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Elements the Game => Level 2 - Forge => Card Ideas and Art => Forge Archive => Topic started by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 03:27:27 am

Title: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 03:27:27 am

(http://i.imgur.com/7gNLmE0.png)	(http://i.imgur.com/uoFPVMz.png)
NAME: Undying Ghast ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 :death TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 4 | 2 TEXT: Regenerate: If this card were to be removed, instead return it to full health and drain quanta equal to its health.	NAME: Undying Ghast ELEMENT: Death COST: 4 :death TYPE: Creature ATK|HP: 5 | 2 TEXT: Regenerate: If this card were to be removed, instead return it to full health and drain quanta equal to its health.

ART: Krava IDEA: Drake_XIV NOTES: Die to the ability, whenever it activates, Ghast does not trigger death effects. If the full value is not drained, Undying Ghast dies. Essentially, it drains quanta to keep it from dying.  So it never dies as long as it can Regenerate. Regenerate, for intents and purposes, is an active ability and can be lobotomized. SERIES:

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: GamerJL on April 24, 2013, 03:52:42 am

removed How? :'(

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 04:15:04 am

If it were to be killed or targeted with Reverse Time.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: QueenBee on April 24, 2013, 06:46:42 am

is a mummy, this thing, recluse deck too good?

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 06:49:59 am

I think if you mixed them, it may actually slow the decks down, seeing as MonoDeath is a pretty fast Mono.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: QueenBee on April 24, 2013, 06:50:56 am

how does it work with that malignant cell toxin thing

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 06:51:39 am

It does not die, so if target with Aflatoxin, it will not spawn a Malignant Cell unless you cannot pay for Regenerate.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: QueenBee on April 24, 2013, 06:52:52 am

Quote from: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 06:51:39 am

It does die, so if target with Aflatoxin, it will not spawn a Malignant Cell unless you cannot pay for Regenerate.

does it keep the aflatoxin status? I know it does that with phoenix.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 06:55:38 am

Yes, it keeps the Aflatoxin status.  Since it doesn't die.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: QueenBee on April 24, 2013, 06:58:21 am

Quote from: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 06:55:38 am

Yes, it keeps the Aflatoxin status.  Since it doesn't die.

is that a good or a bad thing for this card? +2 bone shields a turn for 2 quanta?

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 07:08:43 am

It wouldn't generate anything for Bone Wall.  Since it doesn't die.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: QueenBee on April 24, 2013, 07:10:02 am

Quote from: Drake_XIV on April 24, 2013, 07:08:43 am

It wouldn't generate anything for Bone Wall.  Since it doesn't die.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

why doesn't it die? that's not deathlike. would it be too good if it died?

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: OldTrees on April 24, 2013, 01:01:07 pm

I believe this is harder to remove than Immortal.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Zaealix on April 24, 2013, 02:01:22 pm

Basically, it's absorbing quanta to preserve itself... I think the right way to view it is MTG's regeneration thing, you pay quanta, and the creature heals itself so it doesn't die.
that said, this creature can be a 'weakpoint' of sorts, in that killing it repeatedly enables you to drain the opponent's quanta.
An interesting fact, is that as it is, that low HP makes the drain a nice little price, so this thing's pretty hard to kill, but if you cast Blessing (or plate armor) on it then pulled something like freeze+shockwave, you'd take more quanta off per death. At the same time, it's more HP sooo...
It's a well crafted mechanic. Trying to use one end for your own gain seems to result in the other getting in your way. The low HP makes the low regeneration cost easy to pay, while the regeneration cost isn't going to do much other than slow the opponent down unless you blow lots of CC on killing him.
The creature IS tough to kill, but then again, mummy is a more powerful attacker, and this thing eats your quanta to stay alive, so rushing with it might be a risky endeavor...
It's probably going to overshadow Mummy as time goes on due to CC slowly becoming more prevelant and usable, but mummy will work better if you can find a way to defend it from the various forms of CC out there.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: OdinVanguard on April 24, 2013, 06:27:24 pm

I love this mechanic idea. Very nice port of the MtG equivalent.

