Each element's thing

[RootRanger]

As Mormegil said, I find gravity significantly worse than time. Time has RT and GotP, which are both top-tier cards. With the right off-element support, those are the only two time cards you even need.

I would also say that light is very weak.  Its "thing" is healing stall, but 1. healing doesn't make your opponent lose, and 2. the stall is pretty useless, because unlike other stalls, light can't sustain an offense that makes the stall meaningful.  The stall generally has to rely on deckout, which is bad without cards that force speeding up.

Light has the best healing, strong shields, and decent offense. If you want a good stall, add Sancs and you'll remove most of it's weaknesses. Try outdamaging 24 healing while your creatures are all dead from Fire Bolts. Or how about breaking through 6 Solar Shield-powered Miracles while your creatures are plagued and an Arsenic chips away at your health. If you think you can beat stalls, try outrushing an 8-TTW Blessed Pegasus deck after a Miracle healed 4 turns of your damage. Did I mention every attack you make just gives me more quanta? Yeah, I think Light is fine without a buff.

[Naesala]

Gravity definitely needs help as well. The are some okay in element combos (armagio+overdrive, or catapult) but they aren't great.

[Rutarete]

Very nice ideas, though Quantamage doesn't feel 'right' to me, and I agree that Stampede should be for current health.

[Ekki]

Wow, nice compilation, with 4 great cards, and they all somehow help a lot those elements

Well, now the bad (?) stuff:
1- Stampede: What if your creatures are freezed?? You won't be able to 0TK your opponent, or IDK if that actually matters to you... Anyways, delayed, freezed, -immortal?*- creatures could be a "problem" here.
*you can't give them any extra status, but I guess they'd add into the "your creatures' attack" number.
EDIT: I agree and I even wrote this as if Stampede worked with your current health.
/EDIT
2- Quantamage: The problem is, without the creature, the effect wears off.
-You play Nova
-You RT the Quantamage
-You play your cards
-Repeat while speedy drawing.
At least sounds a bit OP, but I guess it can be easily corrected.

Gravity definitely needs help as well. The are some okay in element combos (armagio+overdrive, or catapult) but they aren't great.

Gravity needs help, but it's not that bad, since Acceleration helped a lot. Anyways, it's still lacking "that" card. Hope you take this into account.

BTW, I totally agree with the lack of "the thing" of some elements, but Darkness is a hell of a great element, its "thing" is corruption. They steal your stuff, your quanta and your hp, and keep it for themselves. It turns creatures into vampires and werewolves into bigger things... Well, you get it.

[RRQJ]

As Mormegil said, I find gravity significantly worse than time. Time has RT and GotP, which are both top-tier cards. With the right off-element support, those are the only two time cards you even need.

I would also say that light is very weak.  Its "thing" is healing stall, but 1. healing doesn't make your opponent lose, and 2. the stall is pretty useless, because unlike other stalls, light can't sustain an offense that makes the stall meaningful.  The stall generally has to rely on deckout, which is bad without cards that force speeding up.

Light has the best healing, strong shields, and decent offense. If you want a good stall, add Sancs and you'll remove most of it's weaknesses. Try outdamaging 24 healing while your creatures are all dead from Fire Bolts. Or how about breaking through 6 Solar Shield-powered Miracles while your creatures are plagued and an Arsenic chips away at your health. If you think you can beat stalls, try outrushing an 8-TTW Blessed Pegasus deck after a Miracle healed 4 turns of your damage. Did I mention every attack you make just gives me more quanta? Yeah, I think Light is fine without a buff.

I was under the impression that we were talking about monos.  mono-light does not have cc.  if we're talking about duos, then life should be fine as well.  all life needs to do is pack some explosions.

And strong shields?

[OldTrees]

Darkness has a theme of manipulating the opponent through stealing and tricking.
Light has a theme of trying to ignore its opponent. It uses Healing, Sanctuary and DR to accomplish this goal. It is true it has no defense against skill based creatures or deckout. However it has a defense against everything else.

