Dimensional Shield | Phase Shield

[Meruan4Nemesis]

This shield has fixed number of turn to protect you. Power of entoropy shield depends on your quantas. So it´s about situation, if you need 100% defense for three turns, or if you need long-time defense depending on number of your quantas.

[EMZheath]

Not sure which is better, this or the entropy shield. If you can keep it going, I think the entropy tops this.

It depend if you want 3 turns or n/a turn.

[Chuck__Boris]

One of the most annoying cards in the game.

[Zawadx]

This is an amazing card, and probably the best shield in the game. But it doesn't need any nerfing! To prove this, and to find out how effective a chain Dimshield is, I tried out the following problem:

What is the probability that you will be able to chain Dimensional Shields (i.e. play one every 3 turns so that the opponent can't manage to put in any attack) if you play your first on the 4th turn where you draw a card at the beginning of your turn. This assumes that your deck has the maximum probability to chain them i.e. you have a 30 card deck with 6 Dimensional shields. This also assumes that you always have the quanta to play one.

* There might be an argument about the turn where you should start the chain, but I concluded that it should be the 4th, excluding the extra turn you get if you win the pre-game toss (the one where you don't draw at the beginning, I shall refer to this henceforth as the 'Play' turn). This is because, if we follow my system, the opponent will always get 4 turns in the beginning without a Dimensional Shield in my slot. In my experience (I may be wrong) no deck can kill you in 4 turns.

Now, the above problem means that we'll play our first shield on our 4th turn (excluding the play turn), and subsequent shields on the 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th turns. Now this will provide you with protection until you finish your 22nd turn. As you'll deck out anyways on the 23rd turn, dying on your opponent's turn before that is no problem. Results:

THESE RESULTS ARE INCORRECT, PLEASE REFER TO THE POST BELOW

Therefore, the chances that you'll be able to chain dimshields for the full 18 turns is a low 30.34%. And that's considering your opponent has no PC or shield-ignoring cards. Just saying, There's an about 70% chance for that shield chain to fail. 

And even if you run the basic Mono Aether (Phase Dragons, Immortals, Dimshields), which in my experience has a TTW of about 12, you need to chain 3 shields. Which has a 76.74% chance of success. And over 30% chance of failure.  8) And so I think that this card doesn't need a nerf.

[CuCN]

Your first probability is correct, but the ones after that are wrong because the probabilities are not independent and cannot be simply multiplied together.

There are 30 choose 6=593775 equally likely ways that 6 dim shields can be distributed into a 30 card deck.
Out of these 593775 ways, 566643 (95.43%) have at least one dim shield in the top 11 cards.
Out of these 566643, 518595 (87.34% of 593775) have at least two dim shields in the top 14 cards.
Out of these 518595, 455675 (76.74% of 593775) have at least three dim shields in the top 17 cards.
Out of these 455675, 380435 (64.07% of 593775) have at least four dim shields in the top 20 cards.
Out of these 380435, 291500 (49.09% of 593775) have at least five dim shields in the top 23 cards.
And out of these 291500, 180180 (30.34% of 593775) have all six dim shields in the top 26 cards.

However, especially in unupped play, you don't have to start chaining on the 4th turn. Yes, extra protection after the 22nd turn is useless, but the later you start a shield chain, the less likely it is that that chain will be broken by lack of shields. If you start chaining on the 7th turn (which is still before most unupped decks do 100 damage), the chance of having enough shields to reach turn 12 is 95.62% (567749/593775), and the chance of having enough shields to reach deckout is 80.49% (477939/593775).

[jawdirk]

Decks with 6 dim shields as their defense don't need anywhere near 22 turns to kill (unless they are facing stall of course). The reason dim shield needs a nerf is because it is too efficient compared to other shields, not because it can chain for most of the game reliably (which it can).

[eaglgenes101]

Decks with 6 dim shields as their defense don't need anywhere near 22 turns to kill (unless they are facing stall of course). The reason dim shield needs a nerf is because it is too efficient compared to other shields, not because it can chain for most of the game reliably (which it can).

It takes 36 aether quanta to keep it going for all 18 turns. What else can you do with 36 quanta? Play 3 crimson dragons and a handful of deflags and win in just 3 turns. That is, if you aren't countered.

[Naesala]

Decks with 6 dim shields as their defense don't need anywhere near 22 turns to kill (unless they are facing stall of course). The reason dim shield needs a nerf is because it is too efficient compared to other shields, not because it can chain for most of the game reliably (which it can).

It takes 36 aether quanta to keep it going for all 18 turns. What else can you do with 36 quanta? Play 3 crimson dragons and a handful of deflags and win in just 3 turns. That is, if you aren't countered.

