Elemental Breakdown: LIFE

[Bloodshadow]

Cybernetic, AI things are in the realm of Gravity, the element of science.

I don't think of Gravity as the element of science. Look at my reply in the Gravity thread.

[Seiya]

I believe that Gravity's primary role is that of Order.  imo, its secondary role is that of Science and Technology.  Robots fit in that realm.  However, robots could fulfill that definition for life too...

[SnoWeb]

At this point I would like to thank, wizelsnarf for doing this. I think Life is the one element that is most dependent on all the rest to exist.

Absolutely. Life needs water to work. Plants need light to grow. Animals need warmth to survive in the dark and air to survive. With time life needs to evolve and it probably uses entropic principles to do so. Without all this it's death , one put the body to the ground or the fire and the soul to where-ever it belongs . Don't takes Life with to much gravity you might forget the fun but don't rush to much with you life too, you might forgeit that it's beautiful .

[Glitch]

What I personally want life to be:  Evolution.
I want it to be the ramp element, the synergy element, the exponential element.

I want cards like Stampede, where if you have over 10 creatures in play, they get momentum until end of turn.  I want wither, which would suck out half of target creature's attack power and turn it into water quanta.  I want scorpion to automatically get +1/+1 if an enemy creature is poisoned, turning it from a useless buff-reliant card to a predator.  I want cockatrice's active to cost 3 life quanta and make you draw a card.  I want adrenaline to actually be beneficial on large creatures, like allowing them to use their active 1 extra time for each extra attack less than four it has.

I want them to remove the nerfs on adrenaline+devourer, at least in upgraded, it's not OP.  I want SoR+rustler to allow more than 1 hit.  I'm terrified mitosis+SoR is going to get nerfed despite it being slow in duo decks.

With all of these examples, you take an already highly synergistic element strong in some aspects, and make that synergy a global aspect of the element.

Death is all about decay.  Destroying your opponents and withering them down.
Life should be all about growth.  Not rushing, but expanding rapidly at a pace difficult to contain.




Let's be honest here, I just want life to be my pet element, where every deck is an exponential explosive ramp deck where everything builds off everything until all of it explodes.

[furballdn]

To me, Life as an element just means the bare brawl. It has damage, healing, and that's pretty much it. Not much control or denial. Just focuses on getting the damage out quickly and patching yourself up in the process.

[OldTrees]

What I personally want life to be:  Evolution.
I want it to be the ramp element, the synergy element, the exponential element.

I want cards like Stampede, where if you have over 10 creatures in play, they get momentum until end of turn.  I want wither, which would suck out half of target creature's attack power and turn it into water quanta.  I want scorpion to automatically get +1/+1 if an enemy creature is poisoned, turning it from a useless buff-reliant card to a predator.  I want cockatrice's active to cost 3 life quanta and make you draw a card.  I want adrenaline to actually be beneficial on large creatures, like allowing them to use their active 1 extra time for each extra attack less than four it has.

I want them to remove the nerfs on adrenaline+devourer, at least in upgraded, it's not OP.  I want SoR+rustler to allow more than 1 hit.  I'm terrified mitosis+SoR is going to get nerfed despite it being slow in duo decks.

With all of these examples, you take an already highly synergistic element strong in some aspects, and make that synergy a global aspect of the element.

Death is all about decay.  Destroying your opponents and withering them down.
Life should be all about growth.  Not rushing, but expanding rapidly at a pace difficult to contain.




Let's be honest here, I just want life to be my pet element, where every deck is an exponential explosive ramp deck where everything builds off everything until all of it explodes.

Disclaimer: My first thought is to the metagame. I owe no Element my allegiance.

I agree that life is Growth themed. In fact it is more growth themed than Green from MtG is. Stampede is not growth. Growth is not restricted to expanding rapidly. It can also be slow, steady sustainable growth. Life should have both.

Life currently lacks in defense, evasion and counterdefense. (aka it has few responses to what the opponent does)

Some solutions?
Vegetation can grow to hamper the opponent's offense.
Vegetation can grow past the opponent's defenses or provide a canopy for life's offense to protect it from the opponent's defense.

[Glitch]

CC wouldn't be a problem for life if it's ramp wasn't so bottlenecked.

Let's compare the two fastest elements in the game, fire, and life.
Both have buff cards, high damage creatures for cheap, and mana ramp.
Fire's mana ramp is a spell.
Life's mana ramp is a 1/3 health creature
Fire's high damage creature comes back from the dead
Life's high damage creature is a 3-5 health creature, maybe 6 if you're dragoning
Fire's buff card is a flexible burn spell
Life's buff card is powerful but stale, it can only be used with certain cards and said cards are typically weak.

I wouldn't care if they destroyed my creatures if I could make more creatures than their body had room for.  If there was a permanent with photosynthesis, ardrenrols would become a lot safer, because you can't shut it down without both permanent and creature control.





Life's main problem lies deeper than the element, it goes back to the core balance of the game.
As it stands right now, the vast majority of killspells 1 hit opponents.  They have to.  In a game with so little draw power, if you need to spells you're giving up card advantage.
The problem is, every low drop combo card is completely obliterated by minimal CC.
Creatures that can survive taking 5 damage (requires 2 burn spells, gravity pull, poison, or lobo)
Amethyst Dragon (upgraded only)
Armaggio
Colossal Dragon
Aflatoxin (upgraded only)
Graviton Firemaster (upgraded only)
Hematite Golem
Stone Dragon
Vanadium Warden (upgraded only)
Emerald Dragon
Green Nymph
Red Nymph
Pheonix
Ice Dragon  (Unupgraded only)
Steam Machine
Abyssal Crawler (upgraded only)
Golden Dragon
Guardian Angel
Light Nymph
Azure Dragon
Firefly Queen
Anubis
Pharaoh
Golden Nymph
Voodoo Doll
Obsidian Dragon (upgraded only)
Phase Dragon
Immortal

The VAST majority of creatures with abilities have 1 health unupgraded, and 3 health upgraded.

For a developer who said he didn't want instant kill spells, he sure put a lot of them in.

[OldTrees]

Yes Life's ramp is bottlenecked. However sustained growth ramp should be slower than resource sacrificing ramp. So Life needs a way to protect its bottleneck.

A status effect that increases max hp each turn would help if played early enough. [similar to Lignification]
Daughter creatures that are a higher priority than the mother would protect the mother. [similar to Forest Scorpion]
Cards that shield a creature from 1-2 targeting effect(s) would increase the CC cost. [similar to Vines]
Creatures that create spawn as a come into play effect would create excess bodies. [similar to Alpha Wolf]