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Card Idea of the Month Archive https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1045246#msg1045246
« on: February 23, 2013, 06:42:49 pm »
Spoiler for August 2017:

This Card review was written by Aves


 :light Light is an element with strong and powerful tools, both in offense and defense. Cards like Miracle, Sanctuary, and Hope are definitive in their role with strong healing and damage reduction, while offense is carried by CC resistant attackers like Archangel. Light also has the most weapon/shield related theme in the game, with three shields (Solar Shield, Reflective Shield, Hope), a weapon ( Morning Star), and the unique endow mechanic on Crusader.

OdinVanguard continues to produce interesting ideas as he delves into the possibility of a second weapon for Light.

Weapon Synergy

:light Light's existing weapon, Morning Star meets the theme of its other attackers in being hard hitting and hard to kill, being completely untargetable -- at least, without Voodoo Doll or Ice Lance shenanigans! This has the side effect of making Crusader unable to wield its own element's sword, and emphasizes the ability as an effect meant to synergize with other elements.

Blade of Justice | Sword of Vengeance fills that synergizing niche without overshadowing the existing weapon, sacrificing initial attacking power in return for far greater utilty and defense. Light's creatures tend to have high HP values, making them resistant to attack. One such attack provides 3/4 return damage from this weapon. When combined with the possibility of having multiple endowed or animated copies, this card can effectively deter all forms of CC with stacking return damage. Even with just one copy, mass CC is out of the question, with up to 70 or 94 total damage if all 23 creature slots are damaged. In a more realistic scenario, with 6 creatures in play that's still 18/24 return damage for taking them out. This provides an incentive to create many creatures on the field with cards like Fractal or Boneyard.

All of the above with regards to CC deterrence is merely the result of the passive ability. In addition to the scaling damage, this card has two different active abilities for the unupped and upped versions, should your opponent choose to ignore the deterrence. The unupped version allows the user to convert the next attack into healing at the cost of :water. Importantly, healing doesn't count as attacking, and the weapon will continue to scale up in damage with continuous use of the ability, allowing for both a potential OTK and ever-increasing amounts of healing, assuming your creatures are damaged.  The upped version allows the user to convert the damage into a targeted CC effect directly with the application of :fire :fire.
 


Here is a deck designed by Aves that shows an effective way to use :light Blade of Justice | Sword of Retribution!


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4t9 4t9 4t9 7h0 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7k2 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7km 7km 7km 8pq

(Relics represent :light Blade of Justice)

This deck spams Ray of Light and Crusader, amping them up with Shard of Patience. Nymph's Tears are included for extra damage and to soak up any extra :water quanta, while Miracle and Shard of Divinity provide time while the shard does its work. This classic combo takes on a new dimension with Blade of Justice, however. The key here is that the crusaders are now also able to heal. In fact, this healing scales with SoP. Should your creatures be attacked before you're able to pull off an OTK, that still increases the N value of your weapon, which in turn increases your turn by turn healing and adds onto your OTK value. Strong permanent control would be a weakness of this deck, but barring that, this feels like it would be a blast to play, with simultaneously increasing offense and defense.



:light Light is a strong and steady element with many defensive synergies. Blade of Justice | Sword of Vengeance is a worthy addition to their number, adding a measure of CC-deterring, healing, scaling offense, and CC-- all in one card.

To see more card ideas check out the Card Ideas & Art section!
Spoiler for July 2017:

This Card review was written by mathman101



:time Time is an element that excels at manipulating the pace of the game. It is very versatile in that it has the potential to slow down your opponents play style with cards like Reverse Time or Sundial, as well as the potential to speed up your own play tempo with cards like Electrum Hourglass and Precognition. OdinVanguard brings us another one of his many creative ideas with this month's card idea as he explores an additional quanta production for :time Time.

Quanta Production

:time Time has five creatures with costs over 5 quanta (Devonian Dragon, Ghost of the Past, Pharaoh, Anubis, Golden Nymph), and any way possible to add quick quanta generation would benefit it. Combining Quantum Chronometer with repetitive card draw cards like Golden Nymph or Electrum Hourglass could prove an efficient way to scroll through your deck and continually gain quanta in a mono-Time style deck. In non-mono decks this could be used to assist in generating that off-element quanta should you only splash in the off-element cards without quanta producers, or be used itself as a card splashed into a non-Time element focused deck. Some have considered this card similar to Immolation in that it is a quick way to gain 6 quanta with only a minor sacrifice. In this case a card is re-shuffled into your deck instead of killing off one of your own creatures, which allows for the potential to draw your 'lost' card again later from your deck.


Here is a deck designed by mathman101 that shows an effective way to use :time Quantum Chronometer| Quantum Metronome!


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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rl 5rl 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8ps

(Relics represent :time Quantum Chronometer)

Mono Time can be a very fast and efficient way to rush down your opponents when using the right style of deck. In this example you can see there are multiple high-cost creatures to utilize the extra quantum generated by the Quantum Chronometer. By utilizing high draw power from both Electrum Hourglasses and Golden Nymphs, the deck can quickly be cycled through to keep many cards in your hand at any point during the game. While the deck may on first glance appear to be under quanta'd the Quantum Chronometer can have a double edged sword effect on this deck by both adding an additional quanta generator for playing the high cost creatures, and shuffling cards from your hand back into your deck to keep space open for both Electrum Hourglass and Golden Nymph to replenish your hand. Knowing when to use the Chronometer's ability will all depend on which deck you fight and the opposing strategy against you.



:time Time is a controlling tempo based element, that can help alter the game in your favor with it's manipulative properties. Understanding the two play styles of slowing your opponent and speeding up your own play can both benefit from the addition of the  :time Quantum Chronometer| Quantum Metronome card if it were to be added to EtG.

To see more card ideas check out the Card Ideas & Art section!
Spoiler for June 2017:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Card Art (recreated) by: Hyroen.

:earth Earth as an element is of particular interest to me. As an avid Air Elemental, I feel like through consideration of the themes within Air, the themes of Earth also emerge because in some respects they can contrast Air. While Air is an element of freedom, flexibility and "lighter" versions of other cards, Earth is an element of investment, consistency and resilience. Due to these themes, Earthchild | Elite Earthchild by johannhowitzer, a fairly experienced veteran before the forum migration, would be an excellent thematic addition to the element of :earth Earth.

Investment Damage

:earth Earth is commonly known as a stalling element. With some of the bulkiest creatures in the game, the element finds little difficulty in playing many of its creatures with little to worry about. With Burrow being a common, if not signature ability, the element commonly is known for protecting either its creatures or permanents. At times, Shard of Patience is used to syngergize with not only the stalling aspect of Earth. In this respect, Earthchild may be similar to Antlion, however, Earthchild provides much more flexibility in that it offers more synergy with buffing cards such as Chaos Power, Momentum, Blessing, all of which belong in elements with powerful stalling capabilities. Furthermore, it still interacts with Shard of Patience quite powerfully, though Earthchild may be a bit more vulnerable to non-HP CC. As such, due to the unique synergies Earthchild provides as a beatstick within several different Duos, it also opens up the possibility for alternate win conditions e.g. Shard of Divinity/Sanctuary stall, Dissipation Shield/Antimatter stall, etc.


Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :earth Earthchild | Elite Earthchild!

Deck 1:
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6rp 6rp 6rp 77c 77c 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jv 7jv 7jv 7jv 7jv 7jv 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 8pm

(Relics represent :earth Earthchild)

Light & Earth combine to create one of the most feared stall decks in the game. While Shards of Patience can also be used to great effect with Earthchild, it would not offer too much more over Antlion, if anything. This deck in particular incorporates the powerful stalling capabilities of both Light & Earth, however, it also provides the potential beatstick power of a 40|42 Elite Earthchild, which can not be ignored, and with the right topdeck, it can come out in the first 3-4 turns too. Even with only 3 Improved Blessings, a 22|24 Elite Earthchild is nothing to take lightly. As such, with this deck it's important to gauge which deck you're facing and respond accordingly taking advantage of the stalling power in order to either blast through the opponent's HP or to whittle their deck away.



:earth Earth is a thorough and defensive element. Known for its resilience in permanents, creatures and playstyle, any card which diversifies its synergies and win conditions is always welcomed. As an element of investment and consistency, :earth Earthchild | Earthchild makes a potent addition to EtG and allows :earth Earth as an element to solidify its synergies.

To see more card ideas check out the Card Ideas & Art section!
Spoiler for May 2017:


This Card was designed by AD TienzuStorm
This Card review was written by Aves


It should be no surprise that the element :death Death has an affinity for taking advantages from killing things. But in a world where Lightning strikes and Fire Bolts reign as damaging creature control champions, it's uncommon for the less powerful damage dealing spells and abilities to be considered. After all, if it's a threat big enough to use CC on, it's better to kill it sooner rather than later, and large damage bursts are helpful in ensuring that threat neutralization. As a result, the :death Death mechanic of infecting creatures with damage over time has never been a popular choice. It has always been one of :death Death's biggest weaknesses that despite its unique advantage from death effects, it lacks a reliable and quick way of killing creatures itself. The only in-element options are the slow Plague/Aflatoxin damage over time cards or unreliable Skull Shield. In the meta, this has led to a great deal of death duos using off-element CC to power the likes of Bone Wall, Boneyard, Soul Catcher, and Vulture. :death Aftermath | Aftermath turns that idea on its head, declaring that it's okay to kill creatures slowly... just as long as you get to kill your opponent faster!



Counter Damage

When choosing to include CC, there is a choice made; do I spend that card slot in my deck on damage mitigation/prevention (defensively), or do I spend that slot on my win condition(offensively)? Even with versatile, multi-purpose CC that can act as either offensively or defensively, that choice is an unavoidable one. Any good Fire Bolt user will tell you that there are times when you unleash the flames on those pesky dragons flying in your face, and other times when you hold your quanta for a game winning burst directly onto your opponent. :death Aftermath | Aftermath dodges that choice; you can mitigate the threat posed by a creature while simultaneously dealing damage to your opponent.

This card succeeds in its intent of providing :death Death with the means to take advantage of the creature poisoning mechanic. However, the low cost and versatility also synergize well with other forms of repeatable CC, notably Owl's Eye and attack buffed Iridium Warden. Furthermore, the damage dealt from this card bypasses shields and Sundial, granting a utility similar to Voodoo Doll.

Balance-wise, :death Aftermath | Aftermath is in a tricky situation. While the unupped version may be a bit underpowered as a single target card that requires a combo to work, the upped version more than makes up for that with OTK potential when combined with mass CC; 23 slots filled makes for a 115 damage 2 card combo! It should be noted that despite these strengths, :death Aftermath | Aftermath is dependent on many factors to be used successfully... most notably, your opponent must have targetable creatures, and you must include forms of damaging CC in your deck. This card is easy to play around if you know what to expect, but devastating if not handled properly.



Here is a deck designed by Aves that shows an effective way to use :death Aftermath | Aftermath!

Bloodmath Nightby Aves
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pla ceh old ert ext 715 715 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t9 7t9 7ta 7ta 7tb 7tb 7th 7th 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 8pk

(placeholder text represents :death Aftermath)



Bloodsuckers are the core of the deck, dealing a surprising amount of damage in their own right with Eclipse . Should the opponent decide to play any creatures, Aftermath | Aftermath's effect comes into play, helping to equalize the damage race. Vampire Dagger and Nightmare act as both defensive tools with healing and offensive tools in chipping away at the opponent's health. Skull Buckler performs a similar role in slowing down the opponent's offense, and any skeletons generated can subsequently be poisoned for free stacks of damage. Steal provides utility, dealing with any bothersome permanents that show up. This deck aims to chip away at the opponent while sustaining itself in a classic  :darkness Darkness fashion, and Aftermath | Aftermath's unique counter-damaging effect helps to ensure that the damage race is in its favor.



Death has always struggled with creature poisoning being too slow to be viable and lacking in other forms of CC.  Aftermath | Aftermath is a thematic addition to Death's toolkit and has a versatile mechanic that synergizes well with a wide spread of CC cards as an equalizer and force multiplier. It would be an interesting way to solve Death's CC deficit without introducing a direct damage card, though I believe that further balancing is needed.
Spoiler for April 2017:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: Zblader.

:darkness Darkness is an intriguing, fan-favourite element that can be inviting and challenging for new players yet almost forever difficult to entirely master. Highly controlling and disruptive, the element seeks to overwhelm the opponent through techniques from behind the shadows. Associated with thievery and using your own opponent's cards against them, :darkness Snatch | Snatch by Anarook finds a perfect home within the element. Designed to allow the user to snatch cards that the opponent discards, this does not mean you will only be getting the opponent's junk. :darkness Darkness always finds a way.


Quanta Production

Without a specific discard-forcing spell, :darkness Snatch has no specific card it directly synergizes with, however, plenty of cards work quite well with it, some of which work well together as well. :fire Shard of Bravery, :aether Silence, :gravity Black Hole, & of course, :darkness Nightmare are potent cards in their own right, however, they work beautifully in concert with this card's main objective. Seeing as the benefits of the 'snatching' effect can be highly dependent on the opponent's deck, this card may see more use either in Rainbow decks or in decks capitalizing on :darkness Nightmare to influence the cards the opponent may be discarding. Otherwise, this card may be seeing its main benefit become the :darkness that it generates.


Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :darkness Snatch | Snatch!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7t5 7t5 7t8 7t8 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8pt

(Relics represent :darkness Snatch)

The ability of :darkness Snatch to be able to potentially create duplicates of a creature that you want with a simple discard of the opponent makes every discard deadly. Not only would an opponent discarding a Ghost of the Past make them take 13 damage, but depending on the space in your hand, the discard would produce a pseudo-Fractal effect depending on how many copies of :darkness Snatch you have in play. As such, this deck could easily be losing slightly at one point and then winning drastically the next. Furthermore, should you note that you have much more :darkness than :time, you can always try using the quanta generating effects of :darkness Snatch to bring out several :darkness Obsidian Dragons.



:darkness Darkness is a well-defined element and a wonderfully fun element to design cards for. Known for using the opponent's cards against them and looking for openings to strike, :darkness Snatch makes an excellent addition to a game which does not capitalize on discards quite as much as it could, and from the elegance of this card, not as much as it should.

To see more of Anarook's work check out their portfolio!
Spoiler for March 2017:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: moyi.

:light Light as an element is not often associated with abilities, of course, aside from its dominion over Bio-luminescence. In terms of ability readying, :time Time does have Shard of Readiness, however this does not necessarily mean that it should or must have a monopoly over this mechanic. :light Awake | Awake by moyi is a simple, well interpreted example. Though ability readying could potentially be acceptable in any of Air, Light or Time, mass activation may find more balance in the element of Light as it doesn't have many cheap or mid-costing creatures with an ability where mass activation would make for a possibly overpowered threat. Though I do find the cost of this card to make the finished product a bit on the underpowered end, it is always better to have an UP product than an imaginably OP one. Furthermore, terminology consistency is an important part of card design and Awake | Awake may find some use in revising the wording of the mechanic.



Ability Burst

Through EtG gameplay, any veteran will tell you that there can be pivotal turns in any game. Furthermore, they'll tell you that calculations and predicting is a large part of improving as a player. However, there are always somethings that players can be sure about, turn alternation, slimming down decks for consistency, never drawing a Miracle when you need one, etc. Awake | Awake adds something very important to EtG, in that it allows abilities, regardless of the element of the creature, to be used more than once in a given turn. This element of surprise is can be highly effective in a game all about prediction and cold calculation. Awake | Awake activates the abilities of all creatures so that they can be used, regardless of the cost and regardless of whether the ability has been used on the same turn or not. As such, any deck which can take advantage of this ability burst while also being able to effectively generate the cost will do well.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :light Awake | Awake!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gl 7gl 7gl 7gl 7gl 7gl 7gp 7gp 7hi 7hi 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 8pq

(Relics represent :light Awake)



Awake | Awake, as mentioned before, is an excellent card for ability burst, and as it is also able to override quanta limitations it can be used to turn Trios into effective Duos and, thus, increase the consistency and stability of certain decks. What tends to limit the card somewhat, however, is that increased cost, which arguably could be lower by ~1 :light on both versions and still be balanced. As such, you certainly want the card to come out when appropriate but also be housed in a deck where :light is a main component. In the deck presented, :light is used not only in order to be able to dish out another variant of damage, a DoT in Poison counters, but also to heal oneself through Sanctuary, complementing the whittling aspect of the deck. :water Water, a powerful stalling element and ideal complement of the powerful healing of :light Light, is further empowered by its Shard of Patience, not only to be able threaten stalling decks, but to get around Dimensional Shield, Shard of Sacrifice, and Sundial, 3 of several key players in the metagame.



