Aetheric Cronarch | Aetheric Cronarch

[andretimpa]

I will agree that it is powerful. However, it is not overpowered.
For the fractal issue, let's compare:

Fractal Spark: 10 + 0 for 24 damage
Fractal Ball Lightning: 10 + 0 for 40 damage
Aetherial Chronarch + fractal something (photon for example): 3 + 10 + 0 for 10 damage

Fractaling the Chronarch, you spend 13 quanta and on the first turn you have a 9/9 creature (because you need to discard). Lets say you can get 6 quanta a turn, so you play 2 of these and you have 3 8/8 creatures (because you drew another card) and unless your opponent silences you, you will have 5 7/7 creatures on your next turn, and so on. If you can get 2 time quanta to remain with a full hand, your opponent is in trouble.

About having lots of dead cards in hand, you just need to draw your stall cards (dims, silence, lightning, RT, etc)

[Rutarete]

I will agree that it is powerful. However, it is not overpowered.
For the fractal issue, let's compare:

Fractal Spark: 10 + 0 for 24 damage
Fractal Ball Lightning: 10 + 0 for 40 damage
Aetherial Chronarch + fractal something (photon for example): 3 + 10 + 0 for 10 damage

Fractaling the Chronarch, you spend 13 quanta and on the first turn you have a 9/9 creature (because you need to discard). Lets say you can get 6 quanta a turn, so you play 2 of these and you have 3 8/8 creatures (because you drew another card) and unless your opponent silences you, you will have 5 7/7 creatures on your next turn, and so on. If you can get 2 time quanta to remain with a full hand, your opponent is in trouble.

About having lots of dead cards in hand, you just need to draw your stall cards (dims, silence, lightning, RT, etc)

Ok, you have an example for this card being the key factor in a rush... That starts on turn two at best... Which is countered by any other rush or speedbow you'll probably face. And that 'at best' hand would be an opening hand of 1 Chronarch and 6 aether towers, with a mark of aether, with the 8th card being a fractal. Good luck getting that hand reliably - and such an example holds less weight.

[timetock]

and here i am just pondering about mitosis.

[andretimpa]

I will agree that it is powerful. However, it is not overpowered.
For the fractal issue, let's compare:

Fractal Spark: 10 + 0 for 24 damage
Fractal Ball Lightning: 10 + 0 for 40 damage
Aetherial Chronarch + fractal something (photon for example): 3 + 10 + 0 for 10 damage

Fractaling the Chronarch, you spend 13 quanta and on the first turn you have a 9/9 creature (because you need to discard). Lets say you can get 6 quanta a turn, so you play 2 of these and you have 3 8/8 creatures (because you drew another card) and unless your opponent silences you, you will have 5 7/7 creatures on your next turn, and so on. If you can get 2 time quanta to remain with a full hand, your opponent is in trouble.

About having lots of dead cards in hand, you just need to draw your stall cards (dims, silence, lightning, RT, etc)

Ok, you have an example for this card being the key factor in a rush... That starts on turn two at best... Which is countered by any other rush or speedbow you'll probably face. And that 'at best' hand would be an opening hand of 1 Chronarch and 6 aether towers, with a mark of aether, with the 8th card being a fractal. Good luck getting that hand reliably - and such an example holds less weight.

1) You were comparing different fractal strategies together with this card. I just gave the most eficient, that you seemed to be missing.
2) Fractal decks are not rushes. The key of the strategy is to stall the oponnent and gather quanta, until you hit a fractal and them overwhelm your opponent with a burst of damage.

So we need to check how efficient is this burst. Since this creature costs aether and does not deal spell damage the closest deck to an cronarchtal would be a reclusetal. My example shows that once you hit the fractal you can output with an unnuped card as much damage as a recluse per creature, with a smaller cost per creature and without the drawback of the creatures only having 2 HP.

The drawing ability is just the cherry on top of this.

[EmeraldTiger]

what if the starting stats were 0|2?

[andretimpa]

what if the starting stats were 0|2?

It would help, I think it also needs a cost increase though. I think the idea is not bad, but the stats/cost need some serious tweaking. Other possibility would be for X to be half the cards in your hand.

[OdinVanguard]

I think the tricky thing in balancing this, is that its attack and hp can vary so widely.
On the one hand, if you have few cards in your hand, it will be slightly underpowered compared to vanilla creatures
(3 for a 2|2)
However, if you have a full hand (~ 7 cards, 8 w/ extra card draws). It is VERY powerful relative to its cost.
At 7 cards you get a 8|8 or 9|9 for 3
This doesn't even really require a duo to pull off since aether has mindgate and fractal.
The unupgraded version will be fairly OP with regard to cost per stat point. The upgraded version will probably be just fine though considering a 2 to 1 or high cost efficiency isn't uncommon for upgraded cards.

