Triple posting ftw. Voting ends, rankings up, people celebrate victory (or not), enjoy!
Here’s my choice for rankings. I looked at ideas and usability and overlooked balance, as this can be fixed later (unless something is really broken). Unless anyone is terribly opposed, the winner will be who I have chosen. Without further ado, let’s get on with it.
Spoiler for 5th Place:
Beacon of Light | Beacon of Hope & Reap the Night | Fog of Despair - Zignaught
Beacon of Light is a pretty good card for healing. Makes Sanctuaries heal 5 unupped and 6 upped (I’m guessing it rounds up). Heal would be 24 and 26. Looks good in stalls for extra healing. You’d only need 3 or 4 to make it work, much like Nightfall | Eclipse. And it would of course work for vampires, as is the point.
Reap the Night would only work with cloaks. That pretty much limits you to a dark heavy deck. I don’t think you intend this to be stackable, I wouldn’t have it so. The percentage would have to be low, say 20% or around that mark, perhaps lower. Would also work well with Nightfall | Eclipse, giving you a +4 damage. Obsidian dragons dealing 28 and untargetable; great, unless it’s against you.
Together, well, on the surface, cloaked vampires seems perfect. Until you realize it’s a 4 card combo. That being said, if the combo gets down, it would be quite powerful. Vampire would deal 11 damage and heal just as much in a fully upped deck. But then you would need a good amount of light quanta (more than your mark alone)and more darkness for creatures and cloaks. The only criticism I have is this: this challenge is supposed to be 2 complementary cards. Unfortunately, these cards don’t complement each other directly. These cards just by themselves would do nothing. I’m sorry Zignaught but, given the nature of this challenge, I’m going to have to give you 5th place.
Spoiler for 4th Place:
Observant Gecko | Observant Iguana & Clock | Overclock - Pineapple
Observant Gecko reminds me of Mindgate; although sometimes feasible, it’s kinda iffy on the usage. Realistically, you’d have to be using Quantum Towers to use this skill reliably. But much like Mindgates, I don’t see this being a decently used card. The only other thing it can do is prevent deckouts, which makes it an alternative to Eternity + PA + photon.
Clock has a much more versatile use. Use it on your Wyrm, buff it to your heart’s consent, and enjoy super-buffed triple-dived Wyrms. Use it on your Golem, grow it like there’s no tomorrow. Use it on your opponent’s Purple Nymph, no more entropy quanta for them. I could definitely pack this into a fun SN bow with + spells for the fun of it.
Together, I’m not so sure I’d target Gecko with this. Yes I get a copy of every spell my opponent plays, but how useful is that really going to be? I can get a bunch of spells I might not be able to play, and even if I can, there’s no guarantee they’ll be useful to me. It goes back to the reason Mindgate is hardly used, why go to the effort of using your opponent’s strategy against them when you could just run them flat with your own. And especially since you can only use their spells, I don’t see this as a good combo.
Spoiler for 3rd Place:
Inverse Flow | Inverse Flow & Quanta Goblin | Quanta Goblin - mathman101
Inverse flow gives us some nice watery denial doesn’t just stop quanta production but actually removes it. This could actually be a big problem. Chain these and that’s no quanta for your poor opponent, and all the quanta they have being eaten up right in front of them. Perhaps make it target stack only does this. I dunno. Would make a nice piece in water stall/control decks. Use this and then Poseidon alternatively for the rage quit.
Quanta Goblin is a new type of growth creature. I can’t help but feel the description could be better worded. If you can fit this into Pestal then you’d be laughing. Or just use dischole with this and enjoy the rage. I can compare this to Fire spirit but only +1 without the cost. I think it’s fair and viable. I probably would leave HP lower, say 2/3 but that’s me. A good attacker for entropy.
Together, well, in a good denial deck if you can balance out the quanta then you can have an entourage of denial/growth. But since I must look at just these two cards, I will do so. Realistically, the opponent will on average have 2 quanta source. Meaning that, as is, you’ll be gaining +2 when you play an Inverse Flow. Given that you could have more than 1 Goblin out, this could easily stack up, so long as you have enough Inverse Flows. You’d only really be able to use 6 of these in a full game. So how many would you draw before the game is over? I think Quanta Goblin would synergize better with pests or discords, which act every turn whilst in play. Not to say that this is a bad idea, just not the best synergy.
Spoiler for 2nd Place:
Guidance | Guidance & Shielded | Shielded - EmeraldTiger
Guidance could be the next light mid-hitter we all want. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be stackable, you didn’t really make that clear. Also I’m guessing adjacent means directly left and directly right. I see this being big in RoL hopes. Play 3 RoLs, play 2+ of these and you’ve got some nicely buffed critters. It encourages strategy when playing, not just mouse mashing. I’m not sure of what the art is supposed to be though.
Shielded works on a similar property of careful positioning. Turns Dry spell into a thing of the past and make RoF into the old thunderstorm. Fire shields be hatin. Took me a while to find the difference between the unupped and upped but the upped is considerably better. This would most likely work better outside of earth as those creatures are pretty strong anyways. Fire would be the best bet for protection + synergies.
Together you’ve got yourself some pretty nice creatures. Really you’re restricted to the first 7 creature slots for buffing unless you include fractal or mitosis. But that’s as many as you need. Depending on your arrangement you’ll have some damage resisting and buffed creatures to beat your opponent down with. Maybe they don’t pack the most damage but with the effects they’ll do enough and be pretty solid to keep dealing damage. Throw in some more creatures and watch the fun happen. This is a powerful combo, without being too powerful.
Spoiler for 1st Place:
Gluttony | Gluttony & Wrath | Wrath - Anthraxx
Gluttony really surprised me. I’d never really considered cards to speed up your opponent as a way to deck them out before. This and some SoBs and sundials and you can deck them out before they have a chance to kill you. 6 of these in your deck means 36 cards of drawing for them. Considering it won’t work every turn, we could say 2/3 cards each use. That’s around 15 cards worth of drawing, stall the rest of the time and it’s a deckout in no time.
Wrath is also a decent card. I would personally increase the damage to 2 per card. For only up to 8 damage, 4 cost is a tad steep. Just look at Fire Lance and Thunderbolt. Looking good with SoB and nightmare. Ghostmare just got even more powerful. But yeah, this is a decent damage spell for a variety of purposes. Get them to keep a full hand anyway you can and them punish them for it.
Put them together and it looks great. You can easily fill their hand and then make it hurt. 6 turns like that and its 48 damage. If you make it 2 damage then its 96. Not that bad when you consider needing all 12 cards. If you don’t deck them out then you can make them pay with this. Nightmare and SoB for fun and that’s a viable deck. Deck them out or kill them, it’s your choice. I just think this idea would be the best for making a viable deck out of, so well done Anthraxx
Congratulations
Anthraxx, a winner is you! Commiseration to everyone else, you did great but alas there can be only 1 winner.