Though Light is not classically seen as an element of abilities, Awake | Awake would certainly add an interesting card to its largely simple and direct collection of cards. Further reinforcing the theme of self-sufficiency, Awake | Awake adds not only a thematic card to Light's arsenal but one that would continue to expand the variation and nuance of Duos and Trio decks. Simplicity in card design is often hard to attain in a game where so many card ideas have already been presented, but sometimes, every now and then, right above someone's head, a :light bulb turns on.

To see more of moyi's work check out the Card Ideas & Art.
Spoiler for February 2017:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: EmeraldTiger.

:life Life as an element is one of creature spam, healing and sustain. While not being a weak element at all, it can sometimes struggle to respond to certain characteristic cards across Elements the Game and as such, at times, can fall short in terms of versatility and unpredictability. Every element deserves to have not just balanced cards, but cards that can control the metagame. In earlier patches, War has demonstrated the power of key cards such as Graboid, Dimensional Shield & Sanctuary. While it can be argued that most elements have at least one of such cards, :life Life struggles to find one, particularly one that is versatile and that you can easily build decks around, as opposed to simply being used as a deck filler. In Rutarete's card :life Symbiosis | Symbiosis, we may find such a card within :life Life. A wonderfully thematic card, :life Symbiosis is a spell that sets the user's HP to the total HP of either owned creatures or all creatures on the field in the case of the upgrade, being an effective spell for an effective end-game price.


Sustain

:life Life as an element loves its healing cards, such as Druidic Staff, Heal and Empathic Bond, however its inability to expand on its Max HP hinders the effectiveness of such cards. With the large amount of creature slots and 6 copies of Empathic Bond, the astronomical healing potential of the element falls quite short with the default 100HP limit. :life Symbiosis | Symbiosis changes everything, as long as the amount of HP on the field is prominent. As such, cards like Voodoo Doll, Armagio & : Forest Spirit take on a whole new dimension with the inclusion of :life Symbiosis | Symbiosis and through it, can breathe new life into the element.


Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :life Symbiosis | Symbiosis!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ah 7ah 7ah 7ah 7ah 7aj 7aj 7am 7am 7am 7ap 7ap 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 8pp

(Relics represent :life Symbiosis)

Forest Spirit can sometimes be an awkward addition to the element of :life Life, mainly due to being such a fragile creature, and as such, it seldom can take off and do what it sets out to do. Capitalizing on its ability to grow, this deck focuses on not only finding an opening to use :water Grow but also to be able to use Mitosis to show how resilient :life Life, in general, can be. Not only being a ramping beast, this deck sets out to use :water to not only provide the offensive aspect of the Forest Spectres but also to be able to redefine what a Max HP can truly mean. Spine Carapaces further complement the deck by whittling attackers away. As such, the deck sets out to not only ramp the damage quite rapidly, but also to be able to sustain and stall out the pesky obstacles that :life Life tends to struggle with.



:life Life is classically seen as the element of healing, creatures, and often, growth. :life Symbiosis | Symbiosis allows the element to capitalize on all of these components in a way that demonstrates a more majestic and stalwart side of :life Life, and in doing so, could potentially add a card that at the very least could be a thorn in the sides of many and the boon :life Life has, for so long, waited.

To see more of Rutarete's work check his portfolio HERE.
Spoiler for January 2017:

Card Designer: Aves
This Card Review was written by JonathanCrazyJ


A few months on from the tumultuous climax of Card Design War 3, we look back on one of the most interesting cards from Champion Card Designer Aves' catalogue.
Noxious Hooks | Impaling Hooks is a unique card which has potent synergy with the largely overlooked realm of creature poison. The upgraded form especially would see a huge increase in the use of cards such as Bloodsucker and Plague, which are currently underplayed in the meta.



A Plague of Problems

The (unupgraded) current cards which would be affected are Plague, Parasite, Toadfish, Grey Nymph, Aflatoxin, Virus, and Thorn Carapace.
Currently these are all fairly underplayed cards due to the time it takes for them to act. Plague may have the potential to kill an entire board, but depending on the HP of those creatures, the game may have ended before the board is totally cleared. Under the effect of Impaling Hooks, however, it turns into the equivalent of a Fire Storm after each attack. Thorn Carapace, especially backed up by healing from other Life Cards, becomes a potent defensive problem.

Another Card worth noting is Voodoo Doll. Unfortunately the card is designed so that extra DAMAGE is dealt by poison counters, rather than applying extra counters in the first place. If a Voodoo Doll is infected under the effects of Impaling Hooks, The opponent will take 1 transferred poison counter, but take three extra damage per turn rather than one, as the Voodoo Doll is damaged.



A Plague of Thorns

Here is a proposed deck designed by JonathanCrazyJ that shows how a defensive arsenal powered by Noxious Hooks | Impaling Hooks could look! Relics have been used to represent Impaling Hooks.

A Plague of Thorns
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534 534 6rp 6rp 6rp 710 710 710 710 710 710 714 714 714 714 714 714 719 719 719 719 719 719 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7aj 7aj 7aj 7ap 7ap 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 8pn

(Relics represent Impaling Hooks)

Early game plays with this deck involve baiting out any PC with Shard of Gratitude, while simultaneously keeping at a decent HP in the early game. Once you have the quanta, play the Impaling Hooks and Spine Carapace, possibly along with a Plague to get the poison ball rolling. Once several opponent creatures are due to die, drop all the vultures you have to get huge damage ramp as your opponent's field crumbles.
Gray Nymphs provide excellent single target CC when needed, and provide an alternative win condition by flooding your opponent's field with Malignant Cells which can't get through your shield. When the time is right, a single plague on a full field of cells can provide a huge amount of deaths to feed your Vultures.
Mitosis can be used as you see fit depending on the situation, either for Nymphs or Vultures, or in some circumstances against an AI opponent, on their smaller, weaker creatures like Photon, to give you more targets to kill to trigger death effects.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2017, 08:36:35 pm by mathman101 »

Offline Marsu

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Re: Card Idea of the Month https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1045250#msg1045250
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2013, 06:55:31 pm »
Spoiler for December 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


If there is one domain in which :aether Aether reigns supreme, aside from stopping damage with Dimensional Shield, victories in War, and forum admin fan service it would definitely be spell damage. Home of the versatile :aether Thunderbolt, the namesake of many 'X Bolt' decks and the appropriately named forum guild, the element has cemented the theme of spell damage in its arsenal through how it incorporates it in cards such as Psion and Shard of Wisdom. As such, spell echoing may find an appropriate thematic home in :aether Aether, although another card designer might've suggested a home in :air Air before, though he may have been a bit biased. :aether Spellstone, a card designed by moomoose gives players a 25% chance to generate a spell card in their hand when the spell is played, permitting the cap of 6 of the same card to be overcome in a sense, but also allowing the spell duplication to use part of the opponent's deck, if possible.


Spell Duplication
When comparing :aether Spellstone to :aether Mindgate it is important to note that a Mono :aether Aether deck which runs Mindgate can effectively play the opponent's deck as well, however, :aether Spellstone simply adds copies of spells, and unfortunately, this means no duplication of pillars or pendulums. Thus, a :aether Spellstone deck is likely to be a :entropy Nova bow, but it definitely doesn't have to be, especially if you'd much rather copies of your own spells. Having synergies with :entropy Nova, :death Poison, :fire Fire Bolt, :light Shard of Divinity, and even :aether Silence, :aether Spellstone proves to be as flexbile as it is deadly. Enhancing the spell factor of decks, :aether Spellstone magnifies the potency of certain decks while being thematically housed.


Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :aether Spellstone | Spellstone!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71b 71b 71u 71u 71u 71u 8pu

(Relics represent Spellstone)

As if SoSa Poison decks needed any more help, :aether Spellstone comes along to not only grant a chance of duplicating :death Deadly Poisons but :death Shard of Sacrifice as well. However, due to the mechanics of the deck, spells should not necessarily be used liberally, though they can be. The more spells played while :aether Spellstone is active, the more spells that will be duplicated, and as such it may even be wise to hold back on 1-2 Deadly Poison if an Arsenic is up. Though if spells are lobbed when drawn, the deck should still be quite effective, with a decent chance of duplicating at least 1-2 cards per game.



As we move past our last month's :time Time card into this month's :aether Aether card it is important to review the 2016 year and think about the effect we've had on the fabric of aether over this year's time. :aether Spellstone by moomoose would make an excellent and thematic addition to the highly effective :aether Aether arsenal. Though this year comes to a close, we from the Card Curator team look forward to more creative inspirations from an ever-hopeful community, and look forward to seeing what 2017 has in store, because who knows? Maybe we'll see :aether Spellstone in a near EtG future.

Good luck to the 2 remaining teams in War!! Oh and good luck to the upcoming Temp. Warmaster filling in for Physsion. Click HERE to find out more about War 10!!

Be sure to view more of moomoose's work in their Portfolio!
Spoiler for November 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


One of the most representative mechanics within :time Time is anything related to drawing cards or drawing cards in general. Cards such as :time Sundial, :time Golden Hourglass, :time Eternity. :time Reverse Time and :time Precognition all involve card advantage through either drawing cards or returning cards to a deck so they can be drawn again. As such, they set and cement a precedent for the mechanic to be housed in the element of :time Time. Therefore, :time Time has become known as one of the elements which can speed through its decks, but is also known for being the element of deckouts. Where there is a Stall with significant Deck Out capabilities, unless it's just simply a larger deck, expect :time Time to be part of it. The only issue with these types of decks, especially in Mono :time Time decks, is that although they can survive in terms of Card Count, without healing they will seldom make it to the end. This is where :time Flowing Time | Revolving Time by The_Mormegil comes into play. Reinforcing the drawing theme of :time Time, this month's card focuses on rewarding drawing cards by also healing the owner 3HP per card drawn, and yes, it stacks. So, regarding a card that helps the Time Deckout Stall, it's about :time that this card was looked at.


Stall
:time Flowing Time | Revolving Time is meant to embody the eternal nature of :time Time. It fits perfectly into a stalling type of deck with :time Eternity but in doing so, also somewhat reveals the deck it's supposed to fit into, decreasing its surprise factor and versatility. Maximizing drawing capabilities while also maintaining the deck a mystery is quite difficult to do. As such, once the first :time Flowing Time is revealed, expect to see plenty of :time Golden Hourglass, potential :time Sundials, and of course, :time Eternity. Meaning that with the right build, opponents will be in for a rough ride. However, because the card has predictable synergies, particularly non-rare permanent synergies, a deck with this sort of build will have a clear weakness, one to repetitive Permanent Control.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :time Flowing Time | Revolving Time!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 5s4 5s4 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q3 7q3 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq

(Relics represent Revolving Time)

Though :time Flowing Time | Revolving Time is excellent at capitalizing on the drawing capabilities of :time Time, stalls become that much trickier to face take out when Max HP is increased. That's how the classic :earth :light Immortal earned its name! Considering that this stall may ironically take some time to set up, it helps quite a bit to pack on the Max HP to prepare for large blows. Furthermore the increase in Max HP will only allow the healing capabilities of :time Revolving Time to truly shine, especially with a few :time Golden Nymphs, which are also decent hitters, and in late game, solid Eternity targets.



While we whoosh past :air from last month's card, we arrive to a beautifully thematic card in :time Flowing Time | Revolving Time. Most importantly, this card is a perfect example of what it means to solidify and strengthen existing elemental character, which is important for card game flavour. Allowing the drawing theme of :time Time to be reinforced, :time Flowing Time | Revolving Time makes an excellent addition to :time Time's arsenal.

Good luck to all teams in War!! Click HERE to find out more about War 10!!

Be sure to view more of The_Mormegil's work in their Portfolio!
Spoiler for October 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


:air Air is commonly seen as the element of movement and grace. With built in mechanics of freedom, and with a heavy emphasis on Creature Control, :air Air is typically not too concerned with what you throw at it, because as long as its pieces come together, :air Air will win with a boom through explosives or soaring dragons and wyrms or it will win while sniping down all creatures that dare attack it and finish its opponent while the dust settles in silence. However, :air Air is not an element known for its Permanent Control, and though not all elements should need PC to be successful, Pineapple's interpretation of :air Air Permanent Control in :air Tornado makes so much sense in so many ways. It's soft and cheap effect is reminiscent of Fog Shield and its similarity to Dusk Mantle, while its form of Permanent Control is a fairly accurate portrayal of the possible turbulance that a Tornado can be, tossing everything around!

Permanent Control
:air  Tornado | Tornado functions effectively as a cheaper form, less consistent form of :darkness Steal, being very splashable as well in Rainbow decks or even in Trios due to its low cost and repetitive potential. However, its cheaper cost comes with a drawback, that it can be used by both players, as it switches ownership when used. This further works against the :air Air elemental because, one of its most potent cards, the :air Shard of Freedom functions best when left untouched by any form of Permanent Control. On the other hand, it works very well with the shield :air Wings, as all :air Air creatures but the Blue Nymph are airborne, and even if the opponent Windsweeps Wings towards themselves, it will be of little use. As such, if planning on using :air Tornado, while an interesting form of Permanent Control, it's a good idea to take some time to assess how effective the Permanents of your deck would be against you. Lastly, with a bit of clever use, against players it can also be used to play mind games. If :air Tornado is played early on, preemptively, it might discourage the opponent from playing vital Permanents of their deck. Otherwise, it should be used in response to Permanents being played, though keep in mind that :air Tornado is subject to summoning sickness just like every other card!



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :air Tornado | Tornado!

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4t9 4t9 4t9 7ms 7ms 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mv 7mv 7mv 7n5 7n5 7n8 7n8 7n8 7n8 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 7te 7te 7ti 7ti 7ti 7ti 8pt

(Relics represent Tornado)

The opponent can't target what they can't see! Using :darkness Cloaks, this deck attempts to capitalize on the concealment in allowing Windswept Permanents to be more difficult to return to their owner, with only :darkness Cloak being visible. Furthermore, :darkness Cloak protects the frail :air Damselflies and the investments made in :air Sky Dragons that have been targeted by :darkness Liquid Shadow, which should really only be healing the damage that has actually managed to sneak through both Wings and the Eagle's Eye. Fortunately, in the typical scenario, the opponent will not be able to make too much use of either :air Wings or the :air Eagle's Eye as the former will let all your airborne creatures through and the latter will likely not have the cost to snipe down creatures (which should ideally be covered by :darkness Cloak to begin with).



Last month, we saw that :light Light could be powerful on its own and can at times use a little help from cost conversion. This month, we see a card that beautifully represents the mechanics and thematics of :air Air while being given a suitable cost as well. :air Air Tornado is the Permanent Control card that it has waited for for a long time and if Zanzarino were to release a patch right now, Team :air Air certainly wouldn't mind this addition in their duels throughout the remainder of War!

Good luck to all teams in War!! Click HERE to find out more about War 10!!

Be sure to view more of Pineapple's work in the Card Ideas & Art!
Spoiler for September 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


:light Light is commonly seen as the element of pride and boastfulness. It's faith in itself is unparalleled and this courage can sometimes be its own demise. Accompanying its pride, its design sometimes comes with a certain isolationist component as seen in :light Miracle, :light Hope and :light Morning Star, almost as if :light Light as an element cannot be touched and needs nothing else. While it's true that :light Light can make some truly mean Mono Decks, cards such as :light Sanctuary, :light Pegasus and :light Photon are seldom alone in Mono Decks, benefiting greatly from elements such as :fire Fire, :aether Aether and :air Air and a :light Miracle or 2 in a larger Rainbow Deck can help in a pinch! This isolationist design aspect is portrayed beautifully in this month's CIotM, :light Halo | Halo by Ajit. With a variety of ways to produce :light and furthermore, to create producers of :light Light, the ability to pay for cards and abilities is an excellent one in the element of :light Light. Halo allows the capitalize on excesses of :light Light and let a powerful deck have its moment to shine!


Conversion
:light Halo | Halo allows the elemental to pay for cards and costs in :light. However, much like :time Sundial, it has a turn of summoning sickness before its ability can be activated. As such, any card that can protect it effectively, such as :darkness Cloak, can be vital for a deck with :light Halo against an opponent with Permanent Control. Being able to pay for cards and costs with :light has great benefits, but at the same time, forces a deck to approach 1 of 2 styles,  1) :light Halo support, where :light Quanta is the majority in supply and is used when other quanta sources are not sufficient (possibly with the inclusion of 2-3 Quantum Pillars) or 2):light Halo dominant, wherein cards and abilities cannot be played if not for :light Halo burst, introducing a surprise factor in an element which can afford to stall out until the perfect hand is drawn (in OTK fashion).



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :light Halo | Halo!

