Shield of Relativity | Shield of Relativity

[Krahhl]

*Rolls eyes*

[Juissi69]

Yes yes a good idea i like this

[Rooftrellen]

I would have to say that it seems quite...powerful, if it counts attempted attacks.  Counting only successful attacks may be much better, with the current card pool.

If PC were more common, or more elements/decks had creatures that could break though this, maybe.

I shudder to think of what death/aether could do with this, though.  That combo could force a full field of malignant cells against any deck not carrying CC that could be used on its own creatures (and even then forcing them to use a card to kill what came from the creature you killed).

I like the idea, but it seems flat out OP with the current cards in the game.

[Ekki]

Also didn't thought what'd happen with adrenalined creatures...

[moomoose]

it counts the number of creatures attacking, not the number of attacks total.

considering it can max out at the same defense as hope and isnt immaterial, and relies on either hoping your opponent spams creatures or that you can manipulate them into doing so- rather than fractaling rols and/or using lum on your dragons. i dont think it is OP at its given cost.  for the first 3 creatures its just an expensive earth shield, after that it slowly increases in power.  you cant assume its going to always max out at 23 defense and it will just require some strategy to get around (or just smash through it with momentum).  some potential ideas could be to freeze/kill/eat(!) your own smaller creatures which are not benefiting your efforts to get around the shield.

i do not disagree that more decks need some sort of PC, but that is not at the fault of this card.  at least it is target-able by those that exist currently. 

as far as the AI goes: as mentioned before, the AI could be told to deal with it by not just playing every card it can when this card is out, or hell, at any given time. improving the AI shouldnt be considered a bad thing.

[QuantumT]

considering it can max out at the same defense as hope and isnt immaterial, and relies on either hoping your opponent spams creatures or that you can manipulate them into doing so- rather than fractaling rols and/or using lum on your dragons. i dont think it is OP at its given cost.  for the first 3 creatures its just an expensive earth shield, after that it slowly increases in power.  you cant assume its going to always max out at 23 defense and it will just require some strategy to get around (or just smash through it with momentum).  some potential ideas could be to freeze/kill/eat(!) your own smaller creatures which are not benefiting your efforts to get around the shield.

It only costs 1 more than diamond shield except is virtually always better. Let's examine this for different numbers of creatures.

The format will be # creatures-#damage blocked by diamond shield-#damage blocked by shield of relativity
1,3,2
2,6,6
3,9,12
4,12,20
5,15,30
6,18,42
7,21,56
8,24,72

So with just 5 creatures on the field, shield of relativity blocks literally twice as much damage, and with more it gets even more ridiculous. At 8 creatures the damage blocked is triple. And is costs a measly 1 quanta more.

The weakness of hope is that I have to maintain creatures on the field, and they can't have abilities. If I want Hope to have 6 irremovable defense, I have to have 6 immaterial creatures. Protecting them takes either a ton of quints, or a nymph/anubis with a lot of quanta. Even then the defense can be broken with fire shield and thorn shield. Protecting this takes 1 card that costs a single quanta (protect artifact), and at that point it is truly irremovable.

Another huge difference between this and Hope is that in order to get around Hope, I have to kill your creatures. To get around Shield of Relativity, I have to kill mine. The fact that shield of relativity is targetable by PC (which is only 4 cards), doesn't make up for this huge difference.

i do not disagree that more decks need some sort of PC, but that is not at the fault of this card.  at least it is target-able by those that exist currently. 

There is too little PC in elements for permanents this strong. Only  , , , + can hit this card. Compare this with Hope, where the list is  .

as far as the AI goes: as mentioned before, the AI could be told to deal with it by not just playing every card it can when this card is out, or hell, at any given time. improving the AI shouldnt be considered a bad thing.

AI can be left out of all discussions on card balance.

[moomoose]

"It only costs 1 more than diamond shield except is virtually always better. Let's examine this for different numbers of creatures." 

same for hope


"So with just 5 creatures on the field, shield of relativity blocks literally twice as much damage, and with more it gets even more ridiculous. At 8 creatures the damage blocked is triple. And is costs a measly 1 quanta more."

hope is easier to attain a higher number of blocks and isnt relative to the number of creatures that are attacking, completely in a players own control.

"The weakness of hope is that I have to maintain creatures on the field, and they can't have abilities. If I want Hope to have 6 irremovable defense, I have to have 6 immaterial creatures. Protecting them takes either a ton of quints, or a nymph/anubis with a lot of quanta. Even then the defense can be broken with fire shield and thorn shield. Protecting this takes 1 card that costs a single quanta (protect artifact), and at that point it is truly irremovable."

the weakness of relativity is that if the opponent doesnt want to play creatures to boost the shields defense, they dont have to.

"Another huge difference between this and Hope is that in order to get around Hope, I have to kill your creatures. To get around Shield of Relativity, I have to kill mine. The fact that shield of relativity is targetable by PC (which is only 4 cards), doesn't make up for this huge difference."

so lets just have all permanents be untargetable, wont make a huge difference.  seriously tho, it matters because it would take an extra quanta type to establish, and the limited number of PC choices will not remain limited forever.  and you dont have to kill them, you could just not play them in the first place, when the situation presents itself.

