General Things 2.0 (In Development)

[iDaire]

General Things
General things about Elements that make it what it is. What is wrong with Elements. What is done right with Elements. How is Elements a great game overall? How can Elements be improved and why should it be improved? In a thread.

I re-did this thread. Pretty much most people were upset at the way things were said in the last version of this thread so I just thought that I would redo the thread and send it back out here. These are only my opinions on the topics that are well known on the forums and I just wanted to get my input out there into the public instead of having to shout it in chat whenever it came up. So, here it is.

Number 1: The Strength of Aether

Spoiler for Chapters:

Aether has always been an overwhelmingly strong element since this game was released. For this fact, it has been used quite often for many different purposes. Many members of the forums can remember when the Phase Dragon was much more powerful before it was nerfed and that the mono Aether used to be very popular in the EtG metagame. A bunch of dim shields and dragons and you practically would have won the match. Of course if I recall properly there wasn't a Shard of Wisdom to buff your dragons with but with the ATK it had, it wouldn't need a buff.

Though Aether has been nerfed, the strength of Aether is still rather great and should be lowered. I will look at some of the cards in Aether individually and analyze them, comparing each of them and displaying their strengths and weaknesses.

Spoiler for Dimensional Shield:

 For six quanta, you can play a shield that will negate all physical attacks for three turns. If you upgrade it, you will drop the cost of the shield and make it five quanta, which makes it easier to play depending on what deck you are using. This permanent is the shield of Aether and it being a shield, is more likely to be the target of most forms of permanent control. But this particular shield is different. Although it is expensive to play the card initially, the cost of the card is no longer a problem if you have two or more aether pillars. Why is this?

Well if you play just one dimensional shield, as long as the enemy has no creature that can bypass the shield or no cards that can damage you through the shield or destroy the shield, you basically are invulnerable for three turns, leaving you to do whatever you want within EtG common sense (Playing a creature has obvious repercussions such as CC). If you have two or more pillars, you can build up the Aether quanta needed to play another shield in the turns you are invulnerable and the minute the shield’s duration has expired, you can play another shield in replacement, leaving you to do the same thing over and over again until you run out of shields, the shield is taken out, or you kill your opponent. This happens to be the most powerful part of the Dimensional Shield/Phase Shield and is also what makes it very powerful.

The solution for this is to use permanent control to take the shield out. This is the primary solution. There are some secondary solutions if this isn’t an option. You can use the Sapphire Charger of Gravity. The Charger has an active effect that allows it to ignore all effects put out by shields. Basically, no matter if you have a shield, the Charger will attack you as if you didn’t have a shield. Very nice solution to most shields. Alternatively, you can apply momentum or unstoppable to an essential creature so that it, like the Charger, can too bypass shields. The next most common solution is using spell-casting creatures. The only natural spell-casting creature in the game is the Psion, a creature in the element of Aether that bypasses all shields except for reflective shields, like the Reflective Shield in the element of Light or the Jade Shield in the element of Life. The only way to make a creature outside of Aether a spellcaster is to make it immaterial and then cast Shard of Wisdom on it. You could accomplish this using Anubis or Quintessence. This is a very long combo and doesn’t really allow for another strategy. So basically, pulling this combo off will most likely mean you building a hard counter to Dimensional Shield, which you want to avoid. The last solution is Shard of Freedom. All airborne creatures under the influence of Shard of Freedom have a chance to, like the Charger, ignore shield effects. This is the best solution of the three stated and is the most damaging. This, and the spell-caster solution, require either the Shard of Freedom or Shard of Wisdom respectively, which is a problem for newcomers.

Unless you are running bypass, you are running permanent control and the problem with this is in a single statement: Dimensional Shield and Phase Shield are easily chainable and come in bunches. Mono Aether’s can run six Dimensional Shields perfectly. Six shields means you have to spend six deflagrations, six steals, 18 gravity quanta (Pulverizer uses three gravity quanta to shatter permanents), or 23 entropy quanta (Butterfly Effect costs five entropy quanta to play and three entropy quanta to destroy a target permanent). These are all very expensive and very straining solutions. In the end, you won’t have enough quanta or health to continue to negate these shields and your opponent will eventually get a couple of turns over you, which makes the difference in Elements. As previously stated, an Elements game can end in three turns.

