card ideas by raggy #2

[Daxx]

Oh, the effect isn't a problem. It was the cost that I was worried about.

[Uzra]

Change the activation cost of 'Thief' to 3 life instead of 3 quantum.  It'd be more synergistic with darkness gaining life all the time.  It'd match the darkness theme and match the power of the ability.

EDIT: P.S. I love Sacrifice and Deep Freeze.

[Scaredgirl]

Actually, I'm not misreading. Here's my thought process:

Decks get more powerful and consistent the fewer cards they contain, since you can get to your most powerful cards sooner. This is true for most CCGs. Having card draw in your deck is massively powerful, as we know (imagine your rainbow without any, for example). Cheap card draw is even more powerful. That card, as written, allows you to draw three cards for the cost of one draw and a single time quantum. Regardless that it's single use, you could stick six of them in virtually any deck of 30 along with a Mark of Time, and go to town.

It allows you to draw TWO cards for the cost of one draw and a single time quantum. So basically you pay 1 time quantum to draw one extra card. Just like Hourglass, only this can be used only once.

Also you have to take into consideration the possibility of decking out. With smaller decks like 30, it's sometimes a bad thing to draw many cards. Unless you have (protected) Eternity you might easily deck out if the opponent has a lot of defense.

I think you missed that second part, I've extended the highlighting. You're burning three cards into your deck for the price of one draw. That's two extra cards, but you can then factor in the third when you're looking at the draw probabilities for the remainder of your deck. In terms of card advantage, this is massive. Hourglass is a different beast entirely because it's slower, it's vastly more quantum-intensive and (though this is trivial) can be destroyed.

Granted you do run the chance of decking out with only 30 cards. But this is still powerful in any deck, not just small ones. Think how much you would kill to have this card in your Rainbow deck.

I didn't miss that part. In fact I used the same exact wording.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. I don't get where you get this "three cards". The card in question would give you TWO CARDS. You use one card, you draw 2 new cards. That's only 1 extra card (because you used one you had previously).

Lets say I have 7 cards. One of them is Time Warp and I'm using it by paying time quantum. I draw 2 new cards. Now I have 7 - 1 + 2 = 8 cards.

I had 7 cards, now I have 8. That's one extra card. Where is the huge advantage?

[Daxx]

I'm not sure how to explain this any other way. Okay, lets say I have 10 cards in my deck. I draw Time Warp (9 cards) and play it (7 cards). For one draw, I have just gone three cards into my deck, and three cards closer to my shiny dragon that is sitting on the bottom.

The advantage lies in drawing through your deck phenomenally fast, not in card advantage for cards held in-hand.

[Scaredgirl]

I'm not sure how to explain this any other way. Okay, lets say I have 10 cards in my deck. I draw Time Warp (9 cards) and play it (7 cards). For one draw, I have just gone three cards into my deck, and three cards closer to my shiny dragon that is sitting on the bottom.

The advantage lies in drawing through your deck phenomenally fast, not in card advantage for cards held in-hand.

I don't get it.. You still need quantum to pay for that shiny dragon. And there is 8 card hand limit so drawing as fast as you can, is sometimes a bad thing.

This card would be not that different from Sundial really. Only difference is that you would get those cards faster and you would have no defense like Sundial has.

If you think that this card would be overpowered then answer me this: why do all the CCG's have a similar "play card, draw to cards" type of card? Why is Elements so special that in THIS game it's overpowered?

[Daxx]

Never mind, I don't think I'm going to explain this to you properly.

Other games have cards like this. They are balanced with appropriate costs. This one isn't, as written.

[Scaredgirl]

Never mind, I don't think I'm going to explain this to you properly.

Other games have cards like this. They are balanced with appropriate costs. This one isn't, as written.

Up the cost, problem solved.

hmm.. I believe Netrunner has a card like this that costs nothing to use. But I'd have to check to make sure.

[Evil Hamster]

Wow... Netrunner...

Completely forgot about that game!

I think I have some of those cards somewhere burried in a box in my basement

[RoKetha]

Time Warp is phenomenally broken - every deck would just run Mark of Time and have six of these babies as well as Electrum Hourglasses and Sundials, for more card advantage than you can shake a stick at. It needs the cost revising upwards or perhaps have it draw only a single card (still powerful, but less broken).

Otherwise these suggestions aren't bad, though.

The fact that you think a one-use card that allows you to pay to draw one card--the card that you would have gotten instead of it had you not included the first card in the first place--would be powerful completely invalidates any arguments you could possibly make.

"oh my god he can draw 3 cards in one turn" is not a big freaking deal when you consider that if you look at it like that, one of those cards does absolutely nothing but cost you quanta. All it does is let you pay 1 quantum to get a 1 card advantage. Yes, it's strong, but so are the majority of spell cards in the game.

I'm not sure how to explain this any other way. Okay, lets say I have 10 cards in my deck. I draw Time Warp (9 cards) and play it (7 cards). For one draw, I have just gone three cards into my deck, and three cards closer to my shiny dragon that is sitting on the bottom.

The advantage lies in drawing through your deck phenomenally fast, not in card advantage for cards held in-hand.

Again: If you simply did not have the Time Warp in your deck, you would have had a deck of 9 cards, drawn one, and had 8, and without the 1 time quantum cost. You don't draw some blank card in place of Time Warp that does nothing and was only serving to make you take longer to reach the last card, you draw the one that would have been after it.

[Daxx]

The fact that you think a one-use card that allows you to pay to draw one card--the card that you would have gotten instead of it had you not included the first card in the first place--would be powerful completely invalidates any arguments you could possibly make.

Decks have a minimum of 30 cards. Include six of these (modified so that they draw one card instead of two) in a 30 card deck and you effectively have a deck of 24 cards, for the price of a few time quanta. Therefore, for every other card in the deck the probability of drawing it is higher - you can therefore run a deck much more consistently with more powerful cards.

I feel like I'm bashing my head against a brick wall here. Is this really so hard to understand?

I prefer Scaredgirl's solution of upping the cost, though.

[Scaredgirl]

Decks have a minimum of 30 cards. Include six of these (modified so that they draw one card instead of two) in a 30 card deck and you effectively have a deck of 24 cards, for the price of a few time quanta. Therefore, for every other card in the deck the probability of drawing it is higher - you can therefore run a deck much more consistently with more powerful cards.

I feel like I'm bashing my head against a brick wall here. Is this really so hard to understand?

I prefer Scaredgirl's solution of upping the cost, though.

While smaller decks are better, at some point they will be TOO small.

Lets say you have this 24 card deck. What kind of deck would you build?
Remember you have to be able to..

1. Not to die
2. Do enough damage to kill your opponent
3. Not to deck out.

Can you do this with only 24 cards?

[Daxx]

I'm sure you would be able to do it, if anyone could. With 24 cards, could you design a deck that could kill within 17 draws, given that you know you're likely to be drawing every card in the deck? I bet it's possible.

The potential for a deck to too small aside, my point stands - the consistency at least will be improved and that's the point I was trying to make. As written it was even worse since it could then be applied to any deck to improve consistency, including everything up to 60 cards. Reducing the number of draws would make it potentially appropriate in some situations, and not in others - which is what we're looking for in card design, right?