Soul Catcher | Soul Catcher

[Marvaddin]

Its just me or is this a weak card? Can generate a lot of quanta? Oh, yeah. And for what? The single use I currently see is put in play dragons created by Fractal, but I see that as a weak and vulnerable strategy. Looks like another card wont be really played.

Maybe we could have a card like Syphon Life, or at least something like 6 - Destroy target creature if your ammount of quanta is bigger than twice its resistance.

[frlaa]

I tested it in trainer and it is much better than i thought it would. awesome.

[Avenger]

Death really needs some sustained permanent (like flood for water) to spend all the gained by soul catcher.

[Malduk]

If Zanz still reads feedback on this card, I'd like to suggest this mechanic here:


(taken from this card idea: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9172.0.html )

This prevents (ab)usage of Fractal to trigger billion death effects, and makes it easier to balance such way of quanta gain in all combinations of cards.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

If Zanz still reads feedback on this card, I'd like to suggest this mechanic here:


(taken from this card idea: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9172.0.html )

This prevents (ab)usage of Fractal to trigger billion death effects, and makes it easier to balance such way of quanta gain in all combinations of cards.

That is actually the card I thought of when I saw Soul Catcher. I like Altar more, though. =/

[Glitch]

This card is absolutely broken, in the same manner cremation is.  Both restrict card ideas.

Let's say I wanted to make a really powerful death card, but in order to balance it, I made it cost a ridiculous amount of quanta.  Whereas that was fine before, now it isn't possible, as soul catcher makes it too easy to get the quanta.  That's the same reason most high cost fire cards wind up being broken, it's just too easy to pay for them.  (see: lava golem).  The fact that there's nothing to spend the death quanta on now doesn't mean there never will be, and in fact, it actually limits the ability to create cards to spend death quanta on.

The same thing happened with fractal.

When it first came out, there wasn't a whole lot to use with it, your best option being upgraded frogs.  But when cards like pheonix and hope came out, suddenly the fact that fractal was broken came to light.

If this card gets added, the following never will be:
Flooding like cards for death
Dissipation shield like cards for death (By the way, dissipation shield + Soul catcher, especially with the new Shrödinger's cat, is hilariously impossible to beat.  I pay two entropy for the first cat, trigger six soul catchers, and now you need another 18 damage to get me.  Oh, and by the way, I do it six times.)
Pump spells for death
Death cards balanced by cost

I'm saying this right now, there is no way to balance this card.  It either generates too much to be fair or too little to be used.  I don't want it added at all.

[Avenger]

If Zanz still reads feedback on this card, I'd like to suggest this mechanic here:


(taken from this card idea: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9172.0.html )

I guess, your point is, make the quanta gain once per round per catcher. I agree, that would be a sensible nerf.

[smuglapse]

Dissipation shield like cards for death (By the way, dissipation shield + Soul catcher, especially with the new Shrödinger's cat, is hilariously impossible to beat.  I pay two entropy for the first cat, trigger six soul catchers, and now you need another 18 damage to get me.  Oh, and by the way, I do it six times.)

The upped Field can use the currently and I figured that might be a powerful combo, but I failed at Deck balancing and couldn't get it to work.

Can you show the deck that abuses this, please?

[Nume]

A big problem with using it with diss shield is simply that you cant control which quanta gets taken, so you're unlikely to be able to use very many cats every turn since it will take your entropy quanta. I'm sure it could be very powerful with everything set up for it, but it would be very hard to get to that point.

[Essence]

I'd just like to say that I strictly disagree with Gl1tch.  Every element has cards that restrict the creation of other cards -- like Feral Bond makes Alpha Wolf a no-go in some people's minds.  But that's not really the point -- Soul Catcher doesn't make high-cost Death cards easy to cast -- just faster, and Cremation has taught us that there's a HUGE difference.

While Soul Catcher does create a burst of quanta quickly when paired with Spark, or often (but with a fragile combo) when paired with Shrodinger's Cat, in the long run, it's a gamble compared to a similarly-costed Tower -- just like Photon+Cremation is vs. a Fire Tower.  Sure, it's quick when it goes off, but I don't think anyone would argue that Zanz had to tone down Crimson Dragons because of Immolation -- because sometimes the combo is just not there, and that makes the deck less consistent.

Death has the same problem with Soul Catcher.  Sometimes, by the time you've drawn and played 2 Soul Catchers and a Spark in order to cast 3 Flesh Spiders, the opponent has already played 3x Bone Tower and 3 Flesh Spiders.  It's an alternative, but there is nothing inherently superior about it.

[jmdt]

I'd just like to say that I strictly disagree with Gl1tch.  Every element has cards that restrict the creation of other cards -- like Feral Bond makes Alpha Wolf a no-go in some people's minds.  But that's not really the point -- Soul Catcher doesn't make high-cost Death cards easy to cast -- just faster, and Cremation has taught us that there's a HUGE difference.

While Soul Catcher does create a burst of quanta quickly when paired with Spark, or often (but with a fragile combo) when paired with Shrodinger's Cat, in the long run, it's a gamble compared to a similarly-costed Tower -- just like Photon+Cremation is vs. a Fire Tower.  Sure, it's quick when it goes off, but I don't think anyone would argue that Zanz had to tone down Crimson Dragons because of Immolation -- because sometimes the combo is just not there, and that makes the deck less consistent.

Death has the same problem with Soul Catcher.  Sometimes, by the time you've drawn and played 2 Soul Catchers and a Spark in order to cast 3 Flesh Spiders, the opponent has already played 3x Bone Tower and 3 Flesh Spiders.  It's an alternative, but there is nothing inherently superior about it.

Agree 110%

[zse]

Cat+Catcher+Field combo is actually quite bad when you count how that works compared to Quantum Tower+Field. You need at least a combination of 6 Cat/Catcher to get more quanta than what you'd get from same amount of QTowers. But when you do get that 7+ card combo working, it sure is great way to prevent losing to damage.