Suggested nerfs would be to either raise the cost or lower the potency, like most nerfs are. Fippe94 and Serprex did a great job nerfing the Dimensional Shield and Phase Shield. The potency of the shield was lowered and the shield was given only two turns to negate attacks, decreasing the ability to chain the card. Increasing the cost would do the same but only initially. Quanta becomes less of a problem with time for most decks. A theory I have come up with is that Zanz could make Dimensional Shield negate a limited amount of attacks. This would however bring it to close to bone wall, and no one wants another bonewall.

Spoiler for Lightning:

Thou hath been smited one should say after using lightning. Spend two measly Aether quanta and damage a creature for five HP. This is very useful and make Lightning your go-to CC. It is used invariably in a lot of rainbows and is the key-card that comes up when anybody says CC. This card is strong and is a good all-round card. Since it is pretty straightfoward it will require much less of an explanation.

This card has no downside unless one is caused. The advantage is pretty obvious. You get to damage a creature for five health. Only one complaint could come from this and that is the fact that it is in Aether. Aether is pretty strong as it is and doesn’t need to add CC to its already very open plethora of strategies. Spell-casting, Immortality, Card Copying, and Invulnerability are pretty powerful on their own. This card could be added to Air since it would support Air’s theme: great offense with an average defense. Thunderstorm and Shockwave can be seen as cards that support this theme since they add to the offense of Air without adding defense. Lightning would do the same. This is just a suggestion and can be interpreted differently depending on the opinions of the viewer.

Spoiler for Psion:

The Psion is one of the creatures in the element of Aether and is well known for its skill: Psionic. This skill allows its attacks to deal spell damage rather than physical damage. It is the same as hitting an enemy with a lightning, except the damage is the number of ATK Psion has. This basically allows Psion to bypass all shields except for shields meant to reflect spell damage, which are the Mirror Shield, Reflective Shield, Jade Shield, and Emerald Shield. Some people feel this card is overpowered. This card really isn’t overpowered.

Why isn’t it overpowered? Well first it has the stats of a weak mid-hitter. Four attack isn’t that much of a deal unless it is buffed. It also has four health points, which also doesn’t make the creature a high-priority target. It doesn’t deal that much damage and can be wiped out by a shockwave or a lightning. It can be devoured by an upgraded otyugh. Like the element of Life demonstrates, the only way damage like this is going to matter is in accumulation, or in quantity. You would need a bunch of Psions before this actually turns into a threat. Three or more would count as a threat in my opinion because eight damage doesn’t really threaten most decks all that much.

Now that we have covered why the card isn’t overpowered, let’s get to why the card is strong. The card bypasses all shields except for reflective shields, which is good in a lot of situations, especially again the shield of its own element, Dimensional Shield. This card, as stated previously, can be summoned in bunches to maximize damage. A large amount of damage that bypasses shields will be noticed by the enemy and the enemy will have to respond to this. They may lose the match if they don’t. This creature is a good creature and is very commonly used in a deck called “Psiontal”. The evident strategy of this deck is Psion + Fractal, which makes use of the skill Psion has and uses it in bunches, making shields useless. The deck is decent with little variations of the original but is slow compared to some of the other decks that are out there.

To summarize it, Psion is a strong creature. It is useful for slipping past shields and getting the drop on some decks.

My suggestion? I don’t have one. It is strong, but no buff is needed. It is good for its purpose and in my opinion has a nice decoration to its attack.

Spoiler for Phase Dragon:

 The dragon of the element, this card used to be much more powerful than it is now. It used to be one of the most powerful cards in the game. For 13 Aether quanta, you could play a dragon that had the stats of 13 | 8. Since this was immortal, this was clearly overpowered and pounded every player that stood opposite of it. Even at 8 | 8 now, this creature can still be buffed with the Shard of Wisdom and can then gain “Psionic” as a new skill. SoW Dragons “mentioned by Zawadx” is a very powerful arena deck and it should be buffed due to the amount of damage it can cause and the inability of most decks to counter it.
But, I believe that Phase Dragon isn’t powerful at all. Why do I believe this?

Well to start, the attack of the creature is eight. The only other dragon with this low of an attack is Colossal Dragon and Massive Dragon, but they have their health to explain for it. This creature has immortality to explain for it. But, considering it, this doesn’t make the creature any better. Not only are the creatures stats low, but now since it is immaterial, I can’t buff it. The only card I can use to buff it is Shard of Wisdom. This isn’t the only flaw. This dragon is the most expensive creature in this entire game and the second most expensive card (upgraded) if all the most expensive cards are counted as one. Fourteen Quanta for Ten ATK? If this weren’t immortal, this would probably be the most UP dragon in the game.

