Which elements are "Complete"?

[OldTrees]

Dragons are usually good examples. (possibly excluding Colossal and definitely excluding Massive at this time.)

Since I also want to use this thread to investigate Elemental character, I would prefer to exclude off element cards. However you have a very important point. Please use in element analogues when possible.

So my only question is, why do all the elements need to be "complete"? Should I move this discussion to a different topic?

We can discuss this here as well. To start I will try to define better what I think each element should have and why.

Solid Offense: Each element should have a set of reasonably competent win conditions. This makes mono decks with loyal marks possible in the metagame.
Solid Defense: Each element should have an answer to each type of threat. Answers vary drastically from Removal (Hard CC or PC) to Mitigation (Healing, DR, Failure Chance). In short Solid Defense allows a game to continue instead of being as inevitable as Rock Paper Scissors. This has the added effect of allowing players to vary the Offense/Defense ratio of their deck to match many different strategies from Blind Rush to Deckout Stall.
Evasion: I personally do not like when a game becomes inevitable too soon. If a Defense can completely negate the other player's Offense then the game becomes inevitable too soon for my tastes. For this reason I believe each Element that is faced with this dilemma should have internal access to an Answer to the Defense. Evasion usually takes the form of alternative avenues of attack or direct answers (from Removal to Mitigation) to the source of the defense.

It is important that these methods be diverse. However you can get extremely diverse with answers (Lightning and Heal are both answers to Crimson Dragon. Aether does not need Healing nor does Life need Damage CC)

[TheManuz]

I made this table, showing if element has solid offense (imho, of course) and what card achieve it.

	Phase Dragons, +Recluses for upped: poor unupped, medium upped
	Wyrms, Dragons, Skyblitz, Dives, Animate Weapons: nice
	Dragons, Gargoyles, Eclipses, Drain Life: nice
	Dragons, Mummys, Vultures, Poison, Arsenic +Recluses for upped: good
	Shriekers and Dragons: not bad? (not counting graboids)
	Abominations, Dragons, +Chaos power for upped: poor unupped, medium upped  (not counting lycanthropes)
	Phoenixes, Dragons, Fire spirits, Fire Lances: poweful
	Chargers, Dragons, Momentums, Accelerations, Titans: good
	Frogs, Cockatrices, Dragons, Mitosis, Adrenaline: good
	Dragons, Archangels (only upped), Blessings, Morning Star|Glory: poor unupped, medium upped
	Dragons, Scarabs,Ghosts: medium (not counting Dune Scorpions, need off-element buffs)
	Abyss Crawlers (only upped), Dragons, Ice Lances, ToadFishes|Pufferfishes: medium

Of course i'm sure there are many things wrong, incomplete, etc... but we can discuss them!

[Pineapple]

@TheManuz:
I scrolled down to water, didn't see Toadfish on there, saw "Pufferfish (only upped), saw "poor unupped, medium upped", and concluded that I didn't need to read it.

[TheManuz]

@TheManuz:
I scrolled down to water, didn't see Toadfish on there, saw "Pufferfish (only upped), saw "poor unupped, medium upped", and concluded that I didn't need to read it.

Sorry, i had to specify that i did not count cross elements.

EDIT: table modified

[Pineapple]

@TheManuz:
I scrolled down to water, didn't see Toadfish on there, saw "Pufferfish (only upped), saw "poor unupped, medium upped", and concluded that I didn't need to read it.

Sorry, i had to specify that i did not count cross elements.

EDIT: table modified

Toadfish has 6 attack and costs 5 quanta. It has more attack than a gargoyle, and equal attack to gargoyles + eclipse, while costing the same. You don't need to pay any air to make it attack.

[TheManuz]

@TheManuz:
I scrolled down to water, didn't see Toadfish on there, saw "Pufferfish (only upped), saw "poor unupped, medium upped", and concluded that I didn't need to read it.

Sorry, i had to specify that i did not count cross elements.

EDIT: table modified

Toadfish has 6 attack and costs 5 quanta. You don't need to pay any air to make it attack.

You're right, my bad! Updating the table again!

