[Official] Nymph's Tears | Nymph's Tears

[RagidyRock]

Excellent post. I understand why Nymphs are suppose to be underpowered, but why the common card Tears as well? Though I speak only from my experience in the unupped realm, I heard there are a few deck that make good use of Tears in upped decks.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with what I've bolded in the quote.  Nymphs?  Underpowered?  Really?

Sure, the vast majority of the nymphs have little to no attack power and a small amount of health; be happy they do.  They're not there to be the main strategy, or to be the main method of damage in a deck (not saying they can't  ), but if you're not even going to explicitly address the ABILITIES of said nymphs, I doubt anyone can make an argument for change towards this card, period.

The power of a Nymph lies in the ability it possesses; said ability being a card of it's element.  And, that ability generally costs LESS to use than the card the ability derives from (with some exception).  The best part of this ability?  Unlike a card, it's reusable over and over again; and who doesn't like an unlimited supply of Luciferin or Adrenaline?    Granted you won't likely ever use a nymph's ability to that extent (nor should you need too), but even one or two uses of a Nymph's ability changes everything.

I believe the OP is asking that this card be buffed for the wrong reasons.  You cannot brute force a Nymph's Tear; trust me, I've tried and failed.    Yes,  decks have the distinct advantage of supporting this card the best, but even then you can't simply throw it in the deck; because Quantum Pillars/Towers spawn a random nymph, you simply cannot revolve a strategy around it.  Treat Nymph's Tear for what it is, not what it isn't.  Do I feel that this card needs a buff?  No.  Do I feel that this card needs a nerf?  No. 

Put simply, Nymph's Tear is fine the way it is, and it works as designed.  This is one of the MOST CREATIVE cards in Elements; albeit a very, very difficult card to properly utilize.  It is a powerful, game-changing support card that can save you beyond all hope; in substitute of the real deal (because, lets face it, given a choice between the Tear and the actual Nymph, we'd all choose the Nymph).  Give credit where credit is due, and remember that variety is the spice of life.  8)

(I'd like to link to a deck in particular, as an example.  It's one of the War decks; the Water-Mark one that used Gravity Nymphs.  Unfortunately, I can't remember where it is, nor can I find it again.    If someone would be so kind as to refer to it for me, I'd greatly appreciate it.)

[Brontos]

If it'd cost 1 less, I wouldn't be sad.

It's an interesting card to build arounds, but sadly, its cost is prohibitive. It would be cool to see more decks with it, even if it's already possible to build strong decks with it right now.

[Contrary]

@RagidyRock While it's not a universally held opinion the general consensus is that Nymphs are generally just not as useful as the alchemy cards themselves. Any card/quanta advantage you may have gained from the reduced cost is canceled by the fact that Nymphs are expensive as hell. Couple that with the fact that you have summoning sickness and vulnerability to creature control before you can even use the ability once, it's just not practical. You would have to use the abilities a LOT over the course of a game to make it worthwhile, and even more difficultly, you have to keep the Nymph ALIVE to use her ability that whole time. And I mean really, you're not going to need to use the alchemy spells that many times. You said it yourself, one or two uses can change the game. Instead of having to deal with the expensive and flimsy Nymphs, why not just use the actually alchemy card?

And think about it, if Nymphs are so good how come you hardly ever see decks that use them? I mean serious high win rate type decks. It's not because they're rare- everyone has access to trainer. It's because they're impractical.

Nymphs Tears are slightly better, there is that War deck- but I think that was mainly to make a deck with Discord/BH while building around the constraint of being half water.

[Brontos]

And think about it, if Nymphs are so good how come you hardly ever see decks that use them? I mean serious high win rate type decks. It's not because they're rare- everyone has access to trainer. It's because they're impractical.

Well, I think it's because they are very rare. :/
I'd love to play Nymphs, but I just have 0 of them.