The good part is that you can get a free eight damage that can only be cut off by shields. Otherwise, this is arguably the less powerful of all of the dragons in this game at the moment. Compare Elite Phase Dragon to Light Dragon. Light Dragon is one quanta less and has stats of 12 | 12. Not very bad. Takes three Lightnings to kill. The quanta in the element is easier to generate. That dragon is arguably better than this one. To cut it short, Phase Dragon, upgraded or not, is not strong at all and is more average. This same explanation can also be used with Immortal.

My suggestion? I don’t have a good one for this one. It is just not that good on its own. One of the main cards to pair with this is Shard of Wisdom, which adds a dramatizing amount of power to the card. A power spike if you will. Sure, there is no way to lobotomize it so the opponent is dead if you play a Reflective Shield, but, that’s only if you have a Reflective Shield. Do you?

Spoiler for Turquoise Nymph Rewritten:

 This nymph is pretty weak. For three aether quanta, you can make any creature immaterial besides already immaterial creatures obviously. The stats are pretty good on this creature and the cost is great, if not a little low, for the nymph. There isn’t anything wrong that I can see with the nymph as a card. It costs eight aether quanta, has stats of 7 | 4, and can make other creatures immaterial at the cost of three aether quanta.

This card is pretty weak. It costs eight Aether quanta. That is already very expensive, but that skill costs three more Aether quanta to make the target creature immaterial. That’s eleven Aether quanta. That’s pretty underpowered just to buff some creatures on the field, don’t you think? I don’t see this being used at all. This is an ultra rare and to top it off, how many creatures are you planning to make immortal with the Aether Nymph? You could easily splash Two cards of Quintessence into your deck to protect important creatures, and it would be more cost efficient.

My suggestion? Completely change Aether Nymph. We don’t need another underpowered Anubis.

Spoiler for Shard of Wisdom:

 This shard targets creatures and gives them +4 | +0. If they are also immaterial, they gain the “Psionic” ability. The problem I have with this card is that it targets immaterial creatures, which no card should do in my opinion. Anyways, this basically boosts immortal creatures and supports the use of Anubis and Quintessence to make more immaterial creatures to buff with Shard of Wisdom (though very rarely used). Basically, it is just a card meant to buff one thing and that is pretty much it, like how Phase Spider’s webs were just meant to remove the airborne ability of creatures which doesn’t do much except make Shards of Freedom unusable and build a strategy with Wings.

Apart from that, Shard of Wisdom can also be used offensively. A deck called SoW Reflect (also known as “Why are you hitting yourself”) basically consists of Quintessence + Shard of Wisdom + Reflective Shield. You would make your opponent’s creatures immaterial and then use Shard of Wisdom on it, making it “Psionic”. This would make the creature cast a spell at you, which would then be reflected back at the enemy. Very interesting strategy and it is worth checking out over here. Overall, Shard of Wisdom is a pretty good card.

My suggestion? Nerf this card. This card is very powerful in its current state and I would like to see its cost brought up by +2. This way, it won’t be so easy to buff creatures, which should raise the difficulty of buffing immaterial creatures with Shard of Wisdom.

Spoiler for Fractal Rewritten:

 This is probably the most powerful Aether card in this game. I say probably because some people might think that Dimensional Shield is more powerful than this. For ten quanta (nine if upgraded), you get to fill the empty spaces in your hand with copies of the target creature. Not to be confused with Nightmare, which fills the empty spaces in the enemy’s hand with copies of the target creature. This card isn’t overpowered in my opinion, but it is very close and walks on the border from very strong to overpowered.

It gives you copies of the target creature, which breaks the “six creature deck limit” and allows you to have up to 54 of the same creature in a deck (6 creatures limited per deck, 48 creatures gained maximum from fractal). This can target any non-immaterial creature and depending on what it is, as the chance to cause a massive amount of destruction to the field. This card is famous for creature decks like Pestal, Fractix, and of course, the infamous mono-Aether Psiontal. You are able to use the skills of a creature more times along with dealing more damage with a bigger quantity of creatures.

Of course, it isn’t all that omnipotent. It costs 10 | 9 , which is pretty expensive and as a result, you can’t splash this in a rainbow and expect your strategy to get out there quickly. But, if you were going to run a card like this anyways, you’d expect your deck to be made to be prepared with enough Aether quanta to spend on Fractal. Overall, it is very powerful and could use a nerf. Probably a higher cost.

