Best Weapon Idea Contest Entry - Hex Breaker

[Chemist]

(http://www.screenshotdumpster.com/)

Notes:
-"spell" refers to the type of card
-"one" means the first played unless you have several cards with an active "dispel" ability
-the ability ends after the opponent's turn even if unused

Anything unclear? Any balance issues I've missed?

Edits:
First balancing revision: 4 damage -> 3 damage, added: "The spell's quanta cost is refunded."
Second balancing revision: ability costs changed from light to entropy.
Final balancing revision: costs raised from 3/4 to 6/6

[Glitch]

Works well with reflecting shield.

[Xinef]

In my opinion it looks way overpowered, but I judge it based on my MtG experience. A renewable counterspell counters a lot of decks (buff based ones, aflatoxin or poison based ones, miracle based ones, some mutation based ones, rewinds, direct damage, RoF and a lot more)
Ok, from what I understand about your idea, only the first one is wasted, but how often do you see more than one spell played a turn? I see sometimes with buffs, but rarely.
I've got nothing against an idea of a renewable counterspell in itself, but it should not be possible with a single card. It should be something like one spell that couters spells once, and some permanent that allows you to cast a cheap spell multiple times, or even something requiring 3 cards to pull of.

Right now the only way I see of countering this permanent would be to use 2 deflags or 2 steals, or a pulverizer, but first and second require 2 cards to remove one (and double the cost) which I find unbalanced, and latter is only possible in gravity/earth and rainbow decks.

My suggestion - make it counter spells AND creature/permanent abilities. This way you may waste a devour, mutate, hasten or some similar ability to break the protection, then play some spell. It still makes you pay some quantum to break the protection, but at least it is not  to destroy one card a turn... ok, the pulverizer can destroy a card a turn for so I am not sure what is less balanced here, but this is just my suggestion.

[Chemist]

Since it's not like you can't play spells at all this shouldn't be an overwhelming blow to most decks. The weapon does, however, set up a strong resistance against spells: effectively they get delayed, are used less frequently overall and there is addtional quana spent on the ones that do work. Some downsides: a maintainance cost effectively, not getting to use some other weapon's effect,  and it's still not like you're safe from spells of any kind (also note that they only need a single deflag or steal to dispose of this as long as they can play another spell at the time).

Now I'm not entirely sure it'd be necessary but if I were to nerf this I'd make it so that a negated spell's quana cost is refunded. What would people think of that?

[Lanidrak]

Personally, way to overpowered. Also, I think this kind of effect should belong to Entropy - not Light.

On the other hand, this sort of effect is something I've been moaning about for a while now. There has to be a way to counter Improved Miracle (any Spell card), since there is no counter for a spell card and almost every other card type in the game has some type of counter.

Poison counters = Purify
Any Creatures = Any Creature Control (Obviously, Quintessence/Burrow give a counter to this counter)
Any Permanents = Steal, Deflagrate, Destroy etc (Again, Enchant Artefact...) Also, Pillars are doubly vulnerable to Earthquake/Quicksand.

As to what Xinef has said, and sort of linking to a similar idea I posted a while back.

The ability, in my opinion, is far too strong to have it tied to a permanent. My suggestion was to have a card like Sundial (ie. Permanent for 1 turn; or 2) and when it is in play, all cards with a 50% chance of working.

This way, it affects your cards also, but can effectively cripple an opponent who absolutely has to play cards while it is in play. Also note, that Deflagrate, Steal and Destroy would only work 50% of the time on this card.

Anyways, I've said my piece

[Chemist]

Part of the reason I made this light was because light doesn't have a powerful shield (it also fits the themes of protection and religion) - if I put it in entropy then Dissipation Shield would be even harder to take down than it already is, not to mention if this was aether. Oh wait, as of today light *has* a strong shield and this would be perfect for protecting the Rays of Light powering it  .

Well I nerfed this a bit by refunding negated spells... for starters. Alternatively I could also make the ability require the cost of the spell to be negated to be payed in light quanta - but this would lower the usability of the weapon. I'm not sure if it would do any good like that. If it existed in that form, would anyone use it?

[assassim]

ahem... http://www.elementsthegame.com/development.html

read hope and tell me that isn't a good shield

[Glitch]

Hope isn't on the development page...?

[icybraker]

http://www.elementsthegame.com/development.html

Yes it is, and so is Mummy. Clear your cache and refresh if you can't see it.

[Xinef]

Alternatively I could also make the ability require the cost of the spell to be negated to be payed in light quanta - but this would lower the usability of the weapon. I'm not sure if it would do any good like that. If it existed in that form, would anyone use it?

A lot of people would use it, because there are numerous ways to generate light quanta. RoL's, FF, Luciferine, White Nymph, to name a few... basically is one of the easiest quanta to gain and it is extremely easy to have it in abundance.

[Chemist]

So light is strong all of a sudden... what other element could I put this in? I'm guessing air or gravity would be the next best choices, but I don't think this would fit either theme-wise. So for now I'm just changing the ability cost to entropy. Now light would have to splash entropy in order play this. Entropy could also use it, but would again need to sacrifice some speed one way or another. I think I should raise the playing cost as well. How much light quana would make this slightly expensive to rainbows? They don't normally need to use Sundials early, correct?

Edit: Final revision: playing cost raised. I thought I'd fiddled with the stats enough since it didn't seem more OP than Pulverizer for a while, but it looks like Pulverizer is getting nerfed now. I can't raise the entropy cost in the same manner without making the card exclusive to entropy, so I guessed I should at least make it so this wouldn't get played too early.