Project: Shards

[OldTrees]

What is the design rules that shards behave?

Based on these rules what kinds of effects fit well and which kind of effect don't fit?

  remain. What would be good effects for them?


What design rules do Shards behave.
5 |3 other cards
With an effect that fits an element
With a favoritism mechanic towards that element
Rare

[EmeraldTiger]

I think Zanz had something planned for fire, but I'm not sure.
You'll have to ask someone that attends chat a lot.

[OldTrees]

I think Zanz had something planned for fire, but I'm not sure.
You'll have to ask someone that attends chat a lot.

I think Zanz might have plans for all 3. However I think it would have been better if he had alternatives to his Gravity plan to look at before submitting it.

Don't forget to chime in on all three questions (preferably in order).


More rules (less self evident so my reasoning was included for critiquing)
Rare cards have a higher need to be balanced. The uneven distribution between lucky and unlucky players would cause great dissatisfaction if the rare cards were powerful enough to be required to compete. Likewise wasting a rare spin would also cause dissatisfaction.
Since rare cards are difficult to obtain, they should be useful in less than full sets of 6 but still useful at full sets of 6. Most players that have access to a rare will have only 2-4 copies of it. The fewer players that have cards they can't use the better.
The shards cost 5 |3 . This leads to a [insert element]bow deck bias to lower the cost of the shards. Cheaper cards deserved weaker effects.

[moomoose]

given that and shards arent functioning in beta yet, it may still be OK to think of ideas for those as well, but focusing on the three unmentioned ones should probably be a higher priority.

it may be a good start to look through the higher levels of card ideas (or lower if you have something in mind, it doesnt matter) that you feel is a very strong card mechanic, even if it is not properly balanced in the card it was proposed in.  even if they are not necessarily befitting of the elements remaining, there is still the potential to use the mechanic as a basis of one of the new shard ideas.

for example (card_idea) - (core_concept):
rejuvenation- target card gains a skill (potentially a psuedo-lobo, potentially an enhancement)
totems- adjacent cards effected
forget and ghost of the past - benefit/detriment from discard

[Xenocidius]

1. Shards are named after virtues related to their element and effect. They usually give explicit bonuses to their element, but Zanz has tossed around ideas for implicit bonuses ( shard giving a bonus to airborne creatures, shard giving a bonus to immaterial creatures, although this did not come to fruition).

2. Because shards should represent their elements better than most cards, their effects should fit well in their element's theme. For example, Shard of Gratitude healing the player fits perfectly with the theme of Life, and Shard of Serendipity giving the player random cards fits perfectly with the theme of Entropy.

3. I like the idea of the shard enhancing the player's shield and the shard enhancing the player's weapon.

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,35193)
The shard should give a bonus to airborne creatures, as in Hyroen's Shard of Freedom (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,36227).

[ZephyrPhantom]

Shard of Gratitude (SoG) 5 | 3 : Heals 3 HP Per turn, 5 if your mark is .
Shard of Divinity (SoD) 5 | 3 : Add 16 HP to your Max HP, 24 if your mark is .
Shard of Readiness (SoR) 5 | 3 : The target creature’s skill cost is now zero. creatures can use their skill twice this turn.
Shard of Sacrifice (SoSa) 0 | 0 : Inflict 40 | 32 damage to yourself and remove all but your death quanta. Swap damage with healing. Lasts 2 turns. (This timer can stack)
Shard of Void (SoV) 5 | 3 : Reduce your opponent’s max health by 2 HP per turn. 3 if your mark is .
Shard of Patience (SoP) 3 | 1 : Your creatures do not attack this turn and gain +1/+1; creatures gain +2/+2; +4/+4 if in a flooded area.
Shard of Serendipity (SoSe) : 3 | 3 Add up to 3 random cards to your hand. The first one will be a card.