Deck 1:
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77f 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7n5 7tb 7tb 7ti 7ti 7ti 80i 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 8pt

(Relics represent Halo)

Here we have a Halo Vadersader, with :light Halo permitting Crusaders to take on a new dimension! Though the classic Vadersader can be resilient with the right cards drawn, this version sacrifices a bit of consistency to be able to still be effective while handling many more obstacles that might put a halt to the classic deck. :darkness Cloak is able to protect the vital components of the deck, :light Halo and the weapons so needed for endowing, :earth Pulverizer allows this deck to have PC in a pinch while :air Eagle's Eye allows for CC if necessary. Lastly, :aether Fractal is there to be able ramp up the damage significantly when the combo is pulled off of damage from 4 Crusaders is not enough and furthermore, allowing many more Crusaders to endow what is needed in response to the opponent's deck! With a :darkness Mark to add a bit more consistency to the deck, quantity of VD can be played around with. If 2 Vampire Daggers are not enough, the deck can likely sacrifice 1 or 2 Towers in exchange for more Daggers, though do keep in mind that excess :light benefits the deck!



Last month, we saw that :water Water could be represented naturally through its ability to stop attacks cold dead in their tracks in an extremely fitting card :water Isol's Blizzard and similarly, this month's card is one that truly lets the pride of :light Light shine through! :light Halo encourages Duo, Trio and Rainbow Decks in a way that characterizes :light Light, needing nothing but itself.

Be sure to view more of Ajit's work in his Portfolio!
Spoiler for August 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen & RootRanger


In contrast to :fire Fire's raging heat, :water Water is or at least should be there to quench it. In Elements the Game, though the elements are largely seen as on equal footing, :fire Fire has a tendency to be a bit too hot. Even for :water Water. With Espithel's :water Isol's Blizzard, players are stopped right in their tracks as the blizzard of Water rages on. Preventing creatures from attacking on the turn they were played puts offensive elements at a serious disadvantage and gives elements with many defensive options, such as :water Water, a clear advantage. Once the blizzard dies down, though, and that effect isn't as necessary, :water Isol's Blizzard can be sacrificed in order to breeze through one's deck, simultaneously drawing one card and freezing one target. This clever mechanic allows for the use of more than 1 copy of a shield in a deck and with a card as effective as :water Isol's Blizzard, you will certainly want a full 6.


Shield & CC
A shield effective at slowing down the enemy just enough to get more expensive cards out, :water Isol's Blizzard excels not only at freezing attacks, but in freezing attackers. Furthermore, the ability of :water Isol's Blizzard allows the shield to be a passing card, encouraging decks that ask for speed, or allowing larger decks to effectively have 1 card less for each :water Isol's Blizzard included. Representing the ebb and flow of even blizzards, the varying effects of this shield effectively allows a :water Water elemental to adapt to a variety of situations, stopping enemies cold in their tracks.



Here is a deck designed by RootRanger that shows an effective way to use :water Isol's Blizzard | Isol's Blizzard!

Deck 1:
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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vf 52h 560 5bt 5f2 5op 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5ul 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 8pp

(Relics represent Isol's Blizzard)

Here we have a classic Dragon OTK that makes use of Isol's Blizzard for purposes of additional delay and card draw. The idea is to play your first Isol's Blizzard early in the game to cut off some of the opponent's damage, then play your second Isol's Blizzard as soon as you have the quanta for it by activating the one currently in your shield slot. Meanwhile, you can make use of Sundials to slow down the opponent's remaining damage and draw further through your deck.

What's interesting about Isol's Blizzard, compared to other shields, is that it is advantageous to draw multiple copies even against a deck without permanent control. The only other two shields which share this property are Dimensional Shield and Bone Wall, both of which are borderline too expensive for this rainbow.

Lastly, we have the Dragons, Sky Blitz, and Chimera. It's a well-established combo for dealing 100 damage in one turn, which is most useful when facing decks with strong control and stall capabilities. The use of both Sundial and Isol's Blizzard makes it almost-inevitable that you'll draw your Dragon combo - just watch out for Shard of Divinity!



Last month, we saw that :fire Fire is classically seen as the element of fury and destruction, and in contrast, :water Water is classically seen as the element of tranquility, balance and tranquility. Isol's Blizzard brings together elements, allows the use of more than 1 copy in your deck, and lastly, beautifully represents the quenching of a raging enemy.

Be sure to view more of Espithel's work in the Card Ideas & Art section!

Can anyone guess the element of next month's Card Idea of the Month?
Spoiler for July 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: Krava found HERE.

The concept of increasing damage output after having taken damage is already a significant part of :fire Fire's theme as seen in the card :fire Rage Potion | Rage Elixir. Though Anarook manages to capture the creature form of this concept cleanly and properly in this card idea, it is a recurring concept in the element of :fire Fire which can assuredly be found even in the archives of Kongregate's card idea thread. :fire Blood Rager | Blood Berserker increases in attack by 1 ATK for every 10HP that the player has lost. This allows it to passively increase in attack, however it is limited to an increase of 9 points in its attack, to a limit of 12 |14 with a typical maximum HP of 100. Furthermore, this creature relies on the player receiving damage to reach its full potential, meaning that if this creature faces a stalling deck low on damage potential, :fire Blood Rager | Blood Berserker fails to do much at all.


Main Attacker

While not being the most efficient damage for its cost, this card is most at home being a main source of damage. However, this card does expect incoming damage, and otherwise faces serious issues against stalling decks. While :fire Fire Bolts may help in an self-damaging OTK type of deck, the reliability provided by increasing max HP through :light Shard of Divinity or :earth Stone Skin is impressive and furthermore, falls right into :fire Fire duo territory.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :fire Blood Rager | Blood Berserker!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 778 778 778 778 778 778 77k 77k 77k 77k 77k 77k 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 7dl 7dl 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 8po

(Relics represent :fire Blood Berserker)

As discussed above, the ability for :earth Stone Skin to push the attack cap of this creature much higher than it originally was means that as long as 20 damage was taken and (ideally) 20 or more HP has been increased through the use of the first :earth Stone Skin, :fire Blood Rager | Blood Berserker becomes at least a 1:1 cost:attack creature. Furthermore, due to the stalling potential of this deck through the use of :fire Fire Shield and :earth Stone Skin, it is possible that this deck will outlast other classic rushes, as such, 2 more cards are included over the classic 30 card deck in order to defeat them. Where this deck truly suffers is against stalls, where damage output is low and card count is high. In this case, it may be prudent to include a couple of :fire Fire Bolts to simply have the option of late-game self-damage for a massive increase to :fire Blood Berserkers in play, or to simply be able to bolt the opponent. :fire Explosions should help against most permanent-heavy stalls, however, in the general case, this deck will have difficulties against the classic stall.



:fire Fire is classically seen as the element of fury, destruction and, in some cases, renewal. :fire Blood Rager | Blood Berserker does its element justice if not in its design, artwork or balance (which it does), it certainly does in represent a classic mechanic represented a number of times in an element that is happy to go off in a blaze of glory as long as it means burning down all who may oppose it.

To see more of Anarook's work check his portfolio HERE.
Spoiler for June 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: HERE & HERE

Originally designed by Manipul8r, this theme and card were reworked and by Xenocidius, much like the last CIotM of this year. Reinventing the classic :life Life archetype of Natural Selection, this design follows a similar theme as the card currently included in Cygnia, :life Survival Trait | Survival Trait. Another card involving the mechanism of creature generation, :life Natural Selection | Evolution can be included among cards such as :life Mitosis, :aether Fractal and :aether Parallel Universe, however its mechanic has a certain :death Death twist in that those that are not destroyed propagate. Despite this, however, it rewards and specifically interacts with creatures that are alive and this makes the mechanic and card have more of a :life Life theme than the :death Death theme that some suggested.


Creature Generation
Being relatively cheap, cards such as Immolation and Owl's Eye can make this card quite dangerous, especially considering that the effects of this card stack whether upgraded or not. Despite its thematic low cost in :life Life it is still a bit limited in the sense that both versions require a creature death, and as such, both versions require more than 1 creature being on the field. It is also important to note that while the standard :life Natural Selection focuses on generating a copy of one of your creatures in play when another of your creatures is killed, the upgrade focuses on buffing any of the same creatures as the one that was destroyed. As such, the standard version is much trickier to use in that the destruction of creatures generated by :life Natural Selection will result in propagation of only different creatures in play, whereas the destruction of creatures buffed by :life Evolution will, indeed, produce more of the same creatures, however it will result (especially with repeated effects of Evolution) in bulkier creatures of the same type and thus, it will be more difficult to replicate specifically the same creature.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use :life Natural Selection | Evolution!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ap 7ap 7ap 7dm 7dm 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 8pn

(Relics represent Evolution)

A :fire / :life duo which capitalizes on :life Life's strength's to heal, generate creatures and through :life Evolution, strengthen them as well. As the Phoenix is a resilient creature, it makes an ideal candidate for Cremation when a buff is welcome and also makes use of the fact that whether massively buffed or recently played Cremation can be played on any creature on one's side of the field. This is aside from the fact that Minor Phoenixes in particular come out quickly and their Ash counterpart when the Minor Phoenix is destroyed is a relatively bulky 0|5 ideally suited for :life Mitosis. Feral Bonds make use of the resilience of the Phoenix as the healing largely only grows and Creature Control will have a -very- difficult time mitigating the healing provided. :life Mitosis is included not only for Feral Bond synergy but also to be able to Cremate weaker and more frail Minor Phoenixes and have :life Evolution buff all the others. :fire Explosions are packed for pesky Dimension Shields and other potentially dangerous permanents.



:life Life is classically seen as the element of survival, vigor, and organic in contrast to :death Death which is associated with elimination, silence and the end of the road for an organism. Though contrasts, :life Natural Selection | Evolution shows that it is through :death Death that the worthy survive and are rewarded in :life Life. Once again a CIotM which can be seen as archetypal, :life Natural Selection | Evolution represents a classic concept of the :life Life element and would make an excellent addition to its arsenal.

To see more of Xenocidius's work check his portfolio HERE.

Until next time!
Spoiler for May 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: Elements the Game

While the originally theme was designed as an :earth Earth card by wizelsnarf, the ability and inventive theme to be able to wield more than 1 weapon was redesigned by our past Card Designer and Admin, Xenocidius. Simply polishing up the original card and giving it a new look, Xenocidius did a solid job in being inspired by the original while still making the card different enough to call it his own. Weapons themselves are often considered to be some of the most cost-effective damage dealers, with their main limit, of course, being that you cannot wield more than 1 at any given time. :air Flying Weapon largely works around this limit, allowing players to not wield more than 1 weapon, but still, effectively being able to use more than 1 by turning wielded weapons into creatures and thus leaving the weapon slot free for another. This however, leaves your weapon-creatures in a vulnerable position as they suffer all the risk of Creature Control, and of the feared :time Reverse Time which would not only return the weapon to your deck but also undo the :air Flying Weapon.  :rainbow Weapon Slot not only allows more weapons to be wielded simultaneously, but it also allows the weapons to be safe as permanents!

At a particularly low cost of 2 :rainbow | 1 :rainbow, this card may be splashed in any deck quite easily, and should be capitalized on in weapon-heavy decks. While thematically speaking, the card seems to contrast :air Flying Weapon and may possibly also make sense in :earth Earth, :rainbow Weapon Slot does just as well as an Other card.


Permanent Protection
While at first glance it may seem like the card's primary function is to capitalize on cost-efficient weapons for damage, :air Flying Weapon does that just as well, with the unupgraded version doing so for even cheaper! Instead, Weapon Slot does what :air Flying Weapon does well, but adds the general benefit of protection as a permanent. Considering that Permanent Control is less common compared to Creature Control, the ability to maintain one's weapons as permanents serves the purpose of increasing the likelihood that they will last longer, and thus be more... permanent. However, this also means that, as permanents, the weapons played cannot gain the benefits of being creatures, such as being able to catapult :gravity Titans, :aether Shard of Wisdom for those :light Morning Glories or any :darkness Eclipse effects on your :darkness Vampire Daggers. So :rainbow Weapon Slot, then. must be used primarily for its ability to protect weapons while also still being able to wield more than 1 at the same time.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Weapon Slot!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 59c 59c 778 778 778 778 778 778 77c 77c 77f 77f 77f 77f 77f 77f 77l 77l 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 8pl

(Relics represent Weapon Slot)

An :earth / :gravity duo which capitalizes on Weapon Slot's ability to protect one's weapons while also being able to destroy the opponent's permanents through Pulverizer's ability. Considering that they are also 4 :earth and each have 5 attack, they also put on enough offensive pressure while :earth Auburn Nymphs and :earth Basilisk Bloods put on Creature Control pressure primarily on creatures that are a concern for Diamond Shield, that is to say, any creature with :gravity Momentum, concerning abilities or greater than 3 attack.


All in all, :rainbow Weapon Slot represents an idea that is collectively shared by more than one Card Designer in the community, as a great theme and great mechanic. Furthermore, it is a card that can be used to compliment :air Flying Weapon in that it gives a bit more versatility to weapon-heavy decks. Potentially well-suited in the :earth Earth element, it was possible that the risks and benefits of being a permanent seldom outweigh the risks and benefits of being a creature and as such, even allowing the unupgraded version of :rainbow Weapon Slot to cost 1 :earth, may have been too much. Having said that, when the risks and benefits of being a permanent do outweigh those of being a creature, a great deck results and this card and theme can truly shine.


To see more of Xenocidius's work check his portfolio HERE.

Until next time!
Spoiler for April 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: petersenk

Repulsor is a 2 :gravity | 3 :gravity cost shield which adds reliability, fortitude and more importantly, a pretty cool shield to :gravity Gravity's arsenal. According to The_Mormegil, the creator of the card, Repulsors act just like Bone Wall in the face of Permanent Control cards in that only one is removed by the stack leaving the rest. Inspired by :gravity Gravity's challenge to rush, stall and its weakness to :time Reverse Time, Repulsor adds a flavourful and thematic shield to an element whose signature shield is seldom seen, even in decks well suited for it. Further cementing its thematic fit, Repulsor belongs to :gravity Gravity, the opposing element to :entropy Entropy which is the element commonly associated to Rainbow decks due to Nova and Supernova. Though smaller Rainbow decks which power themselves with Nova and/or Supernova can afford to have few repeated cards from each element, Repulsor is not the type of card you want to throw only one of in a deck as its strength lies in numbers. As such, the theme of elemental isolation is already passively entrenched in :gravity Gravity and Repulsor only reinforces it.

According to The_Mormegil:
Quote
The balancing is as follows: 1 damage reduction is worth less than 1 :gravity and a card (as per Shield); 2 damage reduction is worth 4 :gravity and a card (as per Titanium Shield); 3 damage reduction is worth 6 :gravity, an upgrade and a card (as per Diamond Shield), which is about 8 :gravity and a card unupped. The unupped therefore is balanced, as requiring multiple cards slow down the deck and a single card is still preferable in most cases. It is powerful, though, as it can stack up to an amazing 6 damage reduction with strong resilience to PC.

Considering how easily Hope can also reach similar levels of damage reduction and is also able to be fueled by Mono decks, Repulsor appears to be equally well balanced and makes for a natural progression in an element all about certainty and reliability.


Defence
Though shields have in the past been designed to be offensive instead, Repulsor was certainly not. It builds up defence, just as :gravity Gravity builds up offense: gradually. This can be seen through cards like Otyugh or Acceleration. With the upgraded version's ability to build up to 32 points of damage reduction using just 6 cards, Repulsor's inclusion in Arena decks with double draws and deck size, this card can become quite the trouble, and fast. It is also important to keep in mind that PC on a stack of these will always leave at least 1 point of damage reduction whether one is using the standard version or the upgrade. This is important because it means that no shield goes to waste and every Repulsor in the deck is worth the space it uses. Lastly, in an element that now has one of the two salvagers, :gravity Graviton Salvager, damage reduction in :gravity Gravity has never been more insured.



Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Repulsor!

Deck 1:
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4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 745 745 745 745 745 745 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 8ps

(Relics represent Repulsors)

A :gravity / :time duo which capitalizes on Repulsor's ability to rack up damage reduction. Through the speed of Precognition, this deck is able pull out a quick and decent offense through Elite Chargers and a solid defense through Repulsors. A fairly straight forward deck, this fully upgraded duo would likely do best in Bronze League of the Arena.


All in all, Repulsor represents the defensive side of :gravity Gravity, a side of the element which is typically associated with Armagios. This is aside from the fact that nowadays even Shards of Focus serve a better defensive purpose than the actual shield of :gravity Gravity aptly named Gravity Shield. Furthermore, as if alluding to the synergy with stacking permanents, Graviton Salvager makes sure that damage reduction set up by Repulsors never goes too low. Though Gravity Shield has the honour of being named as the signature shield of the element, through Repulsor's inclusion, I would expect that decks would not have to be forced to make Repulsor work, but instead would work with it and that one of the trademark of truly great design.


