Albatross | Albatross

[ggabriel2]

NAME: Albatross ELEMENT: Air COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 2|3 TEXT: If Albatross is killed or discarded, insert Albatross into a random position in owner's deck	NAME: Albatross ELEMENT: Air COST: 4 TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 2|3 TEXT: If Albatross is killed or discarded, insert Albatross into a random position in the top half of owner's deck

ART: Original photo by longhorndave: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=3831216&searchId=352ad5a293c7a1c38be28965ae5a1645&npos=22 IDEA: ggabriel2 NOTES: Since Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the term "albatross" has been used as a metaphor for a lingering burden, hence the card theme--it's a mediocre creature card that keeps coming back to haunt you. The most obvious use is fodder for Nightmare, since any albatrosses that are discarded go back to the opponent's deck and will continue to clog up their draws and their hand. However, it can be useful in its own right too. Notably, it introduces an anti-deckout mechanism outside of Eternity since you can play an Albatross, kill it, and have it returned to your deck to draw again (you can even do this with just air quanta by including 1 Albatross and 1 Eagle's Eye.) It's also a self-contained source of repeatable otyugh/scarab food and a poor man's Schroedinger's Cat. Conceivably a stall deck could use it to give themselves a damage source that cannot be permanently removed by most methods, but it's probably too weak to be useful for this--you'd need really strong permanent control since there are lots of shields and healing cards that would shut down an albatross offense. As a basic creature it's considerably overpriced for its stats. This reinforces the idea of it being a "punishment" card--opponents pay extra to get albatrosses out of their hand and into play, and they're not very useful when they get there. It also represents a premium for the albatross's utility functions. Thematically Time deserves to have the best deck control, so it makes sense that Eternity + Ray of Light should be cheaper for anti-deckout. It's also noticeably more expensive (and less reliable early) than other sources of otyugh food/death triggers, since you can play it and eat/kill in the same turn and not have to worry about CC in the meantime. SERIES: ***Insert series name and link to series page (if any)***

[Nepycros]

An interesting anti-deckout method. Here's how strategies with it would work:

Have an empty hand at the same time you have exactly 8 cards left in your deck. From then on, don't play any cards. Eventually, you'll have this card and a full hand. Discard this card, and you'll never deckout. The worst part is, there's absolutely no way to counter it, since it doesn't use any quanta.

[artimies7]

I like, but it would seem that with a bigger deck, you wouldn't re-draw this as often. Not that that's a bad thing, but.

What would Mitosis do to this? If you have a duo  / deck and you mitosis a couple of these a turn while your opponent has a Fire Buckler out. After a couple turns, you might have a full deck and a field full of Albatrosses. Problem?

Wait, I suppose that you could just discard any that you don't need.

I don't suppose discarding has any effect?

[storyteller]

this is nifty. I approve.

[ggabriel2]

An interesting anti-deckout method. Here's how strategies with it would work:

Have an empty hand at the same time you have exactly 8 cards left in your deck. From then on, don't play any cards. Eventually, you'll have this card and a full hand. Discard this card, and you'll never deckout. The worst part is, there's absolutely no way to counter it, since it doesn't use any quanta.

I thought about that, but this relies on having at least 7 cards in your deck that you'll never have to play and some pretty obsessive hand management to make sure that you end up with a final hand that doesn't include any cards you will need to play. I guess you can use it as a no-cost backup as long as you still have some method of playing and killing the albatross if your hand doesn't work out.

Unfortunately I just realized that Fractal gives you instant guaranteed setup for this. That is almost certainly OP as is, since for two cards you get no-upkeep deckout protection that can't be countered by any cards currently in the game. And it's not like it's some special obscure combo, Fractal is really powerful to begin with and if you draw it when you don't have any fear of decking out you're free to use it to boost your other cards. I'm not sure if there's a way around this problem without separating the returns-when-discarded and returns-when-killed mechanics, which is a pity because I love versatile cards.

[ninjamaster1991]

 / fractal EE this.

[storyteller]

I was just thinking of using this with Nightmare, after a couple shots, you will have buried their cards under the top half of their deck using a flock of albatross. I know OP mentioned this, but its just too nasty to not bring up again.

[PlayerOa]

This + Eagles Eye = Awesome (as stated in notes)
This way could get a good anti-deckout trick. Otherwise a mediocre card with an awesome combo.

[Nepycros]

This + Eagles Eye = Awesome (as stated in notes)
This way could get a good anti-deckout trick. Otherwise a mediocre card with an awesome combo.

Unfortunately, the combo requires, at most, 6 each turn, and at minimum, 4 each turn.

It would be more fruitful to simply Fractal Albatross when you have no cards left in your deck, and the rest of your hand is empty. From that point on, as long as you don't play a single Albatross, nothing the opponent can do will stop you from not decking out ever again, for absolutely no recurring quanta cost.

[storyteller]

devourers and black hole and quicksand/tsunami can keep that from ever happening, a well timed nightmare can interupt it as well, putting cards in the hand so albatross cant fill it easily

[ggabriel2]

devourers and black hole and quicksand/tsunami can keep that from ever happening, a well timed nightmare can interupt it as well, putting cards in the hand so albatross cant fill it easily

Nightmare wouldn't work. It would actually just be making it easier if anything. You only need one albatross; the key is to make sure you have a full hand when you hit 0 cards, at which point you end turn and discard the albatross so that it goes back to your deck for free. Fractal is simply a really, really easy way to ensure that you have a full hand after you've played through your deck and gotten all the cards you need out; just save 1 Fractal + 1 Albatross and you can guarantee a discard when you need it, as long as you have quanta. (Remember, they only need to play each card once; if your hand is full you can discard an albatross for free instead of having to play it.)

Quanta denial strategies are still valid, but probably more for locking down a player before they get to this stage rather than actually trying to lock down a rainbow's and in the late game.

[TimerClock14]

CURATOR COMMENT:
-In the COST section of the table, you need to put the after the cost number, otherwise you are saying it will take 4 random quanta instead of 4 air quanta.
-The SERIES section of the table is missing, I need you to put it back. ^^; You can just leave it blank if you don't have a series.