Elements - The Thread

[ARTHANASIOS]

Spoiler for Hidden:

Can we rename this thread in: "Why  is goin' to win war again?"

That's not what this thread was supposed to be about.  I just picked on Aether because it had all of these problems before I left. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Air won.  Excellent combos, wings is amazing, fog is godly, shard of freedom + flying OE is a pretty damn hard deck to deal with, and it's got both thunderstorm and explosive gas as midrange.  The 120 spell damage dream is very good.  The only elements air DOESN'T synergize with are gravity, earth, time, and darkness, and I can honestly see a momentum + dive deck working.  It's got good damage, it has an answer to most midrange, as long as you don't pick it into rage pots of lightning bolts it'll probably do alright.

This thread is more about changing how people think about what is OP and what isn't.  A lot of people would tell me fractal is fair, but it's not.  Fractal has no drawback.  They argue "if you run fractal you lose creature diversity", but that isn't necessarily true.  There's no reason you couldn't run 3 frog 3 scorpion in a fractal deck.  Nor is it valid to argue sometimes you'll draw fractal when drawing a more diverse creature would win you the game - every card in existence has the drawback "sometimes you'll draw it when you need another card".  That argument is only valid if the the number of cards tat make drawing fractal bad is higher than the number of cards that make drawing OTHER cards bad, and that's not true.  "But fractal provides a good source of aggro and aggro loses to midrange."  Yeah, but fractal loses to neither healing, nor board wipes (leave 1 copy of the creature in your hand and you've gone even).  In exchange for being invulnerable to 1/2 of all midrange, your aggro deck is now vulnerable to the same sources of midrange all aggro decks lose two: prison and shields, but also loses to nightmare.  What a trade off.

I'm picking on fractal again, but it's not the only problem.  When you run into adrenaline on a flying staff, another combo deck that relies on primarily spells and permanents, you better have lobo, because 7 HP is enough to tank almost everything, and healing 100 HP a turn is hard to beat.

There are far too many permanents in the game for there to only be 5 sources of permanent control, especially since two are rares, one forces a duo, and one of them is bad.

There is 0 way to deal with spells.  None.

The cycle of X > Y > Z is broken, because the buck stops with spells.

Spoiler for Hidden:

I actually really like where Life is from a balance standpoint.

It has really strong aggro, with frogs, cockatrice, dragons, scorpions, and forest spirit.  You can go with scorpions to poison them to death after they gain board control, frogs to blitz them down, cockatrice which are durable enough to survive a lot of hate, and forest spirits to stall break.

It has really strong combo.  It's niche as the swarm element is really well defined, but it doesn't have a monopoly on it either (here's lookin at you, Pharaoh).

It's position as the healing element is also pretty good in the same way.  With adrenastaves, empathic bond, shard of gratitude, and just the spell heal, it has a very diverse set of tools to try and heal stall.  These tools also synergize with the combo and aggro aspect of life, which is awesome.  But again, life doesn't have a monopoly, with vampirism, antimatter, and miracle decks all being alternatives.

It has also an excellent Dragon in comparison to any other element that can take a Lightning and live to tell the tale. It has also two very underused yet awesome shields who both of them give some sort of CC (blocking spell creatures is a sort of controll imho). As for the alternatives, none is as reliable as life's. Vampirism is blocked by shields, antimatter needs a hostile creature, miracle is expensive as heck. Regen doesn't care if there is a shield or not and Heal is the most cost-effective and most jack-of-all-trades healing in the game.

I haven't really looked into the various upsides and downsides to dragons.  Unfortunately, the only difference between a 5 HP and a 6 HP card is "doesn't die to lightning bolt".  That's such a niche advantage I hardly even count it.  Personally, I don't like thorn carapace, but I do agree emerald shield is very good.  I also rate shields more highly than the better players here, so I don't know how much of a plus it is for life to have good ones.

