Card Control

[arzoo]

So I noticed that one of the main reasons that large decks are generally vulnerable is the extreme lack of card drawing control. With the sundial nerf only hourglasses actually increase card drawing ability (sundial lets you draw a card, but it also takes up 1 card's worth of space in the deck, no net gain). So I figured I'd suggest a few cards that allow extra drawing, or otherwise affect how cards are drawn. Obviously not every element needs it (they're supposed to be different), and some of my ideas might be lame, but i'm going to suggest a card for each element just because.

Earth:
Treasure Hunter: this card would actually be a 0/1 (maybe stronger upgraded?) creature that costs 4ish earth mana to play, and for 2 earth mana you draw an extra card (time mana makes more sense, but it'd be too similar to an hourglass if the ability cost time).

Air:
Swiftness: 5 air mana to draw 2 cards. upgraded it would be 7 to draw 3 (a much better deal imo).

Fire:
Fire Jar: 3 fire mana to play this permanent. Draw one card at the cost of 10 life.

Water:
Pearl Diver: 4 Water mana to play this creature (1/2). Ability pays 2 earth mana to draw a card.

Light:
Ceasefire (dunno about the name): this is a shield card that costs 4 light mana to play. As long as it is equipped, no monsters attack for either player. The owner of the shield draws no cards while this is in play. It's ability removes itself from the field (for free). Note that this works like the sundial; momentum won't penetrate it, but weapons still strike. Mostly useful for stalling to get enough mana to play something in your hand, or in combination with card drawing machines like hourglasses.

Darkness:
Dark Ritual: This spell costs 20 life and 5 darkness mana, in exchange for drawing cards until your hand is full. Alternatively it could cost 2-3 mana (still 20 life though) and instead dump your hand and draw 5 new cards (as a costly escape from a bad draw).

Entropy:
Viral Mutation: This spell costs 10 entropy mana, and transforms every creature card in your hand into a mutant. Note that this means you're going to need quantum pillars to have a hope of playing some of the mutants.

Gravity:
Black Hole: This permanent costs 15 gravity mana to play, and is immaterial. It's ability costs 10 gravity mana, and destroys the top card of your opponents deck. Extremely expensive to use, but obviously extremely powerful as well (perhaps too powerful).

Time:
already has the hourglass.

Aether:
White Hole: This permanent costs 8 aether mana to play. It is immaterial, and it's ability pays 3 aether mana to draw a card. Keeps in the theme of aether being invincible but expensive i think. Upgrade would drop it to 2 mana to use (same play cost though).

Life:
Circle of Life: This permanent costs 5 life mana to play. It's ability sacrifices a creature to draw an additional card (though for no mana cost).

Death:
Inevitable Death: This permanent costs 5 death mana to play. Every turn you draw two cards instead of 1, but your maximum health drops by 10. Maximum life increasers may be the only way this is worth it, and even then it's risky. Note that current life is only dropped if it is above the lowered maximum, if you're at 10 hp and the card activates for the first time, you aren't eliminated, and still have a good 9 or so turns before it kills you. Upgrade would reduce the lifedrain to 9 per turn.


What do you think? Other ideas for hand/deck related cards would be great to hear too.

[icybraker]

I like these ideas. We definitely need more card drawing elements in our game, especially because so many other TCG's have many cards that draw other cards.

And the word is quantum(sing.) or quanta(plural), not mana.

I like the Treasure Hunter idea. I don't know if swiftness is a spell or a permanent; it should be a spell. Fire Jar is very, very costly. Ceasefire seems like a useful but maybe overpowered card. Imagine you are about to deck out and you play this thing. It may save your life many times over. Dark Ritual can't happen because cards can't cost 2 different elements. It also costs way too much.

Can Viral Mutant be coded? I mean, changing cards while they're still in your hand is pretty radical. Pretty awesome idea, though, but risky. Black Hole is both overpowered and very costly; not a good idea no matter how you look at it. White hole is good, but very costly. It's basically the Electrum Hourglass,but it costs a LOT more, which means that splashing in Time to your deck would be better than using White Hole.