To see more of The_Mormegil's work check his portfolio HERE.
The community thanks The_Mormegil for his contributions and we can only hope that he'll drop by some day and continue with his show of creativity and talent.
Spoiler for March 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Art by: Kuroaitou: ART

Sludge is a perfect example of a card fully created by one card designer. Created during a time where this community member was a multi-tasking, omnipresent Card Curator, Sludge exemplifies a card that included mechanics, art and balancing all created by that very member. Perfectly created for the element of :death Death, Sludge incorporates the mechanic of infection and it would theoretically be the first non-rare, consistent in-element source of creature death, as long as their are creatures other than itself.

Its Toxic ability allows it to increase in attack power while also ensuring that death effects cannot consistently be produced without other creatures, a domain of Schrödinger's cat. While its creature control potential is great, it can only do one of 2 things at a time, either increasing in attack or slowing down the opposing offense through whittling down an attacker's HP.


Control
Naturally, Sludge fits perfectly into a :death Death stall deck with its ability to slowly destroy opposing attacking creatures, and with in-element Bone Wall, it can comfortably defend against quick rushes, moreso those with frail creatures. Importantly, however, it cannot, on its own generate more death effects if its only targets are opposing creatures, as such, intelligent play on behalf of the enemy can quite effectively deal with a Sludge's creature control capabilities.

Offense
When not controlling, however, Sludge can quickly pick up speed through not only its own doing, but with the help of Parasites and even Grey Nymphs! Though not the most powerful growth mechanism, its versatile capability, makes it a potential stallbreaker, mitigating opposing offense while racking up one's own.


Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Sludge!

Deck 1:
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710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 71a 71a 71b 71b 71b 71b sld sld sld sld sld sld 72i 72i 72i 72i 7tg 7tg 7tg 7tg 7tg 7tg 8pt

(sld's represent Sludges)

A powerful :darkness / :death duo which capitalizes on Sludge's ability to not only grow and mitigate incoming damage, but to also circumvent shields which block direct damage. By infecting its own Voodoo Dolls, this deck is able to rack up not only poison damage, it adds it onto the the damage Voodoo Dolls deal from the damage they take, and if Voodoo Dolls are not drawn, Sludges can themselves grow. Despite the fact that Bone Walls may take a bit more work in order to replenish their stacks due to the unsuitably durable creatures in the deck, they still make useful and potent ways to block few sources of damage, akin to Phase Shields.

Possibly more effective as a stall deck including Shards of Sacrifice, this deck presents versatile damage focusing not on dealing with permanents, but slowly getting around them.

Sludge is a cleverly designed card which represents :death Death and its festering nature in a powerful way. Not only does it further cement the infection mechanic in the element of :death Death, but it also introduces a new way to make use of the infection mechanic. Oddly enough, though, :death Death does not have a non-rare, consistent source of death effects to capitalize on one of its main themes. Sludge would not only be a well-designed inclusion to the element of :death Death, it would be a thematic and balanced addition to Elements the Game. Though art is no longer required on card ideas nowadays, the effort that was put in by the designer of the card is appreciated, and it sets a solid standard for investment card designers should put into every card idea produced on the forums.

Though his area of dedication has changed slightly, Kuroaitou's level of dedication continues to shine in his Forum Games. Check them out HERE!!
Spoiler for February 2016:

This card idea of the Month was written by kirbylover314


To honor Darkness’s victory in War 9, Treldon’s Draw! was chosen as the Card Idea of the Month, not only for its element, but also its elegance and practicality. In true Darkness style, it can put you ahead of the opponent by being draw power, mill, or hand denial.

Combined with Shard of Bravery, it can be a powerful mill card, forcing your opponent to deck out before you do. However, when combined with Nightmare and Silence, you can deny your opponent from playing any cards at all, while unpreventable damage to them over and over. Draw! can also ramp up damage or card advantage during turns where you wouldn’t play cards anyways, for example, in SNbows or Mono Darkness.

Here are some examples of the multiple ways one could use Draw! (Note that Relics replace Draw!):
Spoiler for Hidden:
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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6rp 6rp 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u5 6u5 6u5 713 713 74f 74f 752 77g 77g 7ah 7dm 7dq 7gm 7ju 7n8 7n8 80g 8pj


In addition to the previously stated card advantage, the combo nature of this deck (Discord + Black Hole/Shard of Focus and Wings + Flesh Recluse/Phase Recluse) can sometimes fail on you without the ability to draw. At the cost of 4 :darkness , you could find the one card to seal a match, as well as gain two other helpful cards.

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6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 6rp 7dr 7dr 7dr 7dr 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7t8 7t8 7tb 7tb 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 8po


Here, you have 12 cards that can force your opponent to draw 3 cards at a time. Anything that gets played would be killed by the abundance of Creature Control, while Vampire Dagger and Improved Dusk would help stall.

While Draw! has its many uses, it is important to plan well, as silencing yourself or letting your opponent draw could be detrimental at times, but that's part of the beauty of this card: It looks simple, but opens up many complex possibilities in game.
Spoiler for January 2016:

This Card review was written by Hyroen


Spoiler for oEtG Version:
oEtG Version


Art by: Ravizant: ART

Ricochet is an elegant, thematic and balanced idea designed by one of the more prominent card designers of the community, EvaRia. At home, in the element of :entropy Entropy, Ricochet is a permanent that allows a player to capitalize either on the high risk/high reward nature of some spells such as Parallel Universe or through gaining benefit from harmful effects through a Voodoo Doll deck.

Part of Ricochet's interesting design comes from the fact that it seems to be the card that creates the seamless transformation from Chaos Seed to Pandemonium and in this, lies its power. It harnesses the power of truly making a spell more random, while capitalizing on a spell targeting on more than one target in order to have great effect. In this, however, it receives the greatest benefits from being in a Duo deck with a primary spell, in order to have some control and tame the wild Ricochet. While one might think that in a Mono :entropy Entropy deck, Ricochet could shine with Antimatter, don't forget what happens when you target the same creature with Antimatter twice!!


Control
As Ricochet adapts to the spells in the deck, any Duo deck that uses bolts is able to use them to both bolt the enemy and use them as Creature Control. Furthermore, Ricochet stacks and thus, if you'd like to use cards that have stacking effects such as Basilisk Blood, Ricochet presents the opportunity to use 1 card to have the same effect, multiple times on one target.

Support
Similarly, as Ricochet adapts to the spells that are in the deck, buffs can easily be used to great effect in particular decks, especially as Ricochet can have spells reapply on the same target. As an example, it can be used in a Duo :aether Aether / :entropy Entropy deck using Shards of Wisdom to power up as many Phase Dragons as possible, as many times as possible, while making sure you get the most out of Ricochet's erratic nature.


Here is a deck designed and tested by Hyroen that shows a combo with Ricochet!

Deck 1:
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ric ric ric ric 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ai 7ai 7ai 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 8pj

(ric's represent Ricochet)

oEtG Code:
046ud077ac047bu037ai067ae067ap018pj

Mitosis itself as a card can be a bit slow at times. To help it really pick up speed, in this deck it is used alongside a splash of :entropy Entropy and Ricochet in order to capitalize on the cheap cost of Giant Frog, while potentially 'soft-lobotomizing' enemy creatures and leaving the opponent quanta starved, especially due to AI attempting to always activate Mitosis whenever there is enough quanta, nearly guaranteeing a more efficient, consistent increase of one's attack:quanta investment ratio compared to that of the opponent.

Unfortunately however, while the deck does gain benefit from Ricochet, it makes the frogs really vulnerable to single-target creature control, as a single spell could be in essence a Rain of Fire. This is why it is crucial to focus on Mitosis on the primary source of creature generation while using Mitosis from hand when there are enough "readied" frogs who could instantaneously gain benefit from a Mitosis applied to an ally.

It is important to note that compared to the original version, the oEtG version decreased the cost by 1 :entropy for both the standard and upgraded versions of the card while also adding the clause that the caster is randomized, adding even more to the chaotic nature of the card. With testing through this deck however, it seems to even in its oEtG iteration to sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help, however it may be very difficult to justify lowering its cost even further.



Ricochet is a beautiful card not only because it captures the essence of what :entropy Entropy is, but because it adds more sleek and shiny tools to its arsenal. It is a card that harkens back to a time where card design was a little more focused and inspired simple yet elegant designs. Ricochet deserves to be the Card Idea of the Month because it has long been admired as one of the better designed cards of CI&A and because it is currently a part of oEtG.

To view more of EvaRia's work, click HERE. You may be familiar with one card in particular...
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 05:40:46 pm by mathman101 »

Offline SpikeSpiegel

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Re: Card Idea of the Month Archive https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1173597#msg1173597
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2015, 09:26:28 pm »
Spoiler for December 2015:

This Card review was written by Espithel.

Promethean Arsenal is a confusing card at first glance, but it is a beautiful one. Before going into the details of why this card is so pretty, I'm first going to explain how it works. In short, Promethean Arsenal is a substitute for Flying Weapon in mono fire or water, air or earth decks that duo with fire. It's a deceptive card that looks far more powerful than it is, at least unupped, but still a card that gives you a good amount to think with.

-

First of all, this card is designed in mind with a card called Material Pillar, which alternates between generating 1 or 2 of :fire, :water, :air, or :earth a turn. However, as I'm about to explain, that doesn't really matter for reasons I'm describing below. This is why the card may look strange to the uninitiated.

When you play Promethean Arsenal, it absorbs one fire, air, water, or earth quanta. Of the quanta it absorbs, it adds the corresponding weapon (Fahrenheit, Owl's Eye, Trident, or Pulverizer, respectively.) into your hand. If you can't drain any quanta, it'll generate a non-rare weapon, currently Dagger, Short Sword, Bow, and Hammer.

Promethean Arsenal then provides a status effect to your current weapon, if you have one, that allows it to be animated it would be replaced (Not destroyed, but replaced. That means steal it for massive damage!) when you play another weapon.

So, essentially, it's a better FW, right? ... No. First of all, its main drawback is the RNG built in to it. Let's say you have all four types of quanta when you play this card. That means you have a 25% chance of getting a Fahrenheit, a Trident, a Pulverizer, and an Owl's Eye. That alone is a huge drawback; you will not always get what you want.

Of those cards, Pulverizer, is completely useless. You pay 3 :fire, drain 1 :earth, then pay another 4 :earth to get something that deals four damage! You pay seven :underworld for Shard of Wisdom, without the main upside to SoW. Its ability is in gravity, making it the last thing you want.

Second of all, what if you get Trident? Well, first of all, that's 4 :water and 3 :fire to play an inferior SoW. And, whilst you can use its ability in a quartet with Material Pillar, doing so runs the risk of getting a Pulverizer, making something you're likely to exclude in decks that run the Arsenal... You just made NTUG cry.

This leaves us with two desirable results: Owl's Eye, which can kill creatures and deals fair, if not inefficient damage, and Fahrenheit, the monster it is... If you weren't paying 3 :fire all the time to play more Fahrenheits. However, this card can be used with Fahrenheit alone, mitigating the damage that the RNG absorption gives it.

And this is all assuming you want to animate either one of these four weapons, which most decks do not. The RNG factor makes the card severely take a hit; if it was "Drain your highest of :fire :water :earth :air", It would be a much easier card to work with. If it gave an actual damage buff to your main weapon, or readied its skill, that would be very kind, too.

However, this is the unupped. Upgraded, this card becomes much more viable. Whilst it forces you to run at least fire and air, forcing a maximum of 50% chance to get what you want, it is a very resistant (but slow) way of generating extra damage from thin air, giving it a home in fire/air stalls. After all, you could destroy this... If you want to have no answer to that wings or Eagle's Eye already in place. In this sense, it should be treated more like a mutated, bizarre Forest Spectre. You pay 1 :air and however much your weapon costs to get that much attack out.

-

This card could create new duos for fire with the three other elements, with no loss to your previous weapon, encouraging weapon spamming, especially with the upgraded Promethean Foundry's duplication. Whilst not being a go-to card for these duos, it can help all four of these elements stallbreak when upgraded, which is its main upside. Even though at least Fire and Water are already good at stallbreaking, the Foundry allows you to it in a more compact and unexpected way.

This card needs some changes to make work, and it should be noted, seeing we're going full blown Cygnia here, that this card can pull other elemental :earth, :fire, :air and :water weapons should they get added, which people will eventually make and will alter this card's properties. This card may even have to work alongside FW to see its full potential, which could cause many strange and interesting decks to appear; What would this, some Long Swords, Freedoms and Animates look like? Or

To conclude, whilst this isn't powerful, it looks like a very fun card to toy around with, much like cat decks. A lot of weak but interesting experiments are to be found with this card, and I merely scratched the surface. And, after all, isn't that what's most important?

(And yes. The card has a typo in its name.)
Spoiler for November 2015:

This Card review was written by AD TienzuStorm


Copacati is a creature able to switch from providing support for its owner to hindering the opponent's set up seamlessly. Its versatility and powerful synergies allow it to shine in the CIA as an excellent design for Life CC.

At first glance, Copacati seems to be quite a weak card. Contrary to most Life creatures, its cost:attack ratio is nothing to brag about, and its ability appears to be a more expensive and less powerful version of Lobotomy. However, upon looking closer, Copacati proves to be an interesting little creature.

Control

Whilst seeming vastly outshadowed by Mind Flayer in terms of CC, Copacati proves to fill in its own niche. It can be used in a mono and also allows for Life to shut down most decks relying on abilities.

Support

Whilst not being the area immediately thought of upon seeing the card, this is the area where Copacati shines. Unlike Mind Flayer, Copacati can help strengthen your position by either allowing usage of off element abilities (ex: Forest Spirit) or lowering ability costs (ex: Mitosis on anything in element not a Forest Scorpion or Frog). This helps to make Mitosis based decks even faster and also allows for some interesting splash decks using cheap creatures with non Life abilities (Lycanthropes, Graviton Fire Eaters, Chrysaoras, etc.).

It is also a wonderful tool for trimming down trios into duos. For example, it allows :life :water Steam Machines, :life :light Pegasi, even :life :earth Pulverizer if you're in the mood for it. One particular trio-turned-into-a-duo that springs out from using this card is :life :water Copacati+NT. The usually expensive abilities of Nymphs can be replaced with :life :life. Imagine a Life/Water stall having access to effects such as Antimatter, BH, and reusable CC in the form of Red Nymph's Berserk and Auburn Nymph's Petrify. And they're all immaterial.

And these aren't even all of Copacati's possible synergies if it were to be implemented. There are plenty more out there, and Life will benefit very much from such a card.

Here's a deck designed and tested by Fippe94 that demonstrates two possible combos with Copacati!

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7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7ac 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7ar 7ar 7ar 7ar 7ar 7gs 7gs 7gr 7gr 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7gp 8pp

(???'s represent Copacati)

While it may appear a bit low on :water generation, don't be fooled - some decks require a lot of :life commitment, and with Steam Machines, Poseidon, and possibility Arctic Squids taking  from your quanta pool, you'll need a lot of :life quanta at the ready!
Spoiler for October 2015:

This card idea of the month is brought to you by Espithel.



More death effects are something that we need to be cautious of, but this late entry is yet another reason why I really wish death nymphs weren't ultra rare. Allowing you to essentially deal with a second creature every time you destroy another has a lot of value to it, and it only stacks and stacks the more of these you play. Imagine a single cat delaying an entire armada of... GotPs.

More importantly, this stacks quite intuitively with bonewall, essentially giving you a third shield for every death. I've always been annoyed how the best way to use bonewall is to just let it be drained. Annoying for an opponent indeed, but requires a good portion of maintenance. Cats are the most efficient way of fueling this, but they're quite brittle.

Regardless, this might be the (second) best death-effect-matters card should it be added to elements, buffing the otherwise newb-only cats/walls deck and making bonebolt even more effective. I do wish this card was slightly cheaper, but the idea of making cat decks playable, or at least getting extra value out of off-element CC, is quite an interesting one.
Spoiler for September 2015:


This card idea of the month is brought to you by Discord.


Originally made in the Weekly Challenge shield competition, this shield is basically a slow antimatter towards attacking creatures while buffing their HP, thus making it harder to kill them.

Whilst only protecting you from one damage per creature, it also reduces the creature's damage, so the damage you take becomes less and less as it attacks. While having a cost of a normal shield, this card is very powerful. Maybe not overpowered, but just enough to make it something to want. Ironically, however, this card is basically an antimatter for Gravity in a way.

Besides the benefits of the antimatter aspect, the creatures attacking you become harder to kill. With -1 | +1, you can turn a light dragon, into something that constantly heals you with increasing health. Like i said, harder to kill! On top of that, however, smaller creatures have a higher chance to be killed, but i higher chance to be antimattered completely, with less HP and less attack.

