Maze Growth | Labyrinth Growth

[Ajit]

NAME: Maze Growth ELEMENT: Life COST: 2 TYPE: Permanent ATK|HP: TEXT: Every turn Maze Growth delays one random enemy creature for one turn.  Does not affect airborne creatures.	NAME: Labyrinth Growth ELEMENT: Life COST: 1 TYPE: Permanent ATK|HP: TEXT: Every turn Labyrinth Growth delays one random enemy creature for one turn.  Does not affect airborne creatures.

ART: Ajit, original photo by Benoit.dessucy allowed to use IDEA: Ajit NOTES: - Delays don't stack on one creature - 2 creatures and 2 mazes = guaranteed both delayed - Affects Immaterial creatures (just because they are immortal doesn't mean they can't get lost) SERIES:

[Boret]

What happens if several of these cards target the same creature? Is delay stacked? Can Quinted creatures be affected by it?

[plastiqe]

Pretty cool.

I think it's a little too cheap, should cost more.
How do you imagine the effect, is it like a random targeted ability? 
Does it delay immortal creatures?
If you have more than 1 Growth out and the opponent has multiple creatures, can you randomly delay the same creature more than once, in which case does the delay stack?
If you have multiple Growths against only 1 Enemy creature, do the delays stack on that creature?

[Ajit]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I find the price is reasonable considering a Turtle Shield will delay all enemy creatures and this just randomly delays one.

I imagined the ability as passive, it just happens automatically.

For now I think it can delay immortal creatures

Delays do not stack on one creature for now.  I'd prefer that if 2 creatures are out and 2 mazes are out, then the two creatures are guaranteed to be delayed.  If 1 creature is out and 2 mazes are out, the creature is still just delayed for 1 turn.

[timtwins]

I think given turtle shield, this is a great card and should be added into the game along with many of the other cards.  Would give people more options and even if the same cards are used as before, beginners would still have more options.

[Uppercut]

For now I think it can delay immortal creatures

With the way its worded and the current game mechanics it wouldn't. Whenever something chooses something at random it targets.

[Ajit]

I was thinking of Fire Shield damaging an immortal, but I suppose if it was at random it would have to target, so yeah it wouldn't work.  I'll amend it soon.

[Nepycros]

CC FTW. However, this could be an issue if you play Flooding, since non-airborne, non-water, and non-other creatures would now succumb to a 1 in 7 shot of being delayed. Remember, that means Air creatures, Water creatures, and Malignant Cells wouldn't be affected by this strategy.

[AnonymousRevival]

It is airborne, not airbourne.

[Ajit]

Thanks Anonymous, for some reason I got it in my head that in-game it was Airbourne.

[willng3]

Really liking this card.  First things first, the synergy this card could have with Thorn Carapace is tremendous as it somewhat makes up for the card's slow killing methods by ensuring that the target creatures cannot attack or even increase their stats to make up for the Poison being inflicted on them.  Multiples of this card being on the field at the same time just makes the combo even more brutal than before.  Grounded creatures being the only ones affected by this card probably means the low cost is acceptable to say the least. 

Concerning it affecting Immortal creatures...it really depends on how you view the concept of permanents affecting creatures.  On one hand you have a card like Flooding which is a permanent, but doesn't affect Immortal creatures.  But then Sundial does affect Immortal creatures and is a Permanent...so which example do you follow to make that decision?  Personally I think that it should affect Immortal creatures because in essence it seems like a shield effect...which also affect Immortal creatures because the creature makes contact with the Shield, which is what causes it to activate.  I'm not sure if the random targeting concept should be a reason it shouldn't affect immaterial creatures though.  In essence, each shield with a status effect has the exact same concept:  Ice Shield has a certain chance of freezing the target, Thorn Carapace has a certain chance of infecting the target.  Doesn't it seem like each of these cards would have to target the said creature in order to affect them?  I honestly don't know, while I understand making them immune, I still get a gut feeling that they should be subject to the effect.

Overall, great card, nice semi-passive form of CC here, which seems to fit 's theme quite well.

[Xinef]

What about momentum?

On one hand, sundials stop momentumed creatures, since they are not a shield.
On the other hand, momentum seems to mean that the creature is so fast and heavy, it can run through any defenses without being stopped, so it possibly could run straight through the maze, breaking the walls on it's way.

Generally, we have to be careful with defensive cards that ignore momentum, since they would make momentum useless. Why use cards meant to ignore defenses, if they don't work?
With sundials it might be fair that they ignore momentum, since the sundial itself is temporary and after sundials run out, momentum is once again useful.

We also need to be careful with non-shield defensive cards. There is a reason why there are so few of them (Flooding, Sundial). One thing is that shields are meant to have their weaknesses, eg. phase shields are temporary, bone walls are vulnerable to swarms, dissipation shields slow you down by draining your quanta, fire and thorn shields offer little or no protection, hope is vulnerable to CC. Non-shield defensive permanents might be able to prevent opponents from using this weakness, thus offering a defense without weaknesses. This might not be a case right now, since all these setups are vulnerable to PC so far, but it generally seems that Zanz intended that shields should be always the main defense, while other defensive permanents should be few and have greater weaknesses than shields. I guess no one disagrees that both flooding and sundial are now weaker than shields. (Ignore the pre-nerf sundial, since it was an obvious mistake)

Anyway, even if Maze Growth is not a broken idea right now, it might limit the future shield ideas (eg. shields that block only airborne creatures, shields that block a certain number of attacks each turn, etc.)

I'm not sure what to do about it, since it's hard to tell if this card is OP without proper testing, but personally, I'd give it an upkeep cost of 1 . Right now flooding, the only non-temporary non-shield defensive permanent has an upkeep cost, so it would seem like a good solution to discourage abusing Maze (eg. using it in rainbow, paying for it with mark only or with novas/supernovas only), while keeping it still very useful in mono and duo.