More Draw Options

[coinich]

One thing I would like to see is a few more draw options in this game; I'm not sure it should be limited just to Time, though I have no problem if they have some of the best.  Here's a few ideas I had for some other draw cards:

Light:

Illuminating Burst/Illuminating Rays:

Burst: 3 Light Quanta, draw the first three cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.
Rays: 5 Light Quanta, draw the first five cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.

Air:

Winds of Knowledge/Winds of Knowledge (Elite):

Knowledge: 1 Air Quanta, draw two cards
Knowledge (Elite): 0 Quanta, draw two cards

Fire:

Blazing Flames/Clearing Flames:

Blazing: 2 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.
Clearing: 1 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.

Darkness:

Deepest Secrets/Darkest Secrets:

Deepest: 2 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 3 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.
Darkest: 4 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 6 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.

Death:

Sacrificial Offering/Sacrificial Altar:

Offering: 4 Death Quanta, discard one of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being that creature's (attack + defence) / 2.
Altar: 3 Death Quanta, discard up to two of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being the creatures' (total attack + total defense) / 2.

Aether:

Transdimensional Message/Transdimensional Knowledge:

Message: 2 Aether Quanta, Discard 1 card in your hand.  Search your deck for 1 card and put it into your hand.
Knowledge: 2 Any Quanta, Discard 2 cards in your hand.  Search your deck for up to 2 cards and put them into your hand.

Earth:

Rupture/Eruption:

Rupture: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 2 cards.
Eruption: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 1 cards.

Life:

Growth/Overgrowth:

Growth: X Life Quanta, draw X / 2 cards.
Overgrowth: All Life Quanta, draw 4 cards.

Gravity:

Vortex/Gravity Well:

Vortex: 1 Gravity Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw two cards.
Gravity Well:  1 Any Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw three cards.

Entropy:

Maxwell's Gambit/Maxwell's Doom:

Gambit: 2 Entropy Quanta, 1 card is randomly discarded from your hand, draw 2 cards.
Bond: 3 Entropy Quanta, discard your entire hand.  Draw 5 cards.  This cannot be used unless at least 2 other cards are discarded.

Water:

Seas of Infinity/Seas of Infinity (Elite):

Infinity: 1 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 1 card.
Infinity (Elite): 2 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 2 cards.

Time:

Book of Ages/Book of Time:

Ages: 3 Time Quanta, search your deck for a card and put it into your hand.
Time: 5 Time Quanta, search your deck for two cards, and put them into your hand.

The basic idea behind these cards (all Instants) is to give some of the other options some draw power, while still giving Time an advantage in this area.  I tried to make it somewhat fair/balanced, but some of the ideas/costs are a bit convoluted; I hope that isn't too difficult to feasibly make.  The two options are normal/upgraded.  I also tried to give each element a unique method of drawing or cost, so that what works for one person won't work for another, but they still have a different, workable option.  I also tried to somewhat integrate it with each element's "lore" or focus; Death for example has to sacrifice creatures to draw.  Does anyone have any other suggestions or changes?

[bobcamel]

1. Maxwell has nothing to do with Entropy. Almost. He just said that if you made an energyless thing that only lets fast particles pass in one direction through a hole, then the thing with a hole would move even though no force is used, what is a Paradox. And the energyless thing was called a Demon.

2. Those are pretty nice, just... I don't like the discardings. Couldn't those that discard put the cards on the very back of deck?

[Demongod]

One thing I would like to see is a few more draw options in this game; I'm not sure it should be limited just to Time, though I have no problem if they have some of the best.  Here's a few ideas I had for some other draw cards:

Light:

Illuminating Burst/Illuminating Rays:

Burst: 3 Light Quanta, draw the first three cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.
Rays: 5 Light Quanta, draw the first five cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.

Air:

Winds of Knowledge/Winds of Knowledge (Elite):

Knowledge: 1 Air Quanta, draw two cards
Knowledge (Elite): 0 Quanta, draw two cards

Fire:

Blazing Flames/Clearing Flames:

Blazing: 2 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.
Clearing: 1 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.

Darkness:

Deepest Secrets/Darkest Secrets:

Deepest: 2 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 3 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.
Darkest: 4 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 6 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.

