Do you like the idea of Shards?

[plastiqe]

Shards are powerful, often controversial rares in the Other category.  We have a few already, and zanzarino is actively developing more.  Soon there will be one Shard of each Element.  Whatever you think of them individually, the question is do you like the idea of Shards?

Spoiler for results from old forums:

Do you like the idea of Shards? Yes      30 (40.5%) No       44 (59.5%) Total Members Voted: 74

[dragonsdemesne]

I like the idea of shards, and of the 'other' cards in general.  I don't like Shard of Sacrifice, though; it's too good, and unless serious balancing is done to Shard of Focus, I won't like that one, either.  In general, though, I think it's a good idea if done right and balanced properly.

[ralouf]

what dd said exactly. I like them a lot

[mega plini]

Shards are cool because they are "other"
You can use them in many decks which is good

[Higurashi]

I like all the Shards except the overpowered ones; SoSa and the soon-to-be SoF. You can have a lot of fun with SoV and especially SoSe :>
The rest tend to be bland. I'm not voting until I get a more nuanced poll though.

If you're referring to the concept of an Other perm that benefits a certain element, it's a cool idea. In practise it ends up making the elements less unique though, and I'd rather see time spent on unique cards with individual flavour, as they add much more identity to the game. Gameplay-wise I like playing with them, but there's no reason they have to be Shards. It's the mechanism I have fun with, and it could belong in a unique in-element card. SoV could be a really cool Darkness card, for instance, and add much more to the game.

Mkay, with the poll being clarified, a yes/no poll is justified. I voted no for the aforementioned reasons.

[willng3]

There are certain Shards that I don't approve of simply because they give some Elements powers and/or abilities that I don't believe they should be capable of alone (for instance:  SoG for Fire).  However, I do appreciate the fact that each Shard receives somewhat of a benefit from being a part of a particular Element as otherwise I would have a problem with each and every single one of them taking away from the individuality of each of the 12 Elements.

But I'm forced to say no simply because there are Shards that I feel are completely OP (this does not include the ones currently in development in the 1.30 patch) regardless of their bonuses received from a certain Element.  With this in combination with the fact that each and every single Element has access to them, I believe they're doing more harm than help for the game at the current moment. 

[plastiqe]

Edited and reset the poll from "Do you like Shards?" to "Do you like the idea of Shards?" based on feedback.

[Shantu]

Voted for no: I don't like shards.
Some of them are quite good (Divinity and Void for example) but I'd much prefer if they were not Other cards. They are too rainbow-friendly; making them elemental cards would also help a lot with the balancing because balancing powerful Other cards - in my opinion - isn't really possible. Rainbows have an easy time to pay even for a 30 -cost card while non-rainbows will never be able to gather that much quanta fast enough.

[Jappert]

I don't like the increased ammount of other cards, I don't like shards thematically at all.
I like cards that fit the fantasy theme. Like Giant Frogs, Demons, Dragons, Mind Flayers etcetc. I also like how every Element is different, I love the different weapons and shields a lot.

Shards however are... dull.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I like the idea of bacon, thread necromancy, and lasers. And shards, but that's debatable. This is what an SoSe told me anyway.
[/noobcomment]
Serious-wise, I like the idea of shards, it's just that I'm not fond of how their execution goes as OP (and sometimes UP) cards that generally get flak from players for being imbalanced with the rest of the game, and has resulted in some players believing they can shoehorn shards in every deck just to make it powerful.   This power imbalance generally started out okay and was rectified into something useful or fun (SoD, SoSe) but later shards seem to have problems falling into a balanced state due to their effects (SoSa,SoP,SoC,SoF).

I generally prefer their versatility as "Other" since we don't have much else to define what is "Other", and that it brings some interesting ideas to mind. I'd like to see Zanz expand Other into something beyond "Generic Powers that all Elements can use",  which I think certain Shards could contribute to if fixed a bit.

