HERO CARDS by Scaredgirl

[danroe]

Yeah, Wyrm Queen IS kinda boring. I had real trouble trying to come up with something fun for Air. Most elements clearly have something "they are about", but I just didn't see that with Air. Something that flies is an obvious choice but since flying doesn't mean anything in this game.. what can you do? I don't know about adding momentum because it's Gravitys bread and butter.

Let me tell you i created this account for the only purpose of giving you an idea for the Wyrm Queen.

"Ability:Tailwind. All your creatures gain Dive for 1 turn. This ability can´t be used more than once every X turns. This ability drains all your wind quanta.

[Demongod]

I really disagree with effects that effectively say "in X turns, I have you on complete lockdown".

Now while I realize that these hero cards are currently like Mirari's Wake was in M:tG, in that they're rather difficult to cast, but if you do, you effectively win, I disagree entirely with the concept of "oh look, I play X.  I win."

The reason is that they're either

A) reliably playable and thus broken beyond belief

or

B) so difficult to put into play that you're strictly better off not attempting to play around them and go for a more straightforward victory.

However, if you're really dead set on the idea of these "hero" cards, then I suggest you do something ala the new Planeswalker cards in M:tG.  Basically, here's the concept:

Planeswalkers are literally miniature players.  They cost some moderate amount of mana (between 3 and 7 I believe) and come into play with some life and 3 abilities.  One ability is their basic one which boosts their life by one.  Another ability is one that depletes their life by some variable amount that the player controls.  A third ability is their ultimate ability, which reduces their life by a massive amount, but has a game-changing effect. 

IMO, heroes should work like this:

They come into play weak.  At the end of every turn, they get more life.  They have one passive ability, and one active ability.

For heroes here, I say that they should have some moderate stats, and their one active ability should be the signature of the element.

Here's some off the top of my head:

Fire:  5 Fire.  9/5.
8 fire quantum: Your opponent's shield is automatically destroyed.  (Errata: this does not target the shield.  This empties your opponent's shield slot, period.  So it doesn't matter if he has a bone wall with 1000 counters on it.  It's gone.)

Chaos: 5 Entropy.  6/6.
10 ent quant: improve all of your critters (fallen Druid's improve).

Aether: 6 Aether.  6/1, untargetable.
8 aether quant: Cast Twin Universe.

Wind: 8 Wind.  12/12
6 wind: All your critters control dive this turn.

Water: 4 Water.  2/5
8 water: some % chance per critter to freeze opponent's critters for 2 turns

Gravity: 8 Gravity, 12/8, momentum
8 Gravity: All your critters permanently gain momentum.

Life: 6 Life, 4/6.
8 Life: Gain 4 life for each critter you have.

Light: 8 Light, 6/10
8 Light: Target critter gets fully healed, is cured of any status infliction, and gets +4/+4 permanently.

Death: 6 Death, 1/5
10 Death: All critters you control gain venom until end of turn.

Darkness: 6 Dark, 6/8
6 Dark: Steal target permanent.

Earth: 6 Earth, 2/10
6 Earth: Pop 3 pillars/towers in a cluster.

Time: 6 Time, 5/5
6 time: target player draws six cards.

[Kumlekar]

so you want planeswalkers, but how do these work in terms of elements game balance?  As you suggesting another slot be placed next to the weapon/shield slot?  How much health is gained per turn?  Also, unlike planeswalkers the abilities you've recomended do not affect the user's health.  I like the idea of giving the aether hero twin universe. but some of the other ones don't make sense.  I don't think of fire as being based around permanent destruction.  I haven't heard of an element called "Chaos", perhaps you mean entrophy?  Alot of the abilities you suggest are just kinda boring compared to scaredgirl's suggestions though.  (Seriously, I want that darkness hero!)

[jmizzle7]

I've got a good one... How about the Air hero have the ability to make a weapon fly?

[Kumlekar]

That would actually be realy cool jmizzle.  Maybe 4 quantums for the ability?  It would be really powerful, but I don't think its as game breaking as some other stuff.

[jmizzle7]

That would actually be realy cool jmizzle.  Maybe 4 quantums for the ability?  It would be really powerful, but I don't think its as game breaking as some other stuff.

Yeah. I mean, we already have an air creature making other creatures, so why introduce another? Everybody knows that flying weapon decks are really fun, and this could possibly make them work. The hero would have to be cheap enough to cast and use in order to implement it effectively, but could be made to be a little more fragile than the other hero cards to compensate. What is great about this is you still have the Animate Weapon card, so you don't need this card to get the job done.

[Evil Hamster]

I've got a good one... How about the Air hero have the ability to make a weapon fly?