Of course, the other sources of heal are worse than lifes in one or another.  My point was it's very clear that life is the primary healing element, but there are a plethora of secondary healing elements if that's the way you want to go.  This should be the way a lot of other mechanics go.  Time's main thing is draw power, and it's great at that, but until shard of bravery, it had a monopoly.  Draw power wasn't a factor in designing control decks because it simply couldn't be.  Meanwhile, time really doesn't have anything going for it but draw power.  The deja vu combo is weak, pharoah's force the duo, anubis forces the duo, neurotoxin forces the duo, GoTP might as well force the duo, time doesn't have enough core mechanics to rally around.  Give other elements draw power, but in exchange, maybe give mono time some love.


This is where I think elements should be at.  Every element has it's own "things" it's good at.  No one element has a monopoly on a tactic, but every element still remains unique.  If you're going to put life in your deck, you know what you're getting.

The problem is that aether has answers to almost every threat in the game, and it's answers are in the form of very well protected cards.

Aether also has no PC, its cards are quite expensive (though some of them should be even more, like Psion for example), it lacks healing and has low damage-per-turn (in unupped meta at least).

The whole point of my thread is that there really isn't a difference between healing and preventing damage.  Aether doesn't "lack" healing, it lacks an answer to spell damage, and there are only two answers targetting spell damage, and even less answers to spell damage that doesn't taunt.  Aether doesn't "lack" PC either, PC is so scarce in this game that's not a valid complaint.  There's Explosion, Steal, Butterfly effect (bad), shard of focus, and pulverizer.  That's 5 cards, only 4 good ones.  If you want permant control, you go fire, you go darkness, you go gravity, or you go home.  And thank god it has low damage per turn unupped, it should be bad at SOMETHING.  Thankfully, damage is the easiest thing in the game to splash for.

It's main source of stall is from permanents, and it can afford to run 6 copies of it's shield, whereas most other elements only run 3 copies at max.  Permanent control is scarce at best.
It's main source of aggro has spell damage, which is just enough evasion to beat most forms of stall, and 4 HP, which is just enough durability to beat most board wipes.
It's main lategame tool is a spell, and spells have little to no counters in the game.  Fractal only has one.
If aether wants to go creature combo, it has protection that's only answered by shields with CC, and using it's shard, even that's no longer a problem.

Permanents are indeed strong in EtG, but needing to run 6 copies of its shield is actually a negative aspect rather than a positive one. Aether NEEDS to run 6 copies of Dim Shield. Any other element can be happy with 1-2 copies of its shield and using the extra 5-4 card slots left for other, more useful, cards. At the same time, nothing prevents you from running a monolife with 6 Emerald Shields, for example. Wings, Diss Shield, Bone Wall, all these are awesome shields too. Fractal is powerful, but not more than spells like Miracle or Sky Blitz that do something awesome by consuming all your quanta. Quintessence is very expensive for what it offers and it is far more useful outside of Aether rather than within it.
 Problem with Aether, like I've stated in an older post, is Psion's and Paraller Universe's low cost as well as the very existence of a weapon like Lobo within the Aether's arsenal. Imho, Lobo should be light's weapon and Morning Star should be the Aether's one.

Here's why running 6 copies of a card is better than running 2 copies of it.  Take the card discord:  Extremely effective turn 1, weaker the longer the game goes, and not any more effective if you draw more than 1 of it.  This is discord's weakness, it's a gamble.  The turn 1 discord draw is damn near game winning, but every card you invest in running discord is another dead card.  The same is true of shields.  They're all very powerful, but the only way to guarantee you get them is to run dead cards.

Phase shields don't have that problem.  You can run however man you like.  If you need to guarantee the phase shield draw, then feel free to run 6.  Drawing a second phase shield doubles how good it is.  What prevents me from putting 6 emerald shields in my life deck is the statistically likelihood I'll draw 2 at some point in the game.  That's a card wasted because my deck is bad.  Bone shield is an extremely good shield, but you have to earn it's high value, whereas phase shield has warped the meta to the point that the only reason it doesn't enjoy never having to deal with the embarrassingly small number of answers is because every deck runs answers or it's bad.  Think about that, one of the key evaluations of an arena farmer is "how does it beat phase shield", necessitating momentum to be main-boarded in most OTK decks, while other niche answers are sideboarded.

