Rare Cards Entropy and Gravity

[ajm6]

Getting the rare cards is one of my favorite parts of this game. So I wanted to make more rare cards so that there was more collecting in the game the two cards I'm showing today are my ideas for Entropy and Gravity rares.

Friendly Fire/Changing Loyalties
7 /6
Permanent

Creatures on the field randomly trade places at the end of each turn (players keep the same number of creatures).

I realize that this may be hard to code but I imagine that similar code to that of steal could be used to target creatures. With this card I hoped to remain in the chaitic nature of entropy.

High Gravity/ Crushing Gravity
7 / 6
Permanent

All creatures have -2/-2 unless they have less than 5/5.

With this I hoped to maintain the gravity theme of using the strength of the opponent against them as can be seen in cards such as grav shield and blackhole.

Please let me know what you think.

Fire and Dark rares: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,3405.0.html

[ScytherLoL]

Great Ideas once more.

Friendly Fire indeed may be hard to code but would be valuable espicially if you had quinted your best creatures. Could be interesting to play with Antimatter/Liquid Shadow as could have your creatures switch sides to heal them and viceversa. Also if you alfatoxined your field or theirs what happens when there is no room left for them.

I like high Gravity just owndering if it stacks as the big creatures would quickly get below the threshold. Another thought i had about it would be loses -2|-0 but thats a side note.

Great card ideas and fitting as well.

Scyther

[icybraker]

Friendly Fire = ULTIMATE CHAOS. I love this idea, but I don't know about balancing; I guess only actually releasing it in the game and playtesting it would give us the answer. Great idea nevertheless.

High Gravity is good, but like Scyther said, does it stack?
If it does stack, consider the following scenario:

A 6/6 creature is on the opponent's side of the field. You play High Gravity; said creature is now 4/4. You play another High Gravity the next turn. Does the creature again take the -2|-2 because it was originally 6/6, or does it not get affected?

[ajm6]

Friendly Fire = ULTIMATE CHAOS.

@ icy  Couldn't help laughing when I read this because ULTIMATE CHAOS is exactly what I was going for along with the look of horror on everyone's face (including mine) as their super mutants, dragons, immortal oty's or anything else switches sides throwing the field into utter chaos. As for balance I'm not sure if it would balance... but it is supposed to be chaos...

@ scyther Players will retain the same number of creatures on each side meaning the key to controlling this card is controlling your side of the field through mob spam or the opponents side of the field through creature control to give you the best chance of coming out on top.

For High Gravity in my mind this would work much like nightfall/eclipse my fault for not putting permanent.

[ScytherLoL]

I agree Friendly fire isn't about Balance its about Chaos and thats what you have acheived and done very well with.

As to the second thankyou for clarifying it, still a great card and has much potential.

Thanks

Scyther

[Lanidrak]

Hmm.. The 'randomly' change places... Not really a big fan, but then again, it is such a staggering idea to get your head around it is hard to understand whether or not it will be ultimately useful.

I for one am against 'random' effects. Some numbers might help to clarify your idea... For example is it a 50% chance that a creature switches or a 25%? If I have 20 creatures in play, and my opponent only has 10, would I be right in saying that only 10 creatures are eligible to undergo the 'chance to swap'? If that is the case, how are the random 10 creatures chosen? Or will a random creature get swapped until 10 have changed places?

You see, it just throws up too many questions. I doubt it will enter testing. Nice idea though .

As for High Gravity... Consider Scyther's input and Icybrakers questions. Gravity seems to cope best when dealing with 'large' or 'high defense' creatures. Example, Gravity Shield completely blocks anything with more than 5 hit points.

The way that your card reduces hit points works against this fundamental aspect of gravity. My suggestion would be to make it not a rare card, but a very much average card.

Then, make it work like so:
High Gravity
Cost:
Ability: Opposing creatures with hitpoints over 5 gain -1/-0.

Upgraded
Crushing Gravity
Cost:
Ability: Opposing creatures with hitpoints over 5 gain -2/-0.

Then again, you would still be a lot better off just using a Gravity Shield - which will completely block any damage coming from something over 5 hit points. My idea to make it a non-rare is that if you had 6 of these in play (upgraded), any creature your opponent has with 5 hitpoints or higher would get -12 attack.

My hoping is that -negative attacks are not affected by shields.