In Development:
Shard of Focus (SoF) : 3 | ? : 0 ATK | 15 HP Accretion : Destroy a Permanent and gain +0/+10. Turn into a Black Hole if (player) HP <50.
Shard of Conscience (SoC) : 3 | ? : Halve your opponent quantum storage capacity (Starts at 75) down to a minimum of 10, 8 if your mark is .

What is the design rules that shards behave?

Shards are Adaptable/Mutable. This means that they for each Element, they provide a supposedly beneficial effect that is usually a more efficient version of an Elemental counterpart due to their Other cost and "improved" version of the effect.(Examples: SoG vs Sanctuary, SoP vs. Eclipse[Debatable, but a well-tuned Flooding deck could get a lot of mileage out of it], SoD vs. Heal[Less overall healing], SoSa vs. Antmatter[In a rough sense, SoSa is Mass Antimatter],  SoV vs. Poison, SoF vs. Pulverizer [Currently very broken - I would disregard this one until it gets balanced.]). A few Shards do not conform to such an analogy and instead attempt to create unique effects of their own (SoC, SoSa, SoR)
Their mutable nature means that although they may be splashed in any Elemental's deck, they will become most effective if used in decks that show loyalty towards their respetive Element.  Thematically, their rare state implies a hard-to-find nature within the world of Elementals, and are named after certain virtues that are related to Elemental's default nature.


Designed shards that are generally up to/close to par (whether they are liked are not) : SoG, SoD, SoR, SoV, SoSe,

Questionable: SoSa (Leans toward broken, though MonoDeath Arena decks do create potential bias on it's power), SoP (Has it's uses, but the Delay can be irritating given that Elements focuses very much on speed. It's low cost does however shift it away from UP towards balanced but situational instead.)
UP : SoC (At the least, too situational. Takes too long to become very effective. Most Rush decks will stop them with enough firepower and Stalls have Sanctuary. To be fair, it does hit hard on a stall whose central cards are Bolt-types, Drain Quantum Spells, or must afford being able to play several cards in late game.)
Broken/OP : SoF (And how! A free creature version of Pulverizer is pretty bad by itself, but it also manages to overshadow Black Hole if used correctly and becomes a prime target for Mitosis and Fractal.)

Based on these rules what kinds of effects fit well and which kind of effect don't fit?
  remain. What would be good effects for them?

I noticed that shards seem to follow an Archetype of Effects based on the Elemental Quartets:
Cardinal All seem to work with 'factors' of the game such as quantum pools, PC, hand and creature abilities.
Spiritual ( ) All deal with HP.
We only have one Material ( ) shard out of the four Elements (Water, SoP), but it is  field buff shard. From what I see, the other cards will likely affect the entire field in some way or interact with physical entities on the board (Creatures and Permanents). I'd like to develop the off chance that one of these shards may intereact wih Spells, though.

Here are my thoughts so far:
: Shard of Freedom seems like a great idea for , except it's purpose feels rather similar to SoP but faster. It might be redundant if added to game, especially since both are Other. (To be fair, if all Material shards are field buffs there will be some interesting overlaps, to say the least.)
: Recommending Shard of Fortitude (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,29759.0.html) here - it's a mass C/C that could also help Earth creatures if used correctly. It was submitted to the Shard Design competition in the 4th Trials and received feedback suggesting that it the effect's magnitude may need improvement for it to become actually effective and that it could use a decrease.
Blue represents my afterthoughts.

I really like the idea of the card. This would be the long awaited direct damage to creatures was missing, while still fitting the element.