The argument that "Fractal isn't bullshit because miracle and sky blitz are also strong" isn't valid either.  Sky blitz and miracle are also bullshit.  Miracle, just like Fractal, only has one counter, just like fractal, it's very situational, and used in maybe 1 deck.  This game doesn't have answers to spells, and it should.

I really don't think quintessence is expensive for what it does, I just think most combos you'd want to protect with already force a duo that isn't aether.  If there were a card with growth that was mono, you'd see 4 quanta is a small price to pay in exchange for never having to worry about control while playing a combo deck.

I agree, psions are way too cheap, especially if someone's going to argue Aether's weakness is lack of aggro.  I dunno about parallel universe being too cheap though.  Is it used all that often?  Separating lobo and phase shield would be nice, for balance, but I think changing that now would be the wrong answer.

Whereas life has to go into a game wondering if it's tools will win it the game, and what element it should duo with to cover it's bases, aether can go into a game confidently knowing if it didn't answer the threat, it's because the threat was incredibly difficult to answer.  Gravity sits down and says "well I have a really good control suite, but my options for aggro are really charger or bust, and that might not work out too well, and my only midrange options are gravity pull, and to stop creatures with more than 5 HP."  Aether sits down and says "well I have a really good control suite, and the best midrange card in the game, and two very good sources of aggro, and two additional creatures that can't be answered, the best combo protection in the game, but that's irrelevant because my main combos are spells and my opponent can't stop me from using them.  Wait, why did I sit down again?"

I disagree with the post above. Aether has a lot of stuff, but it can't fit everything to a 30-card deck. Aether players, like a player of every other element, are forced to make decisions and take risks...

Lobo + phase shield is only threatened by 5 cards.  Firebolt, poison, steal, explosion, and pulvy.  What risks.  There's a reason the war decks run the combo in 5 of their war decks.

Rainbow sits down and says "Well, I'll probably get one nova, fog costs less than 2, deflagration and steal are both cheap, there's plenty of 1-2 mana kill spells, I guess I'll take the best sources of damage from the other elements and call it a day."

The latter two decks thrash PVP2.  The addition of psions to the game made me add mirror shields to any decks I could fit them in.  Every time I get in game and see my opponent has a mark other than aether, I get pretty excited for the game.  I start to think about the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing element, and wonder which duo they picked, until they drop quantum towers and I get sad again.

I don't want them to buff life.  I don't want life to have an answer to everything.  Life has lots of duos that play very differently and have very different pools of answers.  That's great.  Picking which one to use is the puzzle that makes the game fun.  I don't like how the solution to that puzzle is "super nova".

Here I agree. Nova and Immolation should be nerfed somehow...
Spell control.  That's what the game needs.  It can't come soon enough.

Reserved for answering later...

EDIT: So, I believe you did the following mistakes...

1st)
 Air synnergize with ANY element, even and ; I will just say the following deck archtypes: CataTitans ( ), Wings-StoneSkin Stall ( ), Air rush with RT ( ), Air-Darkness Domination ( ). Actually, EVERY element can synnergize well with ANY element, it just depends in what type of deck you try to create.
2nd)
 Fractal has 2 drawbacks; it has a relatively high cost (10 |9 with quanta consuming) and it needs an empty hand to function. Nightmare and Devourer are both good counters to Fractal for the above reasons.
3rd)
 Spells have the following counters; Silence (spells can only be played by hand), Reflective and Emerald Shields (counters Drain Life, Fire Bolt, Ice Bolt, Lightning, Shockwave), Sanctuary (counters BHole, Silence, Nightmare), immaterial or Enchant Artifact (counters Deflagration, Butterfly Effect, Steal), immortality or burrow (counters any damage-dealing spell, plus Freeze, BB, RT, Mutation), creature with high hp (soft counter to damage-dealing spells).
4th)
 Heal is a spell (you know, that card type you find uncounterable in comparison to everything else, yes?) while Dim Shield is a permanent and can be countered by CC. Heal also costs half as much... In general, Dim is more powerful but Heal is more reliable.
5th)
 The famous "Lobo + Phase Shield" combo is like "Wings + Eagle's Eye" or "Bone Wall + Arsenic" comboes. Permanent-based comboes are indeed more reliable due to the lack of many PC cards. However, PC is easy to splash and there are other ways to bypass shields, including decking out your opponent.

