[Official] Emerald Shield | Jade Shield

[Helston]

Wow, here I was expecting there to be a topic for this card.

This is without a doubt the worst shield in the game (unless you REALLY like to Enchant Artifact or get reflection on your Tower Shields). Whilst I have no problems with it having that honour (one shield has to be the worst, doesn't it?), this one doesn't even come close to other weak shields. I'm sure anyone who's deckbuilt with it has struggled with its baffling high cost for both versions of the card. I'd just like to see it brought roughly in line with it's Light counterpart, Reflective/Mirror Shield.

What I see as the best option is to simply reduce the quanta costs (I'm ignoring the shield slot cost in all the following, as it cancels out in every case):

Mirror Shield is considered balanced, and not considered a strong card. It costs 2 + 1 card + 1 upgrade. Emerald Shield, which has exactly the same effect, costs 5 + 1 card. Upgrades are usually worth 1 on a card which costs 5 or less, and 2 on a card which costs 6 or more. Thus, Emerald Shield should be buffed to 3 .

Jade Shield is harder to figure out a balanced cost for, with no identical card. Shield costs 1 + 1 card for 1 DR, and the new Emerald Shield would cost 3 + 1 card. IIRC 1 ~= 1.6 and 1 card ~= 1 .

Shield cost ~= .6 + 1 = 1.6
Shield + immaterial + reflection ~= 3 + 1 = 4

So inherent immaterial and reflection costs ~2.4 . However, on more valuable shields (such as a 2 DR shield), this should increase. Suppose we assume it's 3 for a 2 DR shield. Titanium shield costs 4 + 1 card.

Tit Shield cost ~= 4 + 1 card
Tit Shield cost + Reflection + Immaterial ~= 4 + 1 card + 3
Jade Shield cost ~= 7 + 1 card ~= 5 + 1 card + 1 upgrade

3 / 5 seems fine to me. This should leave them around where Mirror Shield and Reflective Shield are: perhaps a little UP, but at least a proper option.

[artimies7]

You posted the poll twice. Derp, that's for upgraded/unupped. Sorry.

And good points on the balancing thing too.

[nensuru]

Sorry Helston for going a little off topic... :

Imo DR shields should be as cost efficient as weapons are, because you can only play 1 at time no matter how many of them you have in your hand...

I mean, if you want a fahren/discord in your fire deck/denial deck you have 2 options:

1. build a deck with lots of them to get them early, in other words you get the risk of having dead cards in your hand for more consistency
2. build a deck with few of them to get them if you are luck, opposite of the item 1, you sacrifice consistency to have less dead cards in your hand

with dr shields this just dont happen, you usually dont want them consistently because they dont do as much as weapons

for example, vampire dagger, it costs 3x less than vampire and do 2x as much as them, you can say that this card is like 6 vampires in just 1 card
morning glory: it costs 0,16x less and do 1,75x more damage then a immortal
sword (the other card): it costs 3x less then a flesh spider and do the same damage, excluding the fact that it costs random quanta

these are all good, cost-efficient effects, i guess you can say that weapons ara balanced beetwen themselves, now if you compare shields...

"countdown" shields (dimensional shield, wings, bonewall) are so strong that they alone can win you a game against a unprepared opponent, on top of that these cards are meant to be used in numbers, this means that they have good effects, you will also draw them consistently without having to worry about dead cards and with many shields in your hand you can react better to your opponent counter plays (pc for example)

whereas DR shields have meh effects and you lose alot of your hand if you want to draw them consistently

its win-win vs lose-lose scenario...

I agree with the op about the cost reduction, maybe make it cost even less quanta, like 2 / 4 , and it will still be balanced if compared with weapons

[Helston]

Added a new option to the poll, reducing the costs by 3 (nensuru's suggestion).

I think you might be somewhat right there, in that even with a -2 cost reduction to both shields, I still think they'd be a bit weak. But I don't mind that in this case; what I'm looking for is for these cards to enter the realm of actually being acceptable to play.

However, countdown shields have the weakness of being vulnerable to decks that can, for whatever reason, outlast them. They're also more vulnerable to having clogged hands because you don't want to discard shields you haven't played yet. DR shields can still turn the tide of a game, the best example of which is Ice Shield. Solar Shield is another good DR shield, if underused. Skull Shield makes up for it's limited help by being cheap in a fairly cheap element, and the Earth shields can stop a lot of decks in their tracks. What's more, countdown based shields cost quanta for every copy of them you play, rather than just the once. This applies doubly so for the immaterial shields, because they can't be destroyed.

I'm curious as to why there's so many votes to a -1 cost reduction. I included that option for the sake of variety, and I think both cards would still be strongly in need of a buff even with that reduction. Anyone from those camps care to comment?

