Unstable Hourglass | Broken Hourglass

[furballdn]

Compare it to other forms of almost sure damage
SoV and Poison spring to mind.

SoV and Poison can be countered with deflag (unless SoV is enchanted first), and poison can be negated with purify. There is no way to stop a permanent that keeps coming back unless you silence or deny quanta.

[OldTrees]

1) Don't neglect relevant details.
2) Repeated draws of UH are beneficial.
3) If this had a one time cost rather than a per turn cost, what would that cost be?
4) 1 per turn is equivalent to X as a one time casting cost. What is X?

3) not sure your meaning

4) if X is not 2, I guess it would be 3 ?

3) If you only had to pay for it the first time and then it would be free, how much would it have to cost to be balanced?
4) Please only make educated guesses and please provide reasoning to support your guess.

[waterzx]

3) If you only had to pay for it the first time and then it would be free, how much would it have to cost to be balanced?
4) Please only make educated guesses and please provide reasoning to support your guess.

4) Assume you are gonna use it for 5 turns and 5 per turn, then the total cost would 5 ?

ok I know I'm bad with maths

[OldTrees]

3) If you only had to pay for it the first time and then it would be free, how much would it have to cost to be balanced?
4) Please only make educated guesses and please provide reasoning to support your guess.

4) Assume you are gonna use it for 5 turns and 5 per turn, then the total cost would 5 ?

ok I know I'm bad with maths

Lets start over.

There is a card effect [X].
[X] is worth a one time cost of [Y].
A cost of 1 quanta per turn is roughly on par with a one time cost of [Z].
[X] is worth a cost of [Y]/[Z] quanta per turn.

So
Unstable Hourglass with its 13|16 PC vulnerable damage per turn is worth a one time cost of [Y].
A cost of 1 quanta per turn is roughly on par with a one time cost of [Z].
Unstable Hourglass with its 13|16 PC vulnerable damage per turn is worth a cost of [Y]/[Z] quanta per turn.

What are [Y] and [Z]? Give reasons for your educated guesses.

[waterzx]

I'm sorry, I know you are telling me how to balance this card, but I can't deduce anything from the give clues

What is the difference between [Y] and [Z] ? Both of them are one time costs....Is [Y] the cost of playing the card, while [Z] is the total cost of using that card (to sacrifice the UH in this case) ?

And how am I gonna make deduction from any in-game data ? There's no card which keeps coming back currently in this game while helping you and slowing you down at the same time. No comparison, no deduction, right ?

No offense to you, I just got a little frustrated.

[OldTrees]

I'm sorry, I know you are telling me how to balance this card, but I can't deduce anything from the give clues

What is the difference between [Y] and [Z] ? Both of them are one time costs....Is [Y] the cost of playing the card, while [Z] is the total cost of using that card (to sacrifice the UH in this case) ?

And how am I gonna make deduction from any in-game data ? There's no card which keeps coming back currently in this game while helping you and slowing you down at the same time. No comparison, no deduction, right ?

No offense to you, I just got a little frustrated.

[Z] is a theoretical comparison between paying [Z] all at once or paying [1] each turn.
Would a Horned Frog be worth playing if it Absorbed  rather than cost 2 ? Probably not. Z>2
Would a Crimson Dragon be overpowered if it Absorbed  rather than cost 10 ? Probably. Z<10

[Y] is a comparison of the net benefit but with an alternate cost. If the card was a permanent that remained on the field rather than recuring to the deck, how much would it cost to play (assuming it was to be balanced)?
Would a permanent that dealt 13|16 damage per turn cost 1 ? Probably not. Y>1

You might need to use inductive reasoning to assist that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning.

[waterzx]

I think I'm getting some clues, but...

Would a permanent that dealt 13|16 damage per turn cost 1 ? Probably not. Y>1

Where does this come from ?

[OldTrees]

I think I'm getting some clues, but...

Would a permanent that dealt 13|16 damage per turn cost 1 ? Probably not. Y>1

Where does this come from ?

A permanent that deals 7|8 damage per turn that ignores shields costs 5 + 1 card + 1 weapon slot.

[waterzx]

Thanks for all the hints

So unstable hourglass deals 13 damage per card in every other turn, this translates to 6.5 damage per turn per card,

and the current upkeep cost is 4 for playing card + 1 for activation for every two turns

so the average upkeep cost per turn is 5/2 = 2.5

To sum up, total cost for 6.5 damage per turn is 2.5 + 1 card, much cheaper than Titan.

In order to balance the card, the damage per turn should be reduced to 3.5 so the damage caused by each activation/destruction of unstable hourglass should be 7

Is this correct ?

But still, will this be underpower ?  keep using UH means you can't get new cards but Titan won't cause this trouble
   

[OldTrees]

Thanks for all the hints

-snip-

Is this correct ?

But still, will this be underpower ?  keep using UH means you can't get new cards but Titan won't cause this trouble
 

I did not follow your post. Please answer the questions about [Y] and [Z]. If you answer those then I can do the rest.

[waterzx]

Thanks for all the hints

-snip-

Is this correct ?

But still, will this be underpower ?  keep using UH means you can't get new cards but Titan won't cause this trouble
 

I did not follow your post. Please answer the questions about [Y] and [Z]. If you answer those then I can do the rest.

I thought you had the answer of [Y] and [Z] in mind. My mistake.

So you actually want me to tell you what [Y] and [Z] is for this card , and this is not some sort of quiz ?

[Vineroz]

a EtG player's experience tells me that it is quite OP right now. Like zhangvict said, with two of these you are constantly doing damage to opponent while preventing deckout. And has enough cards to prevent self-draw-lock.

I think the damage and return-to-deck mechanic can be separated. e.g. return to deck when target by PC, while ability deals damage and destroyed.