or PU on a stick. In other words, OP. This is, of course, irrelevant because the card bends to the lore, so there's no way he'd be smart enough to control the powers he's barely even aware of.

My early draft of aetherfish was only able to do Lightning, PU, Quint and Lobo, but the truth is that aetherfish has all kinds of aetherial energies in him. He embodies everything Aether is capable of and all of its potential, so he has to be able to do anything aetherial.

[Blacksmith]

Interesting idea. You could build whole decks around it. I get that feeling that it might be slightly overpowered, I'm not 100% sure though. I just feel like most of these abilities are good at almost any given time( but maybe mind gate and lobo ), so even if it's random it's still almost always beneficial.

What might make it slightly op is the access to backup cards in the very same elements. So if you for example don't get that lighting you need you might still be able to play it from your hand.

Spoiler for example deck:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80a 80a 80a 80a 80k 80k 80k 80k 80k 80k 8po

In this deck you can get both damage in form of fractal, pu and sow(lighting), you will have speed with help from sob and you will have access to cc, protection and silence.

Well the things that matters the most think is the quint and the silence.

Either way I'm not sure if it's too good or not.

[Pineapple]

Needless to say, this card sounds pretty fun to use.

But with a deck full of quinted creatures, this card can get pretty crazily powerful since each copy can use its ability every turn for all turns thereafter. Maybe add in something like a 10% chance for its ability to do nothing, or to lose its ability (even when it's quinted), exclusive to its other abilities?

Alternatively, what about having aetherfish losing "immaterial" status (if any) every turn? I'm sure you can think of a thematic reason.
This way, you won't be able to use a quint to prevent it from lobotomizing itself.

What does "Shard of Wisdom" effect mean? +4/+0, and gains spell damage if and only if it's immaterial?

Also, I'd motion for this card to be the only one with a lowercase name. I dunno, that capital A just doesn't look right XD

[treebeard xiii]

you guys do realize there i a perfectly satisfactory way to test if the fish is op or not openetg i believe allows addition of cards for testing purposes if it can successfully replicate randomness but this is not too op as both lobo and lightning on itself will render it useless.

[Pineapple]

you guys do realize there i a perfectly satisfactory way to test if the fish is op or not openetg i believe allows addition of cards for testing purposes if it can successfully replicate randomness but this is not too op as both lobo and lightning on itself will render it useless.

You make it sound like you can't play Quintessence on it.