While this card isn't overpowered, but powerful enough, it does have some weak spots. Like said above, lesser creatures have higher chance to be killed, but stronger creatures could possibly never be killed, unless you got poison, or reverse time. Well known, this card is also still vulnerable to PC cards like Deflagration, or Pulverizer.

All in all, this card would be powerful in any game, while still having quite a few weak spots. I believe this card would go good against any opponent.
Spoiler for August 2015:


This card idea of the month is brought to you by ZephyrPhantom.



Originally created in a "Quickdraw" game of Guess My Card, Fishing Rod demonstrates that exploring unusual element combinations creatively can lead to interesting strategies.

While a lackluster weapon in terms of damage, one must look at Fishing Rod for its ability to cast any Water creature straight from your deck for the low price of 3 :time ignoring any other costs - ironically, you'll benefit more from hooking a Dragon or Nymph in most cases than a Puffer Fish. Best load up your pond with Ice Dragons while you can!

Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to call out a load of beatsticks, Fishing Rod can also speed up you ability to thin through your deck in classic Golden Hourglass fashion - a :water / :time stall could include Fishing Rod as an option to quickly draw out squids, whereas an upgraded Animated Weapon Fishing Rod deck might attempt to go for broke and swarm the field with a variety of Water creatures. One particular combo of note is that you could mix this into a SoR Steam Machine deck to draw out Steam Machines onto the field to lower the chances that you'll draw dead Shards of Readiness first.

While it this may seems like a powerful card, keep in mind that it requires fairly quanta-heavy comittment and playing more than one is a bit of struggle compared to Golden Hourglass. Additionally, if your aggressive fishing start gets disrupted by a well-timed mass CC spell or some proper stalling, you may be looking at a very fast deckout while your bait comes up empty; remember kids, pillars don't bite.

Overall, Fishing Rod functions as an excellent demonstration of :water can do in combination with other elements and how simple ideas can give rise to various new strategies. Just remember to bring your bait kit.
Spoiler for July 2015:

This card idea of the month is brought to you by Frozengaia.



Part of a Series Zblader has done based around the upgraded card being allowed to, over time, generate its unupped counterpart, I personally believe this one to be the best thus far. Justice allows you to force the next creature that would deal damage, be it you or your opponent, to lose 5 ATK, even allowing them to go into negative ATK.

This card sounds simple, but there are a lot of nuances. For example, being a permanent, its affect can only take place the turn after you play it, making it better played as a warning, causing people to delay playing their bigger creatures whilst a smaller one does the crime. After all, playing it in reaction to a creature means that creature gets to attack twice.

This card heavily punishes playing creatures yourself - you attack before your opponent as far as this card cares, after all. You could even consider that a loss of merit to the card. However, this is a good time to remind you that Light has both Morning Glory and is the default duo for firestalls. Light doesn't need to play creatures.

The upgraded's continuing recur should not be underestimated, as it makes decking a user of it impossible without shard of bravery. This recur, coupled with the lack of ways to deal with spells, makes this, perhaps, an even easier anti-deckout measure than eternity, which I'm sure rainbow stalls will appreciate.

As far as playability is concerned, I do not see this being used as creature control in traditional firestalls, but the upgraded is certainly worth playing in a time/light stall or Siphonary, the dark/light stall. The unupped can be used to soften the opponent whilst light gets enough quanta to cast its highly expensive dragons - bear in mind that this allows negative attack, thus healing. A deck with good creature control can remove creatures in front and then allow justice to turn into a SoGra's worth of healing... But the question that should be asked is whether it's worth both justice and the CC in question.

Overall, Justice | Oppression is an interesting card that forces players to think when against it.

And as an honourable mention:
Fippe94 Recently created "The Average CIA card", which has the mean card type, element, cost, ATK, HP, and has an ability worded from only the top 20 most commonly used cards ever since CIA began.
It says good things that this is a surprisingly balanced, thematically accurate, and all-around good card.
Spoiler for June 2015:


Alectryomancy | Alectryomancer by Frozengaia
This card review was written by kirbylover314.


Alectryomancy, part of Frozen’s Divination series, is a card that can buff some of the more frail creatures in Life, like Rustler or Giant Frog, as well as accelerating a monolife rush. It works by allowing you to buff a creature for +2 | +2, and then allowing you to sacrifice a creature to draw cards. This sequence repeats itself at the beginning of every turn, regardless if you used the second ability or not.

Sacrificing a creature isn’t a problem with Life, as the combination of low cost creatures and Mitosis means a steady stream of Attack and HP boosts can be given, which in turn, can be used to strengthen the parent creature and prevent it from most forms of CC. Fractal is another card that can produce many creatures quickly, allowing lots of card draw to happen.

The buff can also be combined with cards like Deathstalker or Dune Scorpion, making a build up of poison damage while other Life cards like SoG keep you alive. Like Immolation | Cremation, this card can also remove some of the useless creatures on the field, like those hit by Antimatter or Basilisk Blood.

As you can see, the examples listed above are only some of the many synergies this card has, thus allowing countless new decks to be made.

Praise the glorious art.
Spoiler for May 2015:
Bazinga! This month, no card!  :P
Spoiler for April 2015:

Bloodletting | Bloodletting by Treldon
This card review was written by Zblader.


"Is a killer always heartless?" Well, honestly, I don't know, but one can sure leave a mess! Bloodletting is part AoE, part CC, part dry burn spell - it's all dependent on how you build your deck.

The most immediate combo that works with this card is a burn strategy with Aflatoxin - infect a creature, let it die and clog the board with Maligant Cells, and then reap the benefits by killing them all for a powerful burn effect directed at the player. This combo is a bit slow on the draw, however, and is best used in conjunction with a stall. Building off of that, you can also use this card's potential to harm/kill lots of creatures to fuel Boneyard or Soul Catcher. If you're feeling lucky, you can also go with Skull Shield in hopes of quickly converting creatures into Skeletons for more death triggers.

Appropriately for :death, this card is also a useful counter against pro-swarm cards like Fractal and Mitosis, picking at the masses while blasting a bigger target.  Two of them chained together can shut down a Firefly Queen strategy, or if you're feeling bold, you can try to build a trio to have a mix of both creature swarm and mass spell damage. Going further out of mono- :death, one can use this in combination with damage-dealing shields like Fire Shield or Thorn Carapace to speed up "time of death" for enemy creatures by a turn, or lower HP enough to sneak by Gravity Shield while nuking a fat Otyugh out of usable Devour range. If you expect to run into Reflective shields a lot, consider Voodoo Doll for damage that is nearly impossible to interrupt.

So yeah, that's my 2 pizza huts on this nicely designed card. If you've got any other ideas on what other strategies this card would enable ingame, post them on the Newsletter Thread. Thanks for reading!
Spoiler for March 2015:

Angry Elephant | Raging Elephant by Ginyu
This card review was written by iancudorinmarian.


"CC for life!? No! You will mess with the order of the Elements Universe!"- random veteran
"Oops."- Ginyu

Did you ever want to kill a small, but powerful creature like ruby dragon with a single shot, especially in :life ? Well, now you have the possibility. With this, you can use :gravity mark and stomp everything in your sight! This creature also synergies with adrenaline (better with unupped) and thorn carapace. You can slowly wipe out the enemy's field with this. Add some Shard of Gratitude and the job is done!

There is also another combo. Although it requires a duo, you can combo it with otyugh and gravity shield. Eat everything small with the oty, block the big creatures with gravity shield and wait for the elephant to stomp them when the small ones are in the oty's stomach.

I will leave the fun for you to find out the other synergies, because in this game, they are endless.
Spoiler for February 2015:



Before telling you its uses, I'm going to tell you that you can't use it on your opponent's creature. Sorry. You have to sacrifice things from yourself, not from others.

Let's start with a simple idea: Sacrificial altar+Bonewall. Quite fun, right? Unfortunately, you need a lot of creatures for this, so let's use some cats and boneyards as well. You just got yourself at least 2 death effects a turn by using the cats ability and sacrificing the skeleton.

Now then, I just showed you how to benefit from the death effects that this card generates. Maybe you didn't notice or you simply didn't care about this effect, but for every creature you sacrifice with this, you get 2*ATK+HP of the sacrificed creature. Still no idea where I'm trying to get to? Ok then, I'll just tell you: You can use this in a gravity deck. Just switch your mark to death and use a few of these altars. You need fast healing? Just sacrifice that armagio, dragon or even that SoFo. This synergies well with acceleration too. You just wait for a creature to become very powerful and if it's close to dying or you suspect it might be killed or you simply need that healing to stay alive, just sacrifice it! You'll get lots of HP, because the altar benefits from the ATK more that it benefits from the HP.

If you're still not convinced you have any uses for this card, the we'll have to wait for it to be added and let you test it yourself ;)
Spoiler for January 2015:


Working well in its element, this would offer Life a way to use the mass of creatures it may generate to great advantage.  Buffing any mass of scorpions, or simply trying to get that extra edge over that DR shield, this should do the trick.  Toss this in a Frogtal deck for that kick you might need for that extra lethality.

The upgraded also serves as the Life's Cremation, as you can kill a rebirthing target or one that when destroyed itself aids you significantly.

While it offers offensive, it also buffs the creature's HP to help with their fragility.  Getting an extra round of attacks after a Fire Shield, or preparedness for weaker CC, especially Thunder Storm may prove to be a great advantage.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 05:40:16 pm by mathman101 »
Game questions? Go FAQ yourself!
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Offline SpikeSpiegel

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Re: Card Idea of the Month Archive https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1195785#msg1195785
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2015, 12:48:33 pm »
Past Cards

Spoiler for December 2014:


Did you ever feel like you would like to discard a useless card? What about discarding it and benefiting from it? Yep, you heard me. This card let's you discard that useless card and draw those creatures that hide at the bottom of your deck.

This gives life a new capability to rush. You can use an aether mark in your mono life and pack a few of these. If you get too much quantum, just discard your pillars (from your hand) to draw 2 creatures. Is your hand clogged with adrenaline, but no frogs to use them on? Use this card and discard one of those adrenalines to get a potential of 24 damage!

This card is not only a competitive card, but it can be a fun card too. You can use it in a Shard of Serendipity deck or mindgate deck to get rid of the cards you don't need or simply can't play.

To sum up, this card can help in a lot of situations. Just be sure to not use it with Ghost of the Past ;)


Spoiler for November 2014:

Jet Stream | Jet Stream by OdinVanguard
This card review was written by the Master of Gravity Captain Scibra.



Really powerful, this offers airborne creatures the option of a controlled-pace Overdrive.  As with the actual Overdrive, the creature is weakened in exchange for significant attack strength.  This also offers Air/Gravity a previously non-existent strength of synergy.

With Air as the dominant element in a deck using this, Dive becomes deadly, as this does not replace the ability.  You could prime a Wyrm to be 9|1||11|1 before diving.

With Gravity as the dominant element, Colossal Dragon can be primed to a ridiculous attack without losing a significant amount of HP.  22|10 or even 34|6 are numbers that can be reached here.

A major note is the stacking that this can manage.  Mid game with more than one out, you can cast a multitude of these on every airborne creature you draw to prime them faster for lethality.

This is tough to fit into a trio or more, but with a rainbow, things like Gargoyle's Stone Form become highly useful, even splashing some useful 1- or 2-cost cards like Blessing (upgraded best), Armor, or Chaos Power give HP that can be used to defend the creatures whilst having great attack power or simply allowing even more attack power to be given.


Spoiler for October 2014:

Dodo | Dodo by SpikeSpiegel
This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.




This month's card idea comes from our new Master of Time SpikeSpiegel who comes in representing his element with his own card idea for Time.

Dodo is a low cost creature that, while coming with a high attack stat, comes with a timer. Each turn, Dodo loses one health and, with three health, gives it a three turn time limit before this flightless bird goes extinct for good.

Duo Possibilities

[ :time | :earth ] - With Graboid, Dodo has huge power and potency in a rush style deck with a fairly cheap cost with its high base attack. But Earth also offers methods of sustain for Dodo with the use of Plate Armor, giving it more field time despite its ability.

[ :time | :water ] - The changes to Purify a while back helped soldify the use of Acceleration with the addition of its health regain. And that would definitely help with the health loss on Dodo's balancing effect.

[ :time | :fire ] - Rushes. Dodo finds its home mostly in rushes. And Fire definitely fits this mold. With its low cost, Dodo can be used in conjunction with Immolation instead of Graboid, leaving more Earth to be used for Lava Golem.

[ :time | :light ] - Light gives a lot of healing for creatures, which Dodo needs to stay on the field either through Guardian Angel's heal or buffs through Blessing, which would give it more power alongside more field presence.
Spoiler for September 2014:
Duh! No card this month.
Spoiler for August 2014:
Card Idea of the Month
Justicar | Justicar by Jen-i

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.


It's Trials season again! For this 8th Trials, it is time for forum members to duke it out in an attempt to personally represent their favorite element. So far, only Phase 1 has completed and the battles for Phase 2 are underway. In light of that, let's take a look at what Light Trial Challenger Jen-i has submitted for one of his Phase 1 tasks.

While the wording of the card text could definitely be simplified, it offers soft creature control in a way that does not conflict with the theme of Light. The ability of Pacify is definitely something that has been seen time and time again as seen in fellow Light Trial Challenger theelkspeaks in his Phase 1 submissions, which has a very similar effect and a much more similar name. But this is the first time that I've seen this tacked onto a creature.

To get down to it, Justicar is a mid-range hitter that has the capability of crippling an enemy creature. Or your own, depending on how you target. And if the target's attack is low enough, it can change it from being a damage dealer to a healer since, as pointed out, it can make attack stats go below zero. With this ability and rocking stats of 5|4 even when upgraded, it is priced at 6 :light , which is a bit low considering its utility with its power.

Duo Possibilities

[ :light | :earth ] - Do you know what would go well with this? A large source of damage reduction. When used in conjunction with Titanium Shield, Justicar is capable of preventing the affected creature from dealing any physical damage. In fact, this combo would definitely inhibit most creatures if they get targeted by Justicar.

[ :light | :entropy ] - This and Antimatter. This particular combo was actually highlighted in the example deck for this task submission as Justicar now has the capability of increasing the healing due to Antimatter. Aside from this, if that isn't your taste, this pairs nicely with Dissipation Shield as it does lower the consumed damage by one.

[ :light | :aether ] - I'm a bit sure about the wording, but the ability works whenever Justicar enters play. If the ability works with copies, Parallel Universe and Fractal both are available to span the ability on either an enemy's field or to effectively cast Antimatter on a single target. And speaking of Fractal, this could easily find a place in Hope decks as it is a possible target for Luciferin and helps keep damage down while Hope slowly builds up. This, too, can work in Life with Mitsosis, but using Aether allows for a much faster spawn.
Spoiler for July 2014:
July 2014

Card Idea of the Month
In an attempt to get some more community participation in the newsletter, this Card Idea of the Month article was written by our member ARTHANASIOS... again. Thanks for the help.



 Being a quanta producer with an ability changed according to your mark, this Droid fits the thematics of the Other 'element' perfectly. Moreover, despite of being a completely unoriginal mechanic (similar active abilities are Light/Bioluminescence, Fire, Air and Earth) the fact it belongs to Other and produces quanta of your mark offers unmatched versatility and infinite ways to use this little Droid.

Strategies:

There are not a lot of things to say here; the Droid can serve the same strategies every quanta-producer critter serves. In general, has your deck a reason to use a quanta-producing critter instead of a respective Pillar/Pend which matches your mark? If yes, Mirrored Droid|Chromatic Droid is for you. Otherwise, you may better play safe and use the good, old pillars/pends...

Advantages:

It is Other, so it fits everywhere and can be played with every quanta type.
It can serve every element and mono-deck as a quanta-producing critter.

Disadvantages:

Too expensive in comparison with every other in-game, quanta-producing critter.
Like every quanta-producing critter, it is absolutely vulnerable to CC.

Metagame if this card is included:

* Mark of :entropy: Droids can be used to fuel SNs and/or serve as alternative BE targets when their quanta-generating skills are not used any more. Even a Fallen Druid may later transform it into a Mutant, so there are some quite good synnergies in :entropy.

* Mark of :death: Droids can offer quanta-production without the need of triggered death effects (like Soul Catcher does). Morevoer, Droids are very vulnerable to CC and die easily, so they can serve :death cards and synnergies. Pretty fair Alfatoxin targets, especially since they can fuel Alfatoxins theirselves and enable the Droid&Alfa combo to enter the field a few turns earlier.

