Nerf Bonewall

[Levgre]

I think elements would have a lot more variety in decks if the bonewall was nerfed.  As is, out of the thousands of possible deck combinations, the bonewall can go far in stopping 90+% of them if it is used correctly. Almost all the shields have different strengths and weaknesses, however the bonewall really doesn't have any weakness... it's the most powerful card in the game for preventing damage.

1.  It's not targetable by deflag or steal.  Using steal or deflag takes away only 1 of the 7 bones, or 14%.
So Bonewall is 1 of 3 shields that cannot be targeted, along with jade shield and the (bad) reflective shield.

2.  It has 100% damage prevention.  Only three walls have this, phase shield, dissipation field, bonewall (but phase shield and diss shield are both targetable).  Dusk shield completely negates attacks 50% of the time, but that is only half as good in this regard.  100% damage prevention has the powerful effect of making the player immune to discord, vampire dagger, and arsenic, and also the ability to stop creatures completely regardless of how powerful they are.

3.  It's cost is high, but not really a balancing drawback.  The time, darkness, and aether shields all cost 6, the less powerful shields are 3 or 4.  But since you can only use one shield anyways, cost is usually not an issue, and the upgraded bonewall only costs 5.  Basically, it's not that hard to get out.

4.  How it is designed, the longevity is supposed to be low.  If someone does get lots of creatures out, it can only last a single turn (then again, as a worst case scenario that's not too bad, considering you could still prevent as much damage as a many of the shields would in 3-4 turns).

However, creatures are one of the must vulnerable cards in the game, especially lower cost creatures (and to take the bonewall out fast, you usually need low cost creatures, or it will stop strong creatures and weapons for usually at least 3-4 turns, or as good as an untargetable phase shield).



Anyways, I think it'd be hard to argue the bonewall isn't super powerful.  Most of the current dominant decks use it, and the bonewall/sundial combo is especially powerful.

It has to be weakened in some way, if the same card design is to be used, perhaps each wall segment would just reduce damage by 4 (which is still pretty nice, as it is still untargetable).  As is, it is overpowered.  The phase shield is op'd too, but at least it has an easy way around it, unlike the bonewall.

[Geradi]

Bonewall is one of the strongest shields, but I guess it's really more the sundial combo that makes things overpowered. Many other cards get a real boost ot of the sundial as well.

Sundial should be limited to ONE per deck.

[Mikhail Mengsk]

Bone Wall can't be stolen? 

[oaky180]

Bone Wall can't be stolen? 

one wall can be stolen
then you are left with fighting 6 walls still

[Tahamed]

Bone wall does have weaknesses. If you have alot of creatures it will just get destroyed. Simple as that.

But WITH Sundial and something to destroy creatures such as Lightning and Otyugh, then it is really strong. But that's what's called STRATEGY.

So I guess you will just have to find a way to get past it. It's really not that hard...

The best thing to do when your opponent summons a bone wall and you don't have too much creatures, just summon a shield of your own such as Dissipation so your opponent's creatures won't hit you and you can wait for like 3 turns for the bone wall to get destroyed. (It'd be good to have a back-up in case your opponent steals or destroys it)

[Levgre]

Bone wall does have weaknesses. If you have alot of creatures it will just get destroyed. Simple as that.

But WITH Sundial and something to destroy creatures such as Lightning and Otyugh, then it is really strong. But that's what's called STRATEGY.

Killing creatures isn't too much 'strategy', it's not some complex combo or deck theme.  Killing creatures is a basic part of the game which grants an advantage on its own, and then the bonewall sweetens the deal.

And you said weaknesses in plural, yet only named one weakness.  Is there any other powerful card in the game that has only one weakness?

The best thing to do when your opponent summons a bone wall and you don't have too much creatures, just summon a shield of your own such as Dissipation so your opponent's creatures won't hit you and you can wait for like 3 turns for the bone wall to get destroyed. (It'd be good to have a back-up in case your opponent steals or destroys it)

Yeah, if you are playing a dumb AI, playing a dissipation field may be a valid counter versus the bonewall.  I am talking more about pvp games, it is quite easy to destroy AIs bonewall, but a smart human won't put out the bonewall until they need to, or can protect it. Against a player you need 'creatures', which are then kill-able. 

[Geradi]

Bone wall does have weaknesses. If you have alot of creatures it will just get destroyed. Simple as that.

But WITH Sundial and something to destroy creatures such as Lightning and Otyugh, then it is really strong. But that's what's called STRATEGY.

Spamming sundials is called strategy now?

A bone shield can stand forever like that. If the oppnent is using a similar sundial based strategy, he might have a chance, otherwise he will be overrun whenever the sundial player thinks he is ready. I don't like the development, bone wall is ok, sundial is not.

[Cisco]

yeah I´m using this combo and it´s pretty strong. bonewall is ok sundial will have to get nerfed sooner or later as it is way to powerfull for it´s cost.

[RoKetha]

Stealing Bone Wall actually is more effective than you'd think if they've played Sundial... because anything they kill will fuel your Bone Wall too. Depending on your deck type it can work in your favor, like if you think you can get out creatures faster than they can.

Bone Wall really should only block the first 5 damage per bone or something though, so it doesn't take a weenie army to kill it that's totally susceptible to mass death.

[wckz]

Bone wall does have weaknesses. If you have alot of creatures it will just get destroyed. Simple as that.

But WITH Sundial and something to destroy creatures such as Lightning and Otyugh, then it is really strong. But that's what's called STRATEGY.

Spamming sundials is called strategy now?