"There is too little PC in elements for permanents this strong. Only  , , , + can hit this card. Compare this with Hope, where the list is  ."

you lost me.

could have ~2 phase dragons or ~2 spiders dish out decent damage
could dive over it
could flat out steal it
could grow vultures over it and/or poison you around it
could have ~2 shriekers do the damage
could destroy it with butterfly effect, or get a good mutant to do its work
boom  (or grow a lava golem)
momentum, nuff said
grow a spirit or two, or use a dragon or two
dragons- weak counter, but not every mono can beat every shield
could afford to have more than a few puffer fish to get their poisons in, not to mention the mushrooms.
can blessed dive over

"AI can be left out of all discussions on card balance."

then someone else should have left it out for me to not respond to.


The key to this card is that it will make people think again about spamming as many creatures as they can as fast as they can, aside from the potential risk of them being killed or copied.

gravity shield prevents large hp creatures from attacking, bone wall prevents small numbers of any creatures from attacking, relativity prevents large numbers of small atk creatures from attacking, fire shield kills small hp creatures, thorn shield's poison stacks up to kill anything eventually (game length dependent), wings prevents non-airborne from attacking, fog/dust prevent ~half (or 100% when youre trying to attack) of the creatures from attacking.  each shield has its niche and ways to exaggerate its benefits, earth nymph + gravity shield is a good example.

[Krahhl]

the weakness of relativity is that if the opponent doesnt want to play creatures to boost the shields defense, they dont have to.

Logic Fail.

People play creatures to deal damage. When faced with a shield that reduces damage, they play more creatures to make up for it. You can't say "well if they don't want the shield to reduce damage, they can just not deal damage in the first place".

[QuantumT]

"It only costs 1 more than diamond shield except is virtually always better. Let's examine this for different numbers of creatures." 

same for hope

Not the same for hope. Hope requires the user to play more creatures, upping its effective cost further. It is also totally ruined by any mass cc or repeatable cc.

Here's the list of cards shield of relativity is vulnerable to. Deflagration, Steal, Butterfly Effect, Pulverizers

Here's a list of the cards that can hurt Hope. Lightning, Lobotomizer, Unstable Gas, Blue Nymph, Shockwave, Owl’s Eye, Thunderstorm, Parasite, Black Nymph, Liquid Shadow, Drain Life, Alfatoxin, Virus, Grey Nymph, Plague, Basilisk Blood, Auburn Nymph, Mutation, Chaos Seed, Maxwell’s Demon (for things other than photon), Rage Potion, Red Nymph, Fire Bolt, Rain of Fire, Gravity Pull, Eternity, Rewind Time, Procrastination, Pharaoh, Otyugh, Scarab, Toadfish, Arctic Octopus, Min Flayer, Ice Bolt, Freeze

You can't really claim growth/ablaze as a specific weakness of this card. All shields are weak to them.

"So with just 5 creatures on the field, shield of relativity blocks literally twice as much damage, and with more it gets even more ridiculous. At 8 creatures the damage blocked is triple. And is costs a measly 1 quanta more."

hope is easier to attain a higher number of blocks and isnt relative to the number of creatures that are attacking, completely in a players own control.

For hope to get those blocks, additional quanta input is required.

"The weakness of hope is that I have to maintain creatures on the field, and they can't have abilities. If I want Hope to have 6 irremovable defense, I have to have 6 immaterial creatures. Protecting them takes either a ton of quints, or a nymph/anubis with a lot of quanta. Even then the defense can be broken with fire shield and thorn shield. Protecting this takes 1 card that costs a single quanta (protect artifact), and at that point it is truly irremovable."

the weakness of relativity is that if the opponent doesnt want to play creatures to boost the shields defense, they dont have to.

So I can beat it by not playing creatures? How exactly am I supposed to win?  ???

Edit: Point ninja'd by Krahhl

"Another huge difference between this and Hope is that in order to get around Hope, I have to kill your creatures. To get around Shield of Relativity, I have to kill mine. The fact that shield of relativity is targetable by PC (which is only 4 cards), doesn't make up for this huge difference."

so lets just have all permanents be untargetable, wont make a huge difference.  seriously tho, it matters because it would take an extra quanta type to establish, and the limited number of PC choices will not remain limited forever.

My point here is that in order to reduce the defense of Shield of Relativity, I have to use my CC on my own creatures. This difference is leaps and bounds better than Hope hope being immaterial.

"There is too little PC in elements for permanents this strong. Only  , , , + can hit this card. Compare this with Hope, where the list is  ."

you lost me.

The first is a list of elements that can hurt Shield of Relativity. The second is a list of elements that can hurt Hope.

[Drobbit]

Dangerous. What can I do if you protect it and you play an aflatoxin on my side? It's a perfect protection against most decks cause they won't have any way to damage other than spells.

[moomoose]

guess what? its called strategy.  if you dont want the shield to grow, play your powerful creatures (and those which have 0 atk) instead of all of them.  not to mention there are ways of doing damage other than with creatures.  weapons, for example, are not counted in increasing the shields defense (while they are in the weapon slot).

not every deck can beat every shield.  not every shield can prevent every deck.

the player playing relativity has no control over how many creatures the other player plays (ignoring current ai) and if the other person only plays 2 attacking creatures, its a way expensive, way ineffective shield.

[moomoose]

Dangerous. What can I do if you protect it and you play an aflatoxin on my side? It's a perfect protection against most decks cause they won't have any way to damage other than spells.

hmm afflatoxin would be a good compliment to this card, wouldnt it?  but thats already a strategy for many shields which have block values in order to block out the opponent from playing creatures.

anyway,if there was room on the card for more words, i could put a limit to the height of the shield.  but i dont see how it would be possible to rephrase in the space allotted to have it be limited to 10 or whatever.