[Official] Skeleton | Elite Skeleton

[Espithel]

If being 1|1 for zero is very effective, then you would see them used as hitters more than fodder. The reason why you would use photon over spark in an immo rush would be because of the damage over time which spark does not have. That is a tiny difference. Whilst it is somewhat sensical that immo rushes are better unupped due to them being able to be faster than normal rushes, it wouldn't matter if you had sparks or photons as your fodder. You can just play your photons and get... 2 damage off of them, or keep the sparks in your hand. 2 damage won't win you the game. One could also argue that photons are better in a bad hand, but if that happens often enough to be a problem...

If you're about to be decked out, You have all of your pillars out. Quanta is not a huge concern by that point. I'd rather take a pillar over photon, so that pillar can fuel whatever can make me win the game as well as what will stop me from decking myself out.

If my words are such a mark of my inexperience, then dispelling this point should be trivial, no?
Doing this change to skeleton doesn't make photon worse or useless...er. It doesn't do anything. The difference between spark or photon in an immo rush is meager, and the difference between 0 skeleton and 0 photon is meager.

I think it would be better if, instead of looking at what photon is, looking at the uses of photon.

Which go as:
1) Immo fodder.
2) Mutate fodder.
3)... Cheap luciferin target.
4) Some other things I'm sure you'll be nice enough to show.

Does a 0 cost skeleton make an immo rush better? ... No. It makes it different. I would put 3 photons and 2 skeletons in my immo rushes just for flavour.
Mutation, too? ... No.
Luciferin targets? ... Not really. If anything, that makes luciferin more powerful due to you having 12 photons in the deck.

In the real end, I feel that the DECK is more important than the card.
Does making skeleton 0 cost give us more decks? Yes. Eclipse fractal and (Good) Eternity/mummy-skeleton decks. Those decks have a right to live and be competitive. Why does the problem of photon being a photon come into any sort of play?

There are tiny little redundancies like this all over the place. Cocks and frogs come to mind, Ditto hematite golem vs graboid, ditto shrieker vs stone dragon, ditto current skeleton vs virus.
Why is this one any different?

[dawn to dusk]

@all those who disagree: use skeleton as eternity fodder. See how far you get.

[ARTHANASIOS]

@Frozengaia: I have already mentioned a lot of Photon uses, I don't think I have to repeat myself.
Question:
 Is a Photon that is buffed by Nightfall|Eclipse, generated from Graveyards and has both defensive & offensive synnergy with one of the most powerful spells and permanents in the game (RT/Eternity) overpowered?
Answer:
 Yes, it is!

I never said not to buff skeleton, but you should either:
1) Buff its health.
2) Make it produce 1 when played (but it should still cost quanta to be played).

However, making it cost nothing would break the game and I have already stated countless times why I believe so.

[Espithel]

Let's test that theory.

In oETG, skeleton has a cost of 0 (surprise.)

So, here's a deck I'm using in oETG:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

716 716 716 716 7t9 7t9 7t9 7ta 7ta 7ta 7ta 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 80a 80a 80a 80i 80i 80i 80i 8pt

What's the differences between these cards?
Fractal is slightly more broken in oETG and costs 1 more. That's all.

Let's have 10 victorious of this and see how many piles it takes to kill the weakest opponent.
(A pile is half a turn. Half the number to get standard elements turns.)
Game #1: 13 piles (6)
Game #2: 24 piles (And I survived with 1 HP due to a dusk mantle and a bad draw.) (12)
Game #3: 11 piles (5)
Game #4: 16 piles (8)
Game #6: 15 piles (7)
Game #8: 17 piles (8)
Game #9: 14 piles (7)
Game #10: 23 piles (11)
Game #11: 17 piles (8)
Game #14: 16 piles (8)
Turns to win: 8. No rounding needed. Always a plus.

Failed attempts:
Game #5: 32 piles (lost. Bone wall + Poison. This deck is fully upgraded.) (16)
Game #7: 13 piles (Lost. Mutation outrushed me.) (6)
Game #12: 17 piles (Lost. Horned frog + bad draw.) (8)
Game #13: 19 piles (Outrushed by a monodeath. A bad draw.) (9)

That's against completely unupped and somewhat silly opponents. Doesn't seem so powerful to me.

Next theory: Eternity + Skeleton.

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

716 716 716 716 716 716 6rc 6rc 6rc 6rc 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 7q2 7q2 7q2 7q2 7q8 7q8 7q8 7q8 8ps

Changes between oETG and ETG that affect this deck:
Eternity costs 5 but has an ability cost of 3 and not 2.
SoR only makes abilities costless.
Fate egg's ability costs 2 time, not 1. Fate egg costs 1, too.