Metagame-wise, I think if shards want to get out of their Tier Induced Scrappy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TierInducedScrappy) status, they need to be rebalanced and associated more with their Element (for example, making the penalties of using shards out-of-element more severe), which Zanz seems to be trying to do through Marks. (I'd personally prefer a system that causes a Shard to function based on the percent of element cards in your deck.) Rares should be strong cards that justify being rare (Nymphs are too weak, while Shards are too strong), but they shouldn't be disruptive to a metagame.
tl;dr : Great idea, but put in the game in a way that implies bad judgement of that idea. It doesn't help that the newest shard (SoF) seems to be the most blatant example of this. (No offense to Zanz)

[OldTrees]

I see Other as having 3 themes
All (Quantum Pillar. This pillar produces quanta of all types)
None (Longsword. The weapon part of the elemental weapons is not part of the element)
Mutable (Shards. Basic effect + Bonus if combined with aligned element)

Balanced elementally aligned shards are valuable to the game.

In theory ^ Shards are good. Sometimes the implementation is less than optimal.

[EvaRia]

I like the idea of them, and the original shards worked quite well IMO.

But I feel like the recent ones haven't been quite handled well in terms of theme... and the result is that there are cards coming out that have simply been made other and given the name "Shard" rather than shards themselves.

Shards to me are exactly that... They need to feel like they were once a "Part" of something, much like relics, and to me they need to display a virtue.

Shard of Divinity and Shard of Gratitude embodied this perfectly to me, and Shard of Readiness was still okay.

I could just as imagine "Divinity" and "Gratitude" from them, and I feel that's important. They feel as if they are part of a great power, which you can draw upon only a small amount.

They have a certain level of "Permanence" that fits thematically with shards to me, and they are also utility cards- Useful in many situations.
These are the what shards mean to me, and through this concept, I like the idea a lot.

But out of the three, Readiness feels the most misplaced to me. While it does embody Readiness as a virtue, it doesn't quite make sense to me as a shard concept.
What is it a shard of, really? I can't quite imagine the raw force of "Readiness" as much as "Divinity" (Looking at the FGs) or "Gratitude" (Life gain in general).

As for the new shards, Serendipity is the best approached to me, except the name is a little bit awkward. In general though, I can definitely imagine the "Serendipity" it is coming from. It is a small part of the raw potential of all the cards out there, in all their possibilities. While it really only works well in rainbows, it works with enough utility that I like it nonetheless.

Void is the next one that still feels okay. I can imagine the Void itself which it draws its name from. It makes sense in general, and works well thematically. It's just that the theme feels slightly off compared to the other cards, which embody virtues. However, if we extend our understanding of shards past just virtues and any general underlying powerful force in Elements, Shard of Void works well as a shard. It is IMO just slightly underpowered, but that's not a problem with theme.

The other shards though...

Shard of Sacrifice is just too powerful to be a shard IMO. It doesn't feel like a "Shard" of sacrifice, it mind as well be "Sacrifice" itself. It's too off to me...
The mechanic is fairly complicated and doesn't have the same underlying simplicity of the other shards. Instead of a raw power/energy/force it feels very specific.
I may be wrong, but it really feels to me like Zanz planned the Shard Revolution AND came up with a "Turn Undead" concept at the same time and decided to just make it a shard. The result is a slightly out of place mechanic amongst the other shards. IMO, it would be best to completely redo SoS and make the undead mechnic a different card, but that probably won't happen.

Shard of Patience on the other hand, suffers the opposite. It's clearly underpowered. But the only reason it's underpowered is the mechanics of the game. In the end, there are only two types of decks really, decks that are designed to make yourself faster than your opponent, and decks that are designed to make your opponent slower than you. Everything will fall somewhere between that spectrum. But what Shard of Patience is really trying to do is make yourself slower to make yourself faster later... And the make yourself slower prevails. The shard concept is not bad, but as it is it's too situational to do work well as it is.

For the In Development shards:

Shard of Conscience feels works well in general, but I only worry about it being situational. But at the moment I can't think of much better and haven't tested it, so oh well.

Shard of Focus feels like it's just another card given "Shard" as the name. It would work better as a gravity card, not a Shard. What is this "Focus" that it's a shard of? The raw destruction of permanents to grow larger and burst into a black hole? No, it's to specific to be a shard and needs fixing IMO.