Spoiler for Lobotomizer:

 For three quanta, you get to summon this cool-looking sword with five attack. And for just two more quanta, you get to lobotomize the target creature of your choice, removing that creature’s active ability. This is one of the cheapest permanents in the game to bring to the field and can really level the playing field depending on the situation you are in on the field. It’s a powerful card in my opinion and has a whole bunch of uses.

This being very cheap and of course an Aether permanent, you won’t see many Aether decks going without this card. It’s worth spending deck space on. As said before, the Lobotomizer can remove any active ability on a non-immaterial creature and this skill is pretty powerful. It can shut down a lot of decks with its power, as a lot of decks rely on the skills of their creatures to execute their strategies, and if those skills are removed, you basically have a bunch of souped-up/ feathered-down vanilla creatures on your field.

For example, a famous water poison deck called Speed Poison relies on the skill of Chrysaora, poison, which inflicts poison damage to the enemy player every turn. In combination with the spell card “Poison”, or worse “Deadly Poison”, and usually coming with “Freeze” or “Congeal” as the main CC of the deck, this deck can come as quite of a bother. If you plan on rushing this deck, I doubt you will have any success as the enemy is running “Freeze”. If you plan on playing a lot of CC, the best you’d do is kill a bunch of the Jellyfish, but still have to endure the poison they left behind. The popular solution to this problem would be either to stall out the enemy with healing, stall out the enemy with purify, or just straight-up purify.

If you used Lobotomizer on a deck like this, you would most likely level this deck. You would shut down the Chrysaora strategy, stopping the enemy from poisoning you. The only thing you would have then to worry about, is the regular spell card “Poison”, which to me seems to be inevitable without Purify. Of course the regular spell card “Poison” should be no match if you are running other creatures. Basically, running Mono Aether with Lobotomizer and Immaterial creatures should do the trick. The only problem that could erupt is RNG not giving you your Lobotomizer, which is then again, a problem with all of the cards in the game.

The problem with Lobotomizer is also the same problem with Psion: it boosts the power of Mono Aether. Mono Aether was already powerful enough alone with Phase Dragons, Dim Shields, and Shards of Wisdom (Just look at the deck SoW Dragons!). And when used on your own Psions, you can practically get through any shield. Psions alone can get through all shields blocking only physical damage, leaving Emerald Shield and Reflective Shields (and their upgraded counterparts). By Lobotomizing your Psions, you can get through the Reflective Shield/Emerald Shields and attack your opponent. This is another feature of the Lobotomizer.

My suggestion? Well, the weapon that rivals this in my opinion is the Vampire Stiletto. So, maybe a buff to the damage would be great. +1 damage would be nice on both ends. Yes, I know. I have said that it makes Mono Aether strong but alone, in my opinion, it isn’t that strong in terms of damage.

Spoiler for Parallel Universe:

 For an expensive seven quanta, you can clone any creature on the field, including their buffs. When cloning the target creature, it can be any enemy creature or any ally creature, just as long as they are not immaterial. With the cloned creature, comes their stats and buffs, unlike those cloned from Mitosis. This card is pretty powerful, as I stated before and can change the entire game.

You start the game. You get a couple pillars, a lightning, and a PU. You ignore the rest of the cards except for that PU. You know this is going to be a good game. The value of Parallel Universe grows as the opponent summons more creatures. At first, he summons an Ash Eater, then he immolates it. It’s okay. You know he is preparing for something big. You hold your PU’s until midgame. You’ve built a whole bunch of quanta to play them all. Then, you get your opportunity: Your opponent plays a Ruby Dragon. That’s the power of Parallel Universe.

The value and power of Parallel Universe changes with the game unlike most of these cards. Depending on what’s on the field, the value of Parallel Universe could go from garbage to a game changer in one turn. The only thing that prevents this from being everywhere is that cost. Anyways, the main deck you will find this in is the famous FG grinder, Limitless Speed (Light Dragon + Momentum + 2 Rage Potions + 3 PU + Sky Blitz). Otherwise, this is a very powerful card.

My suggestion? I’d like to see this card in more decks. That’s a meta-game suggestion. Everyone out there reading this: Start using this card. This card is in my opinions one of the best cards in this game, just not very much used and expensive.