[Pineapple]

Forgot unstable gas for Air. Also, I'd drop air down to medium, since wyrms suck that much.
vultures need virus/plague, so they're not really that reliable...arsenic is definitely reliable, and poison is just as reliable with/without extra poison. If the opponent has 20 poison counters on him, poison will still make it 22, you're like saying that ash eater isn't solid offense because it needs phoenix to effectively kill the opponent, while ash eater isn't solid solely because it sucks. By the way, I think poison is reliable because, since dragons are up there, we're assuming the opponent doesn't have healing over time, and therefore you can whittle their HP down to 0 with poison as long as they don't have purifies (added reliability from being hard to counter/destroy/mitigate).

Wait. Must "solid offense" things be able to be countered by "solid defense"?

Charger(unupped) and Momentum don't really do much, I'd put gravity in medium too.
A time rush does pretty well because of precognitions, deja vus, and scarabs/ghosts. Also, time nymphs are 1337.

[TheManuz]

Forgot unstable gas for Air. Also, I'd drop air down to medium, since wyrms suck that much.
vultures need virus/plague, so they're not really that reliable...arsenic is definitely reliable, and poison is just as reliable with/without extra poison. If the opponent has 20 poison counters on him, poison will still make it 22, you're like saying that ash eater isn't solid offense because it needs phoenix to effectively kill the opponent, while ash eater isn't solid solely because it sucks. By the way, I think poison is reliable because, since dragons are up there, we're assuming the opponent doesn't have healing over time, and therefore you can whittle their HP down to 0 with poison as long as they don't have purifies (added reliability from being hard to counter/destroy/mitigate).

Charger(unupped) and Momentum don't really do much, I'd put gravity in medium too.
A time rush does pretty well because of precognitions, deja vus, and scarabs/ghosts. Also, time nymphs are 1337.

I did not count Unstable Gas because it needs  to be activated. Changed  to "nice"
I don't know if i have to count Vultures or not. I agree that poison is reliable. Modified cards in 
Unupped charger aren't very powerful, but they cannot be blocked by shields, and this sounds solid to me. Same reason for momentum: sure damage. I'll leave  to good.
About time: deja vus are weak without buffs (and there are no buffs in  ), scarabs are ok, ghosts are good. I did not count Golden Nymphs because really few players can use 6 of them in a deck. I'll add Scarabs to and change it to "medium".

Wait. Must "solid offense" things be able to be countered by "solid defense"?

I'm not sure, but i think that it's not important until we examine defenses in elements.

[Pineapple]

Oh right, unstable gas needs fire..

A time rush does pretty well because of precognitions, deja vus, and scarabs/ghosts. Also, time nymphs are 1337.

About time: deja vus are weak without buffs (and there are no buffs in  ), scarabs are ok, ghosts are good. I did not count Golden Nymphs because really few players can use 6 of them in a deck. I'll add Scarabs to and change it to "medium".

Deja vus are not too weak, I actually prefer them over scarabs upped. Plus, you're definitely not putting 6 dragons into any rush deck, so why would you need 6 golden nymphs? Oh, and pharaoh should count because of the amount of damage you can create with that one card.

And this leads to me to my next question: do we determine how "solid" it is by how little copies you need to use to kill the opponent or how many counters there are for any number of copies?

[OldTrees]

Thanks TheManuz for your table of Offensive tools for the Offensive Methods. I will build off it to answer one of the other questions.

All have ", Deckout (the free method)" implied but there is no deckout accelerating tools yet.

	Melee (2 variants Phase Dragon or Phase Recluse) Swarm (1.5 variants Fractal+Spark or Fractal+Phase Recluse)
	Melee (3 variants Wyrms, Dragons or Animated Owl's Eyes. Skyblitz Augments)
	Melee (2 variants Dragons or Gargoyles. Eclipses Augments) Spell (1 variant Drain Life)
	Melee (5 variants Dragons, Mummys, Vultures or Recluses) Poison (2 variants Poison or Arsenic)
	Melee (2 variants Shriekers or Dragons)
	Melee (2 variants Abominations or Dragons. Chaos Power Augments)
	Melee (4 variants Phoenixes, Dragons, Fire spirits or Farhenheit) Spell (1 variant Fire Lances)
	Melee (3 variants Chargers, Dragons or Acceleration)
	Melee (3 variants Frogs, Cockatrices or Dragons. Adrenaline Augments) Swarm (1 variant Mitosis. Adrenaline augments)
	Melee (3 variants Dragons, Archangels or Crusader. Blessing Augments)
	Melee (2 variants Dragons or Ghosts) Swarm (2 variants Pharaoh or Scarabs)
	Melee (3 variants Abyss Crawlers, Dragons or ToadFishes|Pufferfishes) Spell (1 variant Ice Bolt)

I did not include any weapon without scaling damage or Animate Weapon in element. If you disagree then there would be +1 variant for melee.
I removed Momentum because that is Evasion rather than Offense. You will note that Charger would overlap both categories.
Added Fractal Spark and Fractal Recluse to Aether. Please correct me if you disagree. I do not have much experience with Mono Aether.

