Shard of Sacrifice | Shard of Sacrifice

[xdude]

IMO I think this card is completely unbalanced. There's a reason why all the top arena decks are poison stalls with sosac. There's no great counter unless you feel like hindering your own creature by antimattering them. Which is fine until the shard wears off. Might have already been said but if Sosac were a perm I believe it would greatly balance this obviously OP strategy.

Word.

On an unrelated note: Vio! I slightly remember you as being cool so... are you back?

[ralouf]

I think that lowering the HP cost to 10/15 and make it last 1 turn would be a perfect nerf

[Chapuz]

Buff SoSa! (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,35467.0.html)

[Gorthos]

I just want to point out the math behind SoSa.  If your opponent is dealing you X damage per turn, then SoSa is the equivalent of 4(X - 10) points of healing.  For example, if the opponent is dealing 20 dmg/turn, SoSa is worth 40 points of healing to you.

The calculation is simple:  without SoSa, over 2 turns the opponent deals you 2X damage.  With SoSa, you take 40 damage initially, then regain 2X health, for a total of 40 - 2X damage.  So the total damage reduction is 2X - (40 - 2X) = 4X - 40 = 4(X - 10).

SoSa has 3 additional factors that affect it, beyond the simple 4(X - 10) figure:
1. SoSa only works if you have >40 HP
2. The opponent might be able to temporarily reduce or postpone the damage he deals while SoSa is active, reducing the effective healing
3. The opponent can't dramatically increase the damage he deals while SoSa is active, so in addition to healing, SoSa buys you turns where you are immune to surprises.

[furballdn]

I just want to point out the math behind SoSa.  If your opponent is dealing you X damage per turn, then SoSa is the equivalent of 4(X - 10) points of healing.  For example, if the opponent is dealing 20 dmg/turn, SoSa is worth 40 points of healing to you.

The calculation is simple:  without SoSa, over 2 turns the opponent deals you 2X damage.  With SoSa, you take 40 damage initially, then regain 2X health, for a total of 40 - 2X damage.  So the total damage reduction is 2X - (40 - 2X) = 4X - 40 = 4(X - 10).

SoSa has 3 additional factors that affect it, beyond the simple 4(X - 10) figure:
1. SoSa only works if you have >40 HP
2. The opponent might be able to temporarily reduce or postpone the damage he deals while SoSa is active, reducing the effective healing
3. The opponent can't dramatically increase the damage he deals while SoSa is active, so in addition to healing, SoSa buys you turns where you are immune to surprises.

Yup. For unupped SoSa, you need 24 damage on the field to make up lost hp, and at least 12 to make it worthwhile to SoSac. For upped, it's 20 damage needed to make up lost hp, and 10 to make it worthwhile.

[pisul]

i think sos is a little bit too strong card, there is no counter to it and it cost no quanta.

[Gemini]

I always found this card a bit too strong, as long as you dont use it too late (under 40.), the healing is amazing and can really change a game, Anybody tried a SoD and SoS before? The thing is ridiculous.

[Cheesy111]

i think sos is a little bit too strong card, there is no counter to it and it cost no quanta.

No counter and costs no quanta? You're not taking into account any of the detriments or counters to SoSac.

SoSac:

Spoiler for Hidden:

-Takes ALL of your quanta except death quanta.
-Kills your mulligan chance
-Makes you lose 48(40)HP instantly
-Inverts any healing you might have had
-Decreases in value the more damage reduction you have
-Cannot be easily consecutively played unless the opponent has none of the below counters AND has at least 24(20) damage/turn (assuming you have no instant healing). 
-Loses to unexpected damage if not chained (ie.  play sosac-->healed to full HP, expect 50 damage taken and then sosac, take expected 50 + 1xLightning, no more sosacs without instaheals)

Spoiler for Hidden:

