Bone Mage | Bone Archmage

[moomoose]

NAME: Bone Mage ELEMENT: Death COST: 5 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 3 | 3 TEXT: Mages deal spell damage : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons and deal 5 damage to the target.	NAME: Bone Archmage ELEMENT: Death COST: 5 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 6 | 3 TEXT: Mages deal spell damage : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons and deal 5 damage to the target.

ART: Hawanja IDEA: moomoose NOTES: It effectively gives a repeatable use lightning, but requires ammo in the form of skeletons, but by sacrificing all skeletons, only one bone mage will cast their spell per turn.  Having extra bone mages out would deal damage, but not use their ability unless another skeleton were to be put into play following the use of a previous bone storm. Another application of spell damage, given to an element other than aether.  And it stands to reason that the original Psion could be in line for an additional ability to pair with spell damage. SERIES:

an alternate solution that would take into account the skeletons being basic or upgraded, and allow for buffing them to deal more damage, but at a cap:

NAME: Bone Mage ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 4 | 3 TEXT: : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons to damage the target equal to their total health (Max 20).	NAME: Bone Archmage ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 6 | 3 TEXT: : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons to damage the target equal to their total health (Max 20).

ART: IDEA: NOTES: SERIES:

or to limit it to damaging the opponent to prevent bone storm 1 > creature death 1 > bone storm 2 > creature death 2 > bone storm 3 > creature death 3 when there is a graveyard and low hp creatures in play.

NAME: Bone Mage ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 4 | 3 TEXT: : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons to damage your opponent equal to their total health (Max 20).	NAME: Bone Archmage ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 6 | 3 TEXT: : Bone Storm Sacrifice your skeletons to damage your opponent equal to their total health (Max 20).

ART: IDEA: NOTES: SERIES:

[storyteller]

I dont think the damage should be limited, there is an arbitrary limit of 22 skeletons, you need 1 for the Bone mage. At 3 health each you have 66 potential damage in the most extreme of circumstances and lose the 88 damage you would have had from attacking. This requires a lot of setup and at least 3 cards, Bone mage, Eclipse, and something to make skeletons. I think of it like catapult, its rare to get that much damage. Now you could use basilisk blood or other effects to raise HP, but those are rare as well. All in all, I think there should be no limit on the damage, maybe just base it on number of skeletons instead of their HP, which I think would be best. Make it a bolt and iterations based on skeletons used at a flat number.

[OdinVanguard]

Why not just use the wording "based on their total health" instead of "equal to their total health"
Then you could adjust the scaling to balance (maybe something like catapult would work).
I also like allowing targeting of both creatures and players rather than just players. That will help further differentiate it from a catapult and make it unique.
This could be a very fun card I think.

This may in fact out-do catapult since it will not require a muliple colors to pull off... could be quite useful if coupled with earth's nymph.

[Zac33333]

So the way I understand it is you can launch skeletons individually for 1 each and do 5 damage to the opponent player/creature targeted?

It's kinda weak, but I can see 4 of these on-field, launching 1 skeleton each turn for 5 damage each, 20 damage per turn in spell damage. That's pretty tough.

That's a powerful card, yes, but here's what makes it crazy - 'Launching' a creature would activate death effects. 3 Elite Boneyards and a Bonewall shield = 3 Skeletons per 1 launched, so if 4 Bone Mages launch a Skeleton, you'll get 12 Skeletons back as ammunition and +8 Bonewalls to your shield.

I think you should make it a note and a mechanic that this sacrificing doesn't activate death effects. Considering it's also only 5 to begin with, and they practically pay for themselves after the first boneyard/skeleton/soul catcher combo. Then imagine an SoR on one of these with Soul Catcher. Suddenly, you make back half of the quanta you payed in the first place and have more more more ammo, and have done 10 damage to something in one turn.

If that's annoyingly long to read, I bolded the part that's important.

[blarp]

well combined with a boneyard this is kinda OP, because you basically get to deal 5 damage every turn forever as long as you kill a creature. either the cost of the skill, creature cost, or hp/att has to be lowered. this isn't that bad for 5 cost (not good at all) but it isn't too much of a sacrifice. However I do like the idea as it creates a new deck option but this and bonewall is too much. especially if you spam like 6 boneyards and you use this ability and then all your skeletons die and add to your bonewall and they're instantly sextupled and yeah...