Kind of like my Dwarven Weaponsmith? (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,693.msg7159#msg7159)

[jmizzle7]

I've got a good one... How about the Air hero have the ability to make a weapon fly?

Kind of like my Dwarven Weaponsmith? (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,693.msg7159#msg7159)

Yep, kind of like that. 

[Delreich]

I've got a good one... How about the Air hero have the ability to make a weapon fly?

And he'd be silver and blue, with a bit of red and a slight touch of yellow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bull), right?

[Scaredgirl]

Okay, nice idea.  I approve of this.  I've played another online strategy card game called urban_rivals and this hero idea is similar to the leaders they have.  It's a very successful game and people like the hero idea.  They make a lot of money to from their card packs... I have to admit I've probably spent about a $100 on that game.  The random card packs just made it too addictive.  I because rich fast... and so did they.

My problems with the cards:
1)  Overpowered
2)  The name (Heroes)

Now to address the first problem (Overpowered).  The cards cost doesn't negate the fact that they have insane power and life.  Most of the effects seem fine, but a person needs a chance to be able to kill the card.  That's why it would be useful for you to an anubis out to immortal it fast or something along those lines.  Blessing it a few times or adding a heavy armor too.  That way a person has to think more when building their new deck.  Instead of making everything revolve around the cool new ability they'll have to worry about keeping it alive too.  It also makes it less of a game breaker.  I think it depends on the type.  The air "hero" (I'll talk about that later, but I'll use this for now) shouldn't have a power or life rating.  I'll go through what I think about what I think of each of your cards.

Fire (Bazuul): 12/18.  20 fire quantams.  Way too weak and powerful at the same time.  Fire creatures have low life and high attack.  If it's stronger than the rest it should be more pumped up.  I think it should be a 20/8.  Still killable, but it makes sense.  Personally I don't like the ability.  It seems to flow a lot more into the magic arena.  Fire, in Elements, is more of an aggressive element.  Instead of your ability I think it should have   Inferno: +4/+0.  This card would still be great, but not too overpowered.  It could still be killed by multiple combinations and yet it's still worth it's cost.  You can combine fire and gravity for a little momentum action.  Think of a card that'll probably take two turns to kill which will do a guaranteed 21 damage first turn?  Pretty sick in my opinion.

Light (The Chosen One): 0/24.  20 light quantams.  This card is great in my opinion.  There's only one point I'd like to bring up.  My first point is that it has too much life.  I think it should be a 0/16 instead of a 0/24.  Now you might be thinking that is a huge drop, but not really.  You have to remember that light has Guardian Angels... which heal.  It'll still be hard to kill, but not impossible.  Other than that it's fine.  At first I was thinking it's ability should have a cost, but light isn't that strong anyway.  Many decks can kill the creatures while their getting strong.  If "The Chosen One" is left by himself than it's not a big deal what his ability does.

Time (The Clockmaster): 0/10.  20 time quantams.  Great card.  I have no problems with it being overpowered.  In fact I'd suggest it became a little stronger.  The ability is PERFECT, but I'd like to see some attack power.  I'd suggest it being a 3/10.

Entropy (The Joker): 10/16.  20 entropy quantams.  I like the idea of this ability, but honestly it wouldn't really be helpful in an Entropy deck.  I think it should have another ability.  Anarchy: Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent the damage is taken from the opponents quantams randomly.  You then receive the same amount of random quantams as the amount taken from your opponent. I'd suggest it being a 9/12 also.

Earth (Rocky): 16/20.  20 earth quantams.  Okay, this guy is just a beast... and not in a good way.  He's FAR too overpowered.  Not only that, but it's obvious the ability came from MTG.  Taking other earth creatures as an example I would suggest this card being a 15/16.  The ability is too overpowered and screams MTG.  Also, it's a little debatable to say what's an air creature or not (a Spark floats right?).  For the ability I'd suggest this.  Aftershock: For every pillar or tower an opponent loses your opponent takes 5 damage.  Now this ability would be great for an Earth deck.  Poseidon and Earthquakes make this card deadly, but reasonable.

Darkness (Vampire Lord): 12/16.  20 darkness quantams.  I like the art on this card, good job on finding it Scaredgirl.  Great ability and I don't have any complaints for it... well instead of "loses" I'd suggest using the word "drains."  I'd suggest it started off weaker though.  It basically has growth already, so it would be problematic to kill for most decks.  I'd suggest it starting off as a 8/6.  That's double an upgraded Vampire.  It seems pretty fair to me.  Also, I'd suggest lowering the cost to only two darkness.  Being overpowered and underpowered matter.

