Instakill Concept [read before commenting, please]

[ddevans96]

So, Elements already has instakill mechanics.

Freeze+Shockwave: Two card combo
Mutation: 10% chance
Maxwell's Demon, Otyugh: Conditional

What if there was an instakill card with a steep drawback? For example:

> Kill target creature. Damage your HP equal to the target's quanta cost, attack, and HP.

So killing a new Lava Golem would be 11 damage to you, +4 every time it's grown. So at 7 HP, when it's out of the range of one Lightning or Rage, you'd take 23 damage (25 upped)

Armagio in your way, and you need it gone sooner? Kill it, take 31 damage (37 upped). Playing vs a RoL/Hope, and you can handle the Rays, but not the Dragons? 32 damage (also 37 upped). Nymph Queen threating to swarm you to death? 19 damage (21 upped).

Surely this concept can be balanced.

Someone else provided this example:

> Kill target creature. You lose the game in X turns.

[Submachine]

I still think it's underpowered.

My concept when I'm already ready with the discussion whether they should be even allowed or not, I think of insta-kill cards as more useful one-target CC cards to replace otherwise useful ones. This way, if you'd kill something that can be killed with another card, sure do that. It still kills only 1 creature, which is rarely going to be something that you couldn't kill with another single CC card.

So in most cases you want to kill something, because you want to prevent its damage reaching you in the following turns. But since its attack only would do X damage next turn, you exchange it to X+HP+cost while the creature most likely already dealt X damage to you the last turn. This way the user goes into his own death instead of avoiding it.

[Fippe94]

Relevant: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/card-ideas-and-art/waive-abdicate/

Your version seems way too UP imo, the version I linked seems more balanced.

[ddevans96]

'My version' is just a concept. It's meant to spark discussion, it's not meant to be balanced yet.

Surely this concept can be balanced.

But thank you for linking that - the fact that this idea has been posted recently means at least the community is open to it, while at one time it may not have been.

[Submachine]

I suggest that if there will eve be an insta-kill card, which has a drawback of damaging the user, it should never be element, because of SoSac abuse.

[ddevans96]

Agreed. My original idea was actually Aether, but this is hard to theme there without involving electricity, which means it steps on Lightning both thematically AND mechanically.

[andretimpa]

I suggest that if there will eve be an insta-kill card, which has a drawback of damaging the user, it should never be element, because of SoSac abuse.

If you also reduce max HP you can't abuse it with SoSac (at least not as reliably)

[dark ripper]

I suggest that if there will eve be an insta-kill card, which has a drawback of damaging the user, it should never be element, because of SoSac abuse.

If you also reduce max HP you can't abuse it with SoSac (at least not as reliably)

that was my exact suggestion in chat. It does seem kinda UP so I suggested the skill would be reduce max hp by X , X being the numer dd mentioned for each creature divided by 2. Its not only for sosac abuse, its also about healing in general that could abuse instant kills without much of an hp loss.

[Aneninen]

Need we an instakill card anyway?
First of all, there are so many cards to get rid of creatures.
Second, it's not always the Attack or the HP of the enemy creature hurts. Many times the skill, that causes an utterly detrimental effect on your deck. In the latter case, any kind of penalty based upon the stats will cause an instakill card esentially overpowered.

[Espithel]

Note that lightning is essentially already an instakill to half the creatures in the game.
And that costs 1 !

[dragonsdemesne]

> Kill target creature. You lose the game in X turns.

This was my suggestion in chat; I had envisioned it being a Death card, but I don't think I ever mentioned that part to ddevans.