Winter | Winter

[johannhowitzer]

NAME: Winter ELEMENT: Water COST: 4 TYPE: Permanent - Weapon ATK|HP: 5|4 when flying. TEXT: Weapon: deal 5 damage at the end of every turn.  May freeze opponent's weapon instead.	NAME: Winter ELEMENT: Water COST: 4 TYPE: Permanent - Weapon ATK|HP: 6|4 when flying. TEXT: Weapon: deal 6 damage at the end of every turn.  May freeze opponent's weapon instead.

ART: http://media.photobucket.com/image/ice%20sword%20images/archangels_haven/IceSword.jpg IDEA: johannhowitzer NOTES: 50% chance to freeze opponent's weapon for 3 turns.  (This works out to roughly 75% uptime, see posts below.) When the freezing effect triggers, damage will not be dealt. Freezing effect cannot trigger if opponent has no weapon, or if his weapon is already frozen.  In both cases, damage will always be dealt. Since this effect is not targeted, it can hit immaterial weapons. The weapon itself is frozen, rather than the weapon slot.  If the opponent's weapon is destroyed or a new one is played, the freezing effect expires.  If the weapon is stolen, the freezing effect travels with the weapon. SERIES: New Elemental Weapons (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26231.0.html)

"Every mile is two in winter."

[Drobbit]

that's the one! Good card. I just saw my own weapon frozed by an effect of the voodoo doll and thought: what if a weapon could do that?
freeze a creature maybe it's too much. Freeze the weapon instead is cool.

I think an other weapon serie is needed.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Good weapon, I bet those Protect Artifacted Eternities can finally can be scared now.

[Drobbit]

Good weapon, I bet those Protect Artifacted Eternities can finally can be scared now.

could it hit a protected or immaterial weapon?
it could also disable a shield by freezing it

[OldTrees]

The ability to freeze the opponent's weapon is at most worth 1quanta.
Elemental Weapons are balanced at Cost=Atk+Skill-3.
Please increase attack to 6|7 or decrease cost to 3|3 .

[johannhowitzer]

OldTrees, this has comparable attack per quanta to Trident.  I'll consider reducing the cost, but that would make it the same as Trident, which has weaker attack.  I'm not going to increase the attack of this.

Also, I think you are undervaluing the skill.  Consider how many decks rely on their weapon's skill for something important...

Fahrenheit stacking damage
Arsenic stacking poison
Lobotomizer - create a window to play creatures and use their skills safely
Eternity - shut down anti-deckout tactic and lockout
Discord - actually be able to build up quanta of one type for a bit
Owl's Eye - buy time for your creatures
Pulverizer (!!) - buy time for your permanents

So many of these weapons can't be handled by Water without splashing.  Pulverizer is especially dangerous, and is very often the target of Protect Artifact... not a problem for Winter.  That makes a much more stable Permafrost Shield.

Drobbit: yes, it can hit protected weapons, and no, it won't target shields.  Well, I don't think it should, anyway... what do you guys think?

[ZephyrPhantom]

OldTrees, this has comparable attack per quanta to Trident.  I'll consider reducing the cost, but that would make it the same as Trident, which has weaker attack.  I'm not going to increase the attack of this.

Also, I think you are undervaluing the skill.  Consider how many decks rely on their weapon's skill for something important...

Fahrenheit stacking damage
Arsenic stacking poison
Lobotomizer - create a window to play creatures and use their skills safely
Eternity - shut down anti-deckout tactic and lockout
Discord - actually be able to build up quanta of one type for a bit
Owl's Eye - buy time for your creatures
Pulverizer (!!) - buy time for your permanents

So many of these weapons can't be handled by Water without splashing.  Pulverizer is especially dangerous, and is very often the target of Protect Artifact... not a problem for Winter.  That makes a much more stable Permafrost Shield.

Drobbit: yes, it can hit protected weapons, and no, it won't target shields.  Well, I don't think it should, anyway... what do you guys think?

If it hit shield as well as weapon that has a chance of being OP.   There could be a seperate weapon for that though.

[OldTrees]

@johannhowitzer
As usual you are right. I didn't see at first that the freeze effect would be renewed while the opponent's weapon was still frozen. Permanently freezing the opponent's weapon is worth the 2 quanta (maybe 3)

If it targets shields then the cost would have to increase by at least 3 more quanta. I think leave it as only weapons.

[johannhowitzer]

The card info states that the effect won't trigger if the opponent's weapon is already frozen.  This still will result in the weapon being frozen on average 75% of the time, which is significant.  I wasn't going for total lockout, any more than ice shield is a creature lockout.

The numbers on this:
On average it will take roughly 1.5 turns to freeze enemy weapon, or we can just say half the time it's frozen on the turn it thaws, and half the time it's frozen one turn later.
Case 1 (chain-frozen): 100% uptime.  This is because freezing occurs at the end of the player's turn, and thawing happens at the end of the opponent's turn.
Case 2 (one turn thawed before frozen again): 75% uptime, or 3 turns frozen, 1 turn thawed.
Average of the two is 87.5%.  Actual average uptime is slightly lower, as you can still get unlucky and fail to freeze enemy weapon repeatedly.  Estimate 75%.

If anyone can run the numbers more exactly on this, I'd be grateful.

I am assuming - has anyone seen if this works? - that playing a new weapon into the frozen weapon slot will cause the slot to become unfrozen.

[OldTrees]

Currently Voodoo Doll freezes the opponent's arm not their weapon.
If Voodoo Doll is frozen, The opponents weapon is frozen
If the weapon is stolen, The weapon is no longer frozen but the opponent's weapon slot is
If the opponents plays a new weapon that weapon is frozen for the remainder

On this card's freeze effect
1) I am having a bad reading comprehension day.  I think that was my last error but who knows.
2) On average it will take 2 turns (infinite summation) to freeze the enemies weapon. Once frozen the weapon waits for 3 turns and then the process repeats. The opponents weapon is frozen for 75% of the time.

Turn	Average Turns Frozen	Average Turns Unfrozen
1	0.5	0.5
2	1.25	0.75
3	2.125	0.875
4	2.8125	1.1875
5	3.53125	1.46875
6	4.328125	1.671875
7	5.0703125	1.9296875
8	5.80078125	2.19921875

This is roughly linear
Turns Frozen = 0.7564 (Turns) -0.2264
R^2 = 0.9996

[johannhowitzer]

Ooh, thanks for the maths!  So apparently my powers of estimation are greater than I estimated them to be.  (Wait, what?)

Thanks also for the info about frozen slot; now I'm gonna toss the net out there for more opinions.  Should it freeze the SLOT, like Voodoo Doll does, or should it freeze the weapon?  (Freezing would transfer with weapon if stolen, and disappear if the weapon is destroyed or a new weapon is played.)  Also, should a flown weapon remain frozen?

The concept here is that half the time, the opponent will parry this frozen blade, and his weapon gets frozen.  Hence Winter does not deal damage when it freezes things.

[DRROXO]

amazing idea