* Mark of :gravity: Droids are going to find plenty of uses in :gravity. Not only they are the only quanta producer available to this element (except, of course, pillars/pends), they can also feed both upped & unupped Otys and they are excellent assets to a rare yet powerful combo; Chimera & Droid & GP casted upon Droid!

* Mark of :earth: Droids aren't going to find a lot of use because they are completely overshadowed by Gnomes. However, they can be combined with Gnomes to form pillarless monos.

* Mark of :life: Life can actually find pretty of uses for Droid. Adrenaline can make Droid to produce plenty of :life quanta per turn. Morevoer, it is an excellent asset for Mitosis & Bond combo.

* Mark of :fire: Fire is probably not going to need any Chromatic Droids (Brimstone Eaters are by far superior), though Mirrored Droids may find their place in unupped Immo-rushes. They may also serve to buff Fire Bolts & Fahrenheits along with Brimstones in pillarless fireOTKs.

* Mark of :water: NT decks and Ice Bolt-based decks may find it revealing to have quanta-producing critters to fuel their strategy, though both :water pillars/pends and Dry Spells seem better. Morevoer, Droids have an interesting synnergy with Flooding; since they are Other creatures, they won't drawn.

* Mark of :light: Mirrored Droid may aid unupped Hope decks quite well. Moreover, Chromatic Droids & RoLs may create powerful upgraded Hope :light monos.

* Mark of :air: No real reason to use a Droid instead of a Dragonfly, especially since Droids are (probably) non-airborne. However, unlike Dragonflies/Damesflies, they can survive a single UG usage. In general, :air is one of the least favourite elements for Droid.

* Mark of :time: Droids can be interesting quanta producers, espacially since they can also prevent deckout with Eternity & Droid combo.

* Mark of :darkness: No real reason to use Droids over pests. Moreover, they are not buffed by Nightfall. :darkness is probably the element that it least favored by Droids.

* Mark of :aether: Fractal can work wonders with Droids, especially they way the one card fules the other one and vice versa. The expensive :aether cards will be much easier to play after an established Droid field.

* Mark of :chroma (if ever introduced): If Mark of Chroma is evert introduced, :rainbow decks are going to have greater versatility and they won't be merely relying to Quantum Pillars and/or Immolations/Novae.
Spoiler for June 2014:
Card Idea of the Month
In an attempt to get some more community participation in the newsletter, this Card Idea of the Month article was written by our member ARTHANASIOS.


White Flag | Black Flag by deathreign3.




Before changed into a purely :time card, this was a Light-Darkness hybrid (White Flag representing its :light part and Black Flag representing its :darkness part). However, after a few wise comments about White Flag not fitting the element of :darkness and vice versa, :time seemed a much more fair element for a card like this (delay & SoR-like effects unupped, deja-vu like lobotomization for more attack power upped).

Spoiler for previous hybrid version:



Strategies:

Almost every :time mono or :time duo could benefit from one of the two versions of this card.
The White Flag would cause an extra Deja Vu to be spawned, an extra creature to be Hatched, one more creature to be Reversed by your Flying Eternity etc. However, unlike Shard of Readiness, you have to indeed pay the quantum cost of the ability to activate it. This, in combination with the fact your creatures can't attack as long as White Flag is on your field, balances the unupped version quite well.
The Black Flag fits easily into any deck, though you have to build your deck around in order to use it at its full potential. Pharaoh decks and Deja Vu decks can both benefit by having their armies losing their skill but gaining +3 attack as long as a Black Flag is on their field. Pretty awesome for final blows where you don't need any skills anymore.
Finally, the fact both of the versions of this card can self-destruct by clicking on them (SoPa-wise) make them even more versatile and even less risky to use.


Advantages:

"Click to remove" adds to versatility and lowers the risk of using it.
They are permanents, so they are usually difficult to get rid of.
Their positive effects affect all of your creatures and not just a single one of them.
They can be devastating and extremely helpful within the right decks.
 

Disadvantages:

High cost to play. Because of this, it is difficult to be used out of :time monos or :time duos.
You must build your deck around it to benefit the most.
The unupped Flag prevents your creatures from attacking while the upped one lobotomizes them massively.
Flag is probably going to backfire a LOT if Stolen by a human opponent.


Metagame if this card is included:

Time monos are going to be quite benefited. Fate Egg is going to be used much more often because it will Hatch into one extra creature while White Flag is used (no need for the ineffective Fate Egg & SoR combo anymore). Deja Vu is going to create an extra copy, Golden Nymph can draw an extra card every turn, pharaoh can spam an extra scarab.

 :time :gravity must be the duo that benefits the most. Pharaoh/Scarab decks can become really, REALLY powerful because they can greatly abuse BOTH versions of the card (more Scarab spamming, more Devouring, +3 attack per creature and there can easily be 23 creatures for +69 extra damage per turn!).

Same goes with :time :life duos; Mitosis & Empathic Bond can expand much faster with White Flag and, since it is a stall, not attacking won't hurt much. Morevoer, the Mitosised swarm can instantly grow in power after established with Black Flag.

 :death :time duos will gain extra synnergies; Black Flag can really help any Skeleton/Cell swarm and it can even prevent Cells from growing all over your field (which is usually something positive) because it lobotomizes them.

 :time :darkness duos can also benefit from Black Flag; GotP has no active skills to be lobotomized and Devourers won't miss their Burrow skill, making Eclipse & Black Flag a difficult yet insanely powerful combo (more pseudo-Ghostmare decks).

Growers would greatly benefit from White Flag if it a :time trio wasn't needed and if they could attack each turn. However, since Fire Spirit is the only grower in the game with an in-element growing ability, it could open new possibilities of :time :fire duos.

If divers could Dive 2 times per turn, White Flag could create insane :time :air duos, but I suspect that's not the case.

 :aether :time can use Anubis to establish a Quinted army much faster with White Flag, though I am not sure if Black Flag would be able to buff immortal creatures.

 :entropy :time, :water :time and :light :time doesn't seem to have any great benefits.
Spoiler for May 2014:
Card Idea of the Month
Whisper | Dark Whisper by Brawl team Whispers in the dark

This card review might have been written by the Curator Blacksmith.


This card is made by the Brawl team Whispers in the Dark and was chosen for it's versatility and it's way to improve the darkness element.

The name fits darkness very well and so do the thematic, doing a thing in a annoying way. Other examples are nightmare, drain life and steal. Whisper is also very versatile,  it's a card that fits in almost all dark monos and duos as well as SNbows. What makes it work even better with darkness is it's ability to heal, you can heal the damage dealt and in the upped version you can end up with more health than before you played this card.

However as it is now Whisper is op, it basically blocks almost all damage from your opponents creatures for 2 turns and without having a way to counter it unlike sundials and dim shield. Furthermore you are able to combine it with a shield to reduce the damage dealt to zero. The upped version is even more op since it extends your life total which makes you able to actually have more health than before you played this card, with help of vampires daggers etc. What evens it out is that your opponent still are able to play new cards from their hand that are not affected by this damage reduction.

All in all, Whisper is a card that has located one of it's elements weaknesses and improved it in a way that still fits the element both thematically and mechanically.
Spoiler for April 2014:
Check the April 2014 Spoiler in "Deck Idea of the Month Archive" thread.
Spoiler for March 2014:
Card Idea of the Month
Philosopher's Stone | Philosopher's Stone by Xenocidius

This card review was written by the Curator Annele.


I chose this card for its amazing thematic use. Most of the cards ingame have great themes, and it's a great thing to think about when designing your own cards.

The Philosopher's Stone is known for its ability to turn base metals into gold, and for the Elixir of Life.

This heals you for 2 HP each turn, as well as increasing your max HP by that amount. Its active ability can be used to speed up your draws, or as denial. If the active ability is used on an upgraded pillar, it will turn into an Electrum Hourglass.

Read more about the Philosopher's Stone here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone).

There are two basic ways to start designing a card. Start with a mechanic and find a theme, or start with a theme and create a mechanic. The latter can be easier in a way, however, when starting with a theme, you have to be very careful that your mechanic doesn't get too complicated. Philosopher's Stone is a great example of not making the mechanic too complicated, although it very easily could have been.

The theme works very well in earth, which is known to be a solid, strong element. Philosopher's Stone encompasses this quite nicely with synergy with three existing earth cards - graboid, earthquake, and stone skin. Its use of time quanta ties in with the speedy action of graboids and infinite feel of eternity.

Philosopher's Stone is also incredibly versatile; a trait that is always appreciated in cards because it means that it can be used in more decks. In this case, Philosopher's stone could fit into any earth-time deck, be it a rush, denial, or stall. I could also work in mono-earths and rainbows for cheap healing, and in the rainbow's case, cheap denial.

All in all, Philosopher's Stone is great example of an extremely thematic card done well and also a great example of versatility in cards.
Spoiler for February 2014:
Card Idea of the Month
Corrosion | Corrosion by Xenocidius

This card review was written by the Curator Annele.


This is a rather old idea, but still one of my favourites.

Quote
Basically, the target permanent stack gains a purple skull icon (like poison). Note that the 'stack' can be a single permanent. When the player who owns that permanent stack completes their turn, one permanent in that stack is destroyed. It keeps the icon, and the process repeats each turn until the stack is destroyed.

One of the most difficult parts of card design is coming up with a simple idea that is also original and innovative, and one that the game would benefit from. Corrosion portrays this beautifully. Poisoning permanents is not a common idea at all (in fact, the only other case of poisoning permanents was the card that this card was based on) and it is easy to understand the basics of this card. Even a non-experienced Elements player would likely get the gist after just one play, which isn't always the case even with ingame cards. Admittedly, there are a few aspects to the card that can't be gathered at the first glance, like how it interacts with steal, and if it corrosion be removed (though the latter may appear in the appropriate card's text if this is added ingame). However, they are minor details that can be discovered with general play and so do not detract much from the simplicity of the card.

One of the main gaps in Elements that most, if not all, have noticed is the lack of PC. While Death may not be the first choice to gain this powerful archetype because it is already considered a rather powerful element and other elements are felt to be more deserving, this card would do an amazing job in helping to fill the gap, though perhaps Water should get its turn first. Corrosion is incredibly thematic, and doesn't have to complicate itself to do so. Nothing screams death like buildings slowly crumbling into dust, and it follows with Death's ingame theme of slow deaths.

It is relatively balanced; it can destroy more than deflagrations can for cheaper, but it requires time - something more valuable than quanta. Unupped, a Fire deck could get rid of two Shards of Freedom in less than one turn for 6 :fire and two cards, while Corrosion would take 2 turns but only 4 :death and 1 card. This is where the two cards are about balanced. With a stack of one, Corrosion is more expensive as well as slower, so a Deflagration would be better, though with a stack of 3 or more, Corrosion would generally be better (though it depends if you want speed or cheapness.) If Corrosion cannot stack (have more than poison on a stack) then this would be balanced, and also highlights the differences between the themes of Fire and Death

As with almost all PC, Corrosion could fit into any deck that has a source of Death quanta. It could be used in a rainbow as a slightly more expensive, but a more versatile deflagration, or a death stall to make it that much more powerful. It would be incredibly useful in environments where you expect your opponent to play a lot of shards (*cough* arena) or in War or similar PvP events where you know your opponent is low on quanta producers and want to exploit that for all it's worth (*cue evil laughter*).

TL;DR, Corrosion is a balanced card that would help expand the game and has freaking cool art.
Spoiler for January 2014:
I hope you're noticing a pattern here.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 05:39:43 pm by mathman101 »
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Forum questions? Go FAQ yourself, again!

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Re: Card Idea of the Month Archive https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1195787#msg1195787
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2015, 01:07:37 pm »
Past Cards

Spoiler for December 2013:
"Trust me, Alice, you don't want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes down this time."
Spoiler for November 2013:
Rick roll'd.
No, there was none.
Spoiler for October 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Psychic Pulse | Psychic Pulse by Elbirn

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.


This month's idea is brought to you by Elbirn.

To be frank, there is not much to say about this idea.  It is very simple, really.

It stops creature abilities.

And passives.

I mean, I would like to go in depth, but there is really so much that such a simple card can do by simply stopping creature abilities.  Even for one turn, it is a lot more effective than killing or removing the abilities of creatures depending on the number and costs.  Also, it gives you the ever so important moment to play something so it has a chance to stay alive a turn in spite of Otyughs and Maxwell's Demons.

And it fits Aether rather nicely.  With Lobotomy being one of Aether skills, it isn't a far off to have such a widespread and temporary Lobotomize in a spell forme like this.

But what is notable, at least to me, is the secondary bit.  The part where it puts a pause on passives.  That means things like Voodoo, Devourer, and Airborned are all on hold for a turn, letting the opponent run around without a care in the world of their quanta being stolen or damage being redirected all around.

Duo Possibilities

[ :aether | :air ] - What is one of the most common passives?  Airborne.  And despite running only airborne creatures, save for its nymph, Air probably has the most to benefit from it with the use of Wings.  Rather than going out of element to go for Web or to waste CC on stuff, this allows for a turn of absolute protection from everything but ranged damage.

[ :aether | :gravity ] - Hm, another passive?  Poisonous.  And possibly one of the bigger issues when it comes to devouring creatures with Otyugh, who would prefer that he did not get poisoned for the tiny morsels he ends up consuming.  Along that, this would also cancel Salvage, letting Pulverizer get by just in case a Salvager is out and about.

[ :aether | :fire ] - Like with the Pulverizer thing, Psychic Pulse will be able to null Salvage, letting you to cast Explosion on things.    And being with Fire being a host to an array of things that would prefer to not get bothered by the damage of control, there aren't exactly a lot of Fire cards that rely on their abilities, letting you to bunch through with your Dragons and Phoenixes if one were to currently swing with anything.
Spoiler for September 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Living Pillar | Experimental Pillar by grimdragon64

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.


Well, let me be one of those to welcome you, the community members, back to the Forums!  We've had some trouble with our servers and whatnot, but thanks to help of the likes of Pella, antiaverage, UTAlan, and Duck, we are now back online and hopefully as alive as ever.

Speaking of alive, let us move on to our Card Idea of the Month.

Our new idea this time comes from another new member, one grimdragon64.  The idea is akin to that of Flying Weapon, but for pillars and pendulums.  With it, players can turn a target pillar or pendulum into a bulky creature for a variety of uses.

In-element, it may have nice use with Mitosis, as Life doesn't have any quanta generating creatures akin to Dragonfly or Gnome Gemfinder, thus making a 0 cost spawner.  And besides spawning more quanta this way, it also helps buff up the use of Empathetic Bond, adding a choice of healing to the given promise of more quanta.

Duo Possibilities

[ :life | :gravity ] - With Catapult, you can use Living Pillar to spawn quick fodder for it.  If you aren't leaning so heavily towards on the offensive aspect, perhaps you would gravitate to a more defensive mechanism of using this spell in conjunction with Gravity Pull.

[ :life | :aether ] - Low on quanta?  With Living Pillar, if it is similar to Flying Weapon as I assume, you should be able to cast it on your own pillars and pendulums, letting you Fractal them to grant you a brilliant abundance of quanta.

[ :life | :fire ] - CONTROL!  CONTROL EVERYWHERE!  It isn't really much, but with the number of CC Fire has access to, this is potentially a good alternative to PC if you can stack spells or your quanta for Fire Bolt.  Alternatively, could be used with Rage Potion to make a very nice mid-hitter.
Spoiler for August 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Animism | Animism by Plastica

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.


To start off, I'd like to welcome both Shrink and Plastica as our newly initiated Newsletter Writers, one of whom is coincidentally the designer of the idea this month.  What are the chances...  Well, here is to a first newsletter for them.

Well, as for the idea at hand, Animism is an offensive spell.  When used, for the turn it is cast, the user's permanent effectively become creatures, dealing additional damage to the opponent equal to the permanent's costs.  Additional physical damage, which is possibly one of the bigger points.

Unlike other spells, the damage done is physical, so it's affected by shields.  Since, due to the nature, it's the permanents dealing damage as opposed to the spell dealing damage.  Which also means, unlike creatures, they can not be so easily removed or deterred with the use of control, seeing as how lacking permanent control is compared to creature control.

However, its cost is nothing to laugh at.  Aggressively priced up at 8 | 7 :life, along with the costs of the permanents, it'll take quite a bit to wind up to deal damage.  And even longer to cast them consecutively.  But seeing the, well, permanence of Permanents, it's a small price to pay to simply throw a wall of your inanimate objects at your opponent for quite a bit of damage.

Duo Possibilities

[ :life | :light ] - With the help of Rustler, you can really turn stalls quite offensive with the quanta ramping.  With all the healing provided from both elements in Permanent form [Empathetic Bond, Shard of Gratitude, Sanctuary], they literally have more of a fighting chance aside from standing there and taking hits..