Strong strategic support for significant mechanical themes: 
Weak strategic support or lacking significant mechanical themes: 

Nova does not fits a time theme
Momentum does not fit a life theme (I don't think I need to remind you that Life is not all of Green)

Life is about growth. A card with X|X stats where X represents the Forest (number of Life Pillars/Pendulum/Marks/...) or Pack (number of creatures) would be a useful tool for bypassing DR while being resilient vs CC.

Time is about card manipulation among other things. Give it options of things to do with cards other than play them. Permanents that require you to discard to activate their ability in exchange for a cheaper cost perhaps?

[The_Mormegil]

I was under the impression that we were talking about monos.  mono-light does not have cc.  if we're talking about duos, then life should be fine as well.  all life needs to do is pack some explosions.

No. Try it, if you wish, but... just no.

Even with Explosions Life is terribly weak to CC. It has no alternative damage except Scorpions' poison - which is creature-based. CC rushes can outspeed it, its best shield is very slow and requires constant healing to work (something only has in-element), the other shield is NOT efficient (Emerald costs 5, upped Mirror costs 2, Jade costs 7, PERMAFROST costs 7). Its creatures are good but you are either sacrificing lots of card space for good cheap creatures or you are basing yourself on very expensive hard-hitters. Life cannot answer quanta denial effectively as its novabow and its immorush are definitely lacking and even with Sanctuary support, its stalls are pretty weak compared to others because hey, Life has NO FORM OF CONTROL WHATSOEVER. Except its shield, which is easily dispatched, slow, and needs lots of quanta to even play. Its rush is easy to defeat with shields, and even adding Explosions you are both slowing you down and reducing potential versatility (you need more quanta cards if you have an off-element mark, and that combined with the great number of cards needed for an effective life rush means you don't have space for anything else). Besides, immaterial shields like Hope, Protected Diamond or - ironically - Jade are still killing your damage. Your stalls are subpar and your rushes are strong but prone to abuse from control decks. If you try to avoid controld decks you can still die to shields, stalls or even just faster rushes (something almost every element can pull off if you dilute your life deck with off element anti-control cards). Even its Firestall isn't all that strong and has far more counters than Light's version.

Strong strategic support for significant mechanical themes: 
Weak strategic support or lacking significant mechanical themes: 

I disagree on the second line. I believe every element has a significant mechanical theme:
  has many flying creatures - from the weak Dragonfly to the powerful Elite Wyrm - is tied to Dive (always Air-quanta based, although Pegasus is off-element), Firefly Queen, Flying Weapon, Wings and Sky Blitz. Shockwave, Unstable Gas, Owl's Eye, Fog Shield and Thunderstorm are somewhat less tied to airborne beings, but the theme is still there.
  has Mutation, Fallen Elf, Chaos Seed, Discord and Pandemonium that give it the theme of randomity, while Maxwell's Demon, Nova, Antimatter and Shroedinger's Cat have a common quantum physics theme (which is also strengthened by the name "quanta" for energy units); besides, quantum physics are based on chances and probability, so it fits with the previous theme as well.
  has Momentum, Catapult, Acceleration, Sapphire Charger, Titan and Chimera that have similar mechanical effects (unavoidable damage). Colossal Dragon, Gravity Pull, Armagio and Otyugh are also all connected to having high hp (being fat big and tough). Its theme could certainly be strengthened by adding some more "inevitable" cards or some cards that increase YOUR hp / make you bigger and fatter tougher, but the theme is there and mechanics represent it.
  has the theme of wilderness and being alive - very alive. Adrenaline, Giant Frog, Cockatrice, Empathic Bond, Heal, Jade Staff, Forest Spirit, Rustler, Mitosis... Again, the significant mechanical theme is there.
  has card maniplation: Eternity, Reverse Time, Sundial, Precognition, Ghost of the Past (obvious Nightmare synergy means Nightmare is used in Time decks - it's a form of indirect hand control card in a way), Hourglass, Dune Scorpion, even Deja Vu (two cards for the cost of one!).
  has synergy - Chrysaora, Mind Flayer, Steam Machine, Trident, Toadfish, Nymph's Tears - and freezing - Ice Bolt, Freeze, Ice Shield, Arctic Squid.

