Storm Rod | Storm Attractor

[ddevans96]

NAME: Storm Rod ELEMENT: Aether COST: 3 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 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 0 | 15 ABILITY: Attract: All abilities or spells that would affect you instead affect Storm Attractor.

ART: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1185168 by Mattox and http://www.sxc.hu/photo/944611 + editing by ddevans96 IDEA: ddevans96 NOTES: Idea I've had in my head  for a long time. Finally decided to make something out it. Attract is a passive ability. If there are mulitple creatures with Attract on one side of the field, the one in the smallest-number creature slot will have it's ability enabled and all the others will not. This moves any spell or ability effect that can be translated from player to creature from you to Storm Rod. This includes all spell damage (including Nightmare's), Silence, healing spells, Voodoo affects, and the like. Reasoning for element: Thematically, aether is the domain where energy waves flow. Everything is in some way related to some kind of energy. Gamewise, is linked with immunity. This protects you from spell effects. Cost is balanced as follows. Storm Rod: 0 (attack) + 2 (high HP) + 2 (passive ability) - 1 (situational) = 3 Storm Attractor: 0 (attack) + 3 (very high HP) + 2 (passive ability) - 1 (situational) - 1 (upgrade bonus] = 3 If you have other reasoning I would much like to hear them below SERIES:

[QuantumT]

I think the cost needs to be way increased because this almost functions as a field wide quint. Few if any deck carry enough damage to eat through all that hp, not to mention the fact that it makes all soft cc completely worthless.

Maybe if it game into the field with gravity pull as well, but really I just think that it's protective ability is way too good.

[WhitE-OuT]

I think the cost needs to be way increased because this almost functions as a field wide quint. Few if any deck carry enough damage to eat through all that hp, not to mention the fact that it makes all soft cc completely worthless.

Maybe if it game into the field with gravity pull as well, but really I just think that it's protective ability is way too good.

I think he should lower the health instead. That way it's a nice cheap (and temporary) shield for all your creatures.

But this seems like it doesn't fit very well, as most of their creatures are already immaterial...

[OldTrees]

First here is a thread that you might find helpful for improving this idea: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9297.0.html

Second this card negates at least 1 but probably 3-4 cards of your opponent. I would not price that ability at less than +4-5quanta net.

Lowering the health to 10 [valued at +3quanta] would also reduce the value of the skill to +3 or more quanta or so.

[ddevans96]

Apparently I overlooked the fact that without abilities and spells the only thing that can affect a creature is shields. Again I think an idea I have is imbalanced so I add a bunch of stuff to it and it comes out horribly imbalanced the other way.

If I removed the creature part entirely and made it only protect you, would it help some?

[OldTrees]

If it is changed to only protect you then it is very similar to mirror shield. Look there for balance.

[doublecross]

What do you mean you can't eat through it?

A rain of fire would do 3X damage to it, where x is the number of creatures your enemy has (unless I misinterpret the mechanic).

A pandemonium would completely kill it. One gravity pull would kill it.

You could poison it, and just wait.

Once you get it's health low, you could devour it.

Sniping it could help you kill it quickly.

You could also PU it, and then you gain the benefits too.



This card really isn't an unbeatable field-wide quint. It is a creature that offers your creatures protection from 20HP worth of spell damage. 

I say, keep the effect on the card, and leave the price alone, or, if you really must raise it, do so only by 1.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I find it slightly comical that devans posted his balance statistics on the table and yet people consider it OP.

1st of all, he has it right IMHO. Armagio protects from creatures, thus deserving 5 more health and +2 cost in comparison.  This card could be easily avoided by a creature rush, and keep in mind that your PC cards will still work. (See #3 for comparison to Mirror Shield)

2nd of all, like doublecross said, AoE rips straight through this. If I interpret the card correctly every single effect casted by an AoE becomes redirected at storm rod.  That means you only need a Plague or  Retrovirus, and it's not exactly a good idea to run this in a deck focused on swarming unless you need AoE protection.

3rd of all, if this card is to be compared to Mirror Shield, then one could say it benefits from being a creature, thus having increased cost (as well as protecting from Poison, one thing Mirror Shield can't do).  Protection from Poison and Multiple copies of a creature are enough for +2 in comparison to Mirror Shield.

It seems balanced to me. One question though - what happens when you have multiple Storm Rods out at the same time?

[ddevans96]

It seems balanced to me. One question though - what happens when you have multiple Storm Rods out at the same time?

Says in the notes. If there are mulitple creatures with Attract on one side of the field, the one in the smallest-number creature slot will have it's ability enabled and all the others will not. I'm thinking of ways to improve on that.

I think I might increase the cost by 1 though, considering some people say balanced and others say OP. Not sure yet.

[QuantumT]

I find it slightly comical that devans posted his balance statistics on the table and yet people consider it OP.

Those balance statistics revolve around the values given to the passive ability - situational. That 2 value is just far too low.

2nd of all, like doublecross said, AoE rips straight through this. If I interpret the card correctly every single effect casted by an AoE becomes redirected at storm rod.  That means you only need a Plague or  Retrovirus, and it's not exactly a good idea to run this in a deck focused on swarming unless you need AoE protection.

Maybe if you're running it with a ton of creatures. But if you only have 3-4 other creatures on the field, it's going to take multiples of those spells to get through it.

Even if you do have a ton of creatures, it at worst trades with one of them. With the exception of Plague, which will take time to work, all of those AoE spells cost more to play than this does. And if you don't have one of the few AoE spells the game offers in your deck, all your CC becomes virtually worthless.

[EmeraldTiger]

I was thinking about an idea like this, so I did the right thing first and did a search.
I would like to see what we can do to balance this.

My first thought is this should be only spells cast by opponent.
I did not read what anyone else wrote.

I asked ddevans96 before posting in this thread if I could revive it.

[RagingAlien]

maybe make it come into play with 1 poison counter? that means 20-turns worth of protection of the enemy doesn't do anything, soft CC will speed it up, at least.