[Devourer]

My biggest problem with what OP says is about PC. There are plenty of other things that I'm too lazy to disagree with, but I'll stick to PC.

You said that there are only 5 direct PC cards in the game, and that's true, but its also true that antimatter and reverse time aren't direct CC. Consider that bypassing shields or weapons serves the same purpose as destroying them.

When people in Kong chat bring up how Aether is OP because of dime shield, the response is always: pack PC. This doesn't just mean deflag, steal, SoFo, and Pulvy. It also includes things like spell damage (read: unstable gas or psions), momentum, quanta denial, and stalling until duration wears out. Other types of shields require different workarounds. Reflect and jade shield beat psions, but you can always lobotomize them. Adrenaline beats Procrastination and Permafrost, although its vulnerable to other shields like fire and thorn. An answer to a shield isn't always one of the 5 direct PC.

Weapons are a bit trickier. The only direct, non-destroy way is to freeze a voodoo doll, which is insanely specific and bad for the same reasons butterfly effect is bad. But shields and heal permanents are still ways to neutralize weapons, or answer them. Unupped Arsenic's poison is completely stopped by several upgraded shields, and Titanium shield unupped. Of course, most weapons shine with skills, not damage. Quanta denial and immortality still stop them dead in their tracks. All this considered, is there still an easy way for all elements to stop weapons? No, but that's why weapons are some of the most powerful cards in the game. That's why they're rare.

Non-weapon/shield permanents are still untouchable except by the 5 direct PC, but that's not always a bad thing. Permanents are powerful, and the uniqueness of PC among  ,  , and  gives them an advantage that is simply one of the things that makes each element unique. Adding PC in other elements would dilute their effectiveness, and I don't think Elements really needs more PC cards. Permanents and PC aren't unbalanced as they stand.

Also, from that same standpoint, its incorrect to say that moar shields = moar profit??? Permanents are great because of the relative lack of PC, so you only need one or two copies of shields of weapons for most decks. In  , the extra 4 slots that could go to other cards are now taken up by Dime Shields. Why? Because they last 3 turns, as opposed to 5 for Wings and forever for every other shield. Aether only has a shield for 18 turns max, as opposed to infinity turns for any other element, barring the answer of PC. Their strength is that they are immune to physical damage for 18 turns. Their weakness is that they lose card and quanta advantage by having them in the deck, and once the 18 turns are over, they can easily be outrushed. Another strength is that if destroyed, they can just play another of their dime shields. Another weakness is that the shield would be gone in 3 turns anyway. Moar shields ≠ moar profit.

[Glitch]