Of course, all these themes can be enhanced or even expanded upon new areas. But the "significant mechanical themes" are there.

So in my opinion, the real issue is not on themes (which are there) but on mechanics (which aren't there yet). For instance, inventing a mechanic that could benefit the element "Life" comes before searching for a theme (which can be added afterwards, even changing the mechanic appropriately if needed).

[Glitch]

the life card should probably be current HP.  Even with life's high creature production getting 100 damage out at once is still pretty difficult.

Also, I'm not seeing the greatness of the quantamage.  Nova on a stick is great and obviously OP without a drawback, but that second effect neutralizes it completely.  I don't see how it would be better than just tossing in a few quantum towers, or even a few novas themselves.

I would also say that light is very weak.  Its "thing" is healing stall, but 1. healing doesn't make your opponent lose, and 2. the stall is pretty useless, because unlike other stalls, light can't sustain an offense that makes the stall meaningful.  The stall generally has to rely on deckout, which is bad without cards that force speeding up.

Quantamage is designed around the concept of "any-quanta".  EG, using 6 quanta mages, you can convert 6 time quanta into 6 "any-quanta", and then proceed to play any 6 quanta non-time card in the game.  Whereas one quanta pillar is worth 1/4 of an "any quanta", this is worth 1.  If you were playing a otyugh stall, in a quantum pillar deck, you'd have to wait for 5 gravity and 3 aether quanta, which happened randomly.  With this, you'd just have to activate his ability 8 times, only 4 when he's upgraded.  (Upgraded, it's s.nova for 3 time quanta).  A quint'd otyugh for 12 time is a really powerful thing.

Also, shard of readiness.

Darkness has a theme of manipulating the opponent through stealing and tricking.
Light has a theme of trying to ignore its opponent. It uses Healing, Sanctuary and DR to accomplish this goal. It is true it has no defense against skill based creatures or deckout. However it has a defense against everything else.

Strong strategic support for significant mechanical themes: 
Weak strategic support or lacking significant mechanical themes: 

Nova does not fits a time theme
Momentum does not fit a life theme (I don't think I need to remind you that Life is not all of Green)

Life is about growth. A card with X|X stats where X represents the Forest (number of Life Pillars/Pendulum/Marks/...) or Pack (number of creatures) would be a useful tool for bypassing DR while being resilient vs CC.

Time is about card manipulation among other things. Give it options of things to do with cards other than play them. Permanents that require you to discard to activate their ability in exchange for a cheaper cost perhaps?

I've been thinking a lot about life.  One of the main issues I've had with buffing life is that it would be just fine if zanz would stop nerfing it.

Devourer adrenaline deck was life's first game-changing deck.  It wasn't even really a life deck.  It was a darkness deck with life splashed in it.  (What's the difference?  If you were forced to play a deck with 6 adrenaline and 6 devourer, it would be easier to put in more darkness cards than it would to put in more life cards)  It was like fractal-hope, you built around it or you lost.  If you do not outrush fractal hope, and you do not have global CC, you lose.  If you did not have 1-drop CC, or you did not have enough quanta generation, adrenaline-devourer beat you.

Adrenaline-devourer was nerfed.  A 3-life 2-darkness 2-card combo was considered too fast to steal 4 quanta from the enemy.

In upgraded gameplay, this is completely unnecessary.  Allow me to list all of thing you could to to stop it.  The vast majority of these are cheap enough you could do them if you had no pillars in play.  Cheaper than five counters that /also/ deal damage are included.  A 5 cost CC doesn't stop this, as it's giving the enemy virtual quanta advantage.  Otyugh does.

