Skeleton Captain & Ethereal Thief

[Lanidrak]

Okay well it has been a week or so since my last Idea thread. I edited it and added a Poll for your favorite card!

Please see it here. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,2174.0.html)

It looks like Skeleton Captain is the most favorite and popular card of those suggestions. So here is the card art, courtesy of vrt! Thanks for all your input into my first ideas suggestion thread and for taking the time vote (and care!)



Skeleton Captain
Cost: 6 Death
Stats: 6/4
Ability: All skeletons gain +1/+0 while Skeleton Captain is in play.

Reasoning: This card will give more necromantic power to death, instead of the currently defensive (Bone Wall) and poison oriented (Plague, Aflatoxin etc) attributes it currently has. This ability will stack with other Skeleton Captains but only with one Nightfall/Eclipse. So, 6 Skeleton Captains and 1 Eclipse in play means your Skeleton will be a 8/2 monster . Easy to put back in his grave, but also a bit more dangerous than the Undead Toddlers we have at the minute, which are only really good for Otyugh/Bone Wall/Scavenger buffing.

Okay enough about that, time for one of my new ideas.

Ethereal Thief
Cost: 4 Aether (upgraded: 6 Aether)
Stats: 1/3 (upgraded: 3/4)
Ability: Ether Theft: When Ethereal Thief attacks he will steal 1 to 3 quanta from your opponent and give you 1 Aether quanta.
Ability Upgraded: Steal: Cost 2 Steal the target permanent from your opponent. 50% chance this will fail and you will return with only quanta.

Upgraded Ability Note: There should be a 50/50 chance that the steal is successful, maybe less. If the steal fails then the Thief gives you 1 Aether Quanta, if the steal works, you get the Permanent you chose to steal.

Reasoning: Aether has no specific permanent control, seemingly to focus more on creature control (lobotomize, lightning etc). Also, the Aether cards for the most part cost a lot of quanta, meaning you would have to go pretty pillar-heavy to play a monodeck. This card would give you some flexibility.

[Lanidrak]

[moved]

I moved the Quantum Mechanic examples to it's own thread.

[Lanidrak]

edit: added artwork for Skeleton Captain, courtesy of vrt!

[bobcamel]

Lol just your own posts here

The Skeleton Captain, although suggested over and over, is a nice card. This, coupled with the fact that even Elite Eclipse Skeletons won't go over 3 HP, keeps Rain of  a viable option. And they do need a damage boost. Let's give this card to Incarnate as well.

Ethereal Thief - yes, Aether would be a better element, especially seeing as the name is there already. Draining 3 quanta is a bit much, though - against a non-Rainbow, having like just four, not even six, of those generally means negative quantum balance for the enemy with all his pillars existent. Attach some Quicksand and Earthmark to it and you have Darkness/Earth denail, just with three times the drain. Aside from that, great.

[coinich]

I like Skellie Captain here, but my opinion is that he's slightly more powerful than I would want.  Not OP, but overpowered in the sense that I'd want a -2/-1 to him with a -2 to playing cost.

[Scaredgirl]

This card has one big problem that I see over and over again on this forum. If you use this card in your deck you have to have skeletons.

It a problem in deckbuilding because it limits your options dramatically. You don't have Skeleton Captain with Frogs, you don't have Skeleton Captain with Photons, you always have Skeleton Captain with Skeletons.

If you look at the current cards in Elements, there are no cards that require you to have another specific card to be effective (at least none that I can think of), and that's what I like about Elements.

[Lanidrak]

This card has one big problem that I see over and over again on this forum. If you use this card in your deck you have to have skeletons.

True, I suppose. But maybe it is time for that to change? Give people choice in building a mono or duo deck that instead of being based around the only viable and popular combination of cards, give them  more choice.

For example, Firefly Queen and Mark of Light with Rustlers or a variation on the Air/Life + Firefly Queen strategy seems to be the most popular (and only) deck type involving any sort of serious involvement of the Air element.

Players who go for Fire have only really the option of Crimson Dragons, Lava Golems, and other heavy hitters and lots of fire pillars, or a more eccentric Firebolt Deck with Immolation and Fahrenheit.

I used Death as my example as it already has Poison (most commonly a speed poison deck with water for Chrysaora's). Death also has some really powerful defensive capabilities (Bone Wall) aswell as some, kind of useful necromantic powers (Vulture with Scavenger) and the obvious one (Skeletons / Bone Yard).

Simply as their is more and more game content, we want people to have more freedom in how they structure their deck. Ultimately, I want to see more power given to mono and duo decks, because right now Rainbow reigns supreme. If there are more cards per element implemented, then when you come up against a player with the Death mark, you might be expecting poison and you might get Skeletons and Captains against you. If you come up against a Gravity or Earth mark you have a fair idea that he's going to have Otyughs, Earthquakes, Gravity Pulls maybe Armaggio's and Earth Skins.

Hopefully this has explained (in a bit too much detail I think) why I personally like this card so much (and therefore, am willing to argue it's case!)

Lol just your own posts here

Haha yep... I posted this under a different name yesterday with another card: Quantum Mechanic - but the Mechanic card was so complicated that I had to post examples and further explanations on a separate post, replying to my original one. Needless to say I moved the Quantum Mechanic to his own thread and then had the problem of my two posts...

I like Skellie Captain here, but my opinion is that he's slightly more powerful than I would want.  Not OP, but overpowered in the sense that I'd want a -2/-1 to him with a -2 to playing cost.

