Shard of Freedom | Shard of Freedom

[kurathedog]

Suggestion:
Airborn creatures you control get +1/+0 per shard, +2/+0 if you have an air mark. They also get a flat 25% chance to bypass shields.

Maybe no flat chance, still adds per shard? I was trying to make it not make shields that useless.
Maybe even no momentum whatsoever... (Although I like freedom + avoid shields). I think adding damage might still be enough, because it works so well with all the damage doubles already out there.

Or another angle entirely:
Airborn creatures you control have a 50% chance to avoid any negative effect. Feels very freedomy.

[abacus]

I said this in chat, but I think this shard is too inconsistent.

In the early game: If you don't have many of them out, then it's unlikely to fire. If you do have many of them out, then you don't have much damage out.

In the late game: You either already lost to a faster deck that didn't dither around with shards and just packed more creatures, or you will lose to a deck with a more powerful lategame strategy.

My suggestion: Make it so that the shard fires off 50% of the time, and multiplies creature damage by 1.2. This gets increased by .2 with each additional shard in play. That way it will actually be consistently useful even with just 1 out, and doesn't change the expected damage by much

[Atico]

I don't know why some of us compare concept of avoiding shield by Air creatures with Momentum. Better comparision is with Explosion, which can destroy 3/4 of shields and You have the same effect like avoid. So where it will be OP? Explosion can destroy all permaments, SoP "destroy" only shield. Explosion open the shield for everyone, SoP only for Air. So what is the problem with avoiding shield by Air? What is more - Shard of Focus is like "avoid shield", because You can easily destroy shield or other permament (big advantage). I didn't see any kind of problem with avoiding shield by Air and personally I think that it shouldn't be the last buff for this card to Air...

[dragonsdemesne]

I don't know if it's been suggested, but what about taking away the random effect and replacing it with something like 'each 7th attack gets +50% damage and bypasses a shield'.  That would keep roughly the same percentage (1/7 is close to 15%) and remove the random effect, which would allow for timing your creatures.  Have a sky dragon in hand and a shard out, but opponent has pesky shields, wait and count your attacks and then play the dragon at the right time and WHAM! right through that pesky gravity shield or whatever.  The math for multiple shards would have to be redone, though, if zanz went with this idea.

[Aves]

Suggestion: New  acronym, like SoFr or something- it's getting really confusing looking between this and Shard of focus.

As for the actual shard- I'll reserve judgement until it's in use, but it seems fine to me.

I don't know why some of us compare concept of avoiding shield by Air creatures with Momentum. Better comparision is with Explosion, which can destroy 3/4 of shields and You have the same effect like avoid. So where it will be OP? Explosion can destroy all permaments, SoP "destroy" only shield. Explosion open the shield for everyone, SoP only for Air. So what is the problem with avoiding shield by Air? What is more - Shard of Focus is like "avoid shield", because You can easily destroy shield or other permament (big advantage). I didn't see any kind of problem with avoiding shield by Air and personally I think that it shouldn't be the last buff for this card to Air...

It's not a good comparison between explosion, because explosion destroys permanents. Momentum is exactly the card to compare this against, as they both bypass shields. Permanent control like explosion does nothing against shields protected by enchant artifact or immaterial shields like Hope, Emerald Shield, or Reflective shield.

[Atico]

Suggestion: New  acronym, like SoFr or something- it's getting really confusing looking between this and Shard of focus.

As for the actual shard- I'll reserve judgement until it's in use, but it seems fine to me.

I don't know why some of us compare concept of avoiding shield by Air creatures with Momentum. Better comparision is with Explosion, which can destroy 3/4 of shields and You have the same effect like avoid. So where it will be OP? Explosion can destroy all permaments, SoP "destroy" only shield. Explosion open the shield for everyone, SoP only for Air. So what is the problem with avoiding shield by Air? What is more - Shard of Focus is like "avoid shield", because You can easily destroy shield or other permament (big advantage). I didn't see any kind of problem with avoiding shield by Air and personally I think that it shouldn't be the last buff for this card to Air...

It's not a good comparison between explosion, because explosion destroys permanents. Momentum is exactly the card to compare this against, as they both bypass shields. Permanent control like explosion does nothing against shields protected by enchant artifact or immaterial shields like Hope, Emerald Shield, or Reflective shield.

Real difference between Explosion and Momentum is only with Hope and BoneWall. Only here. Emerald and Reflective shield are one of the less used cards and RS reduce damage only by 0-1, so it isn't big problem. So I can say that in about 80% games Explosion gives You skill "avoid the shield". SoFr probably will give also 70-80% chance to avoid shield, because we must remember that sometimes SoFr will be destroyed. We shouldn't bother about this change. I would like to see this change in Trainer to test it.