10 victorious games:
Now, this one can't really be determined by TTW only, so I'm going to screenshot every game and have you decide power yourself. I don't think it's this OP, as a lot of these games were quite close.
Game #1: http://prntscr.com/4kpiye (19 piles, 9)
Game #2: http://prntscr.com/4kpjoy (17 piles, 8)
Game #4: http://prntscr.com/4kpkts (23 piles, 12)
Game #5: http://prntscr.com/4kpl9f (18 piles, 9)
Game #6: http://prntscr.com/4kplr9 (17 piles, 8)
Game #7: http://prntscr.com/4kpm7a (11 piles, 5)
Game #8: http://prntscr.com/4kpmp2 (16 piles, 8)
Game #9: http://prntscr.com/4kpn2f (16 piles, 8)
Game #11: http://prntscr.com/4kpo2b (18 piles, 9)
Game #12: No screenshot, apologies. (16 piles, 8)

Failed attempts:
Game #3: http://prntscr.com/4kpkd5 (Lost due to butterfly effect. 26 piles, 13)
Game #10: http://prntscr.com/4kpni2 (Lost due to bad hand and crimson dragon. 18 piles, 9)

That... Doesn't seem powerful to me. Just saying.
And yes, I did just remove 20 minutes of my life to do that.

[ARTHANASIOS]

^
OpenEtG has a totally different meta in comparison with EtG and it is still evolving. Please, stop comparing oEtG with EtG because they are different metas.
In EtG meta, a zero cost Skeleton would be broken. Slightly broken? Extremely broken? It doesn't really matter since it would be OP for its cost; period.
I have already posted my arguments more than once. There is really no reason to argue any longer in this thread, so I will just stop following this topic...

[Higurashi]

Huh, those decks need some serious tweaking. Skeletal would only need 4 pends, 2 Steals and 3 Eclipses, which allows for much more Towers, a few Phase Shields and much faster Fractals. Even if you replace the Phasies with Towers you're getting a much better rush.

RT+Skellies would at the very least want 2 HG's and 3 Eternities. After that you'd want 2 Golden Nymphs if you have 'em. If not, 2 Ghosts so you have some reliable offence. If you choose to replace more Eggs/SoR's, you can fill up with Rewinds (having at least 2 usually allows you to clear the field before draw-locking with Eternity).

You can't make good decks unless you play into the strengths of the elements (stalling and stallbreaking with Aether, draw power and control with Time), and if you can't make good decks, you can't make a good argument for the strength or weakness of a card or a proposed change.

[Espithel]

It's a rough estimate. >:|
It's not supposed to be spot on. It provides a nice baseline.

I always like having 4 of a card I only need one of but REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED because I always get screwed over with 3. In fact, I always get screwed over with 4.

oETG doesn't have that different a meta to ETG, really. All it has is mono-death and mono-water support, a few more random shields, fun stuff in light, ricochet and nerfed shards.

Those decks weren't designed to be perfect, but even with their (drastic) imperfections, they still give you an idea. Skeleton fractal is scarily fast for some reason, but not OP with its 8 TTW and weakness to mass CC. I have doubts on the power of skeleton eternity, too.

If I was declaring the exact power of such decks, then my decks and playing would need to be better. But I'm just giving us a rough estimate. Feel free to refine it.

[Sinolai]

Normal skeleton could be fine with 0 cost but about elite skeleton, I think they would be too easy to spam with fractal and become too deadly with nightfall/eclipse. Completely free creatures with 4/3 stats...

[omegareaper7]

@Frozengaia: I have already mentioned a lot of Photon uses, I don't think I have to repeat myself.
Question:
 Is a Photon that is buffed by Nightfall|Eclipse, generated from Graveyards and has both defensive & offensive synnergy with one of the most powerful spells and permanents in the game (RT/Eternity) overpowered?
Answer:
 Yes, it is!

I never said not to buff skeleton, but you should either:
1) Buff its health.
2) Make it produce 1 when played (but it should still cost quanta to be played).

However, making it cost nothing would break the game and I have already stated countless times why I believe so.

How would it be broken if it costed zero? It would be faster then rol/hope, but have much less defense. Bonewall and skull shield may be good, but hope is a much stronger shield when setup. And it would be more fragile, but maybe marginally faster, then fractix. Both of the decks I mentioned are the big fractal decks. What does it have over them that makes it broken?

Also, graveyard should not be included in this argument, it does nothing for it. And a good reverse time deck would be random at best. Try using it as a duo with death mark right now, it is terribly underwhelming.

[Shinki12345]

What if skeletons had the ability of always attacking opponents creatures instead of dealing damage? This would potentially make them incredibly powerful, so increasing the cost would probably be a requirement.

Another idea would be to make skeletons revive after being destroyed, and having them count as a "death."

[iancudorinmarian]

What if skeletons had the ability of always attacking opponents creatures instead of dealing damage? This would potentially make them incredibly powerful, so increasing the cost would probably be a requirement.

Another idea would be to make skeletons revive after being destroyed, and having them count as a "death."

Skeletons attacking creatures would be really OP. And reviving? Even more OP.

My suggestion is for the unupped to cost 1 and the upped 1

[Shinki12345]

What if skeletons had the ability of always attacking opponents creatures instead of dealing damage? This would potentially make them incredibly powerful, so increasing the cost would probably be a requirement.

Another idea would be to make skeletons revive after being destroyed, and having them count as a "death."

Skeletons attacking creatures would be really OP. And reviving? Even more OP.

My suggestion is for the unupped to cost 1 and the upped 1

Those were two separate ideas, it would be pretty outrageous if they did both. A reviving 2/2 would not be very, especially of it cost more. It would also leave some space for potentially interesting new deck ideas that involve making very large skeletons.