Heretic | Zealot

[CleanOnion]

Loving the art; how'd you do it?

[Flayne]

What happens in a case of a zealot having, say, -10 | 5? Antimatter is treated more of a status than as a number.

Well I would assume that mathematically it would be very good to immolate it then lol since -10 x 2 is -20 respectively. Basically you get rid of it because it will heal your opponent lol.

I don't think there's anything in your card's mechanic that prevents the Heretic/Zealot to pass those negative 'buffs' on an opposing creature, just as there's nothing in, say, a Virus's mechanics that prevents it to affect an allied creature.

In fact, it's a devious way to punish Antimatter-happy opponents: have the Heretic/Zealot Immolate itself and pass the Antimatter'd buff on an opposing creature so that the affected opposing creature heals you. :V

Oh indeed, of course. Either way immolating it before it starts healing the opponent in anyway possible is the best option. Of course it requires a target creature to do this.
such a scenario could be for example: Opponent is getting hurt being behind on creature production from a bad hand and do not have any creatures on the field, though they do have antimatter on their hand. I play my Zealot and buff it, only to wait for the next turn in order to use ability for my friendly creature.

Opponent sees an opportunity to use antimatter to invert Zealot's atk, casts, now my zealot is effectively useless and I would not dare immolate it for my friendly creature only to double the negative number (as by multiplying negative numbers by positive numbers always results in a higher negative number) meaning I keep healing him.

HOWEVER... Once he brings out a creature, all I have to do is use the ability on that creature and opponent starts healing me. So its a bit of a tight situation unless he uses quintessence on his creatures or perhaps cloak or something.

Damned Zealots and their shenaningans 

Loving the art; how'd you do it?

Why, thank you! I had an old drawing which was in black and white, so I used photo shop, colorized it with a fuchsia-pink back ground, colorized the black, darkened some parts (belly and arms) and added some small swirling-smoke tendrils to suggest its essence is burning away, cropped it to fit the card  and boom there you go.

[Treldon]

Problem is with using Zealot against an AM happy opponent is that once you immolate your -10 Zealot to give opposing creature -20, they can then just AM their own creature to gain +20 ATK

[Flayne]

Problem is with using Zealot against an AM happy opponent is that once you immolate your -10 Zealot to give opposing creature -20, they can then just AM their own creature to gain +20 ATK

Exactly, while Zealot itself seems a bit strong when involving stat buffers (rage elixir, blessing, Acceleration, etc) it certainly has its counter play ( AntiMatter, unable to target creature due to frozen, stasis, rewind after it immolates, etc)

Of course the opponent can be smart and instead of AM'ing the Zealot immediately on buff, waits for you to immolate the Zealot onto its ally.

AMing a buffed Zealot would be less effective than AMing the creature that got buffed by it, assuming it immolates to an ally creature on field.

Scenario 1: Zealot has 6|1 from Rage elixir, buffs creature with 3|4, creature gets +12|+2, becomes 15|6, Gets AM'd by opponent, now becomes -15|6

vs

Scenario 2: Zealot has 6|1, gets AM'd (assuming you buffed Zealot straight away on play waiting to use its ability on next turn)
 now it has -6|1, immolates to opponent creature for counter play with 3|4, opponent creature gets -12|+2,
 becomes -9|6, Opponent AM's affected creature for counter-counter play, it is now 9|6

We must consider that the second scenario requires the use of 2 Anti-matters, vs 1st scenario which requires only one.

Of course, there is a third scenario if I am the one being Anti-Matter happy:

Say I am losing and have low hp and its my turn with a Zealot on field being ability ready, I buff it with Rage elixir and it becomes 6|1,
then I AM'd my own Zealot ( -6|1), now I immolate Zealot onto say an enemy creature with 2|2 (-12|+2), now enemy creature has  -10|4 and I have just made some more time for me, even if it is slight which would help me more than immolating on my own creature (assuming I am too behind for the damage from my creature to mean anything)


The use of Anti Matter on Zealot really depends on the situation, and honestly made the card more interesting as I described the scenario if I look at it from an outsiders perspective (disregarding the fact that it is my card idea haha)

(Please correct me if I have made any logical or mathematical errors)