1st)
 Air synnergize with ANY element, even and ; I will just say the following deck archtypes: CataTitans ( ), Wings-StoneSkin Stall ( ), Air rush with RT ( ), Air-Darkness Domination ( ). Actually, EVERY element can synnergize well with ANY element, it just depends in what type of deck you try to create.
2nd)
 Fractal has 2 drawbacks; it has a relatively high cost (10 |9 with quanta consuming) and it needs an empty hand to function. Nightmare and Devourer are both good counters to Fractal for the above reasons.
3rd)
 Spells have the following counters; Silence (spells can only be played by hand), Reflective and Emerald Shields (counters Drain Life, Fire Bolt, Ice Bolt, Lightning, Shockwave), Sanctuary (counters BHole, Silence, Nightmare), immaterial or Enchant Artifact (counters Deflagration, Butterfly Effect, Steal), immortality or burrow (counters any damage-dealing spell, plus Freeze, BB, RT, Mutation), creature with high hp (soft counter to damage-dealing spells).
4th)
 Heal is a spell (you know, that card type you find uncounterable in comparison to everything else, yes?) while Dim Shield is a permanent and can be countered by CC. Heal also costs half as much... In general, Dim is more powerful but Heal is more reliable.
5th)
 The famous "Lobo + Phase Shield" combo is like "Wings + Eagle's Eye" or "Bone Wall + Arsenic" comboes. Permanent-based comboes are indeed more reliable due to the lack of many PC cards. However, PC is easy to splash and there are other ways to bypass shields, including decking out your opponent.

I'm gonna get rid of the gigantic wall of quote because holy crap.

1.  You know what?  I don't care.  If you wanna say changing the mark, and running 1 low cost utility card from the duo element counts as a duo, go for it.  Gravity pull + abyssal crawlers.  Best deck.

2.  Alright.  I'll give you that.  Quanta lock is a decent strategy to take against fractal decks.  I don't think that makes it balanced though, as quanta lock is midrange, and fractal is a combo card.

3.  I don't think you understand what I mean when I say "spells have no counter".  Deflagration works because you don't care what permanent they're using.  If you've gotta stop dials, go right on ahead.  If their eagle's eye has to die, it's not a problem.  If they've got gravity shield and you're running steam machine, you've got a solution.  Nightmare is ONE card that counters ONE other card, and otherwise is just direct damage to assist with GotP.  Silence is ONE card that works if and ONLY if you can win the game by delaying the cast of a spell in their hand by one turn, and you know the exact turn they're going to cast it.  Sure, if you play your cards right, you can maybe chain 3 of them.  But if we were playing PVP2, you cannot honestly say you would run silence.  Black hole is another situational card.  It only works if they're playing rainbow, and for some reason the cards in their rainbow cost more than the 2 quanta they get from S.Nova.  Since they aren't, because they're smart, it just heals for ~18 health and cleans up the quanta they didn't want anyway.  All of these cards are GREAT counters to the spells you claim they counter, but because you can't know I'm going to be playing those spells, you don't run those counters.  It's not like Deflagration.  It doesn't read "whatever the problem is, if it's a spell, I got your back bro".  It reads "hey, maybe 1 in 30 games this'll be really funny".

I am going to play a spell based deck.  You suspect I am going to play Pdials.  You figure out how to fit silences and purify into your deck.  You also put in a reflective shield in case of a lance stall, and you're sure to make your creature immortal for the rage pots.  Hell, gotta put in that enchant artifact in case my spell deck is earthquakes.  Maybe you go full rainbow to put in nightmare?  Or maybe you go quanta control, because then you don't have to bother worrying which spells I take, you can stop me from ever casting them in the first place.  Either way, I play stone skin+miracle+sanctuary and win.  Silly you, why didn't you take Darkness' shard?  Countering spells is so easy!

4)  I don't really understand your point here.  Heal gives me a guaranteed 20 HP.  Phase shield and lobo are worse than that if:  They deal less than 7 damage per turn, they are running either deflag, steal, or pulvy.  3 cards in the entire game.

5)  PC is easy to splash in?!  What?!  If I put lobo and phase shield in my deck, I have to worry about 3 cards in the entire game.  "Yeah but it's not hard to run those 3 cards" does not justify the fact that there are ONLY.  THREE.

My biggest problem with what OP says is about PC. There are plenty of other things that I'm too lazy to disagree with, but I'll stick to PC.

You said that there are only 5 direct PC cards in the game, and that's true, but its also true that antimatter and reverse time aren't direct CC. Consider that bypassing shields or weapons serves the same purpose as destroying them.