The cost seems a little expensive. The damage dealt is comparable to Thunderstorm and the additional healing does only counter one further Thunderstorm, or a fire shield.
Reducing the cost by 1 or 2 makes it reasonable to be used in a mono earth deck, as well as in a rainbow deck as a mass CC in between RoF and Thunderstorm

There are two thing's I'm not really happy with though:
The first thing is, that the earth creatures should get +0/+2 instead of being healed. Earth isn't an element for healing, it's for toughening. BB, SS, Armor all increase max health (and current health along the way).Note : I went back to the card and made this change soon after he mentioned it.
Secondly, I don't think the name "Fortitude" represents the damage that is being dealt to all creatures. The name "self-discipline" would fit IMO much better. Note :Fortitude means "Courage in pain or adversity." I tend to justify this card as being related fortitude by noting that half the card effect causes suffering though damage, while the other half of the card effect gives Earth creatures the endurance to survive the damage. Also note that burrowed or immaterial creatures wouldn't take damage


Shard of Fortitude (Zblader edition): I dunno, I'd call it far too expensive. RoF costs only 7 /5 and does the same thing as the upped version, except instantly, and without harm to your own creatures (Admittedly, it does not buff your Earth creatures either, but it's a small and in most cases insignificant buff that you can't build a deck around. The fact that it costs Other would help offset it's cost if it weren't so harmful to your own non-Earth creatures, discouraging rainbows. I would suggest changing the card to either add on an attack modifier (- for non-Earth, + for Earth) or substitute the hp effect for it. If that were the case it would have a lot of synergy with Diamond Shield, allowing you to block/minimize the damage of even heavy hitters and dragons. Another rework option would be to change it to an everlasting permanent with an ability cost for the hp-loss effect, a Thunderstorm on a stick, which would probably improve it's overall effectiveness quite a bit. (Words: 168)

Current Considerations:
A)
Shard of Fortitude (Permanent) 6 | 4 - All creatures take 2 damage for 2 turns. Earth creatures gain +0 | +4 at the end of each turn.
B)
Shard of Fortitude (Permanent) 5 | 3 - All creatures lose 1 attack for 3 turns. Earth creatures gain +2 | 0 at the end of each turn.
C)
Shard of Fortitude (Permanent) 5 | 3 - All creatures take 1 damage each turn. Earth creatures gain +0 | +2 at the end of each turn.

Shard of Originality :

: I'm thinking of something along the lines of the following :
Shard of Passion : 5 | 3 - All damage spells deal 1 more damage.

I'd also like to see a shard that represents Other in a clever way that helps to clarify the difference between Mutable cards and cards void of Elemental affinity.
Two ideas that'd I'd like to suggest
Shard of Creativity (Original here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25674.msg350931#msg350931)
5 | 3
Target creature gains an ability costing 3 quantum of your mark.
I'm aware that this idea overlaps somewhat with Synchronization (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21023.0.html), but I feel that we could tweak Shard of Creativity a bit and make it into a card that truly favors other.
Shard of Originality
6 | 4
The exiles of the Elementals are bound within this card. Do you wish to see what appears?
(This card adds an Other-balanced version of a randomly selected Other/PseudoElement/Alternate Cost card to your hand from a precoded pool of cards. I'm not exactly sure what the selection pool would be, but I feel it would go something like this:)
Energy Nymph (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,24783.0.html)
Acid Nymph (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,24781.0.html)
Wyvern (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=11054.0)
VoidWalker (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21456.0.html)
Void Distillate (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21458.0.html)
Null Fracture (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21563.0.html)
PseudoCaster (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=4032.0)

Shard of Neutrality
Not exactly sure about this one, but putting it down here for now as a theme we could build off of.

What design rules do Shards behave.
5 |3 other cards Disagree. Quite a few shards throw this one out the window. The cheapest shard is SoP, while the most expsenive Shard is SoSa if you're not running mono - .
With an effect that fits an element Agree. Many shards have an effect that attempts to mimic the Elements theme, as per their virtue.
With a favoritism mechanic towards that element Agree. This needs to be carefully balanced though - SoSa's bonus, for example, pretty much shoehorns in into any unoriginal Arena mono-:death .
Rare Agree.