[ :life | :darkness ] - You don't have to be the one to play the Permanents to take advantage of them.  With Steal, you can easily add more permanents under your control to turn back on your opponent.  All the while, you can slow your opponent down while ramping up your own quanta with the help of Devourers.

[ :life | :earth ] - If you run Animism, it's probably going to end up a Permanent heavy stall.  But even the slightest things can set you back.  With this duo, you have means of slowing down your opponent's quanta [Earthquake] while protecting the Permanents that will ultimately lead to your win [Protect Artifact].

Spoiler for July 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Whim | Whim by Hyroen

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.



Time to put veteran card designer Hyroen back into the spotlight, who presents an alternative way of getting the cards you need from your deck aside from the excessive draw acceleration we have become familiar with.

Whim is an :air creature that gives the controller the chance to change the fate of their hand.  But as the name entails, it makes decisions on a passing fancy.  The skill, Fickle, cannot choose what card will be used to replace the card in your hand.

But neither can it choose what card to replace.  A bit troublesome with some strategies that require precise combos, but in their case, Whim might help a lot more than it hinders them.  That is assuming that you have the quanta to play a card but just lacking the card to set up the combo.

Aside from the skill, Whim is a tad normal creature.  Especially in :air.  But despite it's subpar stats and relative inefficiency, it makes up for it with Fickle, which is explained above.


Duo Possibilities

[ :air | :entropy ] - The real primary use for this isn't really in Duos, but in Rainbows.  With the use of Whim, players can use it to pull out the Novas they need to start dumping their hand. And Supernovas in the case of upgraded decks.  Aside from that, it could prove useful in Pseudo-OTK decks, allowing you to push back the combo if you draw the cards too early, which would possibly be fueled with Supernova.

[ :air | :fire ] - Aside from thinning out your deck when used with Shard of Bravery, it helps cut through to pull out the Immolation you need or, better yet, the fodder for the Immolation you drew.  This is probably the best as it isn't a strict combo and it doesn't hurt what you draw if you couldn't play the others.

[ :air | :time ] - Need to thin out your deck even more for the right card?  With the use in conjunction with the excessive drawing of Precognition, Golden Hourglass, Sundial, and Golden Nymph, it really makes it easier to thin out your deck to get a combo running.
Spoiler for June 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Disparity | Disparity by furballdn

This card review was written by the Idea Guru Drake_XIV.


As it nears the start of summer, most of us are, or have already faced, the disparity wrought from final exams and stressing over the final grades.

But this is to address a different type of disparity.

Made by furballdn, our "facetious trollnotmod," Disparity offers another form of hand control other than Nightmare, which also lays its claims in Darkness.  As opposed to Nightmare, which seeks to fill the hand of your opponent with ideas not their own, Disparity does the exact opposite, causing them to lose hope as they see their hands cast to the abyss.  But like the other, it is stopped in its tracks by Sanctuary and all of its prevention of hand manipulation.

Priced at 6 | 5 :darkness, Disparity has quite a cost to pay for its use, but that's made up for with the strength of its use in strategies such as the ever infamous Ghostmare.  Or simply with use of fellow in-element hand control, Nightmare, for an additional 2 | 1 :darkness.  Or even forcing your opponent to play things early, potentially killing an OTK strategy or something similar.

But the cost isn't exactly cut and dry.  It's dependent on you, the player, to effectively dump your hand properly to make the biggest use out of it, which keeps it from potentially being abused in stalls, which would end cutting out chunks of a slim deck's even slimmer strategies, and giving such a relatively high cost card a place in some rushes.

All in all, Disparity has considerable promise as an additional form of hand control and is an excellent addition to the collection of exceptional :darkness ideas in the Card Idea and Art boards.

Duo Possibilities

[ :darkness | :time ] - The obvious duo, Disparity really acts as a finishing blow in Ghostmare decks, forcing all of those Ghost of the Past from their hands.  Aside from that, there's the use with Neurotoxin.  Assuming you can buff up Dune Scorpion,  when used in conjunction with Nightmare, it forces the opponent into two situations.  Discard their hand or ramp up the amount of poison counters they have on themselves.

[ :darkness | :fire ] - Fire: Fast, furious, and as deadly as ever.  With the use of Shard of Bravery, you can easily fill out the last of your opponent's hand before forcing them to dump it all with Disparity while dumping what could essentially be the rest of your hand to force your opponent to drop most, if not all, of their hand.  And with access to seemingly endless amounts of control, you could effectively shut down most, if not all, strategies if you can set up properly.

[ :darkness | :life ] - Another way to limit control is to keep your opponent from having any to use at all.  Be it AdrenaFrog or AdrenaVamp, chances are that you'll be able to dump you hand and force your opponent to their new limited hand size.  Arguably, this can be applied to any rush mentality, but :life and :fire exemplify this well.
Spoiler for May 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Chromatic Aberration | Chromatic Aberration by andretimpa

This card review was written by the Card Curator Drake_XIV.


Brought to us by andretimpa, Chromatic Aberration is a spell that affects the costs of creature skills according to your Mark. This card would help many elements address the issues with off-element abilities, most commonly seen in elements like :water and... yeah.

Perhaps outside of utilizing it in a :water | :entropy pairing, Chromatic Aberration promises to help greatly in a Mono :entropy Mutation deck, allowing all creatures to fuel their randomized abilities with :entropy.  Aside from that, this card seems to help stabilize some trios or quartets, allowing for the smoother use of some decks that would be slow if they were reliant on fueling abilities with an off-element.

There is an offensive use, albeit situational, for this as well.  When addressing certain decks, changing the cost of the creature's abilities can help prevent or slow an opponent's strategy.  This is perhaps more effective against Nova decks or anything without a consistent quanta production.

Duo Possibilities

[ :entropy | :water ] - This is perhaps the foremost implementation, as is pointed out a lot, is with :water.  With its creatures and their off-element abilities, this seems like a logical duo.  From Mind Flayers to Chysaoras, Toadfishes to Steam Machines, this card certainly caters to the variety of colors presented by the abilities of :water 's creatures.  And let's not forget Nymph Tears. With Chromatic Aberration, it could be used to more easily fund the abilities of the Nymphs spawned.

[ :entropy | :aether ] - Chromatic Aberration gives some more depth to Parallel Universe.  It would no longer leave use to just copying high attack creatures.  It allows you to grab the random creature and actually using its ability rather than relying on its damage output.  Also, it allows the same to be done with Mindgate, since you have a good chance of pulling a creature and not getting the quanta to actually use the ability if you can somehow pay to play them.

[ :entropy | :time ] - This is a bit of stretch, but with aside from Nova, Chromatic Aberration helps utilize the creatures that can be generated with Fate Egg.  If you splashed in a little :death , you could use it to assist creatures created by Skeletons being hit with Reverse Time.
Spoiler for April 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Imp Spirit | Fiend Spirit by majofa

This card review was written by the PvP Event Organizer majofa and Newsletter Writer whatifidogetcaught?.

Here it is, the card that won the original Card Design War! With stats like 0/4 and a cost of 6 :darkness, an initial glance makes one believe it is very underpowered, but its ability more than makes up for it. If you can play it early enough, you can make your opponent think twice about playing any cards with abilities.

This creature is airborne, so it can ignore Wings and benefit from Shard of Freedom. This creature can target any other creature or permanent in play that has an Activated Ability - yours or your opponent's. That may not seem that great, but there's a little more to it. If you use one of your opponent's abilities, they won't be able to use it, because it will still be in 'cooldown' during their turn. For creatures that have any kind of growth ability, the spirit gets the stat increase. In addition to using your opponent's ability, it also uses their quanta for the ability. So it can be a form of pseudo-denial.

Now let's compare this to a couple of cards similar concepts in game.



Imp Spirit v Lobotomizer

Lobotomizer
Playing Cost [3 :underworld] + Lobotomize (Mono Cost) [2 :underworld] + 1 card + 5 damage a turn

Imp Spirit
Playing Cost [6 :underworld] + Corrupt (Mono Cost) [2 :underworld] + 1 card + new ability

Of course there is a big difference between a Weapon and a Creature, and that difference is Weapons are cheaper for the damage and ability. Also, Lobotomizer is a rare, but just because something is rare doesn't make it over powered. From this mono-perspective, Imp Spirit appears to be balanced.



Imp Spirit v Mind Flayer

Mind Flayer
Playing Cost [2 :underworld] + Lobotomize (Duo Cost) [1 :underworld] + 1 card + 2 damage a turn

Imp Spirit
Playing Cost [6 :underworld] + Corrupt (Mono Cost) [2 :underworld] + 1 card + new ability

Mind Flayer has a much lower initial cost, and a cheaper ability, but this card is a duo card. Imp Spirit is a mono, and though it doesn't Lobotomize the opponent, they can't use it next turn and uses their quanta, so its cost is justified.

Duo Possibilities

[:darkness | :time]
As if Ghostmare decks weren't powerful and useful enough, modding it to use this card could create great benefits. If your opponent does manage to pull out a creature, you can use its ability to suck the opponent's quanta dry. Hand denial AND quanta denial could be very scary.

[:darkness | :gravity]
An unupped Imp Spirit already has 6 HP. Though bringing Shards into strategy might be borderline taboo, but imagine the devastation one can cause in unison with Shard of Focus. Using Accretion on an Imp Spirit may allow it exceed 45 HP. From there you can Gravity Pull it and have an amazing defensive wall.

[:darkness | :light]
Imagine 12 Vader Saders. Though this potential may be a little unrealistic, you could use Imp Spirit's ability on a Crusader to gain the vampire bonus and 4 attack. Then, the next turn, just simply let the Crusader itself Endow the Vampire Stiletto.
Spoiler for March 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Time Bomb | Time Terror by krackocloud

This card review was written by the Card Curator Drake_XIV.

Time to tackle an idea from one of our newer designers, krackocloud.

I personally have a soft spot for cards that change when upgrading, as seen with this card.  When upgrading, it changes from a source of light burst damage to a creature with a deadly area-of-effect potential.  It is safe to assume that from the nature of its effect that, like Unstable Gas, would deal spell damage and thus could be reflected back at the user.

While it may seem to overshadow Unstable Gas in some respects as it covers both of its effects, they have their own drawback.  Like Unstable Gas, it does need to sacrifice itself to activate its effect, but it requires some more turns.  And with the larger amount of creature control there is compared to permanent control, perhaps putting it on par with the forementioned card.

For either version of this idea to take effect, the cards must die by their own hand, so they do not get activated prematurely from any source of damage and, thus, making them prone to most forms of creature control.  However, with the upgraded form, it gains some resilience and can actually take some light damage to help it get closer to imploding.

But how does it fare against similar ideas already in-game?



Time Bomb v Unstable Gas

Unstable Gas
Playing Cost [6 :underworld] + Ignite (Duo Cost) [2 :underworld] + 1 Card + 1 Turn Cost for 20 damage

Time Bomb
Playing Cost [1 :underworld] + Tick (Mono Cost) (x3) [3 :underworld] + 1 Card + 3 Turn Cost for 9 damage

I'm disregarding UG's mass AoE in cost since it also affects both players' side, although without it, it'd probably cost more.



Time Terror v Lightning Storm v Firestorm

Time Terror
Playing Cost [2 :underworld] + Tick (Mono Cost) (x3) [3 :underworld] + 1 Card Cost + 3 Turn Cost for 4 AoE

Lightning Storm
Playing Cost (x2) [4 :underworld] + 2 Card Cost for 4 AoE

Firestorm
Playing Cost [5 :underworld] + 1 Card Cost for 3 AoE

Duo Possibilities

[ :time | :death ]
With Time Terror, the potential for death effects is massive.  With Aflatoxin setting up things to kill, all that's left is for Bone Wall, Boneyard, Soul Catcher, and/or Vulture to pick up the remains.  Also, you can easily put off threats with Reverse Time, which could be used with Mummy if no threats are present.

[ :time | :darkness ]
Scared of things killing off your Time Bombs before they become of any use?  With Cloaks, you can easily put off a majority of creature control as you whittle their health little by little.  If you need a little help, Parasite can put a few counters of poison on them to let the ability Tick deal the killing blow.  The same could be said with a weak Drain Life.

[ :time | :water ]
With the addition of Dry Spell, it becomes easier to stack on creature control and minimize damage to Time Bomb while gathering quanta to help stave off threats, slowing them down with Freeze and Trident while rendering threats like Otyugh useless with Mind Flayer.  Also, with Toadfish, you can slightly whittle the health down again with Inflate to finish off Time Bomb with its Tick.

[ :time | :aether ]
Like with every other cheap creature, Fractal is a given key card in regard to spamming them out.  While for most it's for maximizing attack damage, in this case, it's also a deterrent from creature control or, rather, a way to work around it.  With a mass of Time Bomb, only so many can be rendered useless, meaning the survivors can go and wreak havoc.  And standard :aether strategies apply: get rid of creature threats with Lightning and block physical damage with Dimensional Shields.
Spoiler for February 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Gravitron Pump | Gravitron Field by moomoose

This card review was written by the Card Curator Drake_XIV.
NAME:
Gravitron Pump
ELEMENT:
Gravity
COST:
2 :gravity
TYPE:
Spell
ATK|HP:
TEXT:
Target creature gains +1|+1 for each creature in play with more than 5 health
NAME:
Gravitron Field
ELEMENT:
Gravity
COST:
2 :gravity
TYPE:
Spell
ATK|HP:
TEXT:
Target creature gains +2|+2 for each creature in play with more than 5 health

Here we revisit the work of card designer moomoose, who has had several ideas implemented in the game recently, such as Psion and Graviton Salvager.

Graviton Pump is another buff spell in :gravity that increases the target creature's stats based on the amount of high health creatures on the field.  This ties in perfectly with the idea of :gravity being the host of most of the games high health creatures, such as Armagio and Massive Dragon, emphasizing the uses of high health for something other than protection from creature control.

In element, this card really helps the obviously weaker creatures that :gravity has as well as boosting the effectiveness of Otyugh and its Devour ability.  It also helps itself as well as in most cases, buffing a creature with Graviton Pump would also raise the target's health to the point where it would also count for the next time it is played, meaning that the next buff would be even stronger than the last.

Also, this card is not completely reliant on the player.  As its range is expanded to both players' sides, your opponent's creatures are less of a hindrance to your end goal of winning as it helps your buff gain strength.  This is particularly evident against most standard Rainbow decks, as they commonly stock Growth creatures like Lava Golem and Forest Spirit that normally exceed 6 health, as well as Lycanthropes and Archangels with their high healths.  You can also toss in control like Basilisk Blood to help hinder their advances while you gain yet another boost in your buff.

One issue that can be seen here with this card would be in respect to Momentum, the other buff spell that resides in the same element.  However, it does not pose any real issue as while the two have the same low cost of 2 :gravity, Graviton Pump requires other cards to even amount to anything.  Therefore, it makes up for its potential power with the compounded costs of other cards and the addition of card costs since it is not bound to only one card as Momentum is.

My only qualm that I really have with this idea is that I did not think of it myself.  And that Graviton is spelled incorrectly on the card.

Duo Possibilities

[ :gravity | :aether ] This is a game of numbers with this spell.  Fractal really seems to be the first thing to come to mind, targeting the already massive :gravity creatures to help pump up the power of this buff, although that will require a little bit more work unupped since the creatures are just at 5 health.  Also, like with any other buff, Parallel Universe is prime for copying the buffed creature and adding yet another +1 | +1 to another Graviton Pump.  It doesn't hurt that :aether also has creatures like Phase Dragon to also add to the possible buff, but it would be too costly to add them to such a strategy.

[ :gravity | :time ] The power of Scarab is not something to forget about here, especially when dealing with numbers.  The use of Swarm allows to pump a group of cheap creatures to significant health to increase the power of Graviton Pump while utilizing the pre-existing use of :gravity to fuel Devour.  Also, Deja Vu and Dune Scorpion retain their status of being prime candidates of being optimal buff targets, effectively increasing damage past what Graviton Pump would give by itself.

[ :gravity | :darkness ] While boasting only two decent creatures that would help the power of this spell, there it is worth noting.  With Gargoyle and Voodoo Doll assisting the power of Graviton Pump and/or the joint combination of Devourer and Black Hole slowing down your enemies' quanta production, this can be used to significantly assist the healing power of Minor Vampire or anything else targeted by Liquid Shadow on your side.  Aside from the forementioned combo, it also works off of the pre-existing synergy of Gravity Pull in this element.  This could potentially be more powerful if properly balanced as a trio with :earth.

