Okay, I've been around enough to notice that cards aimed at modifying the "immaterial" status are, have been, and likely will continue to be an extremely common occurrence.
I think it would be worthwhile to have a topic here for discussion of such mechanics, both as a reference for beginning card designers and as food for thought for more experienced designers.
My hope is to help promote more original, balanced, and well thought out ideas with respect to this mechanic.
To keep things focused lets start with:
1) When, if ever, should cards with "immaterial" status be allowed to get affected by an effect
*On a related note, what kinds of effects should be allowed?
2) Is removal of "immaterial" status a viable option (even if temporarily)... More importantly, why or why not?
* If yes, then what would be some ways to ensure such an effect is kept in balance.
3) More generally, other than the aether element, what other elements could have a good thematic connection to manipulating immaterial status?
(starting from the premise that the Immaterial skill is given from the ability those creatures have to shift between dimensions and get back in the "game" dimensions when they attack) (cards may not be balanced, they're just examples) (wording may be wrong, they're just examples)
(1)
Immaterial creatures should be affected by cards' effects when they are friendly (from the owner) and when they are expecially meant for them, playing on the whole "dimensional" stuff. We'll see more examples later.
(2)&(3)
As I said earlier, Immaterial creatures get their immaterial status from being in another dimension when not attacking. If the various dimensions collapse and fuse into one (due to the giant gravity), there's no dimension to escape into for the whole game. I was unsure on whether to make the card Gravity or Entropy. IMHO, Entropy would fit better, due to the whole dimensional stuff, but Gravity is more into the collapse thing. As the card is now, it WON'T remove the immaterial status, but render it useless, although initially the card was meant to fully remove it. Also, in order not to make it too random, I made it as an hard counter to Phase Shields too, although Gravity may not need it.
Taking this into a discursive way:
Immaterial creatures hide into another dimension when they aren't attacking, but they can move at will. This means they SHOULD get buffs (only from the owner, because he's the one moving them). However, in order not to make immortals OP, this wasn't done (most likely, it's like "we cannot communicate with our owner, but we come out a pre-established times to attack") . However, a card, SoW, can actually target Immortals. I think it is due the Shard being able to change dimensions to go and give an helping hand to the Immortal. This means that cards that specifically aim to them CAN be done, although they should be only aimed to them, in order not to make it OP. Dimensional Gift, for example, gives a boost to all and only the immaterial creatures. This is, IMHO, doable.
As for negatively working with the immaterial status (inflicting damage to them, remove the status, ecc...), it follows the same reasoning. As long as, thematically, it has a reason to work and doesn't have many uses aside specifically hitting immaterial creatures (maybe fusing that with "shifting out of phase", given that they work the same way).
Example (name sucks, didn't want to call it "dimensional" again). This mostly belongs to Entropy and Gravity (and Aether, but I don't really like betrayals (?) like those), because the other elements are too reality-related. Gravity is doable because of cards like Dimensional Collapse.