The art totally rocks as well

Quote from: OldTrees on April 24, 2013, 01:01:07 pm

I believe this is harder to remove than Immortal.

True,  this will be one tough undead cookie... but unlike immortal, you could use that against it... viz a vi, Antimatter

Then the player is stuck with a creature healing the opponent that they can't even kill or sacrifice to stop.

It will make QC strategies more valuable I think.

Given the difficulty in killing this creature, I do think it should have a stat efficiency that is a little lower.

Actually, it would be funny to leave it with a single hit point :)

My only other issue is that its stats and cost are a little too close to that of Mummy.

I say, give it a much higher cost and slightly higher attack. Something that never dies seems like a card that shouldn't be seen till mid to late game.
Given :death 's capacity for high late game quanta generation (via soul catcher) I think it will make a perfect quanta sink.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: andretimpa on April 25, 2013, 01:09:28 am

Is the ability passive?

Can it be used as Oty-chow?

Does immo work with it?

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Zaealix on April 25, 2013, 10:55:51 am

Man, the idea that this thing eats quanta to not die is a hard one for people to grasp.
But then again,  :death's not really big on keeping things alive so far. That this thing does is new ground for it.
@Drake-maybe you should add a section in the notes about it not dying, since this could be a common complaint.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: OdinVanguard on April 26, 2013, 12:55:16 am

Quote from: Zaealix on April 25, 2013, 10:55:51 am

Man, the idea that this thing eats quanta to not die is a hard one for people to grasp.
But then again,  :death's not really big on keeping things alive so far. That this thing does is new ground for it.
@Drake-maybe you should add a section in the notes about it not dying, since this could be a common complaint.

Its not so much the "not-dying" thats hard to grasp (pheonix does that already), its the means by which this is accomplished that is new.

Attaching the cost to its HP is also an interesting and novel concept in EtG.

The tricky thing there is that there are not a lot of similar effects to compare it with in terms of balancing.

For instance, pheonix is a completely new card when it returns, it doesn't keep any stat buffs, etc. This card does.

The fact that the survival cost is equal to max hp (i'm assuming the notes meant max hp since current would be weird to do) will help with  balance a lot though, since buffing its HP may actually lower its survival rate.

Given the potential double edge sword effect I think the mechanic is roughly on par with the untargetable mechanic, or maybe somewhere between that and phoenix.

Since, the :death element seems to feature stat efficiencies similar to :aether I think aether's Immortal card makes for a good comparison / basis here.

So from cost theory: cost ~ (attack - element attack bonus) + (hp - element hp bonus)/2 + skill value

Just as a guess, I would rate :death and :aether attack bonus at about +1 :underworld and no hp bonus (they both favor high attack creatures, but not as strongly as does :fire )

so for Immortal:
6 = (4 - 1) + (3 - 0)/2 + s = 3+1.5+s = 4.5+s -> skill value ~ 1.5 :underworld

For this creature:
4 = (4-1) + (2 - 0)/2 +s=3+1+s=4+s -> s = 0 :underworld ...

The average skill has a value of about 1 :underworld

The untargetable skill is valued a bit higher than that (as is evident from comparing phase spider and immortal)

So this creature's undying ability is probably being underrated I think.

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: Drake_XIV on May 10, 2013, 08:47:47 am

Quote from: Zaealix on April 25, 2013, 10:55:51 am

But then again,  :death's not really big on keeping things alive so far. That this thing does is new ground for it.

My thought was that it would be harder to kill something that was already dead.

Updated the NOTES

Title: Re: Undying Ghast | Undying Ghast
Post by: OdinVanguard on May 10, 2013, 04:51:01 pm

All things considered I really like this card.
I think cost could come down slightly, since I believe the ability is quite potent, but other than that its pretty sweet.

Love the art by the way.