Spark | Ball Lightning

[icybraker]

Global Moderator Comment

modified to use the card tag instead of the img tag

[icybraker]

IT IS FIXED! Finally! After about 3 months. Yeah, I'm a fast worker.

[Kamietsu]

A really good card that really gets looked past most of the time. Its free of cost and one blessing, plate armor, anything to pump up it's defense a little and it's a pretty good and cheap card.

[icybraker]

Yep. For 2 Light and 1 Earth Quanta, you have a 8/9 creature right there. Inedible by Otyughs and can't be destroyed by Maxwell's Demons. Sort of like Blessing and Chaos Powering Sparks.

[philipapw]

Yes, but by doing so, you lose card advantage. What I mean is that you need three cards when playing a dragon only needs one. It's a matter of balance.

[YoYoBro]

That depends only on one's own playstyle..

[philipapw]

I disagree. Yes, everyone has their own playing style but card advantage is card advantage. There is a reason why people use golden hourglass; it gives u a way to draw more cards from ur deck. Generating quata to use the cards u draw is generally not a problem if u balance out ur deck (pillars/other cards). Eternity is everyone's friend to solve the decking out problem. Creating a plated spark is a calculated risk: for cheaper quata, increased card usage. Dragon: increased quata, less card usage. So, no matter how you look at it, u use more cards to increase ur damage input in a short amount of time.

[icybraker]

Philipapw, you have a very valid point. However, your argument has some holes in it.

"Generating quata to use the cards u draw is generally not a problem." This is not true; there is always a time that you will have no pillars or novas in your hand no matter how much you stuff your deck with pillars. More than a fourth of my deck is comprised of pillars, and yet, I've experienced multiple game streaks zero pillars in PvP. However, when this happens, I still have a very feasible way of still winning the match - cheap combinations that provide huge monsters, like the Spark combination we mentioned.

Additionally, using more cards can often be an advantage in huge decks designated for just this purpose. Many of these decks are stuffed full of cheap creatures and power increases like Blessing, Adrenaline, etc. Using multiple cards to summon a creature gets their hand empty, freeing up space to draw more cards and continue the cycle.

[philipapw]

I'm not denying that one is cappable of having the bad draw once in a while but in this case, winning a game against a strong deck is still hard no matter what the conditions are. The spark combination is incredible damage wise but is very reliant upon one card. A gravity shield (and to a lesser extent fire shield) will simply shut such a creature down as will a bone wall. This makes it very hard to win if your spark is destroyed (many possible ways). This is because of your huge investement in one card. There is nothing wrong with this; I have spent time creating decks that use the very same principal. However, decks that diversify their resources are much more likely to win then those that don't. A deck, in order to be competitive at the PVP level needs several things; it needs a win condition, it needs permenent control, creature control and adaptibity. This is why rainbow is so powerful. It has all of this and card acceleration.  In some cases, this CAN be ignored, but these decks have proven MORE sustible to bad draws than decks that are more evenly balanced. For example, nova decks. After the intial rush of creatures, these decks either deck out, run out of creatures or die to a well organized deck. The key to understanding this is to look at your limitations. Life is a limitation (100). Even with stone skin and other such cards, there is a limit that can be reached. Other limits are creatures, cards, NUMBER of cards and permanents(ie seapons and shields.) The only two things in the game that aren't limited are : amount quata and creatures abilities. That's it. This and the idea of card advantage is why rainbows are still arguably the toughest decks to beat even with the number of nerfs: they take advantage of the two resources that are "unlimited" and "abuse"/ use them.

As for your pillar problem, try increasing number of pillars in your decks or make your decks smaller.

[icybraker]

"The spark combination is incredible damage wise but is very reliant upon one card."
Good point. However, Gravity Shield will not "completely shut down" this card; just not using Heavy Armor in the presence of Gravity Shield, instead using Chaos Power or Blessing, will work. Adrenaline takes care of Bonewall, and Fire Shield affects EVERY creature in the game now, so that argument is not very strong.

"A deck, in order to be competitive at the PVP level needs several things; it needs a win condition, it needs permenent control, creature control and adaptibity."
Most of the time. However, these decks are often quite large and slow. Rush decks can also be extremely powerful; a Dragon, Poison, Shrieker, or FFQ rush deck is a force to be reckoned with. Additionally, having just one or 2 of those conditions is often enough. Take the Firebolt deck. It has no creature control, but it wins all the time simply because it's very adaptable and it's unconventional, with no creatures. Take any mutation deck. No control whatsoever - just relying on awesome abilities and pure damage. And it works.

"After the intial rush of creatures, these decks either deck out, run out of creatures or die to a well organized deck." AFTER the rush of creatures. Oftentimes, you are unlucky, and even a very well set-up deck will fall to a very fast one. It's true that fast decks fall apart once the defense has kicked in, but it's all about luck in the early stages.

"As for your pillar problem, try increasing number of pillars in your decks or make your decks smaller." My deck is 40 cards big, with 10 Quantum Pillars and 6 Novas, just like many others. This is a very reasonably-proportioned deck, as I'm sure we all can agree. And, usually, it works just fine. But, inevitably, we get bad draws. The point I'm trying to make is that you will get unlucky.  Quanta is THE biggest limitation in this game (not by your definition of limitation, of course) in that it's essential to summon your cards with. And, sometimes, you're simply unlucky.

[918273645]

This + 1HP opponent = WIN!!!   

[ODSTRookie]

This is probably the fairest aether card. In all honesty since most aether cards are kinda "cheap" this guys pretty fair but used in certain ways is more broken then any other aether card.