Aether/Life-Life/Aether Series Challenge

[OldTrees]

OldTrees in your opinion what would be required for  synergy.

For Aether/Life Synergy first you would need an idea of what the boundaries and specializations of those elements are.
For Life the simple answer that springs to mind is Growth. Life is about growing its resources (cheap creatures for creature spam, mitosis, adrenaline to multiply a creature, feral bond, rustler, forest spirit)

However I do not have a good answer for Aether but the Lady Aether instructed me that Aether is the element of improvement and striving for perfection. I do not know if this is accurate however because Aether really has only 3 mechanics: Electricity(including Psionic Wave and Lobo), Card Generation, Immortality. Aether needs an explanation that ties all 3 of these under the same roof. Improvement and Striving for perfection might succeed in this tie...

Once you have an idea of the strategy and personalities of the elements then you can look for mechanics that overlap between the two elements. These overlaps are very good duos. Even better duos use the mechanic that mostly resides in the overlap but includes some only A and only B aspects.

In short:
What is Life's power?
What is Aether's power?
What is a mechanic that fits both?
Does the mechanic work better as a mono card?

@rohlfo
A spirit that "grows/evolves like graboid" into a living creature?
That looks like it would fit.

[EmeraldTiger]

That should help folks come up with ideas.

[Agroagro]

Jade Cyclops:
Why is reverting to a snapshot Aether?
PS: Mass Immortality even with a cost per "death" will be very expensive. Small stats and high cost would be best. (however reversing time to a save point does not sound like Aether)

I was thinking of it more like the cyclops uses his magic eye to copy everything and then uses his magic to duplicate every when hes strong enough. Its just that his magics so strong it destroys other creatures thats hes not aware oof because hes been blind since.

lolz kinda a far out there vision but it seems pretty cool to me. and its suits life and aether imo

[OldTrees]

Jade Cyclops:
Why is reverting to a snapshot Aether?
PS: Mass Immortality even with a cost per "death" will be very expensive. Small stats and high cost would be best. (however reversing time to a save point does not sound like Aether)

I was thinking of it more like the cyclops uses his magic eye to copy everything and then uses his magic to duplicate every when hes strong enough. Its just that his magics so strong it destroys other creatures thats hes not aware oof because hes been blind since.

lolz kinda a far out there vision but it seems pretty cool to me. and its suits life and aether imo

I underlined the insufficient statement.
Gut feeling is not enough unless you can explain it so others can share your vision.
Long backstories cannot fit on cards so the card must make sense by itself.

[Hyroen]

Can this be moved to Design Theory?

[Agroagro]

I underlined the insufficient statement.
Gut feeling is not enough unless you can explain it so others can share your vision.
Long backstories cannot fit on cards so the card must make sense by itself.

I guess but sometimes things are just good mechanics. For example take Schrödinger’s Cat or Maxwells demon. they both have odd abilities and probably have interesting back stories but as far as what you see on the card It doesnt really explain everything thats going on.

I just wanted to contribute to this challenge so I came up with something on the spot that I thought would be interesting. I could elaborate on it but I would take some time. I do think the ability is pretty cool and would suit aether. In an above post you mentioned you think growth is an aspect of life. Well creating a bunch of creatures does seem pretty life like but its got the aether twist of doing it in an unconventional manor.

What I think of aether is its playing in the unknown. it uses other dimensions to do things that are not normal in this dimension.

[Werdbooty]

Some food for thought:

The only electric, or "electrogenic" animals, that exist today are monotremes (echidnas & platypusses...er, platypi?) and fish (eels, some sharks, rays & skates). Electrogenesis in land animals is really only used for tracking prey (on the basis that all animals give off some sort of weak electrical field). Fish, on the other hand, may use it as an aversion tactic or as a means of stunning prey.

As for plants, that's a debatable thing, depending on who you talk to. Without getting into it too much, the only real electricity-producing plants are fungal in nature, and I can't really see any of them working out well in an Elements situation. Maybe an algae or something that produces  / each turn? Hell, it could even be a water creature. Also note that most of these types of plants are subterranean in nature. Furthermore, let's not confuse electrogenesis with photosynthesis ( / ). The two are similar, but work in different ways.

Back onto the subject of electrogenesis, after tinkering around with it, I propose something akin to this:

Creature Variant	Permanent Variant

Though the two are similar, I think it would work better as a perm, guided by a counter system rather than HP (comes into play with 3-5 counters/HP, lose a counter/get -0|-1 every time the ability is activated).

[OldTrees]

I underlined the insufficient statement.
Gut feeling is not enough unless you can explain it so others can share your vision.
Long backstories cannot fit on cards so the card must make sense by itself.

I guess but sometimes things are just good mechanics. For example take Schrödinger’s Cat or Maxwells demon. they both have odd abilities and probably have interesting back stories but as far as what you see on the card It doesnt really explain everything thats going on.