A way to measure how Solid an offensive method or tool is: How serious would you be (assuming you are rational) if you commented that your were going to defeat a challenging opponent using that method or tool as your win condition?

Solid Offense does not need to be currently able to be countered by existing Defensive tools.

[TheManuz]

OldTrees very big table!

Ok, now it's clear! 
I understood what you meant with Offensive Tools. These are archetypes of strategies. Something between a deck-level and a card-level.

[Camoninja]

I made a new table, with more info, including counters to other strategies. It may or may not be any good still. Not to mention it no longer fits on the page. I was surprised at all the counters after I started looking.

Healing

Small Damage (1-3)

Medium Damage (4-6)

Large Damage (7+)

Growing Damage

Individual Creature Control

Mass Creature Control

Repeatable Creature Control

Quanta

Denial

Buff

Permanent Control

Counter

Antimatter

Micro Abomination

Abomination, Discord,Lycanthrope

Chaos Seed

Pandemonium

Maxwell's Demon

Nova

Discord

Chaos Power

Butterfly Effect

Poison

Flesh Recluse, Mummy

Arsenic, Deathstalker, Condor, Graveyard

Virus, Aflatoxin

Plague, Retrovirus, Skull Shield

Soul Catcher

Bone Wall (PC), Poison (CC)

Black Hole

Mercenary

Charger, Titan, Catapult

Otyugh, Acceleration, Fire Eater

Gravity Pull

Otyugh

Black Hole

Momentum

Dragon, Armagio (damage CC)

Stone Skin

Steel Golem

Graboid, Shrieker

Basilisk Blood

Warden

Gnome Rider

Earthquake

Pulverizer

Protect Artifact (PC), Shrieker (CC)

Feral Bond, Heal

Horned Frog

Giant Frog, Cockatrice

Scorpion

Spine Carapace

←

Rustler

Adrenaline

Jade Shield (Bolts, UG, PC), Rustler (Denial)

Minor Phoenix

Phoenix, Bolt, Fahrenheit

Lava Golem, Fire Spirit

Rage Potion

Fire Shield, Fire Storm

Brimstone Eater

Rage Potion

Explosion

Phoenix(CC)

Purify

Ulitharid

Abyss Crawler, Toadfish

Pufferfish

Freeze

Ice Shield,Flooding

Arctic Squid, Ulitharid

Bolt (weapons only)

Purify (Poison)

Miracle, Sanctuary,Luciferin

Crusader

Archangel, MorningStar

Luciferin, Solar Shield,Ray of Light

Blessing

Mirror Shield (Bolts, Unstable Gas), Sanctuary (Denial), Morning Star (Control),Hope (PC)

Damselfly

Wyrm, Sky Blitz

Shockwave

Unstable Gas, Thunderstorm

Owl's Eye

Damselfly

Animate Weapon (CC)

Scarab, Deja Vu

Ghost of the Past

Dune Scorpion,Pharaoh

Rewind

Eternity

Rewind

Rewind, Eternity (Immolation, Supernova, Graboid, Delayed/ing CC, deckout), Dune Scorpion, Scarab (CC),Sundial (creature damage)

Liquid Shadow, Nightmare, Siphon Life, Vampire, Vampire Dagger

Parasite, Minor Vampire

Vampire

Gargoyle

Liquid Shadow

Parasite

Pest

Pest, Nightmare

Eclipse

Steal

Gargoyle, Pest (CC), Cloak (Individual Control)

Immortal

Phase Recluse

Fractal, Parallel Universe

Thunderbolt

Lobotomizer

Silence

Immortal,Phase Dragon, Quintessence (CC)

SoD, SoG

Dagger

Gavel, Bow, Sword