Death:

Sacrificial Offering/Sacrificial Altar:

Offering: 4 Death Quanta, discard one of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being that creature's (attack + defence) / 2.
Altar: 3 Death Quanta, discard up to two of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being the creatures' (total attack + total defense) / 2.

Aether:

Transdimensional Message/Transdimensional Knowledge:

Message: 2 Aether Quanta, Discard 1 card in your hand.  Search your deck for 1 card and put it into your hand.
Knowledge: 2 Any Quanta, Discard 2 cards in your hand.  Search your deck for up to 2 cards and put them into your hand.

Earth:

Rupture/Eruption:

Rupture: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 2 cards.
Eruption: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 1 cards.

Life:

Growth/Overgrowth:

Growth: X Life Quanta, draw X / 2 cards.
Overgrowth: All Life Quanta, draw 4 cards.

Gravity:

Vortex/Gravity Well:

Vortex: 1 Gravity Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw two cards.
Gravity Well:  1 Any Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw three cards.

Entropy:

Maxwell's Gambit/Maxwell's Doom:

Gambit: 2 Entropy Quanta, 1 card is randomly discarded from your hand, draw 2 cards.
Bond: 3 Entropy Quanta, discard your entire hand.  Draw 5 cards.  This cannot be used unless at least 2 other cards are discarded.

Water:

Seas of Infinity/Seas of Infinity (Elite):

Infinity: 1 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 1 card.
Infinity (Elite): 2 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 2 cards.

Time:

Book of Ages/Book of Time:

Ages: 3 Time Quanta, search your deck for a card and put it into your hand.
Time: 5 Time Quanta, search your deck for two cards, and put them into your hand.

The basic idea behind these cards (all Instants) is to give some of the other options some draw power, while still giving Time an advantage in this area.  I tried to make it somewhat fair/balanced, but some of the ideas/costs are a bit convoluted; I hope that isn't too difficult to feasibly make.  The two options are normal/upgraded.  I also tried to give each element a unique method of drawing or cost, so that what works for one person won't work for another, but they still have a different, workable option.  I also tried to somewhat integrate it with each element's "lore" or focus; Death for example has to sacrifice creatures to draw.  Does anyone have any other suggestions or changes?

Light: You better have a dedicated light deck to use this.  And it's not even that good.  Plus...IT HAS SUNDIALS.
Knowledge: FREE CARDS!  In a 60 card deck, this means you're running a 54 card deck with 12 free cards.  Wow.  This would open so many strategies it's insane!
Blazing Flames: Meh.  Not hot on this.  If there was some sort of mechanic that did things when you discarded cards, this would be good.  But in the current environment?  Meh.
Darkness: I guess you can structure a deck around the unupgraded version by tutoring for things like explosions or that one pulverizer in your deck or something...but I think it'd be a case of jumping through hoops to use this.
Death: May be interesting as some sort of play with ivory dragon when you're running an otherwise poison/infection deck.  This may allow mono-death to take off using improved plagues, retroviruses, condors, bonewalls, and the like.  Drop your hand, drop ivory dragon, sack it, refill your hand, keep going.  Opens up some strategies for mono-death.
Aether: May be interesting later on, when you have enough mana to be able to discard towers and such.  Still not particularly amazing IMO.
Earth: It'd sure be one of the more complex cards coded, that's for certain.  Plus, IMO it's really bad.
Growth: You'd have to be utterly retarded to ever upgrade this.  Furthermore, it also would be more complex than any card coded right now.  And finally, there are better things to do with life mana unless you're running a deck heavily packing on the green mana.
Vortex: So you've played cards that you deliberately want to stay on the field, and now you're destroying them?  I can see this perhaps because you can replace your Titan or shield or something or maybe you've accumulated a ton of mana, but once again, this is really situational if not real bad.
Entropy: The unupgraded one is like a bad wind version.  Get down to one card, use this so you have nothing to discard, play whatever you draw.  The upgraded one due to the stipulation is just horrible.  The point of "discard then draw" cards is to get your hand cleared so you can discard nothing.
Infinity: Interesting.  Has its uses in fixing a bad hand.
Time: Already has hourglass.  That said, you can tutor for the Anubis.

Overall: Not every color should have draw.  Frankly, light and time, being this game's control colors having draw makes sense.  Aggressive colors such as Death and Fire have no business drawing cards.  Why?  Because that's what you call balance.  The weakness of aggressive decks is that if you manage to survive their rushdown that you should have a shot at recovering.  Plus, if you really want to win that way, you can always splash another color.

