[Official] Nightfall | Eclipse

[OldTrees]

Step 1: Pestal
Step 2: 6 Eclipses
Step 3: ???
Step 4: OVERPOWERED PROFIT!

Step 3: Pay back the loan of lots of 
Step 4: OVERPOWERED PROFIT! (ignoring the actual cost used to balance the profit)

Pestal gets the quanta for 3 eclipses in 1-2 turns, sup?

1) How much did it invest in that engine?
2) How do you know the cost of a stackable eclipse? Even I don't know that.

1) Pestal is Fractal Pests, which is a denial setup, with Eclipse and Vampires for dealing damage. Basically the Pests would provide enough quanta.
2) I don't see in the OP that a stackable eclipse should cost way more, do you?

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11588.0.html

The idea which was way less OP than it's showed here was shot down.

1) So the deck already invested over 20 quanta prior to the eclipses.
2) Yes a stackable eclipse would cost more. Maybe 3 more but that is a rough estimate.

[iancudorinmarian]

If mono darkness/vampire dagger wasn't scary enough...

[Pepitoss]

PErhaps you could set that for each nightfall you have already in play , the next costs one or two more  , so stacking them would cost a lot of 

[Elbirn]

@Oldtrees: Yes a stackable eclipse would obviously warrant a major cost increase, there's no disputing that. Calin was just noting that this fact wasn't mentioned anywhere in the first post, nor has a theoretical cost been suggested.

@Pepitoss: That's an interesting idea, but I've no idea how that would work. Say I have 0 eclipses on the field, 2 in my hand, both thus cost 4 . I play 1 eclipse. The other eclipse in my hand would still read as costing 4 darkness in the top right, and I don't think that can be changed. I'm sure it'd be relatively easy to make it cost an extra  when played, but it would still be displayed as costing 4. I guess a sidenote in the card text could eliminate confusion, but it would feel like bad presentation to me.

Maybe make every nightfall/eclipse in play absorb  per turn, like flooding does?

[meowww]

@Oldtrees: Yes a stackable eclipse would obviously warrant a major cost increase, there's no disputing that. Calin was just noting that this fact wasn't mentioned anywhere in the first post, nor has a theoretical cost been suggested.

@Pepitoss: That's an interesting idea, but I've no idea how that would work. Say I have 0 eclipses on the field, 2 in my hand, both thus cost 4 . I play 1 eclipse. The other eclipse in my hand would still read as costing 4 darkness in the top right, and I don't think that can be changed. I'm sure it'd be relatively easy to make it cost an extra  when played, but it would still be displayed as costing 4. I guess a sidenote in the card text could eliminate confusion, but it would feel like bad presentation to me.

Maybe make every nightfall/eclipse in play absorb  per turn, like flooding does?

Maybe it can cost nothing, stack-able, absorb 1 per nightfall/eclipse per creature, destroy itself when you have no  to pay.
Believe me, it is much stronger than you think.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Anti-stacking is not necessarily inelegant design.

I think we need to take a look at the context at which Darkness is in.

supports expensive cards with Pests + Fractal. It also has creatures and abilities that can grow progressively better if their attack is increased. (Vampire, Liquid Shadow).

Is Darkness a rush element, or a stall element?

If it is a stall element it could potentially gain from being able to buffer lategame kills even if it suffers from additional quantum management and additional copies of an expensive stacking Eclipse.
If it is a rush element it has no point in gaining this because Pestal would prefer quicker damage, Vampires want to get healing faster, etc...
If it is both it could benefit from a stall point of view but suffers the drawbacks of both a stall and rush element. (In other words, the losses outweigh the benefits.)

[OldTrees]

Anti-stacking is not necessarily inelegant design.

True but it is prima facie (ignoring other possible factors) inelegant design. In order to use a card multiple will be added to a deck. The situation of drawing 2 copies should not result in a dead draw. Indirect stacking (not stacking but the 2nd has a 2nd usage) is one option. However usually stacking is the easiest solution.

[meowww]

Anti-stacking is not necessarily inelegant design.

True but it is prima facie (ignoring other possible factors) inelegant design. In order to use a card multiple will be added to a deck. The situation of drawing 2 copies should not result in a dead draw. Indirect stacking (not stacking but the 2nd has a 2nd usage) is one option. However usually stacking is the easiest solution.

Let's make a new card and name it flying Eclipse~

[cometbah]

Anti-stacking is not necessarily inelegant design.

True but it is prima facie (ignoring other possible factors) inelegant design. In order to use a card multiple will be added to a deck. The situation of drawing 2 copies should not result in a dead draw. Indirect stacking (not stacking but the 2nd has a 2nd usage) is one option. However usually stacking is the easiest solution.

By this line of reasoning, should all shields be stackable as well?

The value of the second copy lies in its ability to replace the first in the event of encountering permanent control (unless the permanent in question has been enchanted / is inherently indestructible, in which case a second copy in hand truly has no value).

[OldTrees]

Anti-stacking is not necessarily inelegant design.

True but it is prima facie (ignoring other possible factors) inelegant design. In order to use a card multiple will be added to a deck. The situation of drawing 2 copies should not result in a dead draw. Indirect stacking (not stacking but the 2nd has a 2nd usage) is one option. However usually stacking is the easiest solution.

By this line of reasoning, should all shields be stackable as well?

The value of the second copy lies in its ability to replace the first in the event of encountering permanent control (unless the permanent in question has been enchanted / is inherently indestructible, in which case a second copy in hand truly has no value).

Ideally, yes.
However I do not know a good method to let them stack due to their current structure. (balance-wise not coding-wise)

The PC resistance is a factor but the benefit only comes close to the cost when talking about really cheap permanents (most already stack).

[HiresDaedalus]

i have an idea you know scarabs hp update so why not the  cost of nightfall/eclispe

[cometbah]

Inelegant Design

It is difficult to say whether the unstackability has been factored into the cost with shields, as there are rarely any other (stackable) cards with similar effects to a shield.

However, it seems certain to me that unstackability has at least been factored into the cost of weapons. Weapons generally have a very low cost in relation to their power, and this is balanced by the player's inability to stack them (Flying Weapons involve additional costs in quanta, probability, deck variety/size, and number of turns).

I assume that other unstackable permanents have been balanced in a similar way, that the possibility of a dead draw has already lowered their costs.

I support not changing them.

Despite my position, however, I do have some

Ideas

... if a change must be effected.
The flooding mechanism sounds like a workable idea. Though it now seems more like a demonic gate / dark channeling than a nightfall (unless the stage of battle includes multiple moons and stars for multiple Eclipses and nights) 

Alternatively, a drain-all-mana mechanism like the one in use for Sky Blitz and Fractal could be considered.

I have not thought about any of these in depth - merely throwing ideas around 

More radical changes may include adding negative effects to the card:

Ex.1:
Remove all active Darkness / Death creature abilities and unburrow all burrowed Darkness creatures when a second Nightfall is played. This one may see coding issues, but would introduce new strategic elements to Darkness / Death plays.

Ex.2:
(For each Nightfall) Increase attack, but decrease defence (+1/-1) for Darkness creatures; increase attack without affecting defence for Death creatures. This is far more significant for Darkness than a first glance may suggest, as a (+1/-1) Nightfall would:
   - bring an Obsidian Dragon into Lightning range
   - fail to boost a Black Dragon beyond Lightning range
   - be unable to double-boost Devourers and Minor Vampires

Summary

While some ideas to make Nightfall stackable may seem pretty interesting, I do not think change is necessary.

Perhaps a new card that acts as stackable Nightfall, but with a negative effect. Choices for the players