A bone shield can stand forever like that. If the oppnent is using a similar sundial based strategy, he might have a chance, otherwise he will be overrun whenever the sundial player thinks he is ready. I don't like the development, bone wall is ok, sundial is not.

1st of all: Spamming sundials is an easy way to waste them.
2nd of all: I shall name some bonewall weaknesses.

1st weakness: Summon creatures and wait, it will fall...and as it's damage inconsiderate, even with photons that cost nothing to summon will obliterate it
2nd weakness: Boneyards completely negate it (Example: He destroys your creatures, more skeletons pop up and obliterate his walls)
3rd weakness: FFQs (After Turn 1: 1 wall taken down, Turn 2: 3 walls taken down total, Turn 3: 6 walls taken down total, Turn 4: 10 walls taken down total, Turn 5: 15 walls taken down total) <--- With just 1 FFQ and a few life quantums
4th weakness: Doesn't matter how many walls are up, if you kill their creatures, it will fall (just don't deck out by drawing like a maniac)
5th weakness: Stealing works better than most people think (Have one bonewall up, then use spells or otyughs or mutants to destroy his army. You will likely only be a few bonewalls short of him, but as his creatures are gone, you can just batter away at his wall.) (I won against a 25 bonewall disadvantage this way.)
6th weakness: More costly than other shields, so depriving the enemies of quantum works very well against this, especially against rainbow decks that don't have death pillars (Use devourers, earthquakes, defragrations, pulverizer, etc.)
7th weakness: Pulverizers (As the wall blocks weapons as well as creatures, the pulverizer can destroy 2 walls every turn, and in four turns, the wall is gone [Not including creatures on the field, and this also works during stasis (sundial's automatic effect)])

These are some weaknesses that took very little time to think about, so there are probably more. Even if there aren't, 7 weaknesses is pretty easy to exploit.

Sundials + Bonewalls

Who says stasis can't work in your favor?

If you have otyughs, mindflayers, lobotomizers, lava golems, boneyards, fallen elves/druids, low quanta, dissapation shield/field, devourers, fate eggs, FFQs, Forest Spirits,  hourglasses, etc, stasis time can be very beneficial to you. While they hide behind a sundial, you can take advantage of this by using abilities activated every turn. This can give you super buffed creatures with high attacks and strange abilities, destroy his army/make it useless, create an army that will instantly destroy his bonewall, gather quanta for cards like miracle/dragons, or give you enough quanta to hide behind a dis. shield/field (If added with an encahnt artifact, it can make you nearly invincible while his shield only protects him for a turn or two).

[Site Administrator]

It'd be good to have a back-up in case your opponent steals or destroys it

If they steal your shield, they lose the bonewall, which kinda lessens the problem a bit.

[Levgre]

Bone wall does have weaknesses. If you have alot of creatures it will just get destroyed. Simple as that.

But WITH Sundial and something to destroy creatures such as Lightning and Otyugh, then it is really strong. But that's what's called STRATEGY.

Spamming sundials is called strategy now?

A bone shield can stand forever like that. If the oppnent is using a similar sundial based strategy, he might have a chance, otherwise he will be overrun whenever the sundial player thinks he is ready. I don't like the development, bone wall is ok, sundial is not.

1st of all: Spamming sundials is an easy way to waste them.
2nd of all: I shall name some bonewall weaknesses.

1st weakness: Summon creatures and wait, it will fall...and as it's damage inconsiderate, even with photons that cost nothing to summon will obliterate it
2nd weakness: Boneyards completely negate it (Example: He destroys your creatures, more skeletons pop up and obliterate his walls)
3rd weakness: FFQs (After Turn 1: 1 wall taken down, Turn 2: 3 walls taken down total, Turn 3: 6 walls taken down total, Turn 4: 10 walls taken down total, Turn 5: 15 walls taken down total) <--- With just 1 FFQ and a few life quantums
All those creatures are easy to kill, furthermore a smart player will notice you use lots of small creatures and take the damage for awhile

4th weakness: Doesn't matter how many walls are up, if you kill their creatures, it will fall (just don't deck out by drawing like a maniac)
if you kill the creatures of basically any deck with any wall, won't they die?  I don't think this is a bonewall defense, no wall wins on their own.  But by killing their creatures, you do give them more time, since the bonewall grows
5th weakness: Stealing works better than most people think (Have one bonewall up, then use spells or otyughs or mutants to destroy his army. You will likely only be a few bonewalls short of him, but as his creatures are gone, you can just batter away at his wall.) (I won against a 25 bonewall disadvantage this way.)
against most other walls, you'd completely do away with their defense and take it for your own... again, the bonewall still works better
6th weakness: More costly than other shields, so depriving the enemies of quantum works very well against this, especially against rainbow decks that don't have death pillars (Use devourers, earthquakes, defragrations, pulverizer, etc.)it's 1 more than other powerful shields
7th weakness: Pulverizers (As the wall blocks weapons as well as creatures, the pulverizer can destroy 2 walls every turn, and in four turns, the wall is gone [Not including creatures on the field, and this also works during stasis (sundial's automatic effect)])
I don't think you can say bonewall is 'weak' against pulverizer, when most other walls are completely destroyed by pulverizer

These are some weaknesses that took very little time to think about, so there are probably more. Even if there aren't, 7 weaknesses is pretty easy to exploit.

I never said bonewall was invulnerable, of course there are ways to get around it... but I don't think you've mentioned big 'weaknesses', per se, just strategies to deal with the bonewall, while most other walls hardly even need strategy to get around them.