[coinich]

1. Maxwell has nothing to do with Entropy. Almost. He just said that if you made an energyless thing that only lets fast particles pass in one direction through a hole, then the thing with a hole would move even though no force is used, what is a Paradox. And the energyless thing was called a Demon.

2. Those are pretty nice, just... I don't like the discardings. Couldn't those that discard put the cards on the very back of deck?

Ah, I was kinda hoping Maxwell was a character made up for the game, and it was only a passing reference to him.  Ooops. 

I kinda prefer the discards; it gives certain cards an inherent cost.  If you don't want to discard, choose another.  There's 12 for a reason.    That, and a few do shuffle cards back in, I think.

One thing I would like to see is a few more draw options in this game; I'm not sure it should be limited just to Time, though I have no problem if they have some of the best.  Here's a few ideas I had for some other draw cards:

Light:

Illuminating Burst/Illuminating Rays:

Burst: 3 Light Quanta, draw the first three cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.
Rays: 5 Light Quanta, draw the first five cards from your deck.  Keep 1, shuffle the rest back in.

Air:

Winds of Knowledge/Winds of Knowledge (Elite):

Knowledge: 1 Air Quanta, draw two cards
Knowledge (Elite): 0 Quanta, draw two cards

Fire:

Blazing Flames/Clearing Flames:

Blazing: 2 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.
Clearing: 1 Fire Quanta, draw a card.  If you don't want to keep it, discard and draw again.  If you want to keep it, don't draw any more cards.

Darkness:

Deepest Secrets/Darkest Secrets:

Deepest: 2 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 3 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.
Darkest: 4 Darkness Quanta, search your deck for any card with a cost less than 6 quanta.  Put that card into your hand.

Death:

Sacrificial Offering/Sacrificial Altar:

Offering: 4 Death Quanta, discard one of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being that creature's (attack + defence) / 2.
Altar: 3 Death Quanta, discard up to two of your creatures.  Draw X number of cards, X being the creatures' (total attack + total defense) / 2.

Aether:

Transdimensional Message/Transdimensional Knowledge:

Message: 2 Aether Quanta, Discard 1 card in your hand.  Search your deck for 1 card and put it into your hand.
Knowledge: 2 Any Quanta, Discard 2 cards in your hand.  Search your deck for up to 2 cards and put them into your hand.

Earth:

Rupture/Eruption:

Rupture: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 2 cards.
Eruption: 3 Earth Quanta, discard X number of cards from your hand.  Draw X - 1 cards.

Life:

Growth/Overgrowth:

Growth: X Life Quanta, draw X / 2 cards.
Overgrowth: All Life Quanta, draw 4 cards.

Gravity:

Vortex/Gravity Well:

Vortex: 1 Gravity Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw two cards.
Gravity Well:  1 Any Quanta, Discard two of your permanents on the field.  Draw three cards.

Entropy:

Maxwell's Gambit/Maxwell's Doom:

Gambit: 2 Entropy Quanta, 1 card is randomly discarded from your hand, draw 2 cards.
Bond: 3 Entropy Quanta, discard your entire hand.  Draw 5 cards.  This cannot be used unless at least 2 other cards are discarded.

Water:

Seas of Infinity/Seas of Infinity (Elite):

Infinity: 1 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 1 card.
Infinity (Elite): 2 Water Quanta, shuffle two cards into your deck, and draw 2 cards.

Time:

Book of Ages/Book of Time:

Ages: 3 Time Quanta, search your deck for a card and put it into your hand.
Time: 5 Time Quanta, search your deck for two cards, and put them into your hand.

The basic idea behind these cards (all Instants) is to give some of the other options some draw power, while still giving Time an advantage in this area.  I tried to make it somewhat fair/balanced, but some of the ideas/costs are a bit convoluted; I hope that isn't too difficult to feasibly make.  The two options are normal/upgraded.  I also tried to give each element a unique method of drawing or cost, so that what works for one person won't work for another, but they still have a different, workable option.  I also tried to somewhat integrate it with each element's "lore" or focus; Death for example has to sacrifice creatures to draw.  Does anyone have any other suggestions or changes?