Circle of Life seems pretty cool, and I don't entirely understand Inevitable Death. Treasure Hunter, Swiftness, and Circle of Life should be made into real cards.

[Bloodshadow]

I think this should be the card-draw for Dark:

Jar of Greed: Permanent (3 Dark)
Greed (1 Dark): You lose 5 HP. Draw a card.

Jar of Avarice: Permanent (3 Dark)
Upgraded from Jar of Greed.
Avarice (0 Dark): You lose 5 HP. Draw a card.

[arzoo]

Swiftness is a spell (I wasn't sure what the word for a non-permanent non-creature was). Basically you trade quanta (i say mana because it's shorter and easier ) for cards. 7 quanta for 2 more cards than you would have drawn without swiftness isn't bad if you're playing a deck that can expect major air quanta. I'm not sure on how expensive things should be though; any costs on the cards here are obviously just estimations of what would be balanced.

Inevitable death slowly lowers your maximum life (much like stone skin increases it) in exchange for basically getting an extra card every turn. Since it's your max life decreasing, you cannot get around it with feral bonds or what have you. I don't know how else to explain it.

White whole is very expensive, but so is the rest of the aether stuff. I figured it fit the theme: invincible but costly.

I mean dark ritual costs 5 darkness quanta and 20 health, not life quanta. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Like I said, I suggested whatever came to mind for each element, some ideas were clearly bad (ie gravity's). I just felt that card drawing isn't something a single element should have a monopoly on. It definitely shouldn't be a common thing though; too many and too varied card drawing ability's lead to very overpowered combos (hence my guessing for things life health payments to limit the use of the cards)

[bobcamel]

Treasure Hunter: Costlier than a Hourglass, brittle. But, I guess it is alright.
Swiftness: One time extra cards. I wonder what happens when I cast it while having too many cards so not all can go in, and the cost seems to be alright.
Fire Jar: Sort of too costly on your life. Fire doesn't have any sort of protection or regeneration and you'd get steamlolled unless you were even faster... risky. Very risky.
Pear Diver: Co-works with Poseidon decks, cost could be less due to dualness, but it's alright, I guess.
Ceasefire: I just Nova + PA + This + Firebolting. +Fire Jar.
Dark Ritual: With Vampires and Lifesiphons it's fairly affordable. Could be useful in the first version, drawing like 6-8 cards, the version with discard isn't as good.
Viral Mutation: U C, 'mutants' are normal cards with random abilities and up to +4/+4 in stats. So, I'd say those cannot be done in-hand, but you could just turn them into other normal creatures. This, and it doesn't really give you card profit, but...
Black Hole: Yeah, too powerful.
White Hole: You said all the comments necessary.
Circle of Life: Would be useful along FFQs, otherwise Life itself has no generators and you'd rather have those to generate card profit.
Inevitable Death: Ultimatum: Win in 10 turns or you'll lose for sure, and the enemy now has to deal less and less damage to defeat you. To help you, you get 2 cards per turn, and we're taking 5 of your Death quanta. Have fun!
...basically stalling defeats it, and I wouldn't say 9 MAXHP is a good price for onemorecard, but whatever.

[arzoo]

Presumably swiftness would work like calling the hourglass ability 2 or 3 times; if you can't get all the cards the extras are just wasted.

[Delreich]

Presumably swiftness would work like calling the hourglass ability 2 or 3 times; if you can't get all the cards the extras are just wasted.

Preferably it should work as only drawing up to N cards, so that no cards get thrown out into the void.

[arzoo]

Presumably swiftness would work like calling the hourglass ability 2 or 3 times; if you can't get all the cards the extras are just wasted.

Preferably it should work as only drawing up to N cards, so that no cards get thrown out into the void.

But that's exactly what happens when you use hourglass when you shouldn't... The only time I see it being a problem is when you are forced to play it at a suboptimal time in hopes of saving your ass with a lucky draw. I guess there's no harm in having it not penalize you in that situation though.