Play a rainbow
  One aether pillar and a lightning bolt
  One air pillar and a shockwave
   Steal your quanta back.  Blood Sucker destroys it.  Liquid shadow.
   Plague.  Retrovirus
   Can't do anything about it.  Thankfully it can duo to elements who can.
   Nova.
   Pick a killspell.  Cremation
  Otyugh.  One gravity pillar and gravity force
   It's a life deck.  Counter it with itself.  Alternatively, photosynthesis into more quanta than your body has room for.
   Sanctuary.  Holy Flash.  Alternatively, use any ramp on RoL and you get more quanta than your body has room for.
   One time factory and reverse time
  Can't do much about it.  Thankfully it can duo with pretty much any element.

Upgraded, it's balanced.  2/3 of all elements can stop it for one or have instant quanta-gain.  Half of the elements in the game have 1-drop CC that destroys it.  Unupgraded, however, it's a true terror, as you cannot simply drop a pillar to get one quanta.  You drop from 8 elements having counters to only 2.  It would be simple enough to simply say adrenaline upgraded makes a creature use it's passive all four times, so adrenaline + scorpion would hit hard upgraded, but alas it hasn't been done.

Now lets look at life's current game-changing deck.  Mitosis+SoR.  (Or instosis)

I say this despite the fact that it's current best use is as a time deck with life splashed in.

It's strong.  After a three card combo, and already playing 1 strong time card, you can copy it twice per turn for free.  However, it's still completely susceptible to CC.   All of time's big-hitting creatures have 4 health, so it's susceptable to all of the 1-drop CCs I listed above (half of all elements have one).  However, it's also stopped by lobotomizer, freeze, and other CCs that would normally need more mana or be stopped by adrenaline.  Sure, SoR anubis counters CC, but if they got SoR, anubis, mitosis, another SoR, and dragon out, and you haven't already outrushed them, somethings going horribly wrong.

In an upgraded PVP setting, neither full-adrenaline devourer nor instosis is overpowered.  Full-adrenaline devourer was nerfed, and this:

I think SoR may prove to be the new 2 turn Sundial, with all these crazy fast high W/L rate FG decks coming up...

Win rate is, obviously, not quite so high as 80% but having nearly 3x the speed makes up for it many times over.

I expect a nerf to Mitosis+SoR, as with triplet Dejas, triplet Dragons seems far too good.

was said.

Starting to remember why I was annoyed with life.




Someone else wanted to know how'd I'd balance gravity, here it is:
Charger's momentum is now an ability for 0 gravity.  It can still be lobo'd, but it always could, and you can now use it with gravity pull for more intuitive CC.
Armaggio's ability is no longer gravity pull.  Instead, any damage your creatures would take are now redirected to armagio.

Balanced?

[OldTrees]

Strong strategic support for significant mechanical themes: 
Weak strategic support or lacking significant mechanical themes: 

