[Official] Graviton Mercenary | Graviton Guard

[OldTrees]

At the moment, the stats are not terrible. His brothers the antlion and the frog are 4-4 and 5-3. In other words they all get 8 stat points for 2 quanta.

If your stat point theory is accurate, you would be willing to play a 1|7 upgraded creature for 2 .
I doubt your Cost = Function (Attack + Hp) theory. I prefer converting the two stats into quanta separately before adding.

[nilsieboy]

At the moment, the stats are not terrible. His brothers the antlion and the frog are 4-4 and 5-3. In other words they all get 8 stat points for 2 quanta. This is fairly cheap, I just can't see myself using the deck space for a card with a measly 3 attack. (Seriously I don't even own the card.) I'd rather go with 6 chargers and top it off with another element or a few (expensive)  dragons. Yes, the ''lots of HP but no attack'' is a general problem for this element.

Extra HP is not that interesting, since it's already a lot for a light attacker. Armagio is already good overdrive fodder so it can't compete with that. I do agree it makes sense to have a plain attacker, but why should that be a hard rule?

So the only thing people are going to care about is atttack, or an ability. This might make the card more expensive, but it will also make it more interesting. I'd like some ''guardy'' ability but that looks a lot like the Warden. If there was a type of magnet/gravity ability it could be strong. The guard selects an opponent to redirect the attack to the other player or something. Not totally original but it could fit the guard.

the problem is that 5 attack is great for a frog, while the 3 attack very low for the graviton guard. 5 hp is nice but i'd rather see it having at least 4 attack.

[Daytripper]

I was just comparing. I know people like attack better. You just can't expect too much for 2 quanta, which means the lightweights are not very interesting. Not every creature fits one formula anyway.

I think I explained regardless the grav guard is uninteresting to play. It's not because it's expensive, since really it costs almosts nothing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say people don't care about that. They'd pay 4  if it was a good card.

the problem is that 5 attack is great for a frog, while the 3 attack very low for the graviton guard. 5 hp is nice but i'd rather see it having at least 4 attack.

True. Though 4-5 for 2  is fairly generous. I wouldn't mind personally but you understand.

[Daytripper]

After thinking, I suggest an alternative.

This will still be a type guardy/magnetic/gravity shield mechanic, but different:

Graviton guard/merc absorbs ALL CC when ability is activated. In other words you must kill it first before you can touch other critters, even mass CC goes to it. (I haven't thought about the details since mass CC is a lot of damage, given 5 attackers that would be 15 fire storm damage or 5 poison counters from a plague.) For it to be balanced the mass CC dam. may have to be capped, or the guard just gets a lot of HP. Downside of that is that it is rather unfair to single CC. I'm thinking mass CC can do double/triple dam. to the guard tops or something. I suggest about 10-15 HP regardless and a cost of 3 or 4  . Ability is 1  . That way it could survive one fire storm, (6-9 dam.) but maybe not two. (9-18 dam)   

Effect will not override grav force. In other words armagio can still block physical dam. to your life. 

Regarding soft CC I don't know. It will either not apply to that or the ability of grav merc/guard will fail when it becomes frozen/BB'd. After that other targets are free. Of course it could fully apply to soft CC, but it might be a tad OP.

[storyteller]

simply building on that idea and making it more simplified : Graviton Guard becomes the target of the next attack, spell or effect that would target your creatures. passive.

[UnderneathTheLens]

simply building on that idea and making it more simplified : Graviton Guard becomes the target of the next attack, spell or effect that would target your creatures. passive.

I wouldn't like that, b/c it would mean that the player would only be able to target his Graviton Guard as well.

[Daytripper]

simply building on that idea and making it more simplified : Graviton Guard becomes the target of the next attack, spell or effect that would target your creatures. passive.

I wouldn't like that, b/c it would mean that the player would only be able to target his Graviton Guard as well.

It wouldn't be quite like that, even as a passive ability. At least I don't think. It's a defensive card, so the person with the guard can still use CC spells. After all people from the same team know not to shoot each other. At least most of the time.

Anyway I suppose it's all possible if this is ever taken to the tool shop that is.

[storyteller]

k, keep it simple, next action your opponent would take that would target your creatures would target graviton guard instead. passive.

was that so hard?

[Daytripper]

k, keep it simple, next action your opponent would take that would target your creatures would target graviton guard instead. passive.

was that so hard?

