Okay, you seem to not share the basic premises about the game that I hold.
Let us try a different approach:
Is Parasite balanced?
Is Blood Sucker balanced?
Is Tower Shield balanced?
Is Titanium Shield balanced?
If 4 yes answers then QED, 
is less expensive than quanta of a element hence the balanced cost in is higher.
(I want clarification that all four are balanced before I take the time to type up the proof)
cant really anwser this. is x balanced isnt exactly clear question. A card doesnt really have balance on its own. balance belongs to the game. Do i think elements is perfect? no. Do i think its fun and intriguing? yes.
I havnt really played with tower shield. but I guess I could answer from my experience all those cards seem to fit in the game fairly. they all have different power levels and more or less potential for abuse. Tower shields value seems more thematic collection development based.
PS: Your Supernova example was off terribly.
1) You misrepresented the cost of supernova as 2 
. It is actually (1 deck slot, 1 draw, 2 stock , 1 upgrade and minor other costs like increased Black Hole risk)
2) You misrepresented the benefit of supernova as 24 . It is actually [and we both know this I am just stating it for completeness] 2 of 
.
Im not misrepresenting anything. your just bringing up more details/ analysis of the card.
"off terribly" ? pft cant you just say you want to add something or that i missed something.
I find it odd you bring this up because supernova is the one area that I agree with you guys on. ie "other" cards
can gain an extreme speed boost from this. I mean do you disagree that if your talking about generic quantum cast abuse the power of nova isnt stronger then Quantum tower? I guess its situation but one novas like having a q tower out for 7 turns. (ie situation like first turn if you cant cast nova then q towers better)
Supernova is one of the stronger cards in the current meta. just look at its usage rate. why? because it fixes one of the troubling areas of elements and thats stabilizing resources. for a game where every element has strengths and weaknesses nova allows you to blend multi elements better then most other options. (sometimes at least* more on this later)
To respond more on the brought up comparison to ash eater. I think your claims are simplifying and not absolutely true.
I mean oldtrees saying "My point was that this card makes Other rush faster than Fire."
and then Zblader says "Ash Eater is the closest thing to this card, but this card is cheaper by 1/3
quanta."
here both of you are both somewhat wrong because your ignoring that ash eater is strictly cheaper then q soldier. "Other"
can cast ash eater for less then q soldier. (sure ash eater doesnt fit into the fractel nova combo but its still often cheaper). nova can cast 2 ash eaters and have 22 resources left. vs, 2 q soldier leaving 20 resources and the potential you cant cast a 2
card on subsequent turns.
Yes I concede that under certain circumstance one q tower can cast q soldiers faster then then one fire tower could cast ash eaters. First off its not that much faster second you need to have the cards to do it. ie first turn 2 q towers casting 3 s soldiers vs 2 fire towers casting 2 ash eaters.
Then you have to look at the disadvantage of using q towers. they reduce your ability to consistently cast cards of other elements. where as using nova or element towers give you the control of casting particular cards. ie a ash eater is always going to be playable in a deck with fire towers. a ash eater isnt always going to be playable with q towers. q towers disadvantage is compounded by the casting cost of cards. 1,2 cc cards are easily splash able and are more easily cast by q towers and nova. then the greater the card the harder it gets to cast consistently.
So it seemed to me you guys were basing your argument on that "other" gets x3 quanta form q towers. But "other" has relatively few cards. and the power level of those cards is not to profound on its own. you need an element to have real strength in this game. q towers and novas can only really cast cards with 1 or 2
cost consistently above that and your consistency diminishes (this is dynamic tho as say 2 novas can cast a 4
card they can not cast 2 copies of that card). So based on this I claim (especially for a rush deck) that a deck using only q towers or novas has to limit its access of cards from other elements that have 1-4 cc.
the strength of using fire towers (or playing fire) is that you can consistently use the strength of that element and/or use its power cards.
Id argue that in Zbladers fractal combo example your not playing "other" but rather your playing aether. Your using a 9
card you had better be able to have access to that consistently if your a rush deck. to consistantly get to 9
your better off using something other then q towers.
What quantum soldier really is is the access of a 2/1 creature for all the elements. And when your looking at in terms of strength in the other elements you cant just cite quantum tower for cost evaluations. and in this way the soldier costs 2 while the ash eater 1. in this way Quantum soldier is not making other elements rush faster then fire. In fact it potentially increase fires ability to rush because fire could use q soldier itself.
But were not done. Next you gotta examine creature quality. a 2/1 for 2 isnt a quality creature (i cited my examples in a previous post). Life has the much better frog 3/3 or 5/3 for 2
. if you were trying to make a better rush deck why not try to add frog instead of q soldier? the main reason would be you dont have a stable quanta base that could sport this. So here your sacrificing creature quality. I claim that life has some of the most cost effective rush creatures. so does life become better at rushing if quantum soldier gets added to the game? not exactly. if life wanted to splash for a 2/1 creature it could potentially use ash eater at a cheaper cost.
so is the 2/1 unupped quantum soldier better then ash eater? yes, in some circumstances it is better then ash eater; nova fractal combo, multi element decks, decks that you need fire qaunta for something else
But that doesnt mean its strictly better? no.
Ash Eaters can be still better then q soldier; mono fire, or splashed in duo and trio element decks, or in nova/multi element decks where you need control of which quanta you use.
They fill different roles.
ug shall we talk more about the 4/3? :S [/end_rant]