Spoiler for The Other Cards in Aether:

 A zero-cost creature. Can be used for a plethora of things including Fractal, Buffing, Mutating, etc. Basically can be integrated into decks effortlessly and has many synergies due to it being a zero-cost creature.


 This creature is very similar, if not identical, to Phase Dragon. Please see the explanation for Phase Dragon and apply that logic here.


 An average creature that has a synergy with Wings. If it isn’t upgraded, this creature is pretty much only good for its skill and synergy. Upgraded, this creature has rushing potential. Seven damage is pretty good for a four-cost creature. Basically, the card is much better upgraded.


 The alchemy card of this element. Grants immortality to the target creature. This card can be used with essential creatures in decks to protect them, like Enchant Artifact on a weapon. This card is good. The only drawback I see that isn’t allowing the card to be used that much is the cost. One lower on both the regular and upgraded version is a good buff. One higher is a good nerf.


 I honestly believe that this card was made for the sole purpose of fun. Just messing with your opponents. It copies the top card off of the opponent’s deck. If you copy pillars, you can basically use the cards the opponent has and mimic his deck, to an extent. You will still draw cards from your own deck. This doesn’t stop you from decking out. If you copy something such as a Ghost of the Past and discard it, you will still take damage. Common sense things.


 This spell is a strong spell. For only three Aether quanta, you can stop your opponent from playing any cards next turn. This can be used in many of ways, even in regular decks. You can stop your opponent from playing cards on his next turn, practically delaying your opponent for one entire turn. If your opponent’s hand is about to be full, you can play silence on him to make him discard. That is very basic stuff. Some of the more situational parts of the card include last-minute saves. Those times when you are low on health and you want to prevent the opponent from playing another creature you are assuming he has. Those times when you want to get your creatures out but you believe your opponent has a mass-CC just waiting to jump at you the minute you play your cards. The list can go on.


 This card is rather pointless. It can’t save any permanents unless buffed. It is basically, a spark with a skill. Needs a buff. That would give Aether some protection against PC, though this is really something it does not need at this point in time.

Spoiler for How Strong is Aether?:

I remember when I made this thread in a previous iteration, I made some argument about Aether being overpowered. I disavow this argument. Aether is not overpowered now that I am looking at it more carefully. As I analyzed the cards in Aether, I found they all had one massive obvious drawback I should have seen much earlier. Their cost. The cost of the cards in Aether is insane. The upgraded version of the dragon costs 14 quanta. The cost of the cards in Aether really balance it out. Apart from that, the cards itself aren’t that powerful either. The only cards that I would say need a nerf in Aether are the Phase Shield, Lightning, and if a third one had to be picked, Fractal. Aether is strong, but not overpowered. This is my evaluation. If you got a different opinion or understanding from the analysis I did or if you found that I did something wrong or stepped over something, please reply. I’ll be immediate in my correction.

Number 2: The Strength of Life

Spoiler for Chapters:

The second most controversial topic on the EtG forums next to the strength of Aether is the strength of Life. Unlike the strength of Aether, Life is thought to be underpowered by some people. Mostly because of the fact that Life, assumably, has no PC and arguably weak CC. This alone, can’t make Life weak. I am going to analyze each of the cards in Life to determine the overall strength of Life, just as I did each of the cards in Aether to determine the overall strength of Aether. Let’s jump straight in.

Spoiler for Heal:

Heal is one of the most well-known cards in the game and is the main card of Life. For three Life quanta, you can heal yourself by twenty health points, two Life quanta if the card is upgraded. This can be used in a lot of situations and can, basically, prevent you from losing a match you normally would have lost had you taken the damage necessary. This card obviously has a lot of benefits.

For starters, Heal costs three Life quanta. This makes it very easy to splash into a lot of decks. Just to name a few examples, Heal can be splashed into a Grabbow, Stalls, some Rushes, and more. It’s pretty much like a universal card, compatible with a lot of decks and very easy to slide in.

The next benefit of Heal is the obvious effect it has on health. It heals twenty health, or one fifth of the total health. Seeing that it only costs three quanta, it costs fifteen Life quanta to heal one hundred health, pretty similar to how miracle costs fifteen Light quanta to heal ninety-nine health. This would make Heal better than Miracle, but it isn’t. For the simple fact that Miracle is one card while to heal higher quantities of health, you would need bunches of heal, which most decks are less likely to run. Also, Miracle heals all the way up to one minus the maximum health. While Heal only heals the health loss, regardless of how much maximum health you have lost.
 Nevertheless, it is a card you can throw in your deck to heal yourself for a small amount of health that can bail you out of multiple situations.

