[Official] Sanctuary | Sanctuary

[Little Lord]

I think sanctuary does too much and is too bad at what it is intended for: protecting your quanta and hand.

Why would you pack sanctuary? To protect you from pest, nightmare, blackhole and silence. The problem is that out of those it only works against silence.

If you face pest or nightmare, there will be steals -> useless

If you face blackhole, there will be SoF -> useless

And if you want healing you have miracle, luciferine and SoD which all do a better job.

My suggestion: make sanctuary protected and loose the healing. That way stacks wont give you a benefit, but once you have it out you actually get the protection you wanted (maybe make it a shield, it would fit the concept better anyways).
It would be like purify: you dont take it for the healing, it would be good at what it does even without that. You use it to stop the poison or SoSa immediately, thats what it is there for.

If you think it would be OP then, make it two seperate cards (again, does too much), one for quanta protection and one to protect your hand.

Tell me what you think.

[choongmyoung]

It's bad to design a card that "super duper great against specific deck" and "normally bad".

Currently Sanc is "great against that decks but leaves little counter" and "normally fine as healing card".
You are making Sanc "super duper great against specific deck" and "normally no effect at all, just filling out the deck".

[furballdn]

Buff this? Hah, no. It's fine as a standalone healing card. 4 for 4hp per sanct per turn isn't bad at all. Combine that with Light's bulky deck archetypes, and this is fine. Most decks that use rareless passive healing use this since this is one of the most reliable and efficient (bond requires creatures).

The problem with sanct is that it is too hard of a counter to certain deck archetypes. choongmyoung's response is correct, it is fine (and good) as a standalone healing card, and it's also great against certain types of decks.

[russianspy1234]

the issue isnt that sanctuary is bad, the issue is that it's the only option. <insert plug of a few cards i made recently here>

also, in a gravity duo, you can use the salvager to keep replaying it, since the effect doesnt go away the turn it is destroyed.

[Little Lord]

Buff this? Hah, no. It's fine as a standalone healing card. 4 for 4hp per sanct per turn isn't bad at all. Combine that with Light's bulky deck archetypes, and this is fine. Most decks that use rareless passive healing use this since this is one of the most reliable and efficient (bond requires creatures).

The problem with sanct is that it is too hard of a counter to certain deck archetypes. choongmyoung's response is correct, it is fine (and good) as a standalone healing card, and it's also great against certain types of decks.

Did you read OP? I suggested loosing the healing, there is plenty of healing already, even in-element.
But there is only one card that counters quanta denial (as russianspy pointed out), and it does a piss-poor job at that.

To be viable it forces you to run a 2-card, 2-element combo with protect artifact or a salvager only to counter a 1-element, turn 1 quanta denial, otherwise it is pretty much wasted space in your deck against the very deck it is supposed to be good against.

Now that shards have changed you may be more inclined to take it for its healing, but the very thing that defines it and makes it special is broken. It was introduced at a time when quanta denial and ghostal dominated the game, to give a counter to those. It did not. I would like to see that fixed.

[OldTrees]

I think sanctuary does too much and is too bad at what it is intended for: protecting your quanta and hand.

Why would you pack sanctuary? To protect you from pest, nightmare, blackhole and silence. The problem is that out of those it only works against silence.

If you face pest or nightmare, there will be steals -> useless

If you face blackhole, there will be SoF -> useless

Tell me what you think.

Each Sanctuary increases the cost of Pest, Nightmare, Discord or BlackHole strategies by the cost of 1 use of PC. It takes time to obtain the quanta for both the denial and the PC to enable the denial. Denial is most effective in the early game. The longer you slow down the denial, the weaker it becomes. Even trading at a quanta disadvantage (1 Sanctuary for 1 Deflagration) would be worthwhile vs a denial deck.

[furballdn]

Did you read OP? I suggested loosing the healing, there is plenty of healing already, even in-element.
But there is only one card that counters quanta denial (as russianspy pointed out), and it does a piss-poor job at that.

Losing healing is hardly a buff. Buff means to make better. Losing healing would be nerfing. Oh, and by the way, it's spelled "losing." Your suggestion of protecting it and making it not heal is more of a berf, and much closer to a nerf than a buff.

To be viable it forces you to run a 2-card, 2-element combo with protect artifact or a salvager only to counter a 1-element, turn 1 quanta denial, otherwise it is pretty much wasted space in your deck against the very deck it is supposed to be good against.

Um, no it doesn't. Not at all. Having extra copies (and most decks hardly have one) is enough as back up. The extras aren't wasted because they also have a use. Even if the opponent were to use PC on them, they'd be using quanta and 1 card.

Why would you pack sanctuary? To protect you from pest, nightmare, blackhole and silence. The problem is that out of those it only works against silence.

If you face pest or nightmare, there will be steals -> useless

If you face blackhole, there will be SoF -> useless

And if you want healing you have miracle, luciferine and SoD which all do a better job.

