Should Dragons have abilities?

[Daytripper]

I think the airborn ability is lame, it only really comes into play when facing wings, and who has enough dragons in his deck to go through wings and do some decent damage? I certainly don't.. I am lucky to have 1 dragon when wings is activated, and then it barely effects the play. Better is to sit tight and cast some spells.

I would like to see more anti-element in elements. The water dragon would take out the fire shield, light can beat darkness etc. Usually every element has a natural nemesis, but we don't often see this used here. I know this would ruin the mechanics with the wings shield and the dragons, but really.. it is only 1 shield! Why use an entire ability for a shield that is not often used.

[Ryli]

15/2 with destroy anyone?
I don't agree with your idea at all.

I have been crushed by a deck consisting of just 6 silurian dragon for attack on a couple of occasions. Ruby/Crimson Dragons are killer in mono fire rushes. Gravity pulled Massive Dragons are something to watch out for. Put an obsidian dragon in eclipse with liuid shadow = gg with EM.

They are fine as they are.

[Ryli]

and who has enough dragons in his deck to go through wings and do some decent damage?

Me, with several decks I have used. My Devonian Dragon deck relies on Dragons alone.

[kevchuez]

yeah, dragon is just the finishing.. to bring them up, you have to build a good deck so the dragons won't be an unrebornable ash.. so that's quite fair that dragons 'just' have an ability, that's airborne.. 

[Clathius]

re: comparison of 2 frogs vs 1 dragon

It is important to realize that card games are all (really, all) about card advantage.   The most powerful cards are ones that destroy multiple cards of your opponent (quicksand, pulverizer, etc), counter multiple cards (ice shield) or generate faster quantum so that you can play multiple cards faster than your opponent (supernova).

Dragons are powerful in that they are a lot of damage in one card.   In this case, a dragon is worth 2-3 frogs.

[corky]

I disagree.

Heavy creatures such as dragons lose their value in Elements because it lacks the creature combat metagame that is found in Magic where heavy creatures are used to block and destroy lesser creatures, therefore having a more effective role in gameplay. In elements, however, it is just straight up damage which makes it more efficient to crank out cheaper creatures to obtain damage.

[Higurashi]

It's mainly advisable to play grunts before the dragons, since most don't have much HP. They are excellent mid- to late-game cards that can truly seal a victory. Seal it for your opponent if he has Antimatter. ;_;

As morningstar has pointed out, you can use them in many different ways. Light Dragons with Fractal in RoL/Hope is another example. Monotime rushes with them, and so on.  They have many uses. You just haven't seen it yet.

[Ryli]

I disagree.

Heavy creatures such as dragons lose their value in Elements because it lacks the creature combat metagame that is found in Magic where heavy creatures are used to block and destroy lesser creatures, therefore having a more effective role in gameplay. In elements, however, it is just straight up damage which makes it more efficient to crank out cheaper creatures to obtain damage.

It takes 4 frogs to match a crimson dragon in terms of damage. Is it easier to draw 1 dragon or three frogs. Also consider firestorm. With frogs that's 4 cards lost in a single strike. but firebolt only takes down 1 frog(1/4 damage), but eleminates all damage at once vs the dragon.
You need to look at the arguments for each side and decide which is more likely to affect you personally, and not play that style rather than saying it didn't work for you = it needs a buff.

[Acsabi44]

Albeit not as significant as in Magic, this game too has a "quanta"curve. That means in the beginning of the match you should play cheap creatures (which you can afford), then mid- and late game you should play more costly but bigger ones to maximise your quanta usage. I design my deck with this in mind and scarcely I find that my hand is clogged with dragons early game or I have to play a frog late game.

That's the usefulness of dragons.

[Rastafla]

Dragons are good, they ignore several types off cc with their HP and getting them to stay on the table for more than 1 turn than the first makes up for the cost. They bypass most shields with little loss. Dragons are often used for the last hits, their only real problem is antimatter imho.

Dragon are not bad but you shouldn't really use more than 3-4 in most decks. Few can muster the quanta to actively sustain and drop them every turn if need be.

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re: comparison of 2 frogs vs 1 dragon

It is important to realize that card games are all (really, all) about card advantage.   The most powerful cards are ones that destroy multiple cards of your opponent (quicksand, pulverizer, etc), counter multiple cards (ice shield) or generate faster quantum so that you can play multiple cards faster than your opponent (supernova).

Dragons are powerful in that they are a lot of damage in one card.   In this case, a dragon is worth 2-3 frogs.

Card advantage is not as important in this game as quanta acceleration. Being able to get quanta fast means using your stuff earlier and winning sooner, only because creatures attacks at once with no waiting and spells and their effects resolves at once (direct dmg) and cant be manually countered.

I hardly ever win a game where I get 2-3 pillars in tournaments and OFTEN not drawing a pillar for 2+ turns. I'm sick and tired of getting behind in quanta as that is the only reason for losses.

And don't talk to me about inferior deck building its insulting, I know hypergeometric probability and QI off the back of my hand. Its all about luck.

[Sir Valimont]

Dragons should absolutely not be changed.

If anything this game suffers from too FEW creatures without abilities. In order to establish a standard sense of costs for creatures, there needs to be some "generics" upon which others can be measured. Dragons serve not only as the top end of the scale for each element, but they also are an elegant cross-element theme that ties the game together nicely and gives different elements a common game mechanic: the choice of a high-cost powerhouse creature.

There are many things that could be tweaked in the game, although I think most are fine as they are. Yet those many tweakable things DON'T include dragons in my view, which are about as well designed as they could be.

[Amilir]

"I know ... QI off the back of my hand"
Then you also know that that generalization is a load of crap which is mostly useful to mold incapable newbie's decks into something tolerable?  I'm also quite sure that you know that it's about manipulating luck for your benefit.  Scratch that.  As a high level pvp player you should know it's primarily about mindgaming your opponent into a disadvantage.

Also...  Quanta being the only reason you lose?  Congratulations on being the best player I've ever seen.  You should go into poker with that kind of skill, you'd make millions.  What garbage.  Significant?  Yes.   Most important factor?  Maybe.  Only reason?  Ha!