I was considering a while ago making my own card game, and I was pooling my knowledge of the other card games I loved. Elements, Magic, and a third game I cannot remember the name of that used time as a mechanic.
I got to thinking about why some elements were great and some were bad, and it occurred to me it had to do with each element's thing.
Let's talk about elements that are successful.
Fire. It's "thing" is destruction. Pure and simple. You survived that fireball? Gimme a few turns and I'll make a BIGGER fireball. Even pheonix fits into the kit. The creature lives in a realm of pure destruction, it's given up on surviving the damage, it keeps coming back. Fire is pure aggression. Pure damage. It will rush you hard and keep up the hurt, and eventually it'll create a burst so high you die no matter what you do. It's a great element.
Aether. It's "thing" is stall. You can't kill my stuff. You can't deal damage to me. You can't use abilities. And with lightning bolt, you can't have that creature. Aether's late game is insane. Immortal swarms and fractal'd death. Your deck beats an aether deck? Mind gate. Eventually I'll have /your/ deck. It's a great element.
Death. It's "thing" is decay. It kills everything, it survives everything, as time goes on, everything goes to dust. It isn't as bursty as fire, it's more of a gradual thing. Poison. Bonewall. Soul catcher. The game drags on, death gets stronger, you get deader. It's not as stall-y as aether either. Aether says you don't do anything. Death says, do what you want, it'll die eventually. It's a great element.
Then you have your "okay" elements. Elements that are successful, but you don't know what it's "thing" is.
What is earth's "thing"? Rush? Burrow? Destruction? Armor? It's a successful element, but it's kit doesn't synergize as well as fire, aether, and death.
What is darkness' "thing"? Steal? Poison? Vampirism? Darkness is still a successful element, but it's too spread out.
A great way to test this.
When you see a fire deck, what is your thought process.
You know it's going to do burst, but it has ways to do it. It'll either ram lava destroyers down your throat, or hit you with a 100 damage fireball, or it'll burst down your creatures so everything you own is dead, or it'll use rage potions and heals/armor to get it a 100 damage creature, and then blow up your shield. Every fire deck you can think of, exploding gas, steam machine, aether stall, graviton fire master, every single one of them is about burst. I burst and kill your creature. I blitz your health. I burst and destroy your permanents.
When you see a darkness deck, your thought process is different. It has no thing.
It's thing /could/ be stealing. Stealing health with vampirism from Gargoyle/liquid shadow. Stealing permanents, with more control from earthquake. Stealing quanta. Stealing damage with voodoo doll. But then you have cards like parasite that don't fit the mold. Parasite? Nightmare? Cloak?
It's still an "okay" element, and it's thing could be stealing, it just needs a bit of tweaking. I'll leave it as is.
This thread is not about "okay" elements that are strong, but their thing isn't well defined.
This thread is about terrible elements, that are weak. They don't have a thing at all.
Life. Any stall shuts it down. Any control destroys all it worked for. It has healing, certainly, but it can't stop anything you do, and you can easily stop everything it does.
Time. Insane amount of draw power. But... nothing to draw. You're forced to go rainbow, which might not be a bad thing, if more time cards supported rainbow.
Water. A ton of decent duos, but water feels like the supplementary, not the dominant element.
These three, I feel, are elements that need a "fractal". One card that sends them from bad/decent to amazing. Aether doesn't need fractal to be good. But fractal defined aether's role. Stall, create virtual card advantage by making sure none of their cards work, beat them by waiting long enough.
Fire was the same way. It had a ton of damage, yeah, but before pheonix came out, fire was it's own counter. Glass cannoning wasn't bad, but it was too much glass and not enough cannon. It's only option was to stall and fireball, and it required shards to do.
TL:DR starts hereWhat follows are 4 cards that would fix the three weakest elements right now. Life, water, and time.
Water is the easiest to fix. It's "role" should be flexibility. It can duo with anything. Where fire always bursts and destroys, water creates and adapts. Fire is the "This is what I do and I do it until I win" element. Water is the "I can do anything and if I pick the right thing I win" element. So we need one card that lets water truly do anything.
I humbly present: Liquify
It has no art, as I'm not sure if it's balanced yet. This card would allow water to duo/trio extraordinarily well. It would also make nymph's tears a useful card. Want to make a poison deck? Why not make it water/darkness, and liquify your chrysorra (It's been too long since I played, can't spell that) and parasites? Up against a fire deck? Earthquake their pillars, outrush them with graboids. Yeah, that's just water playing an earth/time deck, but throw in some squids and a trident, and fire will never know what hit it. Feel free to reincarnate your pheonix, too bad it's frozen. Oh yeah, and you can have mind flayers in an earth rush. That's the power water should have.
It's strong, but balanced. If a liquified creature gets killed, you lose card advantage, and you only have so many liquifies.
Next up to fix is time.
Time's "thing" is card advantage. I draw more, you draw less. But in a game like elements, the only way to use card advantage effectively is to go rainbow. The good cards are too spread out. So what time needs is a) a card that rewards card advantage, and b) a card that enables rainbow.
I present to you: Knight of the future, and quantamage.
Time's first synergistic creature.
How it works:
You draw a card to start your turn.
If you then draw an additional card, it becomes a 2/2
Next turn, you draw a card. It's still a 2/2
If you draw an additional card, it's now a 3/3
If you then draw a third card, it becomes a 4/4.
Mono time has something it can do now.
But that doesn't make time strong enough yet. That's only a staple creature. It still needs it's amazing card. I give you, quantamage.
Quantamage has two effects, I'll explain the passive first.
If you wanted to cast a lava destroyer, you'd typically pay 7 (I think? It's been a while) fire quanta. Instead, you'd spend 7 quanta of each element.
Combining his passive and his active, quantamage allows you to convert 1 time quanta into 1 any-quanta, and suddenly you can only play non-time cards with any-quanta. It's a time card that allows you to rainbow, but once you play it, you can't duo any more.
These two cards combined let time use it's draw power more effectively, as it's more easily rainbow, or more offensively, without going rainbow.
The final element that needs a strong card is life.
Life was the one I had the strongest time with. If it had creature protection or counter-stall, it'd be broken. It already has plenty of ways to get a ton of damage, but too frequently the enemy has methods of not caring about damage. I give you, stampede.
It isn't creature protection. Life has enough creature production that any form of creature protection would be stupidly overpowered. It isn't control either. Life isn't about blowing up your stuff and your creatures. This card lets life truly be the opposite of death. It over comes decay. Eventually, instead of everything dying, everything gets stonger, overwhelmingly strong, and it bursts through and crushes your stall.
This card let's life get past stall. It isn't enough to just survive to turn 12 or so and then spam phase shields. There will never be a game where it's pointless to increase the damage you do, because your damage is 100% negated by 1 card. If you hit the tipping point, if you reach 100 damage in a normal game, you burst through their stalling and win.
I believe these four cards are balanced, and will take bottom-tier elements that are 1-trick ponies, unorganized, and more supplemental elements, and turn them into powerhouses with a defined role. Before I find art, submit it to the crucible, come up with upgraded cards, the works, I figured I'd post it here. It's been a while since I've played, maybe the meta has changed and I'm balancing the old ways. I don't think any cards have been added, but I read somewhere that 10 more shards are being made, maybe that'll fix the problem. They probably have balance issues you can help me with.
