[...] yes nightmare has only a very temporary effect but then it is mainly only used as a stalling card, not a brilliant, perpetual, game winning card. [...]
I agree that it is not a brilliant game winning card. But as a stall card it also doesn't do much. You have to draw it, right? You could draw a devourer instead, which in most situations will be better. This card would perfectly work as a stalling card, for making the opponent skip their draw, if there was no disadvantage for you. But the disadvantage is, that you have to draw it. It takes space in your deck. Letting your opponent skip a draw will make you not draw a different card.
[...] low cost [...] low efficiency. [...]
That is a good guideline to go after. My problem is that nightmare is a "low cost
no efficiency" card. You loose as many draws as the opponent for that low cost.
Look at sundial (For my reasoning I leave the
-part out, which makes it a one
mono card). It is low cost, thus it has low efficiency (works one turn)
and tradeoffs (your creatures
also do not attack). But it is possible to build a deck around it if you do it right. Even a fake-god-killer deck!
Now build a deck around nightmare that doesn't require a specific fractal/hourglass opponent... Nightmare photons with neurotoxin? Already discussed, only effective against AI and Emo's. Nightmare photons with solar shield. A new one, but either you have to play the shield
after he played the photons or it is only effective against AI and Stupid's. Other Ideas?
[...] to buff it now would knock it out of balance. to put it back in balance you would have to nerf it a bit as well by increasing the cost. [...]
It depends on the change. Look at the purify buff (the unupgraded card): From removing poison, it was changed to remove poison + 1 healing counter.
[...] after so much change it would no longer be nightmare any more but something entirely different. [...]
I'm split
on this point
On the one side, changing carapace shield (that was identical to skull shield) to what it is today or the recent solar shield change were
awesome, the cards are also perfectly balanced.
On the other side, the change to the white nymph, while being perfectly balanced, made me mad. I can understand why big changes are not the best thing.
The solution is to make a
minor buff, like the purify one.
A comparison: If you run into a poison deck with purify, and you use purify when you are at 12 poison, you "remove" 13 poison (since there is the +1 healing thing). If you run into a non-poison deck, you can "remove" 1 poison (since you go from zero poison "damage" to -1 poison "damage"). This costs you one card/draw and 1
. One quanta for one (anti-)damage? That is like a gnome rider, + it cannot be removed! OP? You also play purify earlier on if you see a mono fire or so...
If you run into a fractal/drawing deck with nightmare, and you can put 5 creatures in his hand, thats 5 creatures less for his fractal, and definitely a slow-down for his drawing. If you run into any other deck, you can make him skip a draw. This costs you just as much, 1 card/draw,
plus 2
. You will probably not play it much earlier agains a mono fire than agains fractal/drawing decks.
It is a too hard counter, thus noone will fatten his deck for those 5% of games that will feature a fractal/hourglass oponent (from which 3% are also winnable with a good rush), thus nightmare is never used. Thus fractal has no counter that it will actually meet.
