Establishing a bridge between two opposing elements; Life & Death

[Koxeida]

Disclaimer: All the images used below belong to their respective owners. They are used, simply, to illustrate ideas.

Prelude:

I have been wondering what elements would the Mind Creatures I suggested fit into. So I surfed through the Card Ideas Section, over 20 pages, to get some inspiration. And voila! as though my subconsciousness has somehow made a connection, it becomes glaringly obvious to me that they would perfectly fit into Life and Death elements! Reason? I'll explain in later part of the post.
Like Nymphs, and alchemy cards, the creatures I'm about to suggest are under the category, or theme, Mind.

And what's so unique about it?
Mind Creatures lose 1 HP per turn
It's essentially a creature with 1 poison mark!



History behind Mind creatures:
Mind creatures are vengeful, full of hatred. Despite their inability to exist in the realm of living for a substantial period of time, they can wreck havoc. They thrive on harming the living soul, growing stronger as they inflict pain and injuries. Even then, no one dares to kill them for their malice and spite will seek to take revenge even in death. Beware them for they are the worst kind of nightmare one will ever encounter in their lifetime.




Different from Devourer in a way that you need to attack to gain quantum. And the ability, "Imbibe" sets up many possible Duo-elements combination! By using them, you can, in early game, boost your mark significantly.


The attacker of this theme. It's ability to multiply, PU-ed in another word, which some may consider OP, is offset by high cost of summoning one, and by having a pretty low HP.


I know Life Element doesn't need any more kind of healing but it is an alternative way, if you're not going to spam creatures but rather permanents. Perhaps, this card will bring in more new cards, cards basing their synergies around having a lot of permanents!


Giving death element a unique way of permanent control. It, of course, works obviously well within the death element
itself!


This card covers the weakness of the entire theme! For the upgrade version, Enlightenment, it is made to combo with Nature Wrath/Gaia Wrath.

Quote from bobcamel
Philotics: Those will be very effective for said rush decks as well. Play one ASAP (getting 3  in the first turn your start with towers and immediately this is preferable) and the enemy is denied quite a bit. Couple with markfed Quicksands and PA for Wisdom and it looks pretty good if not better than the Darkness/Earth denai

Sacrifice Blank Permanent/Philotic Connection to boost your creatures. An alternative way of keep the ever-dying Mind Creatures alive!


This card is VERY situational. One can use it offensively/defensively. And be careful, if Mind creatures can't attack, they will die out much faster!



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The effect looks overpower at a glance but if you think about it, when you play this card, you can't play other good shields, which can definitely protect you! But of course, with the healing power of Life Element, feel free to exchange blows!

Possible Decks based on Mind Theme

Philotic rush with Spite/Malice, Spirit/Soul backed up by Bonewall + Boneyard. Using Death pillars with

1) Earth mark -- Quantum denial, while plate armor is used to buff up Spirit

2) Life mark -- Using redemption/rejuvenate + Nature wrath/gaia wrath for complete control of the field.

3) Gravity mark -- for momentumed Spirit/Soul with strategic use of Gravity Pull -- on Spite/Malice.

Permanent SPAM + Creature SPAM so that one will never die. Life pillars with Death mark.
Essential cards: Philotic Bridge, Lenity, Wisdom, Boneyard, Retribution, Nature Wrath, Spite/Malice for permanent control.

Weakness of this theme: Sundial, Diamond Shield, Phase Shield effectively nullified this whole theme unless you have Outbreak/Invigorate with Redemption/Rejuvenate to keep your creatures alive.

10 out of 12 shields can effectively nullify the concept of this deck:
Air - Fog Shield ( You miss = most card effects from Mind cards won't be applied)
Darkness - Dusk Mantle (Same as above)
Death - Bone wall (No dmg = No effect from Mind cards)
Light - Hope (same as above)
Entropy - Dissipation Shield (same as above)
Life - Thorn Shield (If poisoned further,   )
Aether - Phase Shield (No dmg = No effect from Mind cards)
Time - Procrastination (1 turn of inaction = almost death for most Mind creatures)
Water - Ice Shield (same as above, but much worse!)
Fire - Fire Shield (Self-explanatory)

And I hope you can see the reasoning behind putting these cards in Life and Death! 