It should be noted that we're not looking at two lump somes and throwing it all down at once. Dim shield is 6 every 3 turns, where as crimson dragons are 10 at once. Because of this lower cost needed less frequently, shields are easier to play, unless you can point me to this 3 dragon deck thats so much more popular than monoaether? I think your example just isn't very good

[Zawadx]

Your first probability is correct, but the ones after that are wrong because the probabilities are not independent and cannot be simply multiplied together.

There are 30 choose 6=593775 equally likely ways that 6 dim shields can be distributed into a 30 card deck.
Out of these 593775 ways, 566643 (95.43%) have at least one dim shield in the top 11 cards.
Out of these 566643, 518595 (87.34% of 593775) have at least two dim shields in the top 14 cards.
Out of these 518595, 455675 (76.74% of 593775) have at least three dim shields in the top 17 cards.
Out of these 455675, 380435 (64.07% of 593775) have at least four dim shields in the top 20 cards.
Out of these 380435, 291500 (49.09% of 593775) have at least five dim shields in the top 23 cards.
And out of these 291500, 180180 (30.34% of 593775) have all six dim shields in the top 26 cards.

However, especially in unupped play, you don't have to start chaining on the 4th turn. Yes, extra protection after the 22nd turn is useless, but the later you start a shield chain, the less likely it is that that chain will be broken by lack of shields. If you start chaining on the 7th turn (which is still before most unupped decks do 100 damage), the chance of having enough shields to reach turn 12 is 95.62% (567749/593775), and the chance of having enough shields to reach deckout is 80.49% (477939/593775).

Thanks for posting the correct probabilities, I wasn't sure that I was right. And we could start at the 7th turn, but a good rush usually has a TTW of less than 7. Of course one could easily start early if they know they're up against a good rush.

Decks with 6 dim shields as their defense don't need anywhere near 22 turns to kill (unless they are facing stall of course). The reason dim shield needs a nerf is because it is too efficient compared to other shields, not because it can chain for most of the game reliably (which it can).

Dissipation shield and Bonewall can also compete with Dimensional shields in my opinion. If you have enough quanta, Dissipation shield can easily block all damage, providing enough turns to finish the opponent off (especially when facing a rush). Bonewall, if combined with a way to regularly simulate deaths (Shrodinger's Cat, Sparktal to start), can actually be better than Dimshield. Bonewall might fail against a scarab/firefly spam, but then a Dimshield deck can also be beaten by spams.

Decks with 6 dim shields as their defense don't need anywhere near 22 turns to kill (unless they are facing stall of course). The reason dim shield needs a nerf is because it is too efficient compared to other shields, not because it can chain for most of the game reliably (which it can).

It takes 36 aether quanta to keep it going for all 18 turns. What else can you do with 36 quanta? Play 3 crimson dragons and a handful of deflags and win in just 3 turns. That is, if you aren't countered.

Actually, even with a bad draw of 2 aether pillars in your first few turns (assuming you don't have a  mark) you can keep the chain going (by not playing any other aether cards). Which is why I didn't consider quanta a problem when calculating the probability of chaining. 

[jawdirk]

Dissipation shield and Bonewall can also compete with Dimensional shields in my opinion. If you have enough quanta, Dissipation shield can easily block all damage, providing enough turns to finish the opponent off (especially when facing a rush). Bonewall, if combined with a way to regularly simulate deaths (Shrodinger's Cat, Sparktal to start), can actually be better than Dimshield. Bonewall might fail against a scarab/firefly spam, but then a Dimshield deck can also be beaten by spams.

I agree that Bonewall is a nice useful card. Dissipation shield I think is merely average. However, the thing I find most troubling about dim shield is that it completely ignores the composition of the attacking forces (except momentum of course). With bonewall, dissipation shield, and really all other shields (maybe permafrost shield is an exception), you can win with overwhelming quantities and/or power of creatures.  Merely having a balanced, large attacking force might allow you to win. Dim shield is effective against everything not specifically picked to circumvent shields/permanents in general, where as other shields have weaknesses. Dim shield should have a weakness; in fact, it looks like it was designed to have a weakness which is that its protection is only temporary. But since a high percentage of the time you can chain it to the end of the game, that weakness was not accurately coded into the rules of the card. It just lasts too long to behave the way it was intended to behave.

[Higurashi]

This is an amazing card, and probably the best shield in the game. But it doesn't need any nerfing!

Nerf discussion is here, for future reference: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/nerf-this-card!/dimensional-shield/msg1119558/#new

[Kowlickkid]

One of my favorite shields, making a fairly powerful immunity chain with a bit of luck. It's weakness is, of course, a dark deck. Steal rips it off, and enough devourers can render the chain useless. Also vulnerable to magic damage, but really, what shield isn't? In a mono-aether deck, it functions very well with phase dragons and the aether pillars, with perhaps a couple psions in case of a steal. Of course, it's not perfect, and I shudder when I face a dark deck when I'm carrying mono-aether.