[ :gravity | :water ] While I'll try to address a non-Shard meta, the change to Shard of Patience cannot really be ignored here.  With it, one can easily focus on spamming low cost low health creatures like Chrysaora to add to the power of Graviton Pump, although it may seem dreadfully redundant with Shard of Patience already in play.
Spoiler for January 2013:
Card Idea of the Month
Storm Rod | Storm Attractor by ddevans96

This card review was written by the Card Curator Drake_XIV.
NAME:
Storm Rod
ELEMENT:
Aether
COST:
3 :aether
TYPE:
Creature
ATK|HP:
0 | 12
ABILITY:
Attract: All abilities or spells that would affect you instead affect Storm Rod.
NAME:
Storm Attractor
ELEMENT:
Aether
COST:
3 :aether
TYPE:
Creature
ATK|HP:
0 | 15
ABILITY:
Attract: All abilities or spells that would affect you instead affect Storm Attractor.
Ah, how you've risen through the ranks after sitting so long in the Crucible...

Storm Rod | Storm Attractor, made by our own ddevans96, is a creature based on protection from spells, killing the infamous Firestalls and damage-heavy Unstable Gas decks, which have been lacking in recent times, and other target spell heavy decks.

But it is a tad double-edged form of protection.  In exchange for protection against a myriad of spells, it also prevents you from healing yourself with any healing spells, affecting the active Storm Rod instead.  However, it does not negate secondary effects on said spells, not killing your own use of Luciferin.

With the advent of spell damage and the reliance on reflective shields to counteract the destruction of Psions and Shard of Wisdom, Storm Rod adds another option to defend against the rising forms of spell damage and a nice addition in the form of defenses for many a deck.

Duo Possibilities
:aether | :light - Seeing as Attract is a passive ability and Fractal shares :aether, this is an alternative splash to Hope decks, relying on Storm Rod to defend against spell damage while use of Luciferin to add to Hope defenses, Blessing used to make it slightly offensively viable while adding to its health as you heal it with Holy Light, Miracle, and Guardian Angel.

:aether | :earth - With Stone Skin and Basilisk Blood in its arsenal, you can raise Storm Rod's health to quite an extent.  However, there are still issues with physical damage sources, which can be averted with Titanium Shields and any modified Earthstalls.

:aether | :gravity - With Gravity Pull or combined with Chimera after it is played, it can also be used to defend against literally any form of damage.  This is best expressed in Trios, however, with the use of Voodoo dolls and Basilisk Blood.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 05:39:16 pm by mathman101 »
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Re: Card Idea of the Month Archive https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=47144.msg1258075#msg1258075
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Spoiler for December 2012:
This month's card idea review is Orochi | Orochi by Drake_XIV.  Idea Guru Drake_XIV reviewed it below.


Orochi | Orochi[/center]

On a strict cost to stat basis, Orochi is an incredibly effective attacker, perhaps the most effective for its stat tier with 12 ATT for 8|7 :earth.  However, there are a few things keeping this from strictly being overpowered and overshadowing fellow effective attackers like Shrieker, which has 8|10 ATT for 8 :earth.

The one obvious thing here is Appease.  Each turn, you must sacrifice a creature on your side to ensure that Orochi attacks your opponent instead of turning around and attacking you instead.  So the card cost of the sacrifices goes into the cost of Orochi itself, and that's disregarding any cost of the Sacrifices themselves.

Another thing that sets this aside from other attackers is how Appease works.  On the first turn, due to the inability to use its ability on the first turn, if you have not taken proper precautions, Orochi can and will do damage to you once.  That is a guarantee.

So, cost balance.  At 12 ATT [ +12 :underworld ] and 8 HP [ +2 :underworld ], it can take some punishment and deals in kind, but Orochi's Appease considerably drops the cost.  With the initial 12 damage [ Compared to a negative weaker Heal, estimating -2 :underworld ] and assuming that Orochi will be used for on average 3 turns, there is card cost to consider [ Estimated to be -3 :underworld, excluding quanta cost of sacrifices].  As a neutral element, :earth grants only a HP boost [Graboid + Shrieker is an exception for thematics], so it justifies the 8 HP [ -1 :earth ].  This leaves it at its current spot at 8 :earth, 7 :earth for upgraded.

Duo Possibilities:
[ :earth | :aether ] Especially upgraded, both elements provide free fodder to fuel Orochi's Appease.  Also, use of Quintessence will prevent Orochi from being Lobotomized and attacking you instead.  And Parallel Universe will create more ways to get more out effectively, with Dimensional Shield keeping any backlash from touching you.

[ :earth | :death ] With so many things being sacrificed, the death effects will definitely increase.  With Gnome Riders and Skeletons, Orochi will have plenty of cheap fodder to go through while generating more with Boneyard, racking up quanta with Soul Catcher, raising defense with Bone Wall, or increasing one's offense with Vulture.  It's up to the player, but there are choices here.

[ :earth | :time ] Deja Vu and Scarabs create cheap fodder for Appease, especially when used in tandem with Pharaoh, meaning you should be able to maintain a steady stream of sacrifices.  In case you don't, Sundial is helpful in making sure Orochi doesn't strike back at you right away and Reverse Time or Eternity will return him back to your deck in case he is Lobotomized.  There is also Anubis to protect Orochi from being Lobotomized to begin with, but that treads in trio territory.  It also allows for some Graboid splashing, so this isn't exactly far off as well.
Spoiler for October 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH
This month's card idea review is Crowned Pillar | Crowned Tower by Zblader. Idea Guru OldTrees reviewed it below.
Quote from: OldTrees
Crowned Pillar | Crowned Tower

Crowned Tower is a new quantum generator suggested by ZBlader. Like most quantum generators, the idea is best represented by the upgraded card. Crowned Pillar and Crowned Tower both are non stacking pillars that require you to sacrifice a pillar to play them. By selecting a pillar to sacrifice you are defining the second element of the Crowned Pillar or Crowned Tower. The sacrificed pillar now goes to either the bottom or the top of your deck (depending on if the Crowned card is upgraded). Each Crowned Pillar or Crowned Tower will produce 1 quanta of its primary element (background) and 1 quanta of its secondary element (sacrificed pillar).

The value of quantum generators comes from how their structure differs from existing options. The more varied the options for quanta bases the more deck types can be supported  by the game.

Crowned Pillar does not form stacks and produces 2 quanta per turn per permanent. It is more vulnerable to Deflagration yet less vulnerable to Earthquake (-2 quanta vs -3 quanta). Furthermore it is a cheap way to make your deck slightly larger. However it cannot target a Crowned Pillar or pendulum so deckout is merely delayed and not prevented. Since it requires a basic pillar/pendulum, you can have a dead hand with Crowned Pillars but no basic pillars/pendulums.
  • Earthquake protection
  • Deckout resistance
  • Deflagration vulnerability
  • Less reliable opening hand

Crowned Tower plus the sacrificed pillar give you 3 quanta per turn for 3 draws but only 2 deck slots. Like Crowned Pillars it has a less reliable opening hand. However now the opening hands have more quanta for fewer 0 drop slots in the opening hand. The deckout resistance still exists though it delays the draw of a non pillar.
  • Less reliable opening hands
  • More quanta potential in the opening hand
  • Earthquake protection
  • Deckout resistance
  • Deflagration vulnerability

The advantages and disadvantages make Crowned Pillar | Crowned Tower the equal of Pillars rather that more or less powerful.
Reviews will now come from Drake_XIV instead.
Spoiler for August 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH


This month's Card Idea is Obscure; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Obscure is a Darkness spell suggested by odideph. Many attempts have been made at misinformation/deception cards. Obscure goes a step further than most by depriving new players and veterans alike. Normally what happens could be derived from noting the cards played and the order/quantity of damage dealt. Obscure carefully eliminates most sources of information (See its notes). As an example a player will be damaged by an obscured creature but will not see when the creature attacks.

Like many cards, Obscure has multiples uses. Obscure can target creatures, permanents or players. Some example uses:
An obscured mutant can use its ability but the opponent will not notice the effect unless they look for it.
An obscured protected permanent will cause the opponent to waste PC when it fails to effect the obscured permanent.
An obscured player does not know their current hp status. This can also be used to psyche the opponent out as they worry about their health.

I will leave some of the tricks a mystery. How many can you find?
Spoiler for July 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH

This month's Card Idea is Ghost of the Future; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Ghost of the Future is a Time creature card suggested by russianspy1234. It is a very simple card so this summary will be brief.

Ghost of the Future is a rush card. It has higher stats than normal for its quanta cost. However this comes with a large drawback. It cannot attack if the opponent's hand is full. Even when it does get to attack it gives the opponent a card from their deck. This drawback gets more severe as more Ghosts of the Future are used.

Ghost of the Future can also be used in a deckout deck. A single Ghost of the Future increases the cards drawn per turn. This increases the infrastructure cost for anti deckout from 1 Eternity to 2 Eternities and an Animate Weapon. Several Ghosts of the Future can be used as a deckout engine. However the additional Ghosts will quickly be pacified by the drawback.

Ghost of the Future is a good example of an elegant design. The disadvantage balancing the solitary and swarm uses. The alternate cost is a good way to let the player use the card sooner while the player continues to pay for the card.
Spoiler for June 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH
Wolf

This month's Card Idea is Wolf | Wolf; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Wolf is a Life creature card suggested by Xenocidius. It is a very simple card so this summary will be brief.

Wolves do not like being disturbed. If targeted by any effect (Lightning Bolt, Snipe, Adrenaline, Devour) all the other Wolves will attack the source of the effect. This has advantages and disadvantages.

The first advantage is the opponent will either be less likely to use control on wolves or be punished for their transgression. This provides a soft anti-CC effect in contrast to the hard anti-CC Quint provides.

The second advantage is that the anti-CC makes wolves better targets for buffs because the buffs are more likely to remain.

The third advantage is the anti-CC grows as the size of the pack grows. This provides synergy with creature generators like Mitosis and Fractal.

However there is a disadvantage. Whenever you buff or if you try to grow the pack, you will have to pay a cost as your wolves attack you. This disadvantage grows as the size of the pack grows.

In the end Wolf is a simple card with an elegant effect that has advantages and disadvantages lined up to balance each other.
Spoiler for May 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH
Fenghuang


This month's Card Idea is Fenghuang | Fenghuang; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Fenghuang is an Air creature card suggested by the people involved in the Community Card Design. Fenghuang has 2 new mechanics: Swift and Ren(Bounce). I would note that it may seem weak with its 1/4 | 2/4 body. However it generates lots of card advantage.

Bounce is a passive skill that returns the affected creature to the hand if it were to die. Bounce only works if there is room in the hand. Death triggers, Alfatoxin, Skull Shield and the +1|+1 from devour do not activate since the creature does not die.

Swift allows Fenghuang to use activated abilities on the turn it is played. Usually this means that Fenghuang will get to give 1 creature Bounce before the opponent can respond. However it also works with Butterfly Effect and Mitosis.

The interaction of these mechanics gives Fenghuang some versatility in how it will react on its first turn. Here are some possible uses:
Ren targeting itself.
This is a cross between Phoenix and Aether Nymph. This creates a resilient creature. It does not deal much damage per turn but it can survive more hate than a Phoenix. If the opponent does use CC then you will start to gain card advantage as they use 1 card per turn to deal with 1 card of yours. If the opponent runs out of CC or opts not to use CC on Fenghuang, then you can start giving your other more efficient creatures Bounce. It can even work as anti-deckout if you have 7 cards in your hand and your opponent triggers Bounce.

Ren targeting another creature.
The first method protects Fenghuang. This method protects some of your creatures or gives you card advantage. If the opponent kills Fenghuang and the creature with bounce then they used 3 CC cards to kill 2 threats. Net card advantage in your favor. Additionally the creature with bounce is likely to survive another turn unless the opponent had lots of CC ready. Alternatively the opponent could remove just the Fenghaung and leave the creature with bounce alone. In this case you used 1 card to make a creature safe from CC and have your opponent discard a CC card. 2:1 card advantage again.

BE or Mitosis
Fenghuang + Butterfly Effect is expensive but results in an instant PC + 1 PC per turn the opponent does not kill it.
Fenghuang + Mitosis gives you a Bounce Mitosis Fenghuang and a regular Fenghuang.
Spoiler for March 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH
Psionist

This month's Card Idea is Psionist; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Psionist is an Aether Creature card suggested by moomoose. Unlike most creatures, Psionist doesn't attack physically. Rather it deals spell damage (a mental blast of some sort) like Lightning or Fire Bolt does. Like Lightning, Psionist's attack can be reflected. Since it has this weakness that momentum doesn't, Psionist has been balanced to be slightly cheaper than Charger.

However, Psionist would not be here if it were just an Aether version of Charger. While the effect is deceptively simple, it expands current combat mechanics. The addition of magical rather than physical attacks allows for a few expansions.

More detailed simulation
There have been interesting unrealistic results of the abstraction involved in combat. All unblocked creatures are compelled to attack regardless of whether it is a wise move or not. Furthermore, all combat happens at close enough range for the attackers to get affected by shields. Spell damage allows a creature to attack without having to engage in melee and risk effects like burns from Fire Shield.

Mechanical expansion
Categorizing things mechanically allows cards to be designed that affect the categories unequally. Cards could have effects that trigger whenever one type of damage were dealt. Cards could convert creatures from one type of damage to the other (Shard of Wisdom). Not only are more options available but it adds a new balancing tool. If a source of damage would be too powerful as one type of damage then it could be altered to fit under the other type of damage.
Spoiler for February 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH
Ricochet

This month's Card Idea is Richochet; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below:

Quote from: OldTrees
Ricochet is an Entropy Permanent card suggested by EvaRia. Ricochet causes each single target spell card to gain additional random yet valid targets. At first the ability seems like it would produce no net gain. If it had an equal chance to target desired and undesired targets then who would be willing to pay 4 :entropy|3 :entropy + 1 card? However the probabilities can be pushed to be biased in either direction. This results in tactical decisions to support either a strategy of outnumbering your opponent or the strategy of being outnumbered by your opponent.

Outnumbering your opponent
If you have 7 creatures to your opponent's 2 then you have a 75% chance to have the additional target be one of your creatures. This means that each time you cast a beneficial spell (like Chaos Power) on one of your creatures, you will get double the effect 75% of the time with your opponent sharing the effect the other 25% of the time. This is a 50% increase in the effects of beneficial spells for you. This also reduces the value of your opponent's beneficial spells. They may rethink casting their Blessings if you have a 75% of sharing the effect. By outnumbering your opponent, Ricochet strengthens your beneficial spells and weakens your opponent's beneficial spells. However caution is advised. Just as Beneficial spells are biased towards your side, so are detrimental spells.

Being outnumbered by your opponent
You strengthen your detrimental spells by letting your opponent outnumber you. If they have 6 creatures to your 3 then you have a 50% advantage when using your detrimental spells (like Antimatter). So by letting yourself be outnumbered you weaken your opponent's detrimental spells and strengthen yours but at the cost of strengthening their beneficial spells.

Strange Interactions
Parallel Universe gives the new creature to a random player.
Quintessence is likely to shift the number of valid targets back towards equality.
Cremation could be used to sacrifice your opponent's creatures. It also makes it less useful in an Immolation Rush if Ricochet hits the field early enough to make the opponent choose between risk losing a Golem and not using Immolation.
Spoiler for January 2012:
CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH

The card idea of the month is Rejuvenation | Rejuvenation by Legit, winner of the Best Card Idea award for 2011. Idea Guru OldTrees reviewed it.


Quote from: OldTrees
Rejuvenation is a solid healing/control card that is cheap enough to splash with just a Life mark. It is a versatile card that can strength your position or weaken your opponent's position. It replaces the active ability of a non-stacking permanent or creature with the ability Regenerate. Regenerate heals the owner of the permanent/creature 5hp per turn.

Strengthen your position

Obviously 5 HP healed per turn is a nice effect. Unlike Druidic Staff, 6 Rejuvenations can be used without needing Flying Weapon | Animate Weapon. It has two major synergies inside Life: Vanilla creatures and Adrenaline. Vanilla creatures, like Horned Frog | Giant Frog, are creatures without active abilities. Vanilla creatures are unique in that will not lose anything if targeted by Rejuvenation. A little known fact about Adrenaline is that the affected creature gets extra attacks by getting extra turns. Each extra turn is another 5 HP healed. An Adrenaline'd, Rejuvenated Horned Frog would deal 12 damage and heal you 20 HP for 9 :life + 3 cards.

Weaken your opponent

Rejuvenation removes previous active abilities from its target. It can be used to neutralize an active ability your opponent is using. Unlike Lobotomizer, Rejuvenation can also target permanents. At the cost of healing your opponent you can weaken Permafrost Shield, break an Eternity anti-deckout, stop Discord or much more.

Beyond that Rejuvenation helps balance the metagame by creating more alternatives to Deflagration when combating Discord. It was well placed in one of the elements that would benefit from an alternative to Deflagration.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 05:38:43 pm by mathman101 »
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