[RagidyRock]

@RagidyRock While it's not a universally held opinion the general consensus is that Nymphs are generally just not as useful as the alchemy cards themselves. Any card/quanta advantage you may have gained from the reduced cost is canceled by the fact that Nymphs are expensive as hell. Couple that with the fact that you have summoning sickness and vulnerability to creature control before you can even use the ability once, it's just not practical. You would have to use the abilities a LOT over the course of a game to make it worthwhile, and even more difficultly, you have to keep the Nymph ALIVE to use her ability that whole time. And I mean really, you're not going to need to use the alchemy spells that many times. You said it yourself, one or two uses can change the game. Instead of having to deal with the expensive and flimsy Nymphs, why not just use the actually alchemy card?

Just about everything in said paragraph can be applied to every other creature.

EVERY creature (with an ability) in the game suffers from summoning sickness and is vulnerable to CC the first time it's summoned ( bypasses most things, but even then you still have CC-based shields that gets them); the only way mutants can escape summoning sickness is to not have used the ability of it's predecessor (which, considering the wackiness of mutants, may or may not be a good idea).  And EVERY creature (once again, with an ability) requires time to fully benefit from said ability.  Besides, not every creature gets to be an Otyugh or a Graboid/Shrieker.

The difference between the Nymph and the Alchemy card is that the Nymph is both a creature AND a Alchemy card at the same time, where the Alchemy card is simply an Alchemy card.  Don't forget the part where Nymphs can inflict damage as well as have a reusable skill (SoR says hello, granted I may be stretching it a little too much).  One or two damage extra per turn can be enough to change the game just as much as having a reusable Alchemy card can (again, with some exception in the attack power department).

High win-rate decks?  Really?  If I wanted a high win-rate deck, I'd have picked a FG-Farming deck and never looked at anything else; because why would I need too?  Mission Accomplished.  Now, if I wanted a fun, creative deck with only a decent win-rate, that's a different story.  I don't know if it's possible to make a high-win rate Nymph/Nymph's Tear deck, but if I couldn't make it myself, I'd like to see it done.  I would expect that someone would have to be very clever to accomplish it; I'd settle for pulling off something with so much as a moderate win-rate.

I have to side with Bronos to a small extent; even if you pulled off a good Nymph deck in the trainer, you'd then have to replicate it in the actual game.  What are the odds of that happening?

[omegareaper7]

I have to side with Bronos to a small extent; even if you pulled off a good Nymph deck in the trainer, you'd then have to replicate it in the actual game.  What are the odds of that happening?

Relatively good for some of us 
But that aside, i'm on the middle ground for this, nymphs tears hasn't seen much uses from me, i don't think it needs a buff to be usable, but it wouldn't hurt the game to have it buffed a small bit.

[RRQJ]

I have to side with Bronos to a small extent; even if you pulled off a good Nymph deck in the trainer, you'd then have to replicate it in the actual game.  What are the odds of that happening?

You're unlikely to pull off a good nymph deck even in the trainer.  That was his point.

And one key difference between nymphs and other creatures is that nymphs are expensive to play, and their skills are generally expensive.  The time it takes to build up necessary quanta is not insignificant - you need to wait at least 1-2 turns longer to play the nymph than most other creatures.  And once you do, you've got one nymph on the field.  If you just had other creatures, you could have put out 2-3 creatures by the same time.  For the CC aspect, one CC card on the nymph and poof goes all that effort.  In addition, it probably cost your opponent very little.  In the second case, several CC cards are necessary to remove all the creatures you played.  And even if your opponent had them, it would cost him significantly more (in other words, he probably got slowed down as well).

[Picheleiro]

Maybe you would like to open a poll.

[RavingRabbid]

The real problem with NTs is consuming the pillar. It adds much much more to the actual cost of the card.
Plus, Nymphs can't use their ability right off and they're quite easy to remove.

Add this to the fact that Nymph Queen is mostly useless and this wouldn't find many applications in mono.

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Wow, real life sure can creep up on you.

Finally got back to this and added a poll to it.

I've added my original suggestion and the poster above me. My alarm bells are going off just slightly about the idea of the card not consuming the pillar - not sure quite why, makes me think you could splash a color to get the nymph without devoting a lot of effort to it - but maybe that's okay by a lot of other people's minds.

So. Poll. Vote! (Please.)

[Havok13]

Jezebel uses them like nothing.

[furballdn]

I dunno about -2 to costs, but I'd say -1 to cost at least.