Frost Hatchling | Frost Jay

[ZephyrPhantom]

NAME: Frost Hatchling ELEMENT: Water COST: 3 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 2 | 3 TEXT: Frost Melody -  Your frozen cards are untargetable. Creatures gain + 0 | +3 when frozen.	NAME: Frost Jay ELEMENT: Water COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 2 | 3 TEXT: Song of Winter - Your frozen cards can still act. : Freeze target permanent for 2 turns.

ART: MarkSweep - Unupgraded Mdf - Upgraded Both images are licensed under public domain. IDEA: Zblader NOTES: "And finally Winter, with its bitin', whinin' wind, and all the land  will be mantled with snow." Roy Bean Unupgraded, it acts as a defensive card that synergizes with HP-reliant cards like Voodoo Doll, Acceleration, and Armagio. Can also be an alternate way to protect creatures with Freeze. Immaterial disappears after Freeze ends. Upgraded, Water gains a reusable source of PC and a counter to creature-related CC. Frozen cards you control may still attack and use abilities. If you freeze an enemy stack of pillars/pendulums, only the top card in the stack stops producing quanta for 2 turns. A frozen enemy shield loses all of it's effects (including damage reduction) until it unfreezes. The theme is based on a bird hatching and learning to use it's abilities offensively in combat. When used correctly, the cards can synergize with each other - for example, you could Freeze your weapon to still attack enemies without fear of PC. Unupgraded version also works well with Arctic Squid. SERIES:

[Rutarete]

Using the two together would be a solid combo. Remember to add if the unupped boost goes away or not to the notes.
I like it.

[UserClone]

What happens if you freeze a stack of pendulums? A shield? An Eclipse?

[ZephyrPhantom]

What happens if you freeze a stack of pendulums? A shield? An Eclipse?

If you freeze a stack of pillars/pendulums, only the top card in the stack stops producing quanta for 2 turns. (Freezing entire pillarstacks would be broken, IMHO.)
A frozen shield loses all of it's effects (including damage reduction) until it unfreezes.
Eclipse is disabled until it unfreezes.
(Of course, if you do it to your own cards it has no effect.)

[Hyroen]

I just wanted to say that I really like the fact that although the upgraded version is "better", the upgraded and standard version would complement each other very nicely in a deck.

Often it's preferred to just have the upgraded card as opposed to the standard version in one's deck, and if not, it's simply because they have different costs/mechanics that if replaced for its upgrade, would mess up the strategy. This card invites both cards to be used together in a deck in interesting ways. I'm sure the trick there is to balance the ratio of Frost Hatchlings to Jays.
Don't quite understand why you just threw ice skills and Blue Jays together but, then again I was thinking some time ago of making a Frost Snail.

The Jays have some interesting mechanics and the submission is overall, a nice, and creative idea which complements one of Water's central themes.

To improve you could perhaps find a more representative creature for the abilities, or more representative skills for the being. And for whatever creature you choose, less life-like is ironically the way to go.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I just wanted to say that I really like the fact that although the upgraded version is "better", the upgraded and standard version would complement each other very nicely in a deck.

Often it's preferred to just have the upgraded card as opposed to the standard version in one's deck, and if not, it's simply because they have different costs/mechanics that if replaced for its upgrade, would mess up the strategy. This card invites both cards to be used together in a deck in interesting ways. I'm sure the trick there is to balance the ratio of Frost Hatchlings to Jays.
Don't quite understand why you just threw ice skills and Blue Jays together but, then again I was thinking some time ago of making a Frost Snail.

The Jays have some interesting mechanics and the submission is overall, a nice, and creative idea which complements one of Water's central themes.

To improve you could perhaps find a more representative creature for the abilities, or more representative skills for the being. And for whatever creature you choose, less life-like is ironically the way to go.

Thanks Hyroen. My descision to go with Blue Jays was mostly influenced by art and theme at first - seeing Blue Jays around snow a lot made me think of a Freezing creature.

I then started looking around http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Jay , and found out that Blue Jays seem to live well during winter, which made me think more of Water's Ice aspect ingame. I was also interested in a "Parent/child" synergy card when I was first designing this.

Birds are represented by song in some stories, so I designed the "Song" part based on mass creature effects.

The last skill part was basically about the bird's mentality - at a younger age it would be focused on stay with it's parent to become stronger (hence the HP boost and immaterial), while at an older age it can fend for itself and protects the young (allowing Frozen creatures to act and freezing permanents of it's own). And as a last benefit, older Frost Jays synergize with their younger Hatchlings for the "parent/child" synerggy I was looking for.

I'm open to suggestion on what other creature this card could be represented by, but I'm not really sure what else fits the card that meshes well with the theme (the best I can think of is a Water Spirit, and that feels more fluid-like.)

[ZephyrPhantom]

Bump for additional feedback.

[moomoose]

given that this is an avian creature rather than an aquatic creature, my gut would be for it to be an creature with skills (may necessitate altering of the unupped card to incorporate quanta)- it feels awkward for to get a bird, at least one that isn't at least associated with swimming or the ocean in general like a duck/swan/seagull/penguin/etc (actually penguin may work better than a blue jay, it isn't airborn and is a very good swimmer, and of course is strongly associated with the arctic, which matches this card's abilities/effects)

are the songs able to be lobo'd?

[ZephyrPhantom]

given that this is an avian creature rather than an aquatic creature, my gut would be for it to be an creature with skills (may necessitate altering of the unupped card to incorporate quanta)- it feels awkward for to get a bird, at least one that isn't at least associated with swimming or the ocean in general like a duck/swan/seagull/penguin/etc (actually penguin may work better than a blue jay, it isn't airborn and is a very good swimmer, and of course is strongly associated with the arctic, which matches this card's abilities/effects)

are the songs able to be lobo'd?

The Bird in question is associated with Winter, so I felt it worked better in Water.
Based on the Frost Jay, Songs are Passive. (can't be lobo'd)

[PuppyChow]

I like the concept, but the upgraded version might need a higher cost (like 5). Take pulverizor... This deals 3 less damage and costs the same, but its ability is of the same element (which is a big deal) and you can have more than one in play without a two card combo. I'm not sure the fact that the permanent is only disabled for three turns justifies this.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I like the concept, but the upgraded version might need a higher cost (like 5). Take pulverizor... This deals 3 less damage and costs the same, but its ability is of the same element (which is a big deal) and you can have more than one in play without a two card combo. I'm not sure the fact that the permanent is only disabled for three turns justifies this.

Frost Jay's freeze lasts for 2 turns, not 3.
Consider that Arctic Squid is cheaper but does the same thing to creatures for more turns(3 unupped, 4 Upped):

Frost Jay in comparison is more expensive to play and it's Freeze only lasts half as long.

[PuppyChow]

I don't think comparing a permanent control card to a creature control card is entirely prudent; they are completely different and effect completely different groups of cards. For instance, you can only have one shield or one weapon out at a time, while you can have multiples of the same creature. And for some key permanents decks rely on only having three since they only need one. It's much different.

Plus this card has more attack and defense (granted, +1/+1) and the song of winter passive ability to trump the octopi on, so it's a push at best leaning towards needing another water quanta.

I'll admit it's mostly just fine tuning what I'm suggesting though.