Comments are warmly welcomed so that I can further refine on these ideas. I hope my effort paid off!

Credits go to: SacredGirl for creating the AWESOME browser-based template!
                       bobcamel for his constructive criticisms!
                       Kaine, Gl1tch, ajm6 for their useful feedbacks!
                       And many others whose names I can't recall from 20 PAGES of Card ideas!

[miniwally]

Wow that seems extremely good but I'm shocked it's all these new cards all interlinked between each other over just two elements.

I would like to congratulate you on your amazing graphical designs for these, they look truly amazing.

[Koxeida]

Thanks! But I didn't draw those pictures  I know I should give credits, but well I'm abit lazy after the painstaking googling of images and attempting to use the browser-based template 

[miniwally]

Slightly less impressive then but still a great idea. I think if you mentioned somewhere that it wasn't done by you that'd clear that up.

Anyway back to my original point don't you think that it's a lot of cards that are to be interlinked between just 2 elements. In fact it's a lot of cards to be interlinked.

[Koxeida]

Disclaimer: All the images used below belong to their respective owners. They are used, simply, to illustrate ideas.

I did 

Kinda, but I'm afraid my ideas may be overpowered. The more diverse the deck is (like rainbow), the stronger it is, so yeah  But those links are what constitutes the "combo" of certain themes, aren't they?

[Kurohami]

The ideas are very creative, but might completely destroy the balance of the game if implemented.

[lunter]

Great cards, but as said below, they would TOTALLY destroy balance, too much synergy, life-death would be the strongest elements ever, every deck would have to have t least one of these to succeed, but very good ideas!!! (picture neuron with adrenaline drain 8 quanta and can be played around turn 2-3, just to give an example, and almost every card is OP)
nice ideas, they need some adjustments to work. (its hard to balance cards :S)

[Koxeida]

And what's so unique about it?
Mind Creatures lose 1 HP per turn
It's essentially a creature with 1 poison mark

I hope that answers your concern, lunter   

Ok May be. All these ideas look overpower -- theoretically. The 3 main creatures can be easily destroyed by 1 firestorm, but the Redemption/Invigorate counter-balance the main weakness. So this means, the core of this deck is having Redemption/Invigorate + Wisdom/Enlightenment. It's the only way to keep them alive. Of course, you can don't use them, and rather focus on how to make use of them when they die. For example, Malice/Spite. Could be combo-ed with Boneyard, Bonewall as well.

I can see, the overpower comes from "permanent" part But the difficulty of building an effective deck is deciding what cards to use. And In my opinion, it's hard to build an effective Duo-element deck which require high usage of either element.

In all, these cards require a FULL setup of the field to effectively control the field. Even then, its lack of immunity to permanent control will be the downfall of this.

[lunter]

 cant reallyt believe I missed "they lose 1HP per turn", (if they atack multiple times they get hurt multiple times?) that wouldn't make them so much OP, but soul and spirit are seriously OP, theyre like malignent cell (cost 8!) theyre malignent cells but much more powerful, this wuld make great cards but we need to give every element a good synergy with other element as good as this, thats teh only way, I would love to make mono and duo decks to reborn, too much rainbow wich is nice, but i like the predictibility of mono and duo decks, theyre more "thematic" and cute  just saying xD

[Koxeida]

Yeah, I kinda agree that Spirit/Soul is OP. I know Phase shield, sundial, bonewall, will effectively nullify them but of course you can use momentum to by pass the 2 of the 3 counters. So i'm wondering whether I should make this creature Immortal. If immortal, then the Wisdom/Enlightenment won't benefit Spirit/Soul, and the 3 counters mentioned above still work.  It's funny how immortalizing a creature makes the creature weaker -- for the first time!

[lunter]

sory to say this but making it inmortal wont nulify wisdom effect, permanents still affect inmortals (inmaterial gets killed by fire shield).

[Koxeida]

Depends on the type of trigger. I don't really know how the game code works, but If i'm not wrong, if Rain of Fire/Plague does not affect immaterial creatures, then this Wisdom/Enlightenment also won't work.

The point of making Soul/Spirit immaterial is so that they can't be buffed by using Outbreak/Redemption/Unstoppable/Plate armor, etc.