Death (Zombie King): 10/18.  20 death quantams.  The ability is perfect.  It fits into the death flow and it's reasonable.  I'd only make one change.  Instead of "starting off" with an infection the Zombie King should get infected each turn.  You would even be able to keep the power and life as it is and it would still be pretty fair.  So basically every time is does a mass infection it gets infected too.

Gravity (The Machine): 5/50.  20 gravity quantams.  Besides the fact you put "you" instead of "your" this card is a bit overpowered.  I think the ability should be this.  Propulsion: All creatures on your field have momentum while The Machine is out on the field.  That way when it dies the momentum goes, but until then you rack up some serious damage.  You also get a wall of 50 damage as a shield.  I have no complaints about this cards power and life.

Air (Wyrm Queen): 8/16.  20 air quantams.  The ability is great.  I have nothing against it.  It makes mono-air actually put up a fight.  The power and life are a different story.  I'd suggest it being 12/9.  That's 3 times an Elite Wyrm, so that's more than fair.

Aether (Immortal King): 8/1. 20 aether quantams.  I'd suggest it cost one more aether quantam for the ability.  Other than that... no complaints.

All of these cards were good on your aspect, but they would all need different names.  I'm sure you just popped out an easy name for examples, but the name needs to fit Elements more.  Elements doesn't really have humans... so the names need to be different.  Also, I'm kind of debating whether they should all be 20 quantams to cast or if they should vary.  To make it more balanced of course.



Now to address the name.  This game is Elements... heroes don't really make since.  Heroes are a more human aspect and they're aren't really any humans in here.  I think a better name would be Avatars.  This goes a lot better with the flow of the game.  It also makes sense.

Thanks for great feedback. I have a couple of replies.

Many people are saying "they are owerpowered!". I don't understand it. Yeah Heroes are strong but they also..

1. Cost a LOT
2. You can only have ONE in your deck

So it's not like you will have one on the table during the first 3 turns every time. And even if you DO play them early, it's not an instant win. All these Hero cards can easily be countered and none of them will win you the game unless you have something else also. Like someone already said, these cards should have more of a supportive role.

You are right about the Joker. It sucks that you pretty much have to do a rainbow deck for it to be fully effective. BUT you can take 6 x Supernovas which will give you quantum to use other abilities as well. One option could be that mass mutation only affects opponents creatures and it's the non-improved mutation, in other words it can transform creatures to abominations or even kill them.

I had no idea that Rocky's ability came from MtG. My MtG experience is very limited. I wouldn't worry about that too much though. With the amount of cards that MtG has, I'm sure that all the ideas on this forum can be found in some MtG card. But yeah.. he's overpowered. I would just lower his attack and problem solved!

You are 100% correct about Zombie King. This is how the ability should work.

Your idea for improvement on The Machine is also a very good idea. It's actually something I considered myself but I didn't know how much coding it requires (removal of momentum when Hero dies) so I decided to go for a thing we already have. If it is easy to code then I'm all for it.

About the name.. I personally don't have a problem with the name "Hero" but I don't really care what they are called. For me this "Avatar" sounds a bit weak. It reminds me of forums or something.

Here are some other ideas:

Demigod
Elite Creature
Hero/Villain (all elements have 1 Hero and 1 Villain card)
etc.

[Scaredgirl]

That would actually be realy cool jmizzle.  Maybe 4 quantums for the ability?  It would be really powerful, but I don't think its as game breaking as some other stuff.

Yeah. I mean, we already have an air creature making other creatures, so why introduce another? Everybody knows that flying weapon decks are really fun, and this could possibly make them work. The hero would have to be cheap enough to cast and use in order to implement it effectively, but could be made to be a little more fragile than the other hero cards to compensate. What is great about this is you still have the Animate Weapon card, so you don't need this card to get the job done.

I thought about this "Flying Weapon Creator" Hero when I did these cards. I even thought about having a Hero that could create flying shields (Bone Wall = a bunch of Skeletons, etc.) or flying permanents.

The problem is that it limits your deck building options. If you have this Hero, you HAVE to have bunch of weapons in your deck, because if you do not have any weapons, your Hero is useless. This is not good imo.

I tried to make all Heroes so that you could build all kinds of different decks around them, and there wasn't any cards that you HAVE to have with that Hero.

[Scaredgirl]

These Hero cards should be..

1. Possible to kill or counter
2. Impossible to kill or counter with only one card or ability.

These two are very important imo because it would be dumb if you could "kill" a cost 20 Hero card with for example Mutation. You should need to have a combination of cards, abilities or damage to take down a Hero.

So the question is, how can we achieve this?

I say we give all Heroes an ability called "Immunity", "Resistance", or something like that. This ability would make Heroes immune to some cards like Mutation and Rewind. This would of course make Heroes even more powerful so their abilities, cost and HP should be adjusted accordingly.

What do you think?