Noted.

The cost and stats of him are high because by the time you start getting a lot of skeletons on the table (usually through your opponent putting lots of creatures out, or your Aflatoxin filling his side with Malignant Cells) you will start having a surplus of Death quanta. So much so that casting this guy at 6 Death Quanta is not such a big problem. I kept his cost high also to reflect the fact that he can potentially mean +29 damage to your opponent (your board filled almost entirely with Skeletons), and also, his defensive stats are high to protect from most Creature Control cards, Firebolt/Icebolt/Life Drain/Lightning Bolt... the only particular threat to him is an Otyugh which has whetted it's appetite on your skeletons already.

[jmizzle7]

[off-topic]
Funny. I didn't peg you as a well-dressed black man, Lanidrak.
[/off-topic]

SG, there is already a card that requires other cards to be effective: Boneyard. True, it doesn't require a specific other card, but without anything that kills creatures, Boneyard is absolutely useless.

[Scaredgirl]

True, I suppose. But maybe it is time for that to change? Give people choice in building a mono or duo deck that instead of being based around the only viable and popular combination of cards, give them  more choice.

My point was that cards like this one do the exact opposite, they give less choice because you always have to have those Skeletons. It's like a package deal that seriously limits deck building.

Just think if Scarab was the only creature that Anubis could make immortal, and his ability didn't have any effect on other creatures. Would that be a good thing? Same hand-in-hand thing applies to Skeleton Captain and Skeletons.

Right now no card in the game requires another specific card to be effective and I'm hoping it will stay that way.

There are better ways to give mono decks more power. Most logical way is to make high cost cards more powerful because the power of mono-decks is that they can acquire one type of quantum fast. Unfortunately for mono-deck most high cost creatures like dragons don't even have abilities!

SG, there is already a card that requires other cards to be effective: Boneyard. True, it doesn't require a specific other card, but without anything that kills creatures, Boneyard is absolutely useless.

Boneyard is a totally different thing. There a dozens of ways to kill creatures or have your own creatures killed, all of which trigger Boneyard. If I build a deck starting from Boneyards, I have many options available and there is no other card that I have to have.

[YoYoBro]

I fully agree with SG. This card is limited to a 2-cards-combo (boneyard/skeletons as standalones, which are not used anyway). Maybe you should just change it to "to all death creatures" (even though we already have eclypse).

[Lanidrak]

Couldn't be bothered quoting everyones individual sentences and then doing a Frankenstein-post in reply to you all...

@Jmizzle7s offtopic remark.

hahaha... firstly, he's Asian... secondly, it's Oddjob! But thanks, making me laugh is not easy .

@SG and jMizz, regarding useless card 'boneyard'...

Okay, so boneyard isn't useless because there are a variety of cards which can kill creatures. Still, you need to include these cards in your deck to trigger boneyards effect - and what then? you get a 1/1 skeleton which only purpose in the game so far is to
1) Feed your Otyughs
2) Buff your Bonewall
3) Fodder for Improved Mutation from a Fallen Druid
4) Damage your opponent (1 damage? come on, who plays Deja Vu's and Parallel Universes...)
5) Feed your Scavenger (what PvP-player would be dumb enough to kill all your skeletons without first lobotomizing your vulture or killing or reversing it first - that's what 3/4 cards?)

And for those of you with a keener eye will notice that a Rainbow Deck does 3 of these things. Feeding Otyughs, Buffing Bonewall and Mutation Fodder... Each combination of which requires:
1 Otyugh + 1 Boneyard + atleast 1 or more Creature Control Cards (Gravity, Fire, Death)
1 Otyugh + 1 Boneyard + 1 Bonewall + atleast 1 or more Creature Cont. (Death, Gravity, Fire)
1 Fallen Druid + Boneyard + atleast 1 or more Creature Control Cards (Entropy, Life, Death, Fire)


I'm sorry if I'm laboring the point and not backing down when you are most likely right (it is late here and I'm off to bed, so don't expect my final reply of today to completely change your minds)

I feel that you are thinking of this card simply in isolation. Admittedly it is a bit of a mono-duo specific deck, but think of the amount of time and thought that went into creating the Rainbow decks we have now? Surely the community can come up with bright ideas to use this and boneyard to good effect.

As for the 'in isolation'. We typically see cards implemented in 'batches'... 12 Nymph Cards, Precognition, Black Hole, Nymphs Tears and Basilisks Blood all going into the trainer at the same time.

There could be other cards giving more options for other mono/duo decks for other elements, this was just my example for Death - an element for me is already taking the first few steps to being an element with more than one option for a mono deck. What I tried to say in my previous post is that currently a mono earth deck is graboids, mark of time, and pillar denial. A mono-life typically see's lots of creatures and adrenaline with maybe some heals. So once you see his mark, or what pillars he plays in PvP you know exactly or with at lease some degree of certainty what his deck is all about...

The point I'm ultimately getting across is if each element had 2 or 3 paths to go down as for a mono deck. Ie. Death could be Necromancy (Boneyards, Eclipse, Skeleton Captains and Plagues), Death could be Poison (Arsenic, Aflatoxin, Poison etc) or maybe Death could be some kind of Lich (A combination of Icebolt, Freeze and Necromancy)...

It's just an idea after all, again sorry if i'm behaving like a pitbull that got hold of your jeans. good night