Nerf Bonewall

[Evil Hamster]

It's weakness is it can be destroyed without any permanent-affecting cards. You can save your steals/deflags for important cards like weapons and graveyards.

Worst case scenario- it's a speedbump. Just keep playing your deck like you would normally and it will fall. No strategy changes are needed to deal with it 95% of the time.

[wckz]

Yep, I usually ignore them. Also, I posted a counter argument in the other topic.

[RoKetha]

It's weakness is it can be destroyed without any permanent-affecting cards. You can save your steals/deflags for important cards like weapons and graveyards.

Worst case scenario- it's a speedbump. Just keep playing your deck like you would normally and it will fall. No strategy changes are needed to deal with it 95% of the time.

Uh-huh. You say that if you have FFQ or Boneyard and good creature control, and they don't have a Rain of Fire to wipe all that. If you have a small, fast deck with a few dragons for damage, or something with Growth/Ablaze? Yeah, right, that Bone Wall will hold forever. Doesn't matter if you keep four 51/51 forest spirits alive if they can kill two of their own fireflies or skeletons each turn. But hey, mass weenies doesn't always work either since they just stall with other means until they can play a Bone Wall and Rain of Fire on the same turn and suddenly have 40 shields.

[wckz]

It's weakness is it can be destroyed without any permanent-affecting cards. You can save your steals/deflags for important cards like weapons and graveyards.

Worst case scenario- it's a speedbump. Just keep playing your deck like you would normally and it will fall. No strategy changes are needed to deal with it 95% of the time.

Uh-huh. You say that if you have FFQ or Boneyard and good creature control, and they don't have a Rain of Fire to wipe all that. If you have a small, fast deck with a few dragons for damage, or something with Growth/Ablaze? Yeah, right, that Bone Wall will hold forever. Doesn't matter if you keep four 51/51 forest spirits alive if they can kill two of their own fireflies or skeletons each turn. But hey, mass weenies doesn't always work either since they just stall with other means until they can play a Bone Wall and Rain of Fire on the same turn and suddenly have 40 shields.

Both Bone Wall and Rain of Fire cost quite a bit, and forty shields isn't that big of a deal if you're a mass creature deck.

[Mathaos]

It's weakness is it can be destroyed without any permanent-affecting cards. You can save your steals/deflags for important cards like weapons and graveyards.

Worst case scenario- it's a speedbump. Just keep playing your deck like you would normally and it will fall. No strategy changes are needed to deal with it 95% of the time.

Uh-huh. You say that if you have FFQ or Boneyard and good creature control, and they don't have a Rain of Fire to wipe all that. If you have a small, fast deck with a few dragons for damage, or something with Growth/Ablaze? Yeah, right, that Bone Wall will hold forever. Doesn't matter if you keep four 51/51 forest spirits alive if they can kill two of their own fireflies or skeletons each turn. But hey, mass weenies doesn't always work either since they just stall with other means until they can play a Bone Wall and Rain of Fire on the same turn and suddenly have 40 shields.

Both Bone Wall and Rain of Fire cost quite a bit, and forty shields isn't that big of a deal if you're a mass creature deck.

But the point is no card should have only one counter. As it stands now, if you don't have a mass creature deck, if you face a bone wall, you will at best have a difficult time, and at the worst you are screwed. And face it, not everyone is going to want to play a mass creature deck.

I also do not agree with the contential that 'all' you have do do is save your deflags/steals and play them at once. I am all right with one card having the potential to tie up a few cards, but if you have to play 5+ cards just to deal with one, the card is not balanced. Because once you've played your deflags/steals your opponent can just play another one (and another, and another), and where are you then?

My suggestion is to implement one or more of the following:

1. Steal/Destruction type cards eliminate 3 Counters.
2. Bone Wall only gets counters from the destruction of opponent's creatures.
3. Bone Wall only gets one counter per creature kill.

Even if all of the above gets implemented (and I am not necessarily advocating all of them together, I think 1 plus either of 2 or 3 would do nicely), Bone Wall still remains quite potent and still keeps the potential of stonewalling the opponent, but it decreases the likelyhood that it alone will stop your opponent cold for the entire game.

[wckz]

It's weakness is it can be destroyed without any permanent-affecting cards. You can save your steals/deflags for important cards like weapons and graveyards.

Worst case scenario- it's a speedbump. Just keep playing your deck like you would normally and it will fall. No strategy changes are needed to deal with it 95% of the time.