The only throwback I see to this card is if you have Shard of Sacrifice out. This is a glaringly stupid move as is Shard of Sacrifice + Miracle. Healing is inverted and switched to damage. So why would you play Heal or Miracle while you are under the influence of Shard of Sacrifice? That’s pretty much a match well lost. Add that combo to the list of stupid moves you can make with only a couple of cards.

In my personal experience, this card has helped me out of a ton of situations and if you are running a rainbow, this should be one of the supporting cards you have in your deck. My suggestion for this card would be to buff the amount of health you heal from this card to 30 HP. This in my opinion is a pretty reasonable buff and is basically three Life quanta for 30 HP, which is the same amount of effectiveness as Luciferase (One Random Quanta for Ten HP). The only thing that makes Luciferase different is the addition of bioluminescence, which doesn’t really matter unless you are planning a synergy for a light card or some quanta to feed Rustler.

Spoiler for Horned Frog:

This is one of the three vanilla creatures that are accessible from the element of Life. For only two quanta, you can play a creature that has 3 | 3. It’s not only cheap, but can be used in combination with many cards to amplify the amount of damage you can output, the main two cards being the creature-generating spell card from Life itself, Mitosis, and the infamous spell card from Aether, Fractal. Two quanta is an easy summoned creature and this gets better with the upgraded version of the frog, Giant Frog. Let’s go on to listing the benefits, if I haven’t listed the best ones already.

Two quanta. This creature is probably the best creature to summon for its ATK | HP ratio. As such, this creature can be splashed into decks even easier than Heal and implies that the creature works best in bunches. Three damage alone isn’t that much of a big deal, but with cost like that, the damage can accumulate very easily, especially when the creature is combined with cards such as Mitosis and Fractal. Mitosis brings the creatures out at a slow, but continuous rate and Fractal brings the creatures out in a huge burst, but one time summoning. Either way, Horned Frog/ Giant Frog is suitable for both. Both also make great buff targets and mutation fodders (worse mutation fodder than Photon or Spark). This card is a great card to buff with some spells. One of the best buffs you can give to this card is Adrenaline/Epinephrine. Adrenaline gives the creature a passive effect (non-lobotomizable) which makes the creature have multiple turns. Giving Horned Frog multiple turns means that Horned Frog will attack more than once. Since it has four turns (determined by ATK), Horned Frog’s attack raises from three to a whopping twelve attack, giving it the attack power of an average upgraded dragon. Nice.

[ddevans96]

Ghostal is not a good idea.

Seems legit.

[Sera]

Ghostal is one of the most reliable stallbreakers out there. I highly disagree about fractal not being part of the problem. Same goes with Lobotomizer.

[Zawadx]

Fractal is not viable in a trio? Pls.

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7n0 7n0 7n9 7n9 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 809 809 809 80i 80i 80i 8pj

I'm gonna be blunt. Your analysis is overly verbose and just plain wrong in so many cases. Firstly, you don't need 6 PC to overcome mono-aether. You need 4 PC, MAX. If your deck is fast enough, even 2 PC can defeat an MA. MA has NO way of healing yourself, so a fast rush+midgame PC is enough to win.

Lightning is a strong card. Your problem with it is that it's in the OP aether element. But Aether isn't OP, we just have to nerf Lightning? Really? Lightning is a strong CC card, but definitely not the strongest (RT). It's basic CC.

The main problem with Psion is how strong it makes mono aether. Upgraded, it gives Mono-aether coverage for it's only weakness, shield bypass. Which is why replacing Psion is also an viable idea. And everyone knows it's Psiontal which is OP, not psions.

SoW Dragons is also a seriously OP Arena Deck, which needs to be nerfed.

Turquoise nymph is weak, because it has one turn of vulnerability and Mono Aether doesn't have many viable targets for it.

Finally, fractal is not OP. It's just insanely strong, in fact so strong that every new creature idea has to consider it. It creates an insane amount of card advantage which is unseen in any card game (as far as I know). It's similar to really strong wine; it has to be toned down.
And you just listed some fractal synergies off the top of your head. There are many, many more. Fractix was once considered strong because it could be insanely fast, pack deflag and be modded with CC/Dims. Now Gravytal is super-strong due to resilient early rush (Guards) and endgame massive shield bypass (Charger). RoL/Hope's defense strat is so strong that around 3 war teams packed it as a trio. The fact that pretty much any aether duo can pack two copies of fractal and a good creature and have stall break potential is insane.