[serprex]

I voted -1 because I lean towards making many small buffs over a few large buffs. This may conflict with the effort and debate put into every change in EtG, but it still impacts my reasoning

Also Emerald Shield can be seen as a bit of a novelty. and are already similar. You can't compare cards in isolation. has traits that doesn't and vice versa. Where overlap occurs between elements there can still be an unbalance, as so long as has some other advantage to balance remains. The decrease in efficiency can be seen as a marked up price from converting to

[Helston]

I voted -1 because I lean towards making many small buffs over a few large buffs. This may conflict with the effort and debate put into every change in EtG, but it still impacts my reasoning

Also Emerald Shield can be seen as a bit of a novelty. and are already similar. You can't compare cards in isolation. has traits that doesn't and vice versa. Where overlap occurs between elements there can still be an unbalance, as so long as has some other advantage to balance remains. The decrease in efficiency can be seen as a marked up price from converting to

That's a fair enough policy in favouring small buffs over large ones, however I think this is a case where a larger buff can be easily made. The cards are very rarely used outside Life vs Life battles (such as in Trials), and even then I can very confidently say that they're very weak cards when you do eventually use them. So much so that I would replace Emerald Shield/Jade Shield with any other shield* in any non-Firestall deck if I could, and I would replace them for Reflective/Mirror Shield in a Firestall if I could.

I'm incredibly surprised the Emerald Shield poll is more in favour of a moderate buff than the Jade Shield poll. In my calculations I compared it to Mirror Shield, which itself could be considered underpowered. This is also using a lot of the standard math for card cost calculation, so I can't really see how there'd be any controversy in raising it to that level. Especially considering how seldom Shield is used and that Emerald Shield still won't be much better than it, let alone worth an extra 2 quanta, unless you desperately want the reflection.

Jade Shield is a little more worthy of having a slower buff, but again I think it will be found to be still notably underpowered if the cost is reduced to 6 . Considering a Life stall will probably want to be using its quanta for Mitosis or Empathic Bonds, 6 is still a lot to part with.

For both of these cards, I think they could still do with some sort of revamp even after the -2 I've proposed. The aim of this is just to try to bring them to a mediocre level so they're not absolutely terrible.


*There are exceptions, but these are incredibly specific. Mirror/Reflective would because they reduce less damage; Thorn/Spine Carapace, Fire Shield/Buckler, Skull Shield are exceptions if expecting creatures with high HP; Gravtiy Shield if expecting no creatures with >5 HP; Solar Buckler assumes I have use of ; Dissipation Shield/Field assumes I have enough /

[Higurashi]

I never really use Emerald Shield, it's true. An immaterial DR2 shield that only needs  is quite valuable though. The cost of 7 hasn't bothered me really, but because of experience with both shields I voted -2 cost for Emerald and -1 cost for Jade. The jump from DR1 to DR2 when the shield is already immaterial is absolutely huge.

[WexMajor]

Being the only shield I carry around (Thanks Aether) I think it is a bit too costly. Lowering the cost by a couple of quanta (both versions), could be a very good idea. 

[Pyrodinium]

  is have more a defensive theme compared to  so I guess low cost shields are okay for the element.  on the other hand excels at summoning low cost critters and a low cost shield would unnecessarily power it up. Besides, it has fast healing spells and permanents to compensate for the slow defense anyways.

I think shaving one quanta off Emerald Shield is okay.

However, Jade Shield's cost should be kept as is, 2 defense is no laughing matter (think Serket). Its  cousin Tower Shield, which has the same ability. costs 5 quanta to play. That expensive ability + reflect + immaterial justifies the 7 cost.

[Zergva]

is have more a defensive theme compared to  so I guess low cost shields are okay for the element.  on the other hand excels at summoning low cost critters and a low cost shield would unnecessarily power it up. Besides, it has fast healing spells and permanents to compensate for the slow defense anyways.

I think shaving one quanta off Emerald Shield is okay.

However, Jade Shield's cost should be kept as is, 2 defense is no laughing matter (think Serket). Its  cousin Tower Shield, which has the same ability. costs 5 quanta to play. That expensive ability + reflect + immaterial justifies the 7 cost.

You can't compare a  and a  card cost in 1-1. For better comparation:


it's shows that 2 reduction is not 5 , only 4 .



Immortality+1 shield+Reflection is only 2  . 1 damage reductionshould be 2 and the other abili... wait, does it free? So how that's justifies the high cost?

In this case, the Jade shield should cost 4  + 2    -> 6 (we taken out the 1 damage reduction from the Mirror shield as combining cost, but if we don't, -2 and add 1 for combine, so that's 5 ).

The unupped shield is nearly the same.

 2 for Reflective shield + 2 for 1 damage reduction (btw the normal shield is only costs 1 ) and 1 for combining -> 5 

Yep, the way needs some refining.

[serprex]

... You can't compare a  and a  card cost in 1-1 ...

You can't compare a and a card cost 1-1

(That said, I agree 7 is likely a bit too high. So while I disagree with your initial premise, I agree with your conclusion. The relative worth of and may be close enough that your math works out)

[Zergva]

... You can't compare a  and a  card cost in 1-1 ...

You can't compare a and a card cost 1-1

(That said, I agree 7 is likely a bit too high. So while I disagree with your initial premise, I agree with your conclusion. The relative worth of and may be close enough that your math works out)

-.-"

You can disagree with it, but any level you take it, your method will be 1 step lower.

I can compare the with the
These cards are equally good, have the same attributes, so they are equal.
The other thing, that , but  is known for the decent rush, and the cheap creatures. That's add the -1 for the frog. But I can still compare  = = in 1-1-1, if I count the other things.

The shields has that equality, because if some of them is UP or seems to be much worse than the other (as like Normal Shield VS everything).