When people in Kong chat bring up how Aether is OP because of dime shield, the response is always: pack PC. This doesn't just mean deflag, steal, SoFo, and Pulvy. It also includes things like spell damage (read: unstable gas or psions), momentum, quanta denial, and stalling until duration wears out. Other types of shields require different workarounds. Reflect and jade shield beat psions, but you can always lobotomize them. Adrenaline beats Procrastination and Permafrost, although its vulnerable to other shields like fire and thorn. An answer to a shield isn't always one of the 5 direct PC.

Do you see how reflect and jade shield beat 2 strats (direct spell damage burn, spell-damage creatures), while phase shields beat everything BUT those two strats.  Well okay, it also goes even with you stalling for 3 turns (read: abusing the same OP strat), and momentum.  That's the problem I'm talking about.  When people in Kong Chat bring up that phase shield is OP, you tell them if their deck doesn't have an answer to phase shield their deck is bad.  Because the people in Kong chat are right.

Weapons are a bit trickier. The only direct, non-destroy way is to freeze a voodoo doll, which is insanely specific and bad for the same reasons butterfly effect is bad. But shields and heal permanents are still ways to neutralize weapons, or answer them. Unupped Arsenic's poison is completely stopped by several upgraded shields, and Titanium shield unupped. Of course, most weapons shine with skills, not damage. Quanta denial and immortality still stop them dead in their tracks. All this considered, is there still an easy way for all elements to stop weapons? No, but that's why weapons are some of the most powerful cards in the game. That's why they're rare.

Rarity does not balance a card.

Non-weapon/shield permanents are still untouchable except by the 5 direct PC, but that's not always a bad thing. Permanents are powerful, and the uniqueness of PC among  ,  , and  gives them an advantage that is simply one of the things that makes each element unique. Adding PC in other elements would dilute their effectiveness, and I don't think Elements really needs more PC cards. Permanents and PC aren't unbalanced as they stand.

It is a bad thing.  That was the whole point of this thread.  Every strategy in the game loses to another strategy in the game.  Permanents shouldn't be exempt from this rule.  When your opponent plays a creature, and you're playing chaos power+dive, you can either choose to shockwave the creature, or save your shockwave for a bigger threat.  When you're playing choas power+dive and your opponent plays Pdials, you stop playing chaos power + dive.  Strats that don't run permanent control get pushed out of the meta.  That's bad.

Also, from that same standpoint, its incorrect to say that moar shields = moar profit??? Permanents are great because of the relative lack of PC, so you only need one or two copies of shields of weapons for most decks. In  , the extra 4 slots that could go to other cards are now taken up by Dime Shields. Why? Because they last 3 turns, as opposed to 5 for Wings and forever for every other shield. Aether only has a shield for 18 turns max, as opposed to infinity turns for any other element, barring the answer of PC. Their strength is that they are immune to physical damage for 18 turns. Their weakness is that they lose card and quanta advantage by having them in the deck, and once the 18 turns are over, they can easily be outrushed. Another strength is that if destroyed, they can just play another of their dime shields. Another weakness is that the shield would be gone in 3 turns anyway. Moar shields ≠ moar profit.

Oookay.  Most games don't last 18 turns, unless both opponents are playing stall.  18 turns might as well be infinity turns if you win before they're over.

Additionally, given that a game lasts ~13 turns, if you get out a 1 damage per attack shield, you're going to block 13xthe-number-of-attacks damage.  Phase shield blocks 3xtheir damage per turn.

The only way a 1 damage per attack shield wins that is if their their damage per turn/their attacks turn is 4 or lower.  If their average power per creature is even BARELY over 4, 1 phase shield > 1 jade shield.  But I can run 6 phase shields and get way more value out of mine, and you only get value out of your investment if they cast spells.

