I do not think Elements even needs an Other category to begin with, let alone have Other cards that are more powerful than Elemental equivalents. I'd be much happier with Shards if they were instead changed to powerful cards of their respective Elements.
I partially disagree here because arguing Elements has no concept of "Other" is like saying there is no neutral opinion in a war involving different factions. Even our own War has Team Underworld, which is technically Team Rainbow depending on interpretation.
I also disagree that Shards
must go into an Element just because they strongly relate to an Element. If shards were weaker than actual element cards or had a scaled power level of some sort based on how 'loyal' to an element you were, I'd think they'd make decent Other cards that could justify themselves as magical artifacts or something similar. (In a sense, Shards are like the "Mutable" concept Oldtrees mentioned earlier or the "Shapestone" item in ddevans' Elemental Adventure - they're
ordinary artifacts that provide effects based on their element, but their abilities change/improve in the presence of other factors.)
I do agree however that it makes no sense for Shards to be stronger than actual in-element cards, though - in RPG terms, a Fire "Warrior" Village should have access to healing potions, but not ones that are somehow superior to Life "Healer" Village potions.
For me it comes down to the old debate between Rainbows and Monos. When you start off in Elements you're picking one of the twelve, but endgame, more and more, is geared towards Rainbow decks. Like Shantu said, Shards are too Rainbow friendly.
Would shards still be overly rainbow friendly if they were greatly weakened, rebalanced, or overhauled? (I'd think that there would be a point where nerfed shards begin to take up dead weight in rainbow decks if the deck has too many of them.)
It puzzles me that zanz is making new cards that will going straight to the PvP ban list.
In the defense of the 'idea' of Shards, I would consider the ridiculously imbalanced recent shards a result of potential bad judgement, as I said earlier. As EvaRia also mentioned, it seems like Zanz has a great idea, looks at the facts he's working on shards, and slaps the two together in a very awkward mess. I'm beginning to notice a zigzag of quality cards in this game ever since the new shards were being added - some were decent (SoSe, SoV) but more were on different sides of the UP/OP fence and as I stated before imply bad judgement and design. (UP: SoP, SoC OP: SoSa,SoF).