Natural Selection | Evolution

[mildlyfrightenedboy]

If you had this and a bunch of Ball Lightnings, would it make them basically unable to die?  Essentially, it would create a ton of 5/infinity creatures for no cost.

[Xenocidius]

If you had this and a bunch of Ball Lightnings, would it make them basically unable to die?  Essentially, it would create a ton of 5/infinity creatures for no cost.

Umm ... no. Essentially, if you played two at once, one would die, the other would become a 7|2 creature.

I am considering reducing the buff to +1/+1. This may make it more situational, however. Thoughts?

[Elite arbiter]

(10  unupped, 9  upped, btw)

The main problem with this card is fractal when combined with Spark to generate death effects en masse. It's the same problem that was present in the Shard of Patience. I'm not 100% sure how to code it, but I'd suggest that you simply make a requirement that the creature survive to the end of your turn before the effects of evolution come into play. This should take out all of the weirdness with mass sparks without reducing the buff.

Right now I'm trying to decide if I like the way that our  kittens interact with this card, the difference is you need to make a continual entropy investment. I'm still working out if it is balanced or not, but my gut says this is more balanced.

[Xenocidius]

Our kittens don't interact with the card at all. This requires actual deaths (of your creatures), not pseudodeaths.

As I said, I don't really think Fractal Sparks is such a problem. I may reduce the buffing, but considering the 4-card combo, empty hand, and huge amounts of quanta required for several dragons (note that Instosis can do this as well), I don't think it's all that broken.

[mildlyfrightenedboy]

If you had this and a bunch of Ball Lightnings, would it make them basically unable to die?  Essentially, it would create a ton of 5/infinity creatures for no cost.

Umm ... no. Essentially, if you played two at once, one would die, the other would become a 7|2 creature.

I am considering reducing the buff to +1/+1. This may make it more situational, however. Thoughts?

...I am talking about the first one.  Honestly, I think that the unupped card is better than the upped card.

The combo:
Fractal, one Ball Lightning, one Bone Wall (Add a Soul Catcher, and you won't need any ).  Every turn, every single Ball Lightning dies, creating another Ball Lightning, giving you 2 more Bone Wall stacks each.  I would include Vultures, but that would screw with the Ball Lightning respawns.

Someone tell me how that isn't broken.  It's essentially the same thing as if you were to spam Schrodinger's Cats, but there is no cost, they are unable to die, and they can be fractalled for free.

If your Ball Lightning count is greater than their damage-dealing sources, then you have basically won the game.

[Xenocidius]

I'm also considering swapping the non-upgraded and upgraded versions.

If you had this and a bunch of Ball Lightnings, would it make them basically unable to die?  Essentially, it would create a ton of 5/infinity creatures for no cost.

I have no idea what you mean by this. Could you explain?

[Rutarete]

What if Natural Selection generates a copy of one of your other creatures with +1|+1?
This might create issues with the upped and unupped being used together, but it would solve the fractal sparks problem.

[mildlyfrightenedboy]

I'm also considering swapping the non-upgraded and upgraded versions.

If you had this and a bunch of Ball Lightnings, would it make them basically unable to die?  Essentially, it would create a ton of 5/infinity creatures for no cost.

I have no idea what you mean by this. Could you explain?

Normally, you create a Ball Lightning, and it dies.  Here, you create two Ball Lightnings, then one dies (creating a copy of the other), and the second dies (creating a copy of the first).    Neither will ever die.

If you fractal them, now you have shitloads of these Eternal Ball Lightnings, dying and respawning every turn.  Every time one dies, death effects take place.  A bone shield would take full advantage of this.
The only counter to this would be Malignant Cell, really.  Eventually, you would just clone all of the cells.
Tada, broken combo.

[Xenocidius]

You did not read the notes properly. It cannot create a copy of the card that dies. Ergo, combo unbroken.

[mildlyfrightenedboy]

You did not read the notes properly. It cannot create a copy of the card that dies. Ergo, combo unbroken.

Then play a fractal spark and a phase dragon.

Combo ten times worse.

Play a few Novas to get your , then throw out your dragon as soon as possible.  Take all the time you want to get the rest of the , then play your fractal spark.  Keep fractal sparking until you have a field filled with dragons.
This concept is really punishing to any deck without PC.

[Xenocidius]

As I said ... 3-10 Phase Dragons for a massive 23+ , 4 , 4 cards, and as much free hand space as possible? I fail to see how that is broken.

[Manipul8r]

I talked about this on chat a bit.  This thread is a great example of why I don't participate much in the forums anymore.

This thread, like many others, has devolved into poking holes wherever they can be found without providing any helpful suggestions or possible changes.  If you want to know what's wrong with politics, most anyone can tell you and many will talk your ear off, but few come up with new ideas and fewer implement them.

Now for the real reason I wanted to post!  If you intend for this card to be used for survival and protection, it would be wise to it apply once per turn instead of for each death trigger - this would also remove concerns about it crossing territory with and keep it from being OP with the usual suspect Fractal.  Something like "Each turn, if one of your creatures died, generate a copy of a creature you control" should suffice.