I think the easiest way to deal with this is to raise both the cost and base stats of the unupgraded version.

On a slightly different note, I like that it provides a soft counter to nightmare since the opponent will risk maxing its stats in doing so.

[Rutarete]

I will agree that it is powerful. However, it is not overpowered.
For the fractal issue, let's compare:

Fractal Spark: 10 + 0 for 24 damage
Fractal Ball Lightning: 10 + 0 for 40 damage
Aetherial Chronarch + fractal something (photon for example): 3 + 10 + 0 for 10 damage

Fractaling the Chronarch, you spend 13 quanta and on the first turn you have a 9/9 creature (because you need to discard). Lets say you can get 6 quanta a turn, so you play 2 of these and you have 3 8/8 creatures (because you drew another card) and unless your opponent silences you, you will have 5 7/7 creatures on your next turn, and so on. If you can get 2 time quanta to remain with a full hand, your opponent is in trouble.

About having lots of dead cards in hand, you just need to draw your stall cards (dims, silence, lightning, RT, etc)

Ok, you have an example for this card being the key factor in a rush... That starts on turn two at best... Which is countered by any other rush or speedbow you'll probably face. And that 'at best' hand would be an opening hand of 1 Chronarch and 6 aether towers, with a mark of aether, with the 8th card being a fractal. Good luck getting that hand reliably - and such an example holds less weight.

1) You were comparing different fractal strategies together with this card. I just gave the most eficient, that you seemed to be missing.
2) Fractal decks are not rushes. The key of the strategy is to stall the oponnent and gather quanta, until you hit a fractal and them overwhelm your opponent with a burst of damage.

So we need to check how efficient is this burst. Since this creature costs aether and does not deal spell damage the closest deck to an cronarchtal would be a reclusetal. My example shows that once you hit the fractal you can output with an unnuped card as much damage as a recluse per creature, with a smaller cost per creature and without the drawback of the creatures only having 2 HP.

The drawing ability is just the cherry on top of this.

1) You had said 'first turn'. There's no way you'd be getting 13 quanta for this first turn. So I was countering that.
2) Some fractal decks are rushes. For example, fractal spark, lycan, etc. Even psion. Yes, it's effective to have multiple of these for bursting, but think - dragons are used for finishers such as that. If dragons are fine, then is this weaker one not? There's still CC (antimatter, RT, etc.) to combat it. In my eyes, it's no more effective a burst than dragons.

[andretimpa]

1) You had said 'first turn'. There's no way you'd be getting 13 quanta for this first turn. So I was countering that.
2) Some fractal decks are rushes. For example, fractal spark, lycan, etc. Even psion. Yes, it's effective to have multiple of these for bursting, but think - dragons are used for finishers such as that. If dragons are fine, then is this weaker one not? There's still CC (antimatter, RT, etc.) to combat it. In my eyes, it's no more effective a burst than dragons.

1) First turn after you draw your fractal, that is obvious enough from all the rest that you said.
2) Fractalling sparks just gives bursts of damage without at least a SoPa, still has the low HP downside even in this case. Lycantal sounds like a pain to balance and hence to make it fast (frogtal is a good rush example). Dragons cost ~10 quanta, this costs 3. You can't fractal dragons in a mono either. RT against a creature that costs 3, specially if you have the time quanta to draw it back is as effective as a tickle attack (thinking you have already played fractal).

Finally, you say psiontal is a reliable rush and a fractal strategy around Cronarch that gives you a consistent 2-3 extra damage for 1 less quanta per creature is not. I'm confused by your arguments. 

[Rutarete]

And yes, you can fractal dragons in a mono.

So, what have we established?

Regarding fractal:
1) It can be a good rusher
2) It can be a good burst creature
3) Is it OP in either? No.

Agree?

[andretimpa]

Agree, otherwise this would be a nerf fractal thread. The problem is that this creature is too good as a fractal target as it stands currently. We must also nerf it in a way that doesn't make it useless in other contexts (avoiding a forced combo).

Also you can't fractal immaterial creatures, so I'm curious about how you build a dragontal with phase dragons.

[eljoemo]

I feel as though this should be a different element. For mainly 2 reasons, it doesn't really fit into imo and fractal.

As for which element suits growing with cards i'm not sure but someone can figure it out