Have you ever seen this situation where the 2 players bring an Oty out early in the game and then nothing for 2/3 turns?
Both Otys, gazing into each other's eyes, just like in those old Italian westerns
In this case, I usually play the first non-vital creature that I draw (like a druid or a maxwell demon) and devour it myself. Most of the time, that's the key moment of the game cause my 1/6 Oty is now able to eat its 0/5 counterpart and nearly everything that comes next.
My point is:
Otyugh is an opening creature. Play it, make it grow quickly and it'll give you an immediate advantage on the battlefield.
Of course you can tell me that there are 10 million ways to counter a simple 1/6 oty and you would be right but those mechanics can be used against your opponent as well so they're not really meaningful "counters". Sometimes, there are even ways to counter the counters:
* your opponent freezes your Oty to prevent his from being devoured? Freeze his too to prevent him from growing.
* he ROFs you? ROF him too
Now I took Oty as an example, but I could use the same arguments with most weapons, with some other creatures like Anubis and with some spells like Protect Artifact. You must agree with me to say that there's no point, really, in protecting a stack of pillars after turn 20.
Some cards are designed to be played early in the game. That's a fact. And if both you and your opponent have the same key card,
the one that plays it first has the best chances to take an advantage over the other.
I know that theoretically, every correctly built deck CAN play any card on turn 2, but as SG pointed out before this game is all about statistics, not potential. I don't care if 1 time out of 100 I can play my Oty on turn 2. What really counts is this: "Am I able to play my Oty on turn 2 MORE OFTEN than my opponent" because that's were the real advantage is.
With all the tricks currently used by rainbow decks (supernovas and hasten ability to speed up own quantum generation, explosion and devourers to slow down enemies, and many more) they can nearly compete with mono and duo decks, even at the game opening. That's a serious problem because mono/duo decks have very little chances against rainbow in mid/end-game.
I can see 2 solution to balance this :
* increase the disadvantage of rainbow decks in the first few turns of the game. That would create a "rush vs turtle" situation well known by all RTS players. Mono/duo would be rushers: they have to win quickly or they're f***ed. Rainbow would be turtles: they'd try to survive long enough for their strong cards to come into play and then it's won.
* or make mono/duo decks stronger in end-game to have something balanced from the beginning to the end.
The game only needs one thing for the second option to be possible:
more content. Because what makes mono/duo decks weak end-game is their lack of diversity. With more choices in their element, they would have a chance to counter every key card that comes out of rainbow decks. For now, it's just impossible for them to compete.
Luckily for us, our experts in the "suggestion" forum explained that it was very easy for Zanzarino to create new cards and features. I guess we just have to wait for him to take 5 minutes to implement that.
Meanwhile, we can think about the first option: make rainbow weaker at opening. IMO, SG's suggestion to increase the cost of key cards is a very good way to achieve this. For now, if you play rainbow and have an Oty in your starting hand, you'll probably be able to summon it around turn 5/6. Most of the time, this delay isn't enough for your mono-Gravity opponent to make his own Oty grow and take the advantage over you. A higher card cost would increase this delay even more and it's a good thing. Rainbow decks would still be able to play a 10 gravity Oty. They would just do it later which is exactly what we want.
It's just sad to notice that this solution is very complicated. Doing this in my trainers takes my more than 15 minutes!
To conclude this long post, let me explain why Miracle is a bad example IMO:
it's not an opening card. Very few speed decks can kill you in less than 5 turns and in most cases you won't have to cast Miracle before turn 8/10. At this point, even rainbow decks have enough quantums to cast expensive spells so the cost isn't really a problem. Even a 20 light Miracle would probably interest some people whereas a 10 gravity Oty or a 12 time Anubis would make many people hesitate seriously.
