Upped is overpowered, it's basically an infinite quanta source.
We already have that anyway with mitosis and any of the other upgraded quanta produces... After the initial
investment, they don't even cost quanta to power each use.
Also, you could say the same for FFQ - rustler combo...
The only balance issue is that this card brings it all under a single element and is slightly less expensive than mitosis in terms of initial cost... That may be enough to push it slightly on the OP side, but probably not by much.
I say that because even though its an in element ability:
1) It is housed in a shield, meaning that you can never do better than +1 eater per turn
2) It costs twice as much to produce an eater using this shield as it does to cast it normally
Finally, at a cost of 4
| 3
, this ability is essentially being valued at 2-3
| 3-4
in terms of casting cost value (since a measly 1 point of reduction is only worth roughly 1-2
).
As a final point, saying this is an infinite quanta source is leaving a bit too much unsaid.
It will ramp production at 1
per turn giving (n)*(n+1)/2
after n turns
It will cost 3 + 2*n
total over that time...
Solving 3+2n = n(n+1)/2 yields roughly 4 turns to pay for itself... thats about half the total duration of a game right there.
You would probably have to have this out for the entire game to really make up for the loss of a shield slot.
Will that be worth it?