Shard of Sacrifice | Shard of Sacrifice

[Rember]

SoSa decks can survive until deckout if you only do 10 damage per turn since using them with SoDs and optionally light mark is so popular. Granted AI is too stupid to chain them right but you still must have a damn good stall to survive that many turns at all.

[OldTrees]

So do You think that this card is perfectly balanced and it is same good as SoD and we wrote a lot of pages here about nothing? For me counter SoD, SoG is much easier than SoS.

You need very good stall to survive 24 turns...

I think that the metagame has not been given the time for Accurate data on the precise balance/imbalance to be collected. So far all the rough estimates seem to indicate that its balance/imbalance is not yet evident.

One does not counter SoD and SoG has direct counters. Of course indirect counters are harder to realise and implement because they are counter intuitive. That does not make those counters invalid.

The stall with no dead cards in its hand (the SoSs) has card advantage.

SoSa decks can survive until deckout if you only do 10 damage per turn since using them with SoDs and optionally light mark is so popular. Granted AI is too stupid to chain them right but you still must have a damn good stall to survive that many turns at all.

Strat 1: It is 10 damage per turn followed by a 1 turn finish.
Strat 2: This is the hardest and least effective of the 3.
Strat 3: The stall with no dead cards in its hand (the SoSs) has card advantage. Deckout or SoV preform better than usual against decks burdened with SoS.

[Chapuz]

Having a deckout deck even for PVP or arena is kinda... slow xD

[OldTrees]

Having a deckout deck even for PVP or arena is kinda... slow xD

The best way to beat an AntiRush card is not to try to out rush it. Slow defensive decks are better against AntiRush than Fast offensive decks.
(I rarely grind so victory out weighs speed for me)

[rosutosefi]

So do You think that this card is perfectly balanced and it is same good as SoD and we wrote a lot of pages here about nothing? For me counter SoD, SoG is much easier than SoS.

You need very good stall to survive 24 turns...

Because your suggestion is simply something that Zanz will most likely not implement.

And remember that SoSac will NOT stall for the enemy if you have only 10|8 damage out. See,
10|8 damage out: 2 turns -> 20|16 damage.
Use SoSac -> Lose 40|32 hp, heal 20|16. 20|16 damage total.

[Brontos]

It's not that easy to manage your own damage output this way.

1. You have to expect SoSac. But not too much, or he won't play it. So, you need to bait with at least 17/20 dmg. If you tried to rush him, it may be too late already.
2. You have to be able to survive long enough against him (he will certainly poison you). And now that you are trying to reduce your dmg output, the game will last longer.
3. You must have modulable creatures (graboid, steam machine), or use your own CC on your creatures (squid, otyugh, warden, etc), or play weird cards in weird ways (antimatter, SoP, etc).

I don't really see this as a good counter. It's too hard to build, and nothing forces your opponent to play his SoSac if you are too low in dmg.
I play SoSac, and I'm not scared by this at all.

[OldTrees]

@Brontos
As I said the baiting was the hardest and least effective of the counters.

The 10|8 deck is an easier more effective version usually with fractal or similar cards for an ending. The extra deck space can be used to slow down faster decks. (Titans with a Freezing Catapult finish also works.)

However the best way to beat an AntiRush card is to luck out and not bring a Rush deck to a Stall fight.

[TStar]

Sundials are a perfect SoSac counter.  Countering SoSac in PvP isn't really an issue.

My main concerns with SoSac is the AIs inability to effectively deal with it.  The AI plays stupidly and simply continues to drop more and more damage against it, or play more and more pillars with Neurotoxin on itself despite being at the quanta cap.  SoSac plain and simple has taken all the challenge out of False Gods and the Gold/Platinum Arena level.  The solutions I see are:

1) Significant buff to the AI to allow it to understand Neurotoxin/Poison/SoSac and not to continually fall victim to it.
2) Significant nerf to SoSac to prevent it from exploiting the failings in the AI so that the challenge is no longer there.
3) Do nothing and simply let AIs of all levels be very easy to kill from now on.

Considering the nerf to Sundial before to eliminate the "autowin" type of FG grinder decks, I'm guessing option 3 is no something Zanz wants to entertain.  That means option 1 or option 2 must occur and option 1 would likely take a huge amount of time and energy on his part to rebuild the AI to that level.  That leaves a nerf to SoSac as the most logical and likely conclusion to this problem.  While the card itself may not be too overpowering for PvP, the simple fact is for AI games it is simply far too strong.

[The_Mormegil]

Sundials are a perfect SoSac counter.  Countering SoSac in PvP isn't really an issue.

My main concerns with SoSac is the AIs inability to effectively deal with it.  The AI plays stupidly and simply continues to drop more and more damage against it, or play more and more pillars with Neurotoxin on itself despite being at the quanta cap.  SoSac plain and simple has taken all the challenge out of False Gods and the Gold/Platinum Arena level.  The solutions I see are:

1) Significant buff to the AI to allow it to understand Neurotoxin/Poison/SoSac and not to continually fall victim to it.
2) Significant nerf to SoSac to prevent it from exploiting the failings in the AI so that the challenge is no longer there.
3) Do nothing and simply let AIs of all levels be very easy to kill from now on.

Considering the nerf to Sundial before to eliminate the "autowin" type of FG grinder decks, I'm guessing option 3 is no something Zanz wants to entertain.  That means option 1 or option 2 must occur and option 1 would likely take a huge amount of time and energy on his part to rebuild the AI to that level.  That leaves a nerf to SoSac as the most logical and likely conclusion to this problem.  While the card itself may not be too overpowering for PvP, the simple fact is for AI games it is simply far too strong.

This gives me an idea. What about a project for option 1? Maybe a new way to use Idea Factory and Xenocidius.

[OldTrees]

The AI already knew how to deal with Sundial when Sundial was a problem. The AI's problem with SoSac is ignorance. This should be fixed.

@The Mormegil
That would be a good project. Please start the topic where you feel is most appropriate.

[Chapuz]

In the Arena, i play a SoSa + 6 SoG + sancts + silences + pulvy + discord + BH + steamys deck (yes, as rare as it sounds) and it's the only counter i found to SoSa platinum decks. When i see a death mark, i leave my output damage lower than 10. 12 SoSa decks are anoying but a late silence chain before making some damage is the only actual counter. Pulvy is for SoG and sancts, discord + BH to make his poison come later and some healing so i don't die.

If i face a SoSa deck and i don't notice it it's one of them, then i must get my steamys strong enough to calculate the silence chain while buffing them so i kill it. Otherwise, i am lost.

SoSa would not be OP if there were more powerfull cards and more ways to stop this madness.

[Atico]

In the Arena, i play a SoSa + 6 SoG + sancts (...)

Interesting... Using SoS and kill yourself by SoG+Sancts...