I disagree on the second line. I believe every element has a significant mechanical theme:
  has many flying creatures - from the weak Dragonfly to the powerful Elite Wyrm - is tied to Dive (always Air-quanta based, although Pegasus is off-element), Firefly Queen, Flying Weapon, Wings and Sky Blitz. Shockwave, Unstable Gas, Owl's Eye, Fog Shield and Thunderstorm are somewhat less tied to airborne beings, but the theme is still there.
  has Mutation, Fallen Elf, Chaos Seed, Discord and Pandemonium that give it the theme of randomity, while Maxwell's Demon, Nova, Antimatter and Shroedinger's Cat have a common quantum physics theme (which is also strengthened by the name "quanta" for energy units); besides, quantum physics are based on chances and probability, so it fits with the previous theme as well.
  has Momentum, Catapult, Acceleration, Sapphire Charger, Titan and Chimera that have similar mechanical effects (unavoidable damage). Colossal Dragon, Gravity Pull, Armagio and Otyugh are also all connected to having high hp (being fat big and tough). Its theme could certainly be strengthened by adding some more "inevitable" cards or some cards that increase YOUR hp / make you bigger and fatter tougher, but the theme is there and mechanics represent it.
  has the theme of wilderness and being alive - very alive. Adrenaline, Giant Frog, Cockatrice, Empathic Bond, Heal, Jade Staff, Forest Spirit, Rustler, Mitosis... Again, the significant mechanical theme is there.
  has card maniplation: Eternity, Reverse Time, Sundial, Precognition, Ghost of the Past (obvious Nightmare synergy means Nightmare is used in Time decks - it's a form of indirect hand control card in a way), Hourglass, Dune Scorpion, even Deja Vu (two cards for the cost of one!).
  has synergy - Chrysaora, Mind Flayer, Steam Machine, Trident, Toadfish, Nymph's Tears - and freezing - Ice Bolt, Freeze, Ice Shield, Arctic Squid.

Of course, all these themes can be enhanced or even expanded upon new areas. But the "significant mechanical themes" are there.

So in my opinion, the real issue is not on themes (which are there) but on mechanics (which aren't there yet). For instance, inventing a mechanic that could benefit the element "Life" comes before searching for a theme (which can be added afterwards, even changing the mechanic appropriately if needed).

You missed an important half of my claim. Additionally you are confusing theme with mechanical theme on life and entropy. A mechanical theme would still remain if the cards were viewed at just the mechanical level ignoring names, and images. Life has a theme of vitality. It has a mechanical theme of growth. Entropy has a theme of entropy. That is not a mechanical theme. Entropy has a biased luck mechanical theme but the rest of Entropy is not linked into a mechanical theme.

Air does not have sufficient strategic support for Airborne (one of its primary mechanical themes)
Gravity's inevitable theme has sufficient support in the area it affects. Extending it to other aspects like resource gathering, defenses against skills, permanents and spells would be ideal.
Water does indeed have a mechanical theme of duo. I dislike this theme but I do not need to like it for it to be good or improved. Each synergy could use some more support and more generic synergy cards that would work for a variety of elements (or even multiple elements) would be wise.

[RRQJ]

the life card should probably be current HP.  Even with life's high creature production getting 100 damage out at once is still pretty difficult.

Also, I'm not seeing the greatness of the quantamage.  Nova on a stick is great and obviously OP without a drawback, but that second effect neutralizes it completely.  I don't see how it would be better than just tossing in a few quantum towers, or even a few novas themselves.

I would also say that light is very weak.  Its "thing" is healing stall, but 1. healing doesn't make your opponent lose, and 2. the stall is pretty useless, because unlike other stalls, light can't sustain an offense that makes the stall meaningful.  The stall generally has to rely on deckout, which is bad without cards that force speeding up.

Quantamage is designed around the concept of "any-quanta".  EG, using 6 quanta mages, you can convert 6 time quanta into 6 "any-quanta", and then proceed to play any 6 quanta non-time card in the game.  Whereas one quanta pillar is worth 1/4 of an "any quanta", this is worth 1.  If you were playing a otyugh stall, in a quantum pillar deck, you'd have to wait for 5 gravity and 3 aether quanta, which happened randomly.  With this, you'd just have to activate his ability 8 times, only 4 when he's upgraded.  (Upgraded, it's s.nova for 3 time quanta).  A quint'd otyugh for 12 time is a really powerful thing.

Also, shard of readiness.

You're going to wait eight turns to be able to play that otyugh?  And you also need to make sure it survives the eight turns you need to use the effect.  And you can't play any other non-time card/ability or else you'll need to wait even more turns.

The upped one might be workable, though.

I was under the impression that we were talking about monos.  mono-light does not have cc.  if we're talking about duos, then life should be fine as well.  all life needs to do is pack some explosions.

No. Try it, if you wish, but... just no.