And I like concept @dragonsdemesne. It looks very good and gives fine strategy skills for game. But maybe it should be 5-6th creature, not 7th. Why? Because we must remember that "we lose" few turns for wait to 7th creature and then skill of SoFr = 0%. In previous version we always have 15%. But idea is very good.

[xn0ize]

Vampires + Eclipse + this : )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[Hyroen]

I have always loved zanzarino's work and I am amazed by his work as a developer, however, I sincerely hope that the concept of Freedom is not limited to being able to whack the opponent better.

When Freedom comes to mind, I think of being able to do more with my hand, being able to do weird and unexpected things with my permanents and creatures, and being able to play cards a bit more liberally.

It's quite frankly a little disappointing to see that Air is still going down the path of surprise attack when it can really do so much more. The more it chases after being the "damage dealer" of Elements the Game, the more it faces the hurdle of how to surpass the daunting damage tyrant that is and should be Fire.

This is not the only Shard that seems to be made the way I sometimes write my essays, but I sincerely hope that a little more time and effort are put into thinking what Freedom could truly bring to Air, and what doors could be opened for an element which has had many doors shut.

Conscience was changed to Wisdom, and mechanically, I hope something similar happens to SoFr. The name is beautifully thematic for Air, but as for the mechanic, it's more trapped than Freedom should be.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

[zhangvict]

I have always loved zanzarino's work and I am amazed by his work as a developer, however, I sincerely hope that the concept of Freedom is not limited to being able to whack the opponent better.

When Freedom comes to mind, I think of being able to do more with my hand, being able to do weird and unexpected things with my permanents and creatures, and being able to play cards a bit more liberally.

It's quite frankly a little disappointing to see that Air is still going down the path of surprise attack when it can really do so much more. The more it chases after being the "damage dealer" of Elements the Game, the more it faces the hurdle of how to surpass the daunting damage tyrant that is and should be Fire.

This is not the only Shard that seems to be made the way I sometimes write my essays, but I sincerely hope that a little more time and effort are put into thinking what Freedom could truly bring to Air, and what doors could be opened for an element which has had many doors shut.

Conscience was changed to Wisdom, and mechanically, I hope something similar happens to SoFr. The name is beautifully thematic for Air, but as for the mechanic, it's more trapped than Freedom should be.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Yes I totally agree with you. I thought at least it should grant all air creatures auto momentum to better showcase the theme of freedom and benefit air creatures better (shocking how a mono darkness with gargolyes and vampires can get the full benifit of this shard with no air at all). The ignore shield part I get about freedom, not so much the higher damage, though it does have excellent synergy with wryms and blitz.

Perhaps some suggestions of future mechanics for a freedom shard:

- You may discard cards from your hand and draw an equal number if cards you discard.
- Cards cost less quanta to play
- Summoning sickness is removed for all airborne creatures and ranged weapons
- Creatures attack twice next turn in exchange for being delayed afterwards.

Freedom is in one way about liberty, but another way I like to think about freedom is the letting go of roots and things holding you down, embracing change and moving forward. Some more unconventional ideas could be sacrifice all non pillar/pend permanents in exchange for some temporary advantage, extra quanta, card draw, etc etc.
etc.

[waterzx]

In fact, when it comes to freedom, one of possible mechanics is like this :

You can play every card in hand and use all abilities. Your quanta pool becomes negative if you have insufficient quanta. You repay the quanta "debt" one turn later

[Atico]

I can also agree with Hyroen. When we compare SoW and SoFr we can see how poor this shard is. +4/0 means often more than +50%. SoW isn't randomless, SoW cost less and have better effect when we have <7 creatures in game (because You have always 100% chance to get SoW effect and only 15% for SoFr). And last thing - SoW avoid shields in 95% games, SoFr have only 15% chance to do it.

Critical hit isn't thing what Air need. Adding random method for Air also isn't good news. And the last - there is no bonus for Air. What is more, this shard is probably better balanced with other elemenents and cards than Air (for example Vampire, Phoenix etc). I still think that we should completly change this card or remove effect of avoid shields for airborne creatures and gives only for Air Creatures.

Instead critical hit I prefer concepts which @zhangvict wrote. More freedom for SoFr!

[Max Fire]

In fact the Shard of Freedom is very very weak, this proves mathematically.

It allows to increase for 1 turn the power of your airbone creatures by 50% but only -> 15% <- of the time 
0.5x0.15=0.075

So... finally we have a power increase of airbone creatures (in average and per shard) of 7.5%.
To make you a better idea, a Ruby Dragon will gain (in average) 1.125 damages per shard, which is quite ridiculous.