[ARTHANASIOS]

 I won't reply to this topic anymore (this is my last reply), you complain that PC is just 3 cards (Deflag, Steal, Puvly) while you moan for just a single card (Dim Shield) and spells in general. Spells appear only once, do their thing and go away. Some spells should be weaker, I give you that.
 About duos, you just can't see the strength an Air deck has with RT and you try to counter with the silliest example of GPull + Abyss Crawlers deck. GPull is just going to give CC to an element it already has it and in great quantities (Freeze, Ice Shield, Flooding, Dry Spell, Ice Bolt, Arctic Squid); in other words, a Heal would be much more useful than GPull in an Abyss Crawler rush, for example. On the other hand, RT is going to give an rush the possibility to deal with high-hp hitters that can't get with a single Shockwave and/or delaying the draw of its opponent for a turn. In other words, RT gives 2 things Air normally has not; CC for high-hp creatures and draw delaying. GPull just gives lethal CC to water, but due to the plethora has is useless. It is like splashing Flesh Spiders or Blue Crawlers to a life deck in order to use adrenaline on them while life has Horned Frog, which is silly.
 I stop following (I press Ignore Topic)...
 

[Espithel]

3 Quick comments. I have no idea what my point is.

1) You can easily splash in 3 deflag in unupped MA. Trust me.

2) Aether is very swingy and rather brittle.
Sure, it has EVERYTHING, but name an aether stall. Not a domination, a stall. (RoL hope is a light stall because it can be done with mitosis. It's not necessarily aether-light, LS is not used in pvp.)
Of ALL the combinations it has, most, if not all, are rushes or dominations. No aether focused stall.
Aether is really weak to stalls, I've seen.

3)

A more extreme version of this trade off is running Life Nymphs in a adrena-frogs deck, or just running the spell adrenaline.  The spell adrenaline is cheaper, and you're guaranteed to get at least one hit with the adrenaline when you use the spell version.  This makes it more consistent.  However, running nymphs gives your deck 12 creatures, as opposed to 6.  This means that running 6 lightning bolts isn't an effective answer anymore.  It also gives you creatures with more HP, meaning running rain of fire isn't an answer any more.  The lower consistency decreases the win rate a bit, but the smaller number of answers that beat your deck make it worth doing.

How does lowering the win rate increase the win rate?

[Glitch]

How does lowering the win rate increase the win rate?

Before:
Wins 50% of games 100% of the time.  Any game where raw aggro wins is a win for the deck.  Game is a rock paper scissors.

After:
Wins 60% of games 90% of the time.  10% of the games you were losing were to threats you could answer to lightning bolts, but now you lose some of the games where raw aggro would win because the burn of lightning bolts + damage of spiders isn't enough.

Before:  50% winrate
After:  54% winrate

I really don't know how to "name an aether stall".  Do you mean an aether deck that wins by deckout?  Why would it ever.  There's no difference between stalling 18 turns and stalling 30 turns if you can win in 18 turns.

Is pdials a stall?  It drops it's damage and then hides behind stall tactics until it wins.
If so, isn't that what immortals + phase shield does?

[Zawadx]

Aether's sancstall is pretty nice :3

Most dim decks are capable of stalling to the win. Like glitch said, aether rarely needs full on stalling.

Aether as an element is perhaps the strongest vs stalls. Fractal is the ultimate stall breaking weapon. Aether can even put a fractal in it's grabbow to beat stalls with shriekertal

[theelkspeaks]

While I don't think that War is what this game ought to be balanced based on, I actually disagree that PVP2 is the right place for this game to be balanced around either.  I'd instead advocate for the game to be balanced around CL, specifically the CL rules of 3/2013 (i.e. before shards were default-banned).  This format is a best-of-3 against a known player, using any cards to build a legal deck.

Much like any other game, in client matchmaking is provided for those not in the competitive scene, as PVP2 is, but the highest level of the game will always be one in which you know your opponent.  This allows you to adapt to opponents' tendencies, run a handful of "tech" options, and generally have a more meaningful degree of expectation when trying to prep for a specific matchup.