Even with Explosions Life is terribly weak to CC. It has no alternative damage except Scorpions' poison - which is creature-based. CC rushes can outspeed it, its best shield is very slow and requires constant healing to work (something only has in-element), the other shield is NOT efficient (Emerald costs 5, upped Mirror costs 2, Jade costs 7, PERMAFROST costs 7). Its creatures are good but you are either sacrificing lots of card space for good cheap creatures or you are basing yourself on very expensive hard-hitters. Life cannot answer quanta denial effectively as its novabow and its immorush are definitely lacking and even with Sanctuary support, its stalls are pretty weak compared to others because hey, Life has NO FORM OF CONTROL WHATSOEVER. Except its shield, which is easily dispatched, slow, and needs lots of quanta to even play. Its rush is easy to defeat with shields, and even adding Explosions you are both slowing you down and reducing potential versatility (you need more quanta cards if you have an off-element mark, and that combined with the great number of cards needed for an effective life rush means you don't have space for anything else). Besides, immaterial shields like Hope, Protected Diamond or - ironically - Jade are still killing your damage. Your stalls are subpar and your rushes are strong but prone to abuse from control decks. If you try to avoid controld decks you can still die to shields, stalls or even just faster rushes (something almost every element can pull off if you dilute your life deck with off element anti-control cards). Even its Firestall isn't all that strong and has far more counters than Light's version.

If that's the case, then I don't see how the card idea mentioned in the OP will be of any help.  And much of what you said can be applied to light as well, which was my point.  The only difference would be the healing stall capability, but I personally don't think that elevates light significantly above life and the other 'weak' elements.

[OldTrees]

I was under the impression that we were talking about monos.  mono-light does not have cc.  if we're talking about duos, then life should be fine as well.  all life needs to do is pack some explosions.

No. Try it, if you wish, but... just no.

Even with Explosions Life is terribly weak to CC. It has no alternative damage except Scorpions' poison - which is creature-based. CC rushes can outspeed it, its best shield is very slow and requires constant healing to work (something only has in-element), the other shield is NOT efficient (Emerald costs 5, upped Mirror costs 2, Jade costs 7, PERMAFROST costs 7). Its creatures are good but you are either sacrificing lots of card space for good cheap creatures or you are basing yourself on very expensive hard-hitters. Life cannot answer quanta denial effectively as its novabow and its immorush are definitely lacking and even with Sanctuary support, its stalls are pretty weak compared to others because hey, Life has NO FORM OF CONTROL WHATSOEVER. Except its shield, which is easily dispatched, slow, and needs lots of quanta to even play. Its rush is easy to defeat with shields, and even adding Explosions you are both slowing you down and reducing potential versatility (you need more quanta cards if you have an off-element mark, and that combined with the great number of cards needed for an effective life rush means you don't have space for anything else). Besides, immaterial shields like Hope, Protected Diamond or - ironically - Jade are still killing your damage. Your stalls are subpar and your rushes are strong but prone to abuse from control decks. If you try to avoid controld decks you can still die to shields, stalls or even just faster rushes (something almost every element can pull off if you dilute your life deck with off element anti-control cards). Even its Firestall isn't all that strong and has far more counters than Light's version.

If that's the case, then I don't see how the card idea mentioned in the OP will be of any help.  And much of what you said can be applied to light as well, which was my point.  The only difference would be the healing stall capability, but I personally don't think that elevates light significantly above life and the other 'weak' elements.

Sanctuary is protection from Denial (Quanta or Silence)
Reflective Shield is cost effective for reflecting spell damage
Light has immaterial offensive options thus avoiding CC/PC.
Light can use Hope to block small and large creatures.

Light is still has no defense against skills (creature or permanent).

[ralouf]

Light have more good cards than Life for me. Sanctuary for example is very powerfull and still way underused in the pvp environnement IMO. Crusader can also make some difference in a game as miracle. Life haven't such cards.