Elemental Gem | Refined Elemental Gem

[OldTrees]

Or it could absorb 2 Mark quanta per turn.
(as in Absorb 2 set as the current mark type)

[storyteller]

Or it could absorb 2 Mark quanta per turn.
(as in Absorb 2 set as the current mark type)

bit pricey for simply lowering the cost by one. Maybe absorb 1 of your mark. Seems more balanced, but yes in concept that could work.

Again, can I play one, play a Mark Card, then play another to reduce two different elements

[OldTrees]

Again, can I play one, play a Mark Card, then play another to reduce two different elements

No. Mark cards do not affect your mark.

[acems]

dont' like "cannot lower costs below 2" why this min.?   

 

[storyteller]

dont' like "cannot lower costs below 2" why this min.?   

 

I dont either

[ZephyrPhantom]

An absorption over turns mechanic seems good to preserve Mark affinity while retaining what the card does.

dont' like "cannot lower costs below 2" why this min.?   

 

I dont either

I personally don't like the idea of this card giving you free creatures or free Supernovas ('free' cards tend to be very useful in any game, not just ETG), but at the same time want it to stack to help with more expensive cards in a deck. If it can be proven (possibly by theoretical, DoT, speed to set up threats, or even a playtest) that this card doesn't heavily improve upon certain decks that rely on low-costed cards (like Frog Rush and Pestal), then I may reconsider dropping the limit.

[OdinVanguard]

An absorption over turns mechanic seems good to preserve Mark affinity while retaining what the card does.

dont' like "cannot lower costs below 2" why this min.?   

 

I dont either

I personally don't like the idea of this card giving you free creatures or free Supernovas ('free' cards tend to be very useful in any game, not just ETG), but at the same time want it to stack to help with more expensive cards in a deck. If it can be proven (possibly by theoretical, DoT, speed to set up threats, or even a playtest) that this card doesn't heavily improve upon certain decks that rely on low-costed cards (like Frog Rush and Pestal), then I may reconsider dropping the limit.

I agree fully with Zbladder.

This card should not allow casting costs to be reduced to zero.

Particularly in the case of creatures.

One good example here is fractal (yes I know, the wrecker of many a fun idea)
Consider what happens if you use this with, say the current mono-aether psion rush deck.
You would be allowed to fractal and spam all in a single turn.
Think permanent ball lightening with shield bypass built in... this would be quite OP... granted that would take 4 of these, but even with just 3 you could pull off an ugly fractal-spider deck.

The only two zero cost creatures in the game now are ball-lightning and photon. One of them dies instantly and the other is exceedingly weak.
This card would easily make even quite tough creatures insti-spammable if costs can be reduced to zero.

If this card were to make it in with no minimum, I bet dimes to dollars you would see the meta game would become heavily dominated by creature spam duos.

Personally I would rather not see that happen as it would lead to a glut of rather uninspired decks, so I think this card needs a non-zero minimum (even if its a minimum of 1 instead of 2).

[storyteller]

I think this would be immediately countered by cheap Rain of Fire and other now free creature control cards. You can easily counter with reduced cost dragons and a far faster Instosis.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I think this would be immediately countered by cheap Rain of Fire and other now free creature control cards. You can easily counter with reduced cost dragons and a far faster Instosis.

Which in turn leads to the game becoming a 'power race' in which the winner is simply the person who gets their cards in play the fastest.   Even newbies would be able to see the potential abuse of a card that allows you to play things for free; consequently, decks get more narrow as the Gems dominate the metagame in a style similar to Nova (This would probably be most exaggerated in Fire (cheap versatile spells become even cheaper), Life (Above the quantum standard already, so it’s acceleration on top of fast creatures), and Aether (MonoAether is one of the few practical options in a rougher meta; Gems not only accelerate your immaterial beatsticks but also make Dimshields expensive. Note that two of these elements can build a very durable and boring mono and one technically only needs cheap CC or PC to build a strong mono as well. Fire also has Immolation to rush early gems into play and Aether has Fractal to multiply the bonus of such a card - combine the two and you get a very nasty Fractix with free Minor Phoenixes hitting the field or Fractals coming out earlier and thus overwhelming enemy players quicker). I would like to encourage players to think a bit a more than “let’s make everything free and spam!”, which would inevitably happen if no cost limit was placed.

In addition, making cards free skips an important casting requirement that they would normally require : quanta. Quanta helps to keep speedier players in check from overwhelming stalling players but at the same time prevents stalling players from setting up too quickly and locking down a rush player, thus allowing for fast and slow styles of play. Allowing for ‘free’ casting cost (or even 1 casting cost) Gems is a huge favor for a rush player and unbalances the game in their favor, due to the presence of early-game quantum acceleration such as Nova and Immolation. (Note : I am currently judging this based on the rainbow cost, not a possible ‘upkeep cost’. However the effects are still present as long as several Gems can appear on the field at once.)

[storyteller]

ok. I see your point. I would say, you could have free casting costs, from a card like this, but it would need to be balanced differently than this one. As this card is, I see the reasoning behind only lowering to two.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Card now updated with mark quanta upkeep.

All feedback is appreciated.

[WexMajor]

How would this interact with sanctuary?