The Major Problem with this game

[nazlfrag]

Well, your list of permanent control cards is incomplete, there's also the pulvuriser, (though I'm still to get one) and to a lesser extent trident.

I agree mono decks can't fight well against rainbow without permanent removal cards, and most of that is down to sundial & hourglass, but as it's been said mono time isn't great anyway, no mono colour is great (except perhaps dark & fire) they all have some weakness. The game encourages dual colour decks and they work well, it's a pity one colour is always time/fire/death for permanent supremacy.

I like the idea of nerfing time. Nerfing sundial, well it's definately powerful with 2 turn stalling+draw and makes a great addition to any non-rush deck. Only 1 turn might make it too weak though, perhaps just increase the draw cost to 3 light. The hourglass should require a card sacrifice to function, keeping a sort of balance.

The other idea is more cards outside of time/dark/fire that (a) affect permanents and (b) affect card draw. This is the best idea, but will screw with balance far more.

[sillyking14]

If you have a problem with Rainbow decks, build a deck to deal with rainbows.
If you have a problem with mono decks, build a deck that deals with mono decks.

To think you can have a deck that will be able to consistently defeat every other kind of deck out there is a bit retarded. But, let's say you could build such a deck...

- You'd be bored to tears that there was nothing else in the game.
- There would be people crying out that whatever gave you such power needed to be nerfed.

A properly balanced game would not let you have such a godly deck as to give others a chance to beat you.

Also, the reason many players have rainbow decks in the t50 is that they spend most of their time killing the False gods. Unfortunately, the game does not allow for the saving of 1 particular deck to fight against in the t50, though that would be pretty awesome...

While yes, I do agree that some colors need to be more balanced as do some of the cards, the ability to draw extra cards is a staple in CCGs. Magic the Gathering had them, Highlander: The Gathering had them. Even other online CCGs have them! Its something you have to either work around, or accept.

Plus, when you cancel that game in the t50, it still counts as a loss....As many others have pointed out. So you're not even giving yourself a chance to play them, you're just accepting defeat!

i'm not saying that we should have some ultimate deck that kills everything (although this would actually be fun for a little while), what i'm saying is that we increase the strength of mono/duo decks, and completely eliminate rainbow decks simply because rainbow decks are too strong. that way everybody would be using mono/duo decks, meaning that there would be a lot more variance. 1. in t50 and 2. in pvp.

[Tomsense76]

If you have a problem with Rainbow decks, build a deck to deal with rainbows.
If you have a problem with mono decks, build a deck that deals with mono decks.

To think you can have a deck that will be able to consistently defeat every other kind of deck out there is a bit retarded. But, let's say you could build such a deck...

- You'd be bored to tears that there was nothing else in the game.
- There would be people crying out that whatever gave you such power needed to be nerfed.

A properly balanced game would not let you have such a godly deck as to give others a chance to beat you.

Also, the reason many players have rainbow decks in the t50 is that they spend most of their time killing the False gods. Unfortunately, the game does not allow for the saving of 1 particular deck to fight against in the t50, though that would be pretty awesome...

While yes, I do agree that some colors need to be more balanced as do some of the cards, the ability to draw extra cards is a staple in CCGs. Magic the Gathering had them, Highlander: The Gathering had them. Even other online CCGs have them! Its something you have to either work around, or accept.

Plus, when you cancel that game in the t50, it still counts as a loss....As many others have pointed out. So you're not even giving yourself a chance to play them, you're just accepting defeat!

[Tomsense76]

This is usually how the metagame works in most cases:

Someone (or a group of people) come up with a strategy/build/combo/etc that is very strong and easily abused once the basics of it are learned. Then, in order to remain competative, others will design a counter to the original "strong build." After the counter catches on, it'll become the new "strong build" until someone comes up with a counter for it, too.

Rainbow is good, but there are plenty of other decks out there that can beat rainbow, such as ScaredGirl's anti-rainbow deck. Rainbows focus on permanents, while the counters focus on permanent removal. Likely, the next niche in the metagame (which I'm starting to see more of) are decks that don't rely on permanents. The counter to these types of decks would be control decks, which gets back to Rainbow or creature destruction or what have you.

Rainbow isn't overpowered in the sense that it's unbeatable. It's just the current "strong build" until other types start to catch on. Once there are new cards, the number of builds out there will start to increase a lot more.

That's what I was basically trying to say...
Again, you see rainbows in the t50 because that's the only way to consistently beat every FG.
If all you want to do is beat the t50, then build whatever anti-rainbow you want.
If there comes a time where a better deck is found for the FGs, or there is a system in place for the t50 to be any deck for the honorees, then things might change.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

This is usually how the metagame works in most cases:

Someone (or a group of people) come up with a strategy/build/combo/etc that is very strong and easily abused once the basics of it are learned. Then, in order to remain competative, others will design a counter to the original "strong build." After the counter catches on, it'll become the new "strong build" until someone comes up with a counter for it, too.

