Skalderi Invasion

[storyteller]

Skalderi

The Skalderi are a powerful elemental using people, who travel the dimensions through manipulation of space and time. the create a couple of new concepts and mechanics. Deplete discards cards from your deck. It cant make you deck out. There are a few other new effects in here as well.



  Skalderi Farmer 0 cost
1|1
Generate 1 Random Quanta each turn

1|2
Generate 2 Random Quanta each turn


Skalderi Guard Deplete 1
1|3
prevent a permanent from being stolen, if a permanent would be destroyed, destroy a guard instead

1|5
prevent a permanent from being stolen, if a permanent would be destroyed, destroy a guard instead


Skalderi Enforcer Deplete 1
3|3

4|4


Skalderi War Maker Deplete 2
4|4
deplete 1 per turn and gain +1|+1

4|6
deplete 1 per turn and gain +1|+1

Skaderi Medico Deplete 1
1|3
2 Any, heal target creature

1|6
2 Any, heal target creature


Skalderi Balancer Deplete 2
1|2, subtract 1 from your highest quanta pool and add it to your lowest

2|4, subtract 1 from your highest quanta pool and add it to your lowest


Circuit Shaman Deplete 2
1|5
target permanent you control is enchanted during your opponents turn or target permanent your opponent controls cannot be used or function during their turn

2|5
target permanent you control is enchanted during your opponents turn or target permanent your opponent controls cannot be used or function during their turn


Heirophant of Machines Deplete 3
2|6
activate or copy ability of target permanent for 1 turn

3|6
activate or copy ability of target permanent for 1 turn


Priest of Measures Deplete 3
0|6
strongest creature on both fields is delayed 2 turns.

0|8
strongest creature on both fields is delayed 3 turns

Skalderi World Ship Deplete 6
Permanent, 3 counters, if all three counters are depleted, return to deck and play 4 Farmer, 2 Guard a Medico and a Balancer


Skalderi Mind Palace Deplete 1
Permanent 2 counters, if there are no counters on Mind Palace, you may spend 4 Random Quanta to summon a Priest, Heirophant or Shaman into play randomly and place 2 counters on Mind Palace


Skalderi Outpost Deplete 2
Deplete 1 to play a War Maker, Enforcer or Guard randomly.


Skalderi Trade Market Deplete 2
3 Any: Target card in your hand is exchanged for a random card in opponents deck.

3 Any: Target card in your hand is exchanged for a random card in target deck.


Skalderi Sacrificer Deplete 3
2|5
Sacrifice Card in your hand to deal its Quanta or Deplete cost to target creature

3|7
Sacrifice Card in your hand to deal its Quanta or deplete cost to target creature


Ghost of Relics Deplete 3
4|2
destroy a permanent you control to give its casting cost to Ghost of Relics as Attack

5|2
destroy a permanent you control to give its casting cost to Ghost of Relics as Attack


Skaderi Spirit Armor Deplete 2
target creature gains Momentum and +4/(+7upped) Armor


Skaderi Sacred Blades Deplete 2
target creature gain Adrenaline and +1/(+2upped) Attack

Skalderi Harvest Deplete 1
all farmers you control produce +4(+6) Max HP per turn instead of quanta.
2 counters, lose one per turn

Skalderi World Gate Deplete 4
Cards you discard return to your deck.
Spend 4 Any to return a creature to your deck.
Spend 5 Any per turn to maintain.

[OldTrees]

1) That is a lot of sketches of cards. Usually a few rough drafts of cards is higher quality than more sketches of cards.

2) You forgot to think about Deplete. This is exemplified by Skalderi War Maker. A deck of 30 Skalderi War Makers (impossible yes but consider it for a moment) would easily win on turn 3 every game. The cost of playing 6 Skalderi War Maker is Deplete 12 + 6 draws. The effective cost of playing 6 Skalderi War Maker is 6 draws. Notice how the Deplete cost is not included in the effective cost for this kind of a card. Do you see why?

[storyteller]

ok, I see what you are saying. It could be a bit more costly or have less power.

Lets look at a more realistic deck for a second.

6 War Maker
6 Enforcer
6 Armor
6 Blades
6 Medico

Thats a 30 card rush. Its fairly straight forward and captures a lot of power quickly. to consider realistically, we see that you might draw say 2 or three War Makers in your open hand, and you could compare this to a perfect draw of Photons, Immolation and Lava Golems. The difference is your deck is now depleted to 19 or even 17 right off the bat, never to be recovered. Maybe those do need toned down, but in the end, Deplete is a solid mechanic. Do you see any other cards right now that might need adjusted? I agree that War Maker might be a hair too strong.