Assumptions! People do not pack sanctuary JUST to counter denial. Sanctuary is mostly packed for passive healing (I bet that a quick search of decks using sanctuary all use it for passive healing, not for denial protection). Miracle, luci, and SoD all are not passive healers. There is a difference between passive healing and instantly healing. Comparing it to SoG would be a better comparison. (You would use sanctuary in a firestall, but would you use luci?) As for it being "useless," just by coming out early is enough. Denial gets weaker with every passing turn. Using a card or turn to get rid of this already weakens the denial.

[Little Lord]

sorry for the "loosing", im not a native speaker.
Also,

As for it being "useless," just by coming out early is enough.

is grammatically incorrect ;-)
on topic:

Assumptions! People do not pack sanctuary JUST to counter denial. Sanctuary is mostly packed for passive healing (I bet that a quick search of decks using sanctuary all use it for passive healing, not for denial protection).

...which just proves my point. You pack it for the healing, not the protection. I dont think it should be that way.

And as far as the denial wearing off in usefulness later in the game, against pests with steal, the pests will keep coming and i doubt you will have the quanta to play a 2nd santuary.
(and even if you do, steal is 3 quanta vs sanctuarys`4 plus darkness already has quanta advantage through his pests. Also there is a big card advantage since he owns the sanctuary now.)
And with a focus and blackhole, you gain even more card advantage since one focus destroys 3 sanctuary.

[TheManuz]

I think that sanctuary shouldn't protect the whole quanta pool, just a fixed amount of quanta. This way stacking would be useful, and maybe the cost could be lowered, making it a more useful card all around, regardless of your opponent.
I'm generally against untargettable cards, I think everything should be countable somehow.
I think that a single card screwing up an entire deck is badly designed.
IMHO, This card needs balance, not buff.

[OldTrees]

And as far as the denial wearing off in usefulness later in the game, against pests with steal, the pests will keep coming and i doubt you will have the quanta to play a 2nd santuary.
(and even if you do, steal is 3 quanta vs sanctuarys`4 plus darkness already has quanta advantage through his pests. Also there is a big card advantage since he owns the sanctuary now.)
And with a focus and blackhole, you gain even more card advantage since one focus destroys 3 sanctuary.

The pests will keep coming but a pest invasion starting on turn 2 hits much harder than one that starts on turn 3. If they drew their Steal in their starting hand, as you drew your Santuary, then there would be no point in playing a second Sanctuary. The goal was accomplished by the first Sanctuary.

Let's say both you and your opponent generate 4 per turn (+1 per turn every 3rd turn) and started the game with 1 Sanctuary/Steal. (Light goes first but Darkness has 5 Pests in hand)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Without Sanctuary
End turn1: Generate 4
End turn1: Generate 4
Use 4
End turn2: Generate 4
Play 2 Pests [4 ]
End turn2: Generate 6 , Drain 2
Use 2
End turn3: Generate 5
Play 3 Pests [6 ]
End turn3: Generate 10 , Drain 5
Denial Complete: 6 escaped. 3 turns.

With 1 Sanctuary
End turn1: Generate 4
End turn1: Generate 4
Play Sanctuary [4 ]
End turn2: Generate 4
Play Steal [3 ]
End turn2: Generate 4
Use 4
End turn3: Generate 5
Play 2 Pests [4 ]
End turn3: Generate 7 , Drain 2
Use 3
End turn4: Generate 5
Play 3 Pests [6 ]
End turn4: Generate 10 , Drain 5
Denial Complete: 7 escaped. 4 turns.

You noted that there is either a quanta or a card disadvantage to this strategy. The strategy is to give up some long term advantage in order to slow down the denial's early tempo. If the denial had been stalled long enough then the denial would never be completed. Either too much quanta would escape before the lockdown or there would be too many pillars for the lockdown to cover.

[jazzfan27]

I'd suggest giving the card a Deja Vu effect.  But, half the healing on each.

So, you cast the card once, then you pay to make a copy and you then get your 4hp/turn healing, however, your opp now has to destroy 2 of them to destroy your protection.

Kind of a half strength immortality.  Well, maybe quarter strength.

[Little Lord]

I'd suggest giving the card a Deja Vu effect.  But, half the healing on each.

So, you cast the card once, then you pay to make a copy and you then get your 4hp/turn healing, however, your opp now has to destroy 2 of them to destroy your protection.

Kind of a half strength immortality.  Well, maybe quarter strength.

I like that idea a lot, not only for sanctuary but as a soft counter to the overwhelming PC we have in elements these days.

It is sad that 99% of the good ideas in this forum will never make it in the game... it is still a nice place to theorize though.

Since we have SoF which is 3 explosions in 1 card, we could start giving some permanents a bonewall-like behaviour to even the playing field, especially if they give numerical advantages like your split healing suggestion.

You should post that in the card idea section.