Spellslinger Tower | Spellslinger Spire

[Dm]

Notice how much it takes to actually use the freeze/shockwave combo?
4 of an off-element element to get the card out, then a turn of it not being deflagged, then 6 quanta of three different elements.
Meanwhile, lightning or basilisk can pretty much end a creature forever for just 2 of a single quanta, and the only real counter to those things that this card doesn't have is a well timed silence, as opposed to PC and the fact you can clearly see it coming.

As pointed out, quartets and trios are unstable. Is a slightly harder way of killing a creature worth the quartet?

Rainbows exist. Argument destroyed.
Lightning and BB don't have repeated uses since they are not activated by permanents. This has already been said.
You're just full-on ignoring everyone now.

[Espithel]

Very well then.
Squid.
Owl's eye.
Repeatable, cheap, does the job. This has already been said.

Rainbows cannot efficiently drop three water, two earth and 1 air a turn, as well as keep up the costs for 4 fire, as well as do other things. This has already been said.

When someone says something new, or when someone suggests a balancing fix, then I'll stop repeating myself.

[Dm]

Squid and Owl's Eye is not an instakill, unlike Shockwave + Freeze. Squid is vulnerable to CC, which happens way more often than PC. Interesting fact : Both are rares, and both are considered quite powerful.

Rainbows CAN efficiently drop three water, two earth and 1 air a turn. Also, the cost of 4 fire is only paid once. Supernova happens fast, quantum towers exist.

Please play more PvP. You should understand.

[Espithel]

Squid doesn't need to instakill, because its effect is already powerful enough.
Owl's eye can kill most utility creatures in the game in a single hit, and can kill most hitters in two turns.
Instakill is not very different to a lot of other things in this game.

You cannot efficiently drop 3 earth, 2 water, and 1 air a turn,  as well as a single cost of 3 fire, fast enough for this to compete with squid or owl's eye.
Shall we do the maths?
...
I'm terrible at mathemaics. Damn it.


Better idea: If that's so overpowered, you'll have no problem giving me a deck that can reliably fuel it.

[Dm]

You cannot efficiently drop 3 earth, 2 water, and 1 air a turn,  as well as a single cost of 3 fire, fast enough for this to compete with squid or owl's eye.
Shall we do the maths?
...
I'm terrible at mathemaics. Damn it.


Better idea: If that's so overpowered, you'll have no problem giving me a deck that can reliably fuel it.

Most utility creatures and hitters pass the /3 HP mark quite early on, specially growers. If the Squid effect is already powerful enough, then imagine this one, that can instakill?

Math. Let's math, shall we? ^^

Owl's Eye

Let us assume that you are running an upgraded deck for the purposes of this. We'll tackle it as a rainbow use, since your card's effect is going to be tackled in a rainbow as well. Aight?
OE, upgraded, is at a 5 with a 2 ability, and a one turn delay for ability activation.
Assuming you are getting off a PSNbow with an airmark and you get supernova off first turn, and assuming this is optimal, you'd have
1st round - X entropy quanta (irrelevant), +2 of every quanta (including air) from super nova. This means 3 quanta, as the mark will produce one.
2nd round - Play another supernova and the EE can go out. Wait a turn.
3rd round - Pendulum + mark definitely produced enough quanta for EE to do something. However, EE can only deal 3 dmg a turn to a single creature, which vs another Rainbow isn't that good. You also had to dedicate lots of card space to this, and it's already the third turn.

Arctic Squid
Upgraded, 3 with a 2 ability. Going off the same basis as above, we'd also get a 1st turn supernova, and then by the 3rd turn assuming your mark is water you'll have an arctic octopus out.
Arctic octopus will delay a single creature for 4 turns, which is good until the opponent bypasses that four turn mark. Pair that with the fact that CC is incredibly common and that this has 2 HP and that you can only target one creature per turn, and you're in trouble.

Your card.
A 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 card. Let's assume first we're running PSN with Water mark. Why water mark? The upkeep cost is just easier on us this way.
Following the same logic as above, this time you'd only get to PLAY the card on the 3rd turn, which means the actual ability activation will happen on the fourth turn onward, which means that you have -more than definitely played out at least two supernova-. Paired with your water mark, this is enough for two activations, so when we go down to the fifth turn, you can cast two freezes, two basilisk blood, and two shockwaves. Now, Assuming you use the Freeze + Shockwave in the same creature, that means you'll be Killing two creatures and delaying other two for six turns, all that at your fifth round. In our past simulations, in the fifth round they'd have gotten three turns of ability, which means Octopi would have delayed three creatures (and that one of them will go out of congeal in two turns), and OE has dealt 9 dmg (Which is enough to kill roughly one creature.)

Now let's go by your logic that "Owl's Eye can kill most utility creatures in the game in a single hit." Why, shockwave that is 4 dmg can definitely do that since OE is only 3. Then, by your logic, this means that you, by the fifth turn, have put two creatures on Frozen (3 turns delay), two more on Delay (6 turns), and have killed two creatures (shockwave). You've affected a total of six creatures in the time span that OE would take to kill three (assuming these three are equal to or under 3 hp) and that Arctic Squid would take to delay three as well.

[Espithel]

Thank you.
But sti- Nah, nevermind. I'll concede there.

Here comes the actual problem: What can we do to improve or fix this problem so that it doesn't happen?
It's fine and dandy talking about how a card in development in its current state is currently [flaw here], but that doesn't mean that that's its final state- far from it, because design- and that doesn't mean that merely stating that it is (in detail or otherwise) flawed magically fixes those flaws.

Okay, I want to keep the freeze, and I want to keep the shockwave. So if this freeze and shockwave is overpowered, how can I reduce it?
I like the towering theme (4-3-2-1), but that's just aesthetically pleasing and as a result I can drop that.
Oooor, we can just drop the unupped and keep to the upped, using mildly different things, or just drop the shockwave and add a catapult.
(Ew, such a small post feels disrespectful to that wordwall.)

[Higurashi]

As I've mentioned, first step is to prevent ability usage more than once a turn. Only Rustler can do this in the game, and Rustler has a weak effect. With only being able to do Freeze, BB OR Shockwave in one turn, it's a lot closer to balanced. Even so, with 6 of them it wouldn't matter for a rainbow.

So the second step could be to limit the maximum amount of this card on the field at one time. 2 sounds fair, and still allows for lots of instakill chances. It'd still be balanced at max 1, but it's kinda boring. At 2 max a rainbow would still pack 4 anyway.

[OdinVanguard]

Another alternative I can think of is to make it only last 3 (4?) turns and (as Higs suggested) only allow 1 ability to be used per turn.
Basically it becomes a 3 spells in 1 for bow users.

To keep it useful for non bow users, you would probably want the earlier abilities to be cheaper.

This has at least the ring of being balanced. You are getting several spells for the price of 1 spell, but there is the chance that it could get cut short if the opponent has PC at the ready.