[OldTrees]

ok, I see what you are saying. It could be a bit more costly or have less power.

Lets look at a more realistic deck for a second.

6 War Maker
6 Enforcer
6 Armor
6 Blades
6 Medico

Thats a 30 card rush. Its fairly straight forward and captures a lot of power quickly. to consider realistically, we see that you might draw say 2 or three War Makers in your open hand, and you could compare this to a perfect draw of Photons, Immolation and Lava Golems. The difference is your deck is now depleted to 19 or even 17 right off the bat, never to be recovered. Maybe those do need toned down, but in the end, Deplete is a solid mechanic. Do you see any other cards right now that might need adjusted? I agree that War Maker might be a hair too strong.

Have you ever researched milling?
Milling has no effect until the turn they deck out.
If I deplete 12 card I will not feel the effects until turn 13 (7 + 13 + 12 = 31 > 30)
If the game ends way before turn 13 then the depletion of 12 cards had no effective cost.
From this fact you can identify which types of cards should not have deplete costs and which types of cards might have deplete costs.


Warmaker: 6 attack
[unupped] Heirophant of Machines + Blades: 12 damage per turn
[or upped] Medico + Blades: 12 damage per turn
12 dead cards
Total: 18 damage per turn from 3 cards played first turn unupped or upped.
Cost: 3 cards + Deplete 7|5
18 damage per turn wins in 6 turns (5 if 2 more damage per turn is found in the remaining 4 cards)
Deplete 7|5 with TTW 5.5 ends the game with 30-7.5-4.5-7|5 = 11|13 card decks making the depletion cost a non issue.
So for the cost of 0 quanta + 3 cards you have a 6 turn win condition.

The problem is most of these cards are the kind of card that cannot accept a deplete cost.

[storyteller]

ok, compare a Lava Destroyer with earth mark.
this is somewhat similar, 3 cards, first turn.

Photon+Immolation+LavaDestroyer is a 7|1, with +2|+2 per turn.

7
+9
+11
+13
+15
+17
+19
+21

112

TTW =8, 7 if you do 9 more damage.

So yes, some of these are stronger, and may need balance work, but it is clear they are not out of the realm of possibility. Think about how effective Reverse Time is against Skalderi... or Shard of Bravery or even Sundial.

So, yes, I do see some of these are stronger than I wanted, but I did reduce costs a bit for fear of scaring people of deckout. Ill go over some of these soon, I have 3-4 more cards in the set I want to add. I may take a few out and alter some.

Id love it if you would go through and offer suggestions on cost and balance. Im ok with some quanta costs, but would like to stay with Deplete as the Skalderi mechanic. Beyond it, I think they offer several new actions and abilities, specifically some manipulation and soft control.

[OldTrees]

ok, compare a Lava Destroyer with earth mark.
this is somewhat similar, 3 cards, first turn.

So unupped 9 TTW for 3 cards + 7 vs 6 TTW for 3 cards + 0 quanta.
So upgraded 8 TTW for 3 cards + 6 vs 6 TTW for 3 cards + 0 quanta.

3 cards + 6 ~= 6 cards
8 TTW for 6 cards vs 6 TTW for 3 cards

Reverse Time makes someone repeat a cost. Currently it is the only way to make Aggro Skalderi actually face its depletion cost. Even this requires multiple reverse times. A cost should not require the opponent to pack a specific card for it to be heard.

All mechanics make demands of the rest of the card. Costs make the demand that they need to be heard. Depletion costs are not heard by Aggro decks. This affects what cards the Depletion cost should associate with.

I may comment on the other abilities after we are done discussing Deplete. However most of the other abilities (except Shaman, Priest and Ghost) were not interesting.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I personally find the Deplete mechanic interesting, though I do agree the Skalderi's abilities are somewhat generic (Farmer, Spirit Armor, and Blades are the least unique / Guard and Shaman are the most unique IMHO)

Regarding balance, how about having a combined Quanta + Deplete cost? I think this suggestion could be done in several ways:
A) Have Skalderi be low-cost cards that deplete X cards = cost.
B) All Skalderi have the keyword "Deplete X" in their card text and a separate quanta cost.
C) Skalderi deplete a certain amount of cards in relation to their cost (E.g. Half, twice as many etc...) rounded up.
On a cross-series note : the Deck Revealers could have interesting synergy with this - you could have a Deck Revealers check your top card beforehand to make sure the next Skalderi card you play doesn't get rid of something important. If there was a Deck Revealer that revealed cards below the top card (or allowed other Deck Revealers to 'stack'), you could potentially forsee the whole Skalderi 'cost'. [In fact, I think I'll plan that idea later.]