That said, even if PVP2 is to be our balance anchor, I wouldn't agree that the game is solved. The key to a CCG is that it's almost impossible for it to be "solved", as you say it is.  If the game were truly solved, and dim/psion/lobo were the optimal deck, every player would run it in PVP2.  This then means that a deck built as a counter to that deck would win >50% against that deck, and would become the optimal deck to play in PVP2.  However, you might then contend that said counter would be the truly optimal PVP2 deck.  But because of its need to beat Psion/Dim/Lobo decks, it might have sacrificed general flexibility (since remember, everyone is playing Psion/Dim/Lobo, so you max winrate by beating it).  In turn this means that a different "old standard" deck would probably beat it, even if it lost to Psion/Dim/Lobo.  At this point, despite one deck "seeming" dominant, we've effectively established a new "rock paper scissors" equilibrium, or as I've heard it called by MtG players, a NANA equilibrium (for Normal, A, Not A) - the resulting scenario when one deck is generally considered strongest but has a clear counter.

If you think that nothing might counter Psion/Dim/Lobo to establish NANA, there's plenty of options. One of my personal suggestions would be an Gravity PSN bow - in which gravity mark and entropy pendulums combine with Supernova to give a variety of answers to opponent's decks.  The Gravitybow could pack Pulverizer and Shard of Focus for smashing lobos and dims, mirror shield for unloboed psions, Lycans for efficient damage, Vampires and Sanctuaries for healing, Nymph Tears for eventual break if needed, perhaps thunderstorms or rain of fire for wiping, and don't forget the massive threat of upped pandemonium.

[ddevans96]

Before:
Wins 50% of games 100% of the time.  Any game where raw aggro wins is a win for the deck.  Game is a rock paper scissors.

After:
Wins 60% of games 90% of the time.  10% of the games you were losing were to threats you could answer to lightning bolts, but now you lose some of the games where raw aggro would win because the burn of lightning bolts + damage of spiders isn't enough.

Before is a crappy game. After is Elements now.

[Glitch]

I won't reply to this topic anymore (this is my last reply), you complain that PC is just 3 cards (Deflag, Steal, Puvly) while you moan for just a single card (Dim Shield) and spells in general. Spells appear only once, do their thing and go away. Some spells should be weaker, I give you that.
 About duos, you just can't see the strength an Air deck has with RT and you try to counter with the silliest example of GPull + Abyss Crawlers deck. GPull is just going to give CC to an element it already has it and in great quantities (Freeze, Ice Shield, Flooding, Dry Spell, Ice Bolt, Arctic Squid); in other words, a Heal would be much more useful than GPull in an Abyss Crawler rush, for example. On the other hand, RT is going to give an rush the possibility to deal with high-hp hitters that can't get with a single Shockwave and/or delaying the draw of its opponent for a turn. In other words, RT gives 2 things Air normally has not; CC for high-hp creatures and draw delaying. GPull just gives lethal CC to water, but due to the plethora has is useless. It is like splashing Flesh Spiders or Blue Crawlers to a life deck in order to use adrenaline on them while life has Horned Frog, which is silly.
 I stop following (I press Ignore Topic)...

Hey yeah I'm sorry man.  I understand your point about reverse time + air being good, and it's right.  It had just been a really long day at work, sorry for responding like a dick.

[eaglgenes101]

So TLDR is we should complete the elements and do much more to balance the game?

[Devourer]

So TLDR is we should complete the elements and do much more to balance the game?

Completing the elements is a terrible idea. Each element is supposed to be unique for a reason. Imagine if Aether had PC, quanta denial, inexpensive creatures, etc. People complain about certain decks because they think one element is either too complete or one of its cards beats too many others. If every element was complete, there would be no point except to use the one with the most powerful cards. If every element had a card that beat too many others, there would still be no point except to use the one with the most powerful card. Balance is good, completion is not.