[Official] Earthquake | Quicksand

[Boingo]

I thought earthquake was a bit too powerful and apparently my thoughts are reflected in the recent poll on "which card is most OP" as it has gained more votes than any other card. I think that if the earth shakes so much that it destroys pillars/towers, this should have some at least some impact on creatures in play.  There are really at least 2 "logical" choices for what kind of impact all that ground-shaking could have:

1) Earthquake/quicksand unburrows all burrowed creatures.  They cannot reburrow till the next turn.

-This would make burrowed creatures vulnerable for at least one turn, probably relegating earthquake to early game before many creatures have been played.
-One problem with this addition is what to do with graboids since they only unburrow once they evolve.  What do you do with an unburrowed graboid?  I suppose it'd be just like any other 2/3 creature.  This would make a player think twice before playing quicksand while he/she has a graboid in play.

2) Burrowed creatures receive damage equal to the number of towers/pillars destroyed.  Unburrowed creatures do not sustain damage.

-I favor this option as it has a cost/benefit calculation to the card, i.e., is it worth knocking my opponent's quanta supply down at the cost of my creatures?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

P.S.  I think either of these alterations to the card would be interesting.  As I don't have statistics on the number of decks using both earthquake and burrowing creatures, I don't know how many decks this would actually affect.  I haven't run into a lot of decks other than the shrieker rush deck and those don't typically include any form of permanent control.  Any rainbow deck with earthquake would similarly not be affected as they rarely (if ever) include shriekers/antlions/graboids/devourers.

[JETZAL]

While i do not the card is at all OP (FYI i'm not earth) if it is changed i like the idea of the first chande better

[plastiqe]

I don't like changing Earthquake to punish a specific deck, and even if your opponent has to unburrow a couple Graboids you're still gonna lose when your 3 opening pillars get zapped.

I think Earthquake is OP but I think the best way to fix it is either change it's cost to reflect the cards power or reduce the effect to match the current cost.

[$$$man]

this card be OP when combined with graboids and fractal cuz theres no other way other then an extremely lucky mutation to use fractal on a graboid so assuming all cards upped it goes like this for a total of 26 eatrh quanta 8 aether quanta and 8 time quanta you can get out 80 damage id like to see any other combo that can do that in 2 turns so good idea but crazily OP

[EvaRia]

Pump Spell it!

My suggestion:

[Naesala]

Are you sure this is a nerf? Feels like a buff to me.

[ddevans96]

This becomes better with 20 earth quanta. if you have that much, your opponent probably does too, and earthquake isn't going to hurt him much. Definitely a slight nerf.

[furballdn]

Earthquake is not very used often outside of the beginning game. In your suggestion, EQ becomes 33% weaker in the opening game, but it gains much more power as the game progresses, especially since is the element of stalling.

[EvaRia]

It's a berf.

The times when earthquake and quicksand are scary is in the early game, when they can spam them and stomp over you with rushy creatures.

This weakens early game potential significantly: Many player hold back their pillars after playing two to mitigate damage. This leeway allows you to not have to worry so much about playing too many at a time.

On the other hand, it gives the card a bit of later game potential. At 10 it's on par, but at 20+ it gets better, but keep in mind -

Saving up earth quanta means you are likely not doing anything anyways, so the extra denial is less powerful. By the time you have 70+ earth quanta, the other side will have likely spent 70+ quanta anyways and locking their quanta at that point it less damaging.

So it's a bit more fair but still powerful.

[Annele]

Are you sure this is a nerf? Feels like a buff to me.

It's a berf, that nerfs rainbows with this, and buffs monos or duos with slightly.

[Chapuz]

Me likes, Me supports this.

[Dm]

Feels like too much of a random Berf. Earthquake won't hurt many things unless they're simple monos-duos-trios, and when we reach quartet nova and other form of quanta production starts appearing more. On the mono-duo-trio the Pillar/Pend stack split is already a (indirect, but a) nerf to this card as well.

Also, this berf would be a buff in some decks. Entropy pendulums, Discord, some back - up cards to hold your opponent back (a blackhole, some silences, some Hard Hitters). Just keep your quanta growing and you can destroy everything much faster.

On the other hand it is also a very situational buff, since using it earlier would still be better then using it later...

I just feel the berf is un-needed.