As noted above, the shards seem to conform to certain rules following elemental Quartets. They seem to have a flexible cost balanced on their effect - while 5 | 3 is the generic cost, it's possible to be more innovative when designing other shards within the game.
I'd like to discuss SoF and SoC here as well, since they relate to this thread:
SoF: I'd like to put this proposed 'nerf' (really more of a rework) up for feedback:

Shard of Focus:
6 Other
0 | 5
3 Other : Gravitation - Delay a permanent for 2 turns, 3 if your mark is .
Returns to your hand as a Black Hole if HP>50.

As for Shard of Conscience, I still believe it's too situational to actually perform effectively in most decks. How about having your quantum pool cap increase by the half the drained value from your opponent's cap? That would help rebuff the more floundering bolt decks, given the 75 quantum cap.

[OldTrees]

@Xeno
I think Shard of Endurance you suggested is a good idea. Good loyalty bonus.

Problem: Shard of Fury with Fire > Shard of Void with Darkness.

Shard of Freedom is a possibility.

@ZBlader
Good catch on the costs. I did mean it as the generic rather than static cost.

Good point on patterns (though the Cardinal pattern is weak)

I do not know if Shard of Fortitude represents a sufficient tie to Earth considering the default effect is Thunderstorms.

I do not think there are enough damage spells for Shard of Passion

I do not think an Other Shard makes sense. I see 3 themes of other: All (QT), None (Shield) and Molded (Shards). In this model, the shards are the Other versions of the Elements meaning an Other Shard would have no theme.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I do not know if Shard of Fortitude represents a sufficient tie to Earth considering the default effect is Thunderstorms.

That only occurs when you take the effects out of context.
In context, wouldn't it be possible for wide-scale earthquakes to damage all creatures? (It could also be an avalanche of sorts or mudslide since the rock would gather/harden around Earth affinity creatures instead.)

Not all similar effect cards should be thematically related, since similar effects can result from different causes.

In this model, the shards are the Other versions of the Elements meaning an Other Shard would have no theme.

Which makes it devoid (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21514.0.html) of an Elemnetal quality.  From what I see, an Other-type shard would represent raw elemental power that is not specifically converted to quantum or as a representation of all Elements. (Thus making it All or None).
At the least, given that shards are magical artifacts I feel like there should a neutral "support" for it though to represent a shard that lacks elemental energy, which is what I based the theme of Glass Shard (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,35283.0.html) on.

[OldTrees]

In this model, the shards are the Other versions of the Elements meaning an Other Shard would have no theme.

Which makes it devoid (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21514.0.html) of an Elemnetal quality.  From what I see, an Other-type shard would represent raw elemental power that is not specifically converted to quantum or as a representation of all Elements. (Thus making it All or None).
At the least, given that shards are magical artifacts I feel like there should a neutral "support" for it though to represent a shard that lacks elemental energy, which is what I based the theme of Glass Shard (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,35283.0.html) on.

You convinced me that:
A Quantum Shard and a Glass Shard do have fitting themes. A Void Shard would be known as a Glass Shard. Once elemental energy is inputted it is no longer a Void.

[moomoose]

xeno- cant disagree with #3, had those as suggestions way back when http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,28937.0.html , i think theyre very fitting, the hard part comes in when trying to come up with the "benefits / more". 

z- i dunno, personally i think youre trying to hard to subdivide the shards, but whatever floats your boat

and in general- unless i am mistaken, spell shards rely on their target's element when determining the bonus (divinity target's the user, after all), while permanents rely on the user's mark.
 
and imo, the idea of "virtues" was broken when the one was named 'the void', so virtually any name that fits is fair game, but virtues still get bonus points.

[EmeraldTiger]

http://sync.in/CardIdeaPlanning Working on a one now, Come help If you wish
Shard of  Frustration is the name of the shard.

[Anarook]

  Shard of Restraint - Players can only play 4|3 cards per turn. Additional stacks decrease the value by 1 to a minimum of 1.  cards are unaffected.