This way, you could build quite a synergy with Earth/Gravity (not sure more synergies between these two are advisable though, very powerful). Using Plate Armors to put your opponents creatures over 5hp, whacking out Crushing Gravities with Enchant Artifact, spamming a couple late game Stone Skins... You could potentially turn Earth/Gravity into a healing machine like Life/Light.

An alternative suggestion would be to make it a spell, that effects all enemy creatures in play the moment it is cast. This suggestion would work like so:

Gravity Flux
Cost:
Ability: Creatures over 5 hitpoints gain -2/-0. Creatures beneath 5 hitpoints gain -0/+2.

This would pretty much kill two birds with one stone, and if you were able to play 3 or 4 of these in a single turn against a full board - you could turn the game around quite significantly.

Anyways, don't take my input/criticism as a topic hi-jacking... I like the idea

[ajm6]

For the Friendly Fire to make the you would probably tell the game to evaluate how many creatures are on the field then use a chance generator like that for dusk to decide whether or not a creature will switch places. Probably 50%. Then you would set the maximum number of creatures that could change places equal to the number of creatures the player with the least number creatures has in play. To in crease the "randomness" of the switching you have the game choose creatures to swap and start at a different place each turn on the board, i.e. will not choose from the first creature played but will start from first then second creature played then third creature played... Only n creatures would switch places with n= to the number of creatures which are to be swapped on the player with less creatures and which forces n to be less than or equal to the total number of creatures the player with the smaller number has.

This is playing off the chaos that defines entropy and this card would require skill to be played well. First you need to trade your weak creatures for stronger ones, then stop the switching either by destroying the card or destroying all or most of your opponents creatures.

For The High Gravity it is without a doubt the weaker of the 2 ideas, the problem was to make it favor gravity but not be OP I thought about it making only large (above 5 hp) able to be on the field, but this would be ridiculous with Grav shield then thought about it limiting attacks or favoring momentumed creatures but that seemed like procrastination for the first and too specific for the second. Eventually I came down on a permanent that would reduce all creatures down to size eventually it would be good with oty but I agree not truly in the theme of gravity. It definitely needs thought perhaps limiting creature field size to a single row so that every creature you play has to count. But like I said it is definitely the weaker of the two ideas.

Hope this helped.

[bobcamel]

randomly change trade places

???

Besides, yeah, ultimate chaos, and it seems to give equal chances in this randomness, so fine for me.

High Gravity is sorta counterproductive. It helps the enemies fit under your Gravity Shield. I'd make it something like this...

High Gravity: Permanent (4 Gravity quanta)
All creatures get -2/+2.

They are heavier, so more HP, but have less mobility and attacking power.

[ajm6]

Perhaps just 0/+2 most creatures that have below 5 hp seem to have low attack anyway so if you buff hp and debuff attack you'll end up with most creatures that fit under a grav shield normally either having zero or negative attack or ending up being blocked by it.

[bobcamel]

Oh fine. Although, remember it's a rare.

[ajm6]

Yeah gravity has been a lot tougher I thought about doing something with momentum and perhaps making this act like adrenaline or dive for momentumed creatures but seemed to specific. Was trying to go with kind of a black hole type effect for creatures or the grav shield effect both of which use the fact that the stronger an enemy is the tougher they are. Perhaps I could use it as an advantage though for the high HP creatures and say anything with over 10HP perhaps higher gains momentum, using the idea that once you get going in high gravity you would be hard to stop.

[Lanidrak]

My suggestion for gravity a while ago was to separate Momentum into two effects.

Momentum and Unstoppable:

Unstoppable works like Momentum currently does: Creature is unaffected by shields.
The new Momentum gives the creature +1/+0 every turn that it attacks until it is blocked by a shield.

This gives gravity a new internal synergy - and a Growth-like Buff Card, which the game doesn't have.

Also:

The way that your card reduces hit points works against this fundamental aspect of gravity. My suggestion would be to make it not a rare card, but a very much average card.

Then, make it work like so:
High Gravity
Cost:
Ability: Opposing creatures with hitpoints over 5 gain -1/-0.

Upgraded
Crushing Gravity
Cost:
Ability: Opposing creatures with hitpoints over 5 gain -2/-0.

Creatures can be put to negative attack with this - ie. A creature with attack of -5 will heal you for 5hp.

An alternative suggestion would be to make it a spell, that effects all enemy creatures in play the moment it is cast. This suggestion would work like so:

Gravity Flux
Cost:
Ability: Creatures over 5 hitpoints gain -2/-0. Creatures beneath 5 hitpoints gain -0/+2.