I just wanted to contribute to this challenge so I came up with something on the spot that I thought would be interesting. I could elaborate on it but I would take some time. I do think the ability is pretty cool and would suit aether. In an above post you mentioned you think growth is an aspect of life. Well creating a bunch of creatures does seem pretty life like but its got the aether twist of doing it in an unconventional manor.

What I think of aether is its playing in the unknown. it uses other dimensions to do things that are not normal in this dimension.

So Aether is anything and everything not included in the other 11 elements? That is a little vague.
I am more concerned that rewinding time is an easier explanation for the effect.

You will note that "Paradox" and "Dead and Alive" have entropic names and have obviously entropic effects. Not everyone visits the wiki much less the forum. We as card designers need to make it easy on the causal gamer because we can.

[Agroagro]

So Aether is anything and everything not included in the other 11 elements? That is a little vague.
I am more concerned that rewinding time is an easier explanation for the effect.

You will note that "Paradox" and "Dead and Alive" have entropic names and have obviously entropic effects. Not everyone visits the wiki much less the forum. We as card designers need to make it easy on the causal gamer because we can.

Woah wooah your putting words in my mouth. I didnt say that it does everything the other elements dont I said aether does stuff the other elements dont. stuff thats not normal in the normal world. Theres a huge difference between doing something someone cannot do and doing everything they cannot do.


I dont really think my explanation was that vague but I guess I can elaborate on it.   

"it uses other dimensions to do things that are not normal in this dimension."

immortality - The immortal part in is based around the immaterial. its here but not really here its in another dimension that is interacting with ours. Thats a common fiction scenario. This sort of dimensional explaination seems obvious to me when its refereed to as immaterial on the card. and explain cards like the immortal, phase dragon, Quintessence, and dimensional shield.

Duplicating - Another common fiction scenario with dimensions is the mirror universe. this is where there is another dimension that is a mirror of ours where life carrys on basically the same. when you combine the two universes you are able have individuals interact with themselves or find many of the same thing. This is the basis behind cards like Mindgate, Fractal, Parallel Universe.

Lightning - Commonly when portals are depicted in fiction they produce lightning in some fashion. this explains cards like lightning and spark.


I dont see an obvious connection between entropy and the abilties "paradox" and "dead and live" thats why a brought them up as examples. So I find it a little condescending for you to say its obvious and then go on to say as designers we have to make things easy on people.

edit: I fear this debates derailing the topic. we should just msg each other if you wish to carry on.

[OldTrees]

I apologize for 2 things.
1) I misinterpreted what you said and thus put words in your mouth.
I thought:
a) If aether deals with other dimensions then the remaining 11 elements deal with this dimension in its entirety (otherwise there would be a 13th element right? ).
b) I thought that you gave a complete definition of your view of aether hence anything and everything that could be other dimensional
a+b) My false conclusion

2) I misestimated whether or not the "paradox" and "dead and alive" abilities were obviously entropic.
I assumed that you had been referring to the stories behind the names and not just the paradoxical sound of the names.
In my head paradox -> matter + antimatter -> explosion -> increase in universal entropy.

Discussing what is aether will help this thread so:
If aether:
"it uses other dimensions to do things that are not normal in this dimension."
but
"I didnt say that it does everything the other elements dont"
then what types of doing abnormal things is it limited to? (in the future not just the small card pool now)
Is there a more defined pattern?
A related question:
All 3 types of aether cards you listed you explained as caused by portals or dimensional travel. Can aether do things beyond that? (in the future)

[Kartsa]

Hive Mind

A creature of 0|5(or more) with relatively high cost with ability called synapse : All insects you control gain +1|+1 until start of your next turn.

Would that do the synergy?

[Agroagro]

Thanks Oldtrees

A related question:
All 3 types of aether cards you listed you explained as caused by portals or dimensional travel. Can aether do things beyond that? (in the future)

I think this is a good questions and gets us back on being creative.

Well if we continue to focus on the dimensional aspect something come to mind.

1) instability - things form other dimensions having trouble existing in this one.

2) Sending things to other universes. But we have to be careful with this one as to not seem as thou its just destroying things. things could possibly come back from other universes.

3) Vacuum - when the other dimension wants things back.

Some abilties come to mind.

Unstable: this has a clock (like sundial)  when the clocks up its destroyed. yes this is very close to times domain so that may be a problem. but then again time and aether seem to have a close connection. the empathizes on this Unstable clock shouldnt be the time passing but rather that it cannot exist in our dimension for long. So maybe creatures loosing -1/-1 each turn might make sense. Permanent could maybe loose charges or counters.

Some examples using this: Over powered creature with unstable 6/6 for 3 with unstable. or maybe a aether pillar gives 3,2,1  then is gone.

Sending to other universes: maybe a dimensional journey card "target creature is removed from play until the begining of your next turn it is then returned with +1/+1

Vacuum - the other dimension wants things back so maybe a card that that switches things in play for it. maybe a dimensional thieve card. both players get a thieve if its destroyed its takes a random creature/permanent back to the other dimension with it.