Light: You better have a dedicated light deck to use this.  And it's not even that good.  Plus...IT HAS SUNDIALS.
Knowledge: FREE CARDS!  In a 60 card deck, this means you're running a 54 card deck with 12 free cards.  Wow.  This would open so many strategies it's insane!
Blazing Flames: Meh.  Not hot on this.  If there was some sort of mechanic that did things when you discarded cards, this would be good.  But in the current environment?  Meh.
Darkness: I guess you can structure a deck around the unupgraded version by tutoring for things like explosions or that one pulverizer in your deck or something...but I think it'd be a case of jumping through hoops to use this.
Death: May be interesting as some sort of play with ivory dragon when you're running an otherwise poison/infection deck.  This may allow mono-death to take off using improved plagues, retroviruses, condors, bonewalls, and the like.  Drop your hand, drop ivory dragon, sack it, refill your hand, keep going.  Opens up some strategies for mono-death.
Aether: May be interesting later on, when you have enough mana to be able to discard towers and such.  Still not particularly amazing IMO.
Earth: It'd sure be one of the more complex cards coded, that's for certain.  Plus, IMO it's really bad.
Growth: You'd have to be utterly retarded to ever upgrade this.  Furthermore, it also would be more complex than any card coded right now.  And finally, there are better things to do with life mana unless you're running a deck heavily packing on the green mana.
Vortex: So you've played cards that you deliberately want to stay on the field, and now you're destroying them?  I can see this perhaps because you can replace your Titan or shield or something or maybe you've accumulated a ton of mana, but once again, this is really situational if not real bad.
Entropy: The unupgraded one is like a bad wind version.  Get down to one card, use this so you have nothing to discard, play whatever you draw.  The upgraded one due to the stipulation is just horrible.  The point of "discard then draw" cards is to get your hand cleared so you can discard nothing.
Infinity: Interesting.  Has its uses in fixing a bad hand.
Time: Already has hourglass.  That said, you can tutor for the Anubis.

Overall: Not every color should have draw.  Frankly, light and time, being this game's control colors having draw makes sense.  Aggressive colors such as Death and Fire have no business drawing cards.  Why?  Because that's what you call balance.  The weakness of aggressive decks is that if you manage to survive their rushdown that you should have a shot at recovering.  Plus, if you really want to win that way, you can always splash another color.

Light:  Yeah, I guess you are right there.  You think a 2/4 arrangement would be better?

Air:  Thats the point; I hope to expand strategies with this.  Hopefully these cards can make the game a bit more open to experimentation or wild gambits.

Fire: I suppose you are right, but it does allow you to quickly search your deck, just for a cost.

Darkness:  Do you think changing the costs to a 2/2 Any would make the card better?

Death:  Good, I really want to open strategies, especially with mono or dual color decks.

Aether:  I was afraid these would be OP.  Any card in your deck, instant access?  Imagine getting that Phase Shield exactly when you need it, or the Eternity lurking towards the bottom.

Earth:  This isn't one of my favorites; I'm certainly open to suggestions on what they could have.

Life:  On second thought, I see exactly what you are saying.  I suppose a better upgraded version would read: choose X Quanta; draw X cards.

Gravity:  Yeah, that does seem strange now that I think of it.  Maybe a toned down return one permanent into your deck and draw 2 for Vortex.

Entropy:  I thought that the random discard would compliment the chaotic part of Entropy well.  Even then, it is a really bad version of the Air card.  Any suggestions?

Overall, I just wanted to give each color a bit of a mechanic so that they could attempt to go solo, or end up well in a duo; thats the reason for each element getting its unique draw card.  None of these were particularly meant to work with Rainbow style decks, though I'm sure a few would go well.  I suppose its the old environment I'm used to; I loved the old Pokemon TCG years ago, and I'm very used to the 60 card mono/dual style play.

[smallfishnova]

First, I understand you want to make mono-element deck more playable. However, most of the cards you suggested are too powerful when compare to the card in the game. The only draw card spell in this game now is: hourglass(pure time) and sundial(Time/Light or pure Light). And the card you give time is even more powerful than the hourglass.

Some elements must not have card draw at all since they preform well in the beginning and then calm down, while some needs to wait and develop in order to preform well.

The most powerful mechanism in a card game is gaining card advantages. It can do in many ways. Please now that a steal gives you 1 card advantage and a explosive give you 0 card advantage.