P.S. Ghostal works. It might seem like a dysfunctional deck, but as such it would not get 7 wins in War. In fact, ghostal is a perfect display of Fractal's strength, with a three card ttk.

[serprex]

Why would you do this again?

Another fractal trio: New Old Times
CCYB, a rainbow, runs fractal
Fractal Ball OTK, rainbow
FG OTK Don't Cut Yourself, rainbow

[SpikeSpiegel]

Ghostal is not a good idea.

I can't stop laughing. Please, move this thread in humor section. Thanks.

[Dm]

Ghostal: A Bad Idea since 2011.

[andretimpa]

Everyone knows the best aether/time duo is Anubistal. Only noobs run ghosts.

[iDaire]

Everyone here except for Zawadx commented only on Fractal.
Is the fact that I said fractaling a ghost being a bad idea too big a problem with everyone? Eh.

Also, about the trio comment:

You can’t splash this in your trios or quartets and expect to get your strategy out quickly. Even so, you can’t expect to get it out in under three turns.

Never once did I say it's not plausible.
It seems everyone just skipped right to Fractal to be hasty in judgements.

Lightning is a strong card. Your problem with it is that it's in the OP aether element. But Aether isn't OP, we just have to nerf Lightning? Really? Lightning is a strong CC card, but definitely not the strongest (RT). It's basic CC.

Reverse Time doesn't kill creatures. That said, this is subjective. Completely.

Firstly, you don't need 6 PC to overcome mono-aether. You need 4 PC, MAX. If your deck is fast enough, even 2 PC can defeat an MA. MA has NO way of healing yourself, so a fast rush+midgame PC is enough to win.

I never said Six PC to overcome MA. I said Six PC to overcome six shields. Yeah, this comment implies MA, but it isn't.

The main problem with Psion is how strong it makes mono aether. Upgraded, it gives Mono-aether coverage for it's only weakness, shield bypass. Which is why replacing Psion is also an viable idea. And everyone knows it's Psiontal which is OP, not psions.

I don't think you disagreed with me in this statement.

SoW Dragons is also a seriously OP Arena Deck, which needs to be nerfed.

Turquoise nymph is weak, because it has one turn of vulnerability and Mono Aether doesn't have many viable targets for it.

Not sure what you're trying to say with SoW Dragons.
Every creature with a skill has one turn of summoning sickness. Turq Nymph isn't limited to Mono Aether.

You also had a problem with me listing synergies off the top of my head. Eh.

[Zawadx]

Is the fact that I said fractaling a ghost being a bad idea too big a problem with everyone?

Yes, since it is a really good idea based off of records. The fact that fractaling a ghost, playing silence nd simply pressing spacebar twice can be gg is a pretty strong display of fractal's power.

Also, about the trio comment:

You can’t splash this in your trios or quartets and expect to get your strategy out quickly. Even so, you can’t expect to get it out in under three turns.

Never once did I say it's not plausible.

You can get fractal under three turns quite easily with a good hand. 3 upped towers means enough quanta for fractal turn 3.

Also, with fractal, you don't have to get your strategy out by turn three. Fractal allows you to dominate the lategame with superb card advantage. Most fractal decks carry serious stall potential (Dims, RoL/Hope) which is why they're so successful.

[iDaire]

Edited my other post.
Fractaling a ghost is a terrible idea without quanta to summon. Probably wasn't too direct in saying that.
Nevertheless, I do find it entertaining how people can obsess over a single detail. I'll correct it if wanted.

[Sera]

Fractalling anything without quanta to summon is a bad idea. Much like how you shouldn't Sky Blitz with shriekers. It's really obvious.

Just digging through war history is enough to see how strong Fractal is. The argument that it's bad in a trio is null: a large number of cards are terrible in a trio. Not commenting on how Shard of Wisdom clearly needs a revamp, suggesting addition of Lightning to an element that has 3 direct damage CC cards, not commenting on how Immortal is clearly underpowered to Phase Dragon because of wasting card space... There's too many things that needs change in this supposed game summary, as it is pretty misleading to newbies that are looking for a summary of the meta.

Sorry if this offends you, but I think it's better to hand this task to someone with more experience.