Uh-huh. You say that if you have FFQ or Boneyard and good creature control, and they don't have a Rain of Fire to wipe all that. If you have a small, fast deck with a few dragons for damage, or something with Growth/Ablaze? Yeah, right, that Bone Wall will hold forever. Doesn't matter if you keep four 51/51 forest spirits alive if they can kill two of their own fireflies or skeletons each turn. But hey, mass weenies doesn't always work either since they just stall with other means until they can play a Bone Wall and Rain of Fire on the same turn and suddenly have 40 shields.

Both Bone Wall and Rain of Fire cost quite a bit, and forty shields isn't that big of a deal if you're a mass creature deck.

But the point is no card should have only one counter. As it stands now, if you don't have a mass creature deck, if you face a bone wall, you will at best have a difficult time, and at the worst you are screwed. And face it, not everyone is going to want to play a mass creature deck.

I also do not agree with the contential that 'all' you have do do is save your deflags/steals and play them at once. I am all right with one card having the potential to tie up a few cards, but if you have to play 5+ cards just to deal with one, the card is not balanced. Because once you've played your deflags/steals your opponent can just play another one (and another, and another), and where are you then?

My suggestion is to implement one or more of the following:

1. Steal/Destruction type cards eliminate 3 Counters.
2. Bone Wall only gets counters from the destruction of opponent's creatures.
3. Bone Wall only gets one counter per creature kill.

Even if all of the above gets implemented (and I am not necessarily advocating all of them together, I think 1 plus either of 2 or 3 would do nicely), Bone Wall still remains quite potent and still keeps the potential of stonewalling the opponent, but it decreases the likelyhood that it alone will stop your opponent cold for the entire game.

One counter...did you not read anything I wrote?

[RoKetha]

Gonna say this again: no shield should make you completely invincible. Phase Shield is probably too strong as well, but at least it can be destroyed. Bone Wall would be totally fine if it only blocked about 6 damage or one hit, whichever is less, per bone, because then both strong creatures and mass weenies can kill it.

And yeah, he read your list of counters which basically came down to "kill all his creatures and overwhelm him while he does absolutely nothing to prevent this because obviously the other player isn't actively doing anything." Yeah, you can PU an Oty and add another Heavy Armor if you're a rainbow. They can then congeal/bolt/gravity pull/reverse time/PU it right back at you. Or perhaps they saved an extra armor in case that happened. Or maybe they have an Eagle's Eye ready to start hitting it. Or maybe they had both that and a Fallen Elf that can immediately deal with it. No one's going to just roll over and die if you play one card everyone uses at them.

You didn't even mention the one real counter for it, Momentum, but I guess that's because it doesn't make a huge difference with Sundials.

[Daxx]

I imagine that unless Sundial falls out of favour soon we'll be seeing a lot more Deflagrate and permanent destruction in counter-decks; in my opinion decks which use momentum should (and can) be carrying those anyway.

[Geradi]

Phase Shield is probably too strong as well, but at least it can be destroyed.

It can be stolen, which can really become a problem, one of the biggest weaknesses of Mono Aether, since you really need your defence.

And yeah, he read your list of counters which basically came down to "kill all his creatures and overwhelm him while he does absolutely nothing to prevent this because obviously the other player isn't actively doing anything." Yeah, you can PU an Oty and add another Heavy Armor if you're a rainbow. They can then congeal/bolt/gravity pull/reverse time/PU it right back at you. Or perhaps they saved an extra armor in case that happened. Or maybe they have an Eagle's Eye ready to start hitting it. Or maybe they had both that and a Fallen Elf that can immediately deal with it. No one's going to just roll over and die if you play one card everyone uses at them.

I agree, and since it's not only the bonewall but the combination with some other cards (sparks, otyugh, virus) which can help to make the shield stronger, sundials which will make sure only the opponents weapon can attack. All the counters are quite naive.

You didn't even mention the one real counter for it, Momentum, but I guess that's because it doesn't make a huge difference with Sundials.

Like I said, sundials are the real problem, if your deck is not build for a delay strategy or have deflagration to destroy it, sundials will make sure you lose. Thats not really a bonewall problem, works great with dissapation shield too, which can be destroyed ore stolen though.

[wckz]

Ok, momentum counters all shields, and is really obvious. <--- Reason I didn't include it.
Also, I never really had problems facing bonewall with my dream deck o.o

[Kumlekar]

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).

The problem is nearly every one of the counter's you've suggested are negated with two rain of fires.

[Site Administrator]

Yes, but I've never seen a fire/death deck, I don't think. If they're playing rainbow, chances are you will lose anyway.