Sure, that is one possibility. Formulating the idea is easy once you've figured out what it is. For me, I'm undecided about the details.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Alright, so this fellow once had a thread dedicated to him, but not only did the thread fall into obscurity but the poll got eaten by Xeno's Pet Crawler mid-forum transfer, which kind of makes it seem like everyone forgot about this card. However, it has been pretty clear that Graviton Mercenary is the most underpowered card of the game for several reasons:

1) It's cost/attack/ability ratio isn't just bad, it's potentially the worst of its archetype:

Spoiler for Explanation:

When comparing Mercenary to the rest of the ETG cards on the 'small to medium' section, one can easily tell it is the worst of the group. Frog and Blue Crawler get -2 and -1 cost respectively at the tradeoff of -2 HP, which means little as all three cards can be still killed by Lightning or Rage Potion - the only damage case where Mercenary fares slightly better is against Shockwave and some creature induced poison, at which it'll die rather quickly anyway if the Poison stacks quickly enough.

On the higher end of the spectrum, Hematite Golem is not only better statwise but is compatible with/resistant to Rage Potion, while Wyrm at least gets a compensatory ability in the form of Dive that has a minor advantage with Parallel Universe. (PU-d Diving Creatures stay Diving until Dive is triggered on that creature again). Mummy is not only higher in attack, but can also resist/combo with Reverse Time to become a 3 | 8 Pharoah that can spawn Scarabs. Phase Spider may have the least HP of the 'low-to-mid' group, but it at least compensates with 1 more attack and the ability to Web creatures, which is absolutely necessary in a Wings deck.

Mercenary's counterparts also remain strictly better than it does when they upgrade - this is most notable with Giant Frog, who also costs 2 Quanta but has a much more rushy and viable 5 | 3 than Mercenary's 3 | 5.

2. Other Gravity Cards do its job much better:

Spoiler for Explanation:

Sure, Charger is +1 quanta more expensive than Mercenary, but Charger is almost always better than Mercenary in all situations simply due to the fact it has Momentum, which allows it to ignore shields, which is important when some decks resolve around using shields for stallpower (most notably Dimension Shield). Its upgrade of +2 ATK also makes it more useful as a GoTP-esque rusher, whereas the best use I can think of for Mercenary is 'cannon/rush fodder' in the upped environment (Which a bunch of creatures do better, such as Frog).

+
Alright, Acceleration might be a bit of stretch, but think about it for a second - for +1 quanta, you get an extra 20 turns of Acceleration assuming the Armagio survives that long, making it much more viable in decks that focus on gradually building damage. Armagio's high HP is also valued for its ability to self-inflict Gravity Pull, whereas Mercenary possesses no means of helping the player defend him/herself.

Proposed Buff:
My proposed buff is the following :


(EDIT : Smash no longer works on shields and costs . I'll edit the images as soon as I can.)

The reason I feel this buff is appropriate is because Gravity has had some indications that can be a competent PC element (Momentum, Pulverizer, and SoFo), but yet it has no PC directly attributed to it for use in a mono besides Momentum (which only handle shields).  By giving Graviton Mercenary this buff, Gravity can extend itself to counter Permanent more efficiently, and in the case of the unupped, Shards.

Delayed shields/weapons would simply not function for one turn, allowing other creatures to bypass enemy defenses - in a sense, while Charger focuses on being more individually powerful, Mercenary focuses on helping other creatures bypass shields.

Any Shard with a distinct 'shard' effect can be countered - this means all shards that stay on the field generate something else, or inflict a status effect can be countered. (E.g. Targeting a Shard Golem delays it for one turn, targeting a SoSa effect negates it for one turn, targeting SoFo, SoV, SoG, etc... will delay for one turn.) This helps differentiate the unupped from the upped and gives it use in Shard-heavy areas like Arena and League. I've also decreased the cost, to make it on 'par' with most of the other creatures. (Except for Abyss Crawler, but its balance is another story.)

I've also added Newbiecakes' original posted effect, the option of buffing Mercenary's ATK/HP, and a few other suggestions to the poll in addition to buffs I have proposed above. Feel free to post your thoughts - I will try to add other notable buff suggestions onto the poll.


(On a slightly unrelated note why does that 'Change Vote' option still disappear whenever I edit the poll?)

[furballdn]

Absolutely pathetic compared to hematite golem. What happened to 's theme of high HP? Make it a 3|7 creature for 3 unupped, leave upped alone (Or give it 3|7 stats as well :>).

[Zaealix]

  I don't know the math...But I figure that 'Smash' ability plus the cost buff you have at the bottom oughta work, and then we can figure something better to do with the shard than basically boop up the metagame because  didn't age well.