So, unless the hourglass use its ability 2 times, it don't generate any card advantage at all. It needs 3 turn and 5 Time to draw 2 cards by a spell.

For cards you suggest, only the Aether, Gravity and the Earth card generates card disvantage. While others are keeping 0 to +ve card advantage which suppose Time should be the best at.

Some spell are too overpowered, i have to say. If the card is so good that everyone should put in any deck. I think it is not a good design.

Light: OK. While Light should have ability to draw as sundial suggest.

Air: Too powerful. Especially the upgraded version which every deck can use. Really free card. For a 30 card deck, 6 for this would compress your deck into 18, and you start with 7 or 8 being act 2nd. 1 or 2 cost means that it can be used by a mark (i am talking trio/duo deck) to use it. If you want mono-deck to use only. I suggest having a higher cost. Said 10 Air for the unupgraded version.

Fire: The effect is just a searching effect with a little draw-back which is easier to draw out.
With this, a very simple deck can be made.
18 fire pillar/tower
6 this
6 fire bolt/lance. Reach 70 fire quantum and win in 1 turn @@. The Air free draw card will even make this more consistant and quick.
Fire should be the element that cannot get draw by it own means.

Darkness: Searching effect....though, i think searching for cheap spell is more usual than searching a big spell. Darkness has everything in the game and so i would say ok here. I think this card is better than the Time card due to a lower cost.

Death: Depend on your creature discard...discard a dragon will give you seven cards (from no to full hand, 2 become 7)... I think the opponent will just feel unhappy... too powerful. Should be draw a card only. Yes, card disadvantage here.

Aether: OK.

Earth: Actually, i think it is powerful. Though, card disadvantage is card disadvantage. While you will get card quality in return.

Life. The improved version.
Do the 'all' cost means if i have 1 Life, i can use 1 Life quantum to draw 4 cards? If i use 10 Life, i still draw 4 cards?
If that's is, see the following deck:
24 Life Tower.
6 this....
i think i can deck myself in 1st turn.....Orz...
An expensive cost is needed for a powerful spell, at least. Free cards are already powerful enough in its own.
Life also should not get card draw since it is also 1 of the element which can deal you more than 10 dmg in the 1st turn.

Gravity: Please keep the card use gravity quantum for the upgraded version at least... i would glad to change exceeds pillar into card draw late game if necessary.

Entropy: OK. Especially, it is random discard.

Water: OK for the first one.

Time:  A searching card for 3 Time. Why i use hourglass to draw if i can use a combo said (heavy armor + otyugh) or double firestorm to clear opponent field even he has 4 graveyard?... double or triple rewind will also very powerful (just remember of sesim...)



   

[Spamalot]

How about a "grand summoning" card that any element could use?

Grand Summoning
10 generic quanta + cost of card played
Dig through your non-deck collection of cards, and play any card that you don't already have 6 of in your match deck.

This would basically be like a "sideboard" as mentioned in another thread, but you'd have to draw these cards and play them.  It would be expensive because they're powerful, as you could play any card (that you don't already have 6 of in your deck) that needs to be played at that particular time.

Of course, pretty much every deck would have 6 of these, but if everyone's using it, it's still an even playing field, right?  It just takes away the randomness for 6 of your draws, at the cost of burning extra quantum.

[PuppyChow]

I have a few problems with the cards:

Dark ones just BEG for rainbow decks to choose them; they would make god farming almost TOO easy.
Same with Aether and Time (and isn't the time just aether with more of a cost? :S). OP. In fact, even more OP since you can find two.

Earth is underpowered. I would NEVER discard cards from my hand unless I absolutely HAD to.
Same with Entropy (lol @ discarding full hand) and Gravity.

For Life, the unupgraded version is MUCH better than the upgraded one. I mean, if I had 12 life quantum, I could use 10 life and draw 5 cards with the unupped. With the upgraded one, I would have to spend ALL 12 life for only four cards.

In general, any card that would let you draw more than 2 is overpowered. I approve of the light and fire ones though .

As a side note, most spell upgrades either effect the quantum cost or the effect, almost never both. And when it IS both, one of the effects is generally negative (ie sundial; decrease playing cost but increase ability activation cost). Your Gravity upgrade both upgrades the effect AND the cost.