And is countered by:
-Purify.  Hard counter.
-AM.  Does damage AFTER a 40 to 48HP hit.  If played on a high-attack early-attacking creature, can easily spell game.
-Holy Light.  10 damage after a 40 to 48HP hit can also sometimes cause death, especially if you have more than one.
-Sundial.  Stops your creatures from attacking, stops their creatures from attacking, gives you draw advantage for free or one time.  What's not to love?
-SoP.  Stops your creatures from attacking while boosting their stats for when they do attack.
-RT.  Control your own damage.
-Purple Nymph.  Same as AM.
-Eternity.  Same as RT.
-Basilisk Blood.  ^
-Unupped Pandemonium.  Kills your creatures, but if you kill all your creatures then you can burst them down once SoSac ends.
-Fire Bolt.  Same as unupped pande.
-Ice Bolt.  ^, can also be used to freeze own creatures so that they outlast sosac but don't die (depends on water quanta level and creature HP)
-Siphon Life.  ^
-Devour.  ^
-Thunderbolt.  ^
-Mutate (better unupped for this) ^
-Maxwell's Demon ^
-Owl's Eye ^
-Chaos Seed (Same as RT, unupped pande.  Chance to PU, but that's fairly low, 1/12 I think.)
-Rage Potion ^ (can also be used on high-HP creatures to burst past SoSac threshold)
-Red Nymph ^
-Growth creatures + Acceleration.  Increase potential damage forcing chained sosacs instead of sosac + 1turn damage + sosac.
-Mitosis ^
-Arsenic/Chrysaora/Puffer Fish.  Same as above, increasing potential damage (possibly to OHKO level depending on draws and decks).
-SoV.  Lowers max HP, doing 'damage' even through sosac and also eventually prohibiting possibility of sosac.
-Iridium Warden.  Delay your own creatures, or kill them while delaying Warden with buffs.
-Squid.  Same idea as Iridium, delay your own creatures.
-Freeze.  Same idea as Squid.
-Under 24(20) damage per turn - slow lowering of HP
-Under 12(10) damage per turn - sosac hurts more than it helps
-Immolation.  Control your own damage + quanta boost for Fire Bolt pushing past 48(40) HP point or rush of creatures.
-Silence.  Breaks sosac chain.
-Vampire/Minor Vampire/Liquid Shadow/Black Nymph.  SoSac requires your opponent to hit, which takes away many of the normal counters to Vampire healing (bone wall, dim shield, etc.) plus they can't be antimattered or else they'll hurt the SoSac user.
-UG.  Doesn't do direct damage each turn, instead stores it up for a OHKO.  Speaking of which...
-OHKOs.  DragOTK would be the most common one, although a careful Catatitans user can often do the same.
-Devourers.  Don't stop the actual SoSac, instead stop the deck.  Low chance for Sancs as they hurt you during SoSac, and SoSac kills all quanta except death quanta, killing an indirect counter to Devourers (QP/nova).
-Discord.  ^
-Burrow.  Halve your healing to the opponent, and then burst up once SoSac ends.
-Gravity Pull.  Kill opponent's creatures, stop yourself from healing them.  Win-win. Can also be used on your creatures if opponent only has a field of RoLs or something.

I'd say it has a few counters.  This is also why I thought that the Purify buff was overkill.  I'm not saying that if you have, say, Chaos Seeds in your deck you'll win against every SoSac deck.  But I think a lot of people fail to consider just how many options there are for dealing with SoSac. 

[RRQJ]

i think sos is a little bit too strong card, there is no counter to it and it cost no quanta.

No counter and costs no quanta? You're not taking into account any of the detriments or counters to SoSac.

SoSac:

Spoiler for Hidden:

-Takes ALL of your quanta except death quanta.
-Kills your mulligan chance
-Makes you lose 48(40)HP instantly
-Inverts any healing you might have had
-Decreases in value the more damage reduction you have
-Cannot be easily consecutively played unless the opponent has none of the below counters AND has at least 24(20) damage/turn (assuming you have no instant healing). 
-Loses to unexpected damage if not chained (ie.  play sosac-->healed to full HP, expect 50 damage taken and then sosac, take expected 50 + 1xLightning, no more sosacs without instaheals)

Spoiler for Hidden:

