Balance suggestions

[Scaredgirl]

Demongod has been warned to tone down language or be banned.

You know, publicly saying who gets banned or who gets warned is a REALLY bad move. Admins/Mods should never do that.

I have experienced this personally and I can say it's the worst kind of sign of disrespect that you can do on a forum, especially if the person in question feels the ban/warning was uncalled for. It will make the person lose all respect towards the people who are running the forum.

[bobcamel]

...the Supernova requiring a lifepay sounds like a good idea, although 3 is a little low, seeingas it also seems to remove the 2 Entorpy cost.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

...the Supernova requiring a lifepay sounds like a good idea, although 3 is a little low, seeingas it also seems to remove the 2 Entorpy cost.

I agree. With 100 life, paying 3 life is no big deal at all. Perhaps paying 10 life would be better.

[Demongod]

I much prefer the life to entropy cost.

As for there being a challenge or not, it isn't as though the decision making is extremely complex in this game.  Either you can play something or you can't.  If you can play it, will it have time to do what it needs to get done, or will your opponent wreck it?  For instance, yes, it's dumb to play all your quanta against seism off the bat.

However, usually, it isn't a question of "did you make the correct plays" so much as "did the FG have a draw that beat yours no matter what you did", aka

"Did Seism destroy all your quanta before you could play anything" or "did Graviton beat you into the ground before you could take control of the situation" or "did Scorpio speed-poison you out of existence before you could get your creature army going"?

There is no back and forth.  There is no "I made a stupid mistake."  

Elements is relatively simple.  There is very little "do this but not that" so much as "do everything you possibly can", with some minor exceptions.

So if "everything you possibly can" doesn't stop "everything FG possibly can", you lose.  Otherwise, you win.

That isn't a challenge.  That's an autowin or an auto-lose.  Simply, there aren't enough features with the way elements works that there is room for good or bad decision making.

[jmizzle7]

I think you are excluding the possibility of making a "good mistake", i.e. when you play a card that nets a lesser positive outcome than if you waited a turn to play the same card. These are nuances of good and bad play that you can only understand through lots of matches. Seism is one of the matches that forces you into this kind of decision making, which is the reason why he is one of the harder false gods. It is much easier to make incorrect plays against Seism than against Fire Queen or Incarnate.

[Demongod]

I very much think I do understand, hence I listed Seism as a prime example.  Same idea against Graviton and his Otyughs, Rainbow and his explosions, and perhaps Hermes with explosions.

There's also some very easy such decisions against Incarnate.

However, barring that, it's more or less "the best move this turn is quite obvious", and that on almost all turns, the game plays itself.

[Daxx]

scrubs.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/Inigo

[jmizzle7]

scrubs.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/Inigo

Lolwin

[Demongod]

scrubs.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/Inigo

Know who David Sirlin is?  I follow his definition.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

scrubs.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/Inigo

Know who David Sirlin is?  I follow his definition.

From Sirlin.net (http://"http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html")

Introducing...the Scrub
In the world of Street Fighter competition, there is a word for players who aren't good: "scrub." Everyone begins as a scrub---it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you know what you're doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or "learn" the game, that one can become a top player. In reality, the "scrub" has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He's lost the game before he's chosen his character. He's lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.

That is only the first paragraph, but in essence, pretty much a "scrub" is a noob. If that's the case, then Demongod fails at the internet because everyone knows that only noobs call other people noobs.

[PuppyChow]

Heal
I like the card but the name should change if it functioned like that. I don't see "heal" removing poison. If it only healed 30 and nothing more, it would make more sense.

Miracle
Ok, I'm totally against this. The coolest part of Miracle is when you play it when you have only 1 HP left. "It's a Miracle!!!". This new card would heal 1 HP in that situation. I would probably make it heal 60 and remove all poison.

Here, I was looking for some ways to add more counters to poison. The best solution would probably be to create new cards with this ability but creating new cards takes time whereas balancing is very quick (all the changes I suggested probably require less than 3 hours of work from Zanzarino). That's pretty much why this thread is all about the second solution.
Now if you consider that we're only talking about card changes and no content creation, the first obvious change appears to be Heal cause for now it's seriously underpowered.
Adding a "cure poison" effect to Miracle made sense too but I had to do something to nerf the healing part on the other hand. Right now, I find the card very close to be OP, mainly because of its synergy with Shard of Divinity (6 x Shard + 6 x Miracle = potentially more than 1000 HP healed). The suggestion might not be the best idea of my life but I found it fun when I wrote it:
* the synergy with Shard of Divinity remains
* the effect is similar to the old Miracle, as soon as you cast the spell when you have 50% health (instead of waiting for 1 HP left)
Also, notice that I'm aware that this is a serious nerf here. That's why I lowered the cost of the card.

Back on topic, here. Mainly about the Miracle nerf.

Your example with SoD and Miracle is completely off base. I run a fully upped SoD + Miracle + Sundial + Flying Glories + Explosions (mark of fire) in pvp, and while it is viable, it does not need to be nerfed. At all.

1) Usually, you have to start miracling when you've played only 2-4 shards of divinity, and by then the opponent usually has 40+ damage on the board. Since this uses up all your light quanta, you're hard pressed to then gain the light needed to play miracle again while at the same time playing more glories and animate weapons.

2) Permanent destruction (which many pvp decks have) is VERY dangerous, especially pillar denials.

3) Speed poison can usually out damage you. (Kill you before you can kill it; if you play a glory, you likely won't have the quantum for miracle, but if you don't play a glory, you can't kill it). Granted, sod + miracle can *sometimes* win against it.

4) Since this deck relies on a slow death, good rainbows can usually kill you too. Even though they can't kill any of your weapons, the bone wall still stalls for awhile. And rainbows can easily get 100+ damage on the board.

5) The whole healing half your hp thing. So you're saying I can would only be able to get half the use out of it I once did? For what? Not taking away all my light quantum? No thanks. If the whole heals only half your hp thing happened, miracle + sod + flying glories would probably not be viable anymore.

6) As mentioned in other places, not even purify slows speed poison down very much. So only halving it is kinda... meh. Even against speed poisons with a sod + miracle deck, I would rather have the full health heal rather than a 50-110 (at absolute best) heal and my poison being halved.

7) Lowering the cost of the card does nothing, since you also made it so it must be played earlier to have full effect. And even then the effect is not as good.

Sorry. I just don't want to see a deck that is viable but not OP go down the drain.

[Daxx]

scrubs.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/Inigo

Know who David Sirlin is?  I follow his definition.

Yep. My point exactly.