Rainbow is good, but there are plenty of other decks out there that can beat rainbow, such as ScaredGirl's anti-rainbow deck. Rainbows focus on permanents, while the counters focus on permanent removal. Likely, the next niche in the metagame (which I'm starting to see more of) are decks that don't rely on permanents. The counter to these types of decks would be control decks, which gets back to Rainbow or creature destruction or what have you.

Rainbow isn't overpowered in the sense that it's unbeatable. It's just the current "strong build" until other types start to catch on. Once there are new cards, the number of builds out there will start to increase a lot more.

[jmizzle7]

Dual-quantum pillars (like the old M:tG dual lands, except that it would randomly choose which quantum type to generate) would go a long way toward enabling tri-color decks if Quantum Pillars were removed.  Of course, there are 66 possible two-element combinations in Elements compared to 10 in M:tG, so it might not be so practical. 

In order to keep the topic from becoming another argument on Quantum Pillars or Dual Pillars, I'll just offer the link to where I proposed dual pillars (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,601.msg5860#msg5860) originally.

[sillyking14]

right. and my point was that if we got rid of the quantum pillar, and therefore the rainbow decks as they exist now, and we added other cards to the other elements then there would be a lot more variation. i mean really all that you need to do to beat a rainbow deck is add in a lot of permanent removal, so a flying pulvy/trident deck would probably do pretty well. the biggest problem would be creating the 3 type of quantum you would need. although a pulvy deck by itself could also be fine. hmmm.....maybe an earth/grav deck that used pulverizers for permanent control, and used oty's for creature control, maybe even throw in protect artifacts and heavy armor. but thats realy off-topic. back on topic. my point is that rainbow decks are currently the best way to go, for FG farming. and poison rush or permanent control is the way to go for t50 farming. the game would probably be morefun if you could farm FG's using a mono-deck in any color (assuming the deck is well made) and therefore t50 would also be more challenging because rainbow decks would no longer be the majority of t50 decks.

[Tinyboss]

Dual-quantum pillars (like the old M:tG dual lands, except that it would randomly choose which quantum type to generate) would go a long way toward enabling tri-color decks if Quantum Pillars were removed.  Of course, there are 66 possible two-element combinations in Elements compared to 10 in M:tG, so it might not be so practical. 

[darkfrogger]

Blackholes are good vs rainbows so we have another viable anti rainbow mono/duo deck now.

[Essence]

The ONLY way to defeat the time or rainbow deck is to play one of the two colors which can destroy permanents with spells:

Yeah, cause IDK about you, but I'm so tired of getting totally trashed by mono-Time decks.


so...very....tired......

[ventura17]

Now, I've only been playing Elements for about two weeks or so, but versing Top 50 Rainbow decks isn't as a death sentence as you might think. I've found that due to the AI's ridiculous thinking, he usually runs out of cards before I do, due to his use of Hourglasses and Sundials, giving me the win. Usually, I can do pretty well in Top 50 by simply winning by attrition.

[Glitch]

The problem your having is that you are too used to other card games.  In magic the gathering, a double draw is a brutal way for the game to end, but in this not so much.

Because of accumulative quantums, there's no such thing as early game.  Only mid-game and late game.  This means that effectiveness simply means you need to get a combo out faster than your opponent, you don't necessarily have to have the weak cards for the early game.  And because of accumulative quantums, cards with high mana-cost don't really balance as well as they do in Magic the Gathering, where a card for 15 mana could be a 99|99 trample haste.  Because of these two facts, creature spam directly from your deck is an ineffective strategy, as combos are far easier to get out, and the only way to win is to have a good combo.

Time has no good combos.

And I don't say that because I don't normally play with time, but I'm saying it because it's true.  Anubis?  Scarab?  Nothing combared to FFQ loops.  The only combo time does have is graboid shrieker, which isn't really a combo but creature spam anyway.  My point being that while time might look OP for double drawing, it doesn't really have anything to do with it.  Artificial speed in a deck without good combos only makes a fast deck, which is why time has the fastest decks in the game, second maybe to fire.  Which brings me to my next point.

There are board limits.  Even if you designed a time deck just to spit random creatures/dragons on the field, eventually the board will fill.  And because time has no creature spawners, this is pointless.

This game also has shields/healing methods very unsimilar to magic.  And because of the 100 health and no blockers, there is a severe limit to the effectiveness of creature spamming.  It doesn't matter how many skeletons you have on the field, my damage will always get through.  So even if you use time and have 23 creatures on the field, I'll still hit you.

What am I getting at?  Time is great for a giant push of cards in the mid-game, but eventually it'll peter out.  Sure it'll draw ridiculous amounts of creatures, but at a certain point your deck should speed up past it, and it will be reduced to reverse timing it's own creatures with eternity to stay alive.  And if your deck cannot reach that point, you're clearly doing it wrong.




You made a fair point about the false gods however.  Clearly, if you can't beat them, they are unbeatable and should be nerfed.