And is countered by:
-Purify.  Hard counter.
-AM.  Does damage AFTER a 40 to 48HP hit.  If played on a high-attack early-attacking creature, can easily spell game.
-Holy Light.  10 damage after a 40 to 48HP hit can also sometimes cause death, especially if you have more than one.
-Sundial.  Stops your creatures from attacking, stops their creatures from attacking, gives you draw advantage for free or one time.  What's not to love?
-SoP.  Stops your creatures from attacking while boosting their stats for when they do attack.
-RT.  Control your own damage.
-Purple Nymph.  Same as AM.
-Eternity.  Same as RT.
-Basilisk Blood.  ^
-Unupped Pandemonium.  Kills your creatures, but if you kill all your creatures then you can burst them down once SoSac ends.
-Fire Bolt.  Same as unupped pande.
-Ice Bolt.  ^, can also be used to freeze own creatures so that they outlast sosac but don't die (depends on water quanta level and creature HP)
-Siphon Life.  ^
-Devour.  ^
-Thunderbolt.  ^
-Mutate (better unupped for this) ^
-Maxwell's Demon ^
-Owl's Eye ^
-Chaos Seed (Same as RT, unupped pande.  Chance to PU, but that's fairly low, 1/12 I think.)
-Rage Potion ^ (can also be used on high-HP creatures to burst past SoSac threshold)
-Red Nymph ^
-Growth creatures + Acceleration.  Increase potential damage forcing chained sosacs instead of sosac + 1turn damage + sosac.
-Mitosis ^
-Arsenic/Chrysaora/Puffer Fish.  Same as above, increasing potential damage (possibly to OHKO level depending on draws and decks).
-SoV.  Lowers max HP, doing 'damage' even through sosac and also eventually prohibiting possibility of sosac.
-Iridium Warden.  Delay your own creatures, or kill them while delaying Warden with buffs.
-Squid.  Same idea as Iridium, delay your own creatures.
-Freeze.  Same idea as Squid.
-Under 24(20) damage per turn - slow lowering of HP
-Under 12(10) damage per turn - sosac hurts more than it helps
-Immolation.  Control your own damage + quanta boost for Fire Bolt pushing past 48(40) HP point or rush of creatures.
-Silence.  Breaks sosac chain.
-Vampire/Minor Vampire/Liquid Shadow/Black Nymph.  SoSac requires your opponent to hit, which takes away many of the normal counters to Vampire healing (bone wall, dim shield, etc.) plus they can't be antimattered or else they'll hurt the SoSac user.
-UG.  Doesn't do direct damage each turn, instead stores it up for a OHKO.  Speaking of which...
-OHKOs.  DragOTK would be the most common one, although a careful Catatitans user can often do the same.
-Devourers.  Don't stop the actual SoSac, instead stop the deck.  Low chance for Sancs as they hurt you during SoSac, and SoSac kills all quanta except death quanta, killing an indirect counter to Devourers (QP/nova).
-Discord.  ^
-Burrow.  Halve your healing to the opponent, and then burst up once SoSac ends.
-Gravity Pull.  Kill opponent's creatures, stop yourself from healing them.  Win-win. Can also be used on your creatures if opponent only has a field of RoLs or something.

I'd say it has a few counters.  This is also why I thought that the Purify buff was overkill.  I'm not saying that if you have, say, Chaos Seeds in your deck you'll win against every SoSac deck.  But I think a lot of people fail to consider just how many options there are for dealing with SoSac.

The purify buff was not overkill.  Most of what you listed involves killing your own creatures.  Yes, that's prevents them from healing, but what are you going to do to win if you have no more creatures left?  It's equivalent to saying a counter to black hole is not playing towers.  Sure, now their black holes are useless, but you're aren't going to win if you don't play anything.

[LD_Raine]

Not a fan

[bobknows]

playing poison dials against some god (morte i think) i noticed that vampiric creatures actually heal both parties while sosa is active.
i think that vampires should hurt the opponent rather than heal, same as when you antimatter them.
i want to see what the communitys opinion on this, should vamps hurt the owner or heal while attacking someone with sosa?

[OldTrees]

playing poison dials against some god (morte i think) i noticed that vampiric creatures actually heal both parties while sosa is active.
i think that vampires should hurt the opponent rather than heal, same as when you antimatter them.
i want to see what the communitys opinion on this, should vamps hurt the owner or heal while attacking someone with sosa?

Vampire creatures deal damage to the opponent and heal the controller.
Shard of Sacrifice converts healing to damage and vice versa.
Vampire creatures should heal both players while the attacked player has a Shard of Sacrifice.