[Official] Immortal | Elite Immortal

[OldTrees]

As one final reason to consider
2 Immortals vs 1 Phase Dragon
Cost: 12quanta +2cards vs 13quanta +1card
Effect: 8Immortal Damage vs 8Immortal Damage
Looks balanced if played in a deck that does not run short of cards to play (note Aether's high cost, high effect Dim Shield)

12 quanta + 2 cards is more expensive than 13 quanta + 1 card. And why?
Electrum Hourglass.
It costs 1 quanta to gain a card, however, the hourglass originally costed 4 quanta and a card. For example, if you draw 4 cards with the hourglass, you will have spent 1 card and 8 quanta. The average cost of each card would be 2 quanta and 0.25 cards. Say you draw 10 cards. The average cost of each card would be 1.4 quanta and 0.1 cards. No matter how many cards you draw, the average cost of a card is greater than 1 quanta. With the Golden Hourglass the average cost of each card is greater than 2 quanta. Thus, the value of 12 quanta + 2 cards > 13 quanta + 1 card, but 8 Immortal Damage = 8 Immortal Damage. The cost of two immortals exceeds the cost of a phase dragon, but the value of two immortals is equal to the value of the phase dragon. Thus, the Immortal is weaker than the Phase Dragon.

Sorry for missing this post earlier RootRanger.
The difference of 1 card is more akin to cantriping (sundial or Precog) than to Card Draw engines. Specifically Engines have a start up cost to pay for the added value of the synergy of multiple uses. (See Isochron Scepter from MTG)
Also there is something to be said for the ability to pay some now and some later (see Echo costs from Mtg)
However their is also something to be said about the relative resilience vs anti immortal CC.

I have found Cantriping to be worth ~1 quanta (when rounded) by estimating from Sundial instead of a Card draw engine (at least until we have more data on engines in ETG or Draw X cards effects).
I find the other two considerations to be roughly equal weight.

However I am glad we both agree that both are close to balanced even if we disagree on if they are balanced.

[Dwerg]

I do agree with RR that Immortal as a stand alone card may seem unbalanced, but I don't think it is due to the way it is used(mainly, in mono aether).
Mono Aether already does have a pretty good defense, I don't think it needs to be any faster.
Immortal is still a valuable card since it's the best option to make a mono aether deck faster, if you use phase spider instead, you're giving away one of aether's advantages, immunity to cc, especially antimatter.

Phase dragon is more card effective? sure, but how often can you play a phase dragon 2~3rd turn and how often can you play an immortal?
I  think those things should be taken in consideration and not only the dmg/cost ratio

[Sevs]

Immortal also carries a greater weakness to damage reducing shields as they are affected twice as much as phase dragon

[maverixk]

Aether generally has high-cost creatures, and putting this with any lower cost would mean about the cost of a creature, let's say Life, with those stats and the immortality.

Not really, cockatrice has the same attack upped and unupped, for half the cost of the unupped immortal, and under half the cost of the upped immortal.

[EvaRia]

The main problem with Immortal is and always has been redundancy.

There is simply no need to have 2 expensive attackers in one element.

But this is difficult to fix without severely changing the card.

In fact, I would consider it nearly impossible.

There are two fixes to the redundancy:

Number 1 is to give Immortal some kind of simple ability on top of Immaterial.
Number 2 is to change Phase Dragon.

Both would be major changes and I have no real ideas for it at the moment.

[Sevs]

how would giving immortal an ability like attack+X where X is the amount of immortal creatures in play. It even buffs turquoise nymph.

[maverixk]

how would giving immortal an ability like attack+X where X is the amount of immortal creatures in play. It even buffs turquoise nymph.

That sounds nice, but then that would give the swarm feel to Immortal, which has too high a cost for that. Maybe 2+x or 3+x.

[Sevs]

how would giving immortal an ability like attack+X where X is the amount of immortal creatures in play. It even buffs turquoise nymph.

That sounds nice, but then that would give the swarm feel to Immortal, which has too high a cost for that. Maybe 2+x or 3+x.

Yes obviously a lower starting attack

[Toxx]

It's good the way it is

[DantesAtropos]

Why buff it at all? Not many competitive decks (arena and otherwise) use a mono rush anymore (which this card is mostly used for)  so buffing this card is kind of pointless. Even when buffed it will still be used mostly for an aether rush which runs fine as is right now. If a card is changed I think it should benefit more decks and changing this one just does not seem to do much for the game.

[maverixk]

Why buff it at all? Not many competitive decks (arena and otherwise) use a mono rush anymore (which this card is mostly used for)  so buffing this card is kind of pointless. Even when buffed it will still be used mostly for an aether rush which runs fine as is right now. If a card is changed I think it should benefit more decks and changing this one just does not seem to do much for the game.

What?!? This card would be very useful in a lot more than just an Aether rush. If it cost less I would probably use it all over the place! As it stands right now, it's just too expensive for the attack, even with the immaterial.

[Toxx]

Maybe a cost -1 reduction to the upped isnt a bad idea.   7  quanta is kinda high for its attack and hp.

If the cost to the unupped is reduced to 5 then that would make the unupped abomination card needs to be changed also since it have 5/5 with no immortal ability ?