Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[10 men]

Can't we just ditch this whole Shard idea? They're uninspired, unflavourful, boring, look ugly and in at least two cases irrepairably op. (Except for SoSe.) Can't we just have a bunch of normal cards as rares, if we need them? The new Seraph looks nice, I'd like to see more cards like him.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Can't we just ditch this whole Shard idea? They're uninspired, unflavourful, boring, look ugly and in at least two cases irrepairably op. (Except for SoSe.) Can't we just have a bunch of normal cards as rares, if we need them? The new Seraph looks nice, I'd like to see more cards like him.

Shards do have their good points (such as being the 'mutable' archetype of other, expanding other's depth and theme, and representing the ability for Elementals to use generic items but responding more accurately to ones attuned to them.)

IMHO, Zanz was trying to finish the 12 Shards as soon as possible. This could've been potentially executed better had he considered some of the factors of the cards ingame (Such as this vs. Pulverizer) before releasing some of the shards. Some are actually decent besides SoSe (SoV seems okay, and SoP isn't far behind if it was made less situational or given a decent buff), while others appear somewhat rushed and possibly indicate bad design (SoSa, SoF, and SoC come to mind.)

I disagree with the implication that SoSe is the only inspired, flavorful, and enjoyable shard of the current ones. Granted, it is fun to use, but based on the above point it has a theme as 'bland' as any other card (Given that they're all SoX) and its art seems to just be a quick recolor of SoG. No other shard is probably rated as 'fun' as it is, but certainly are a few that form decent strategies without being blatantly OP in every single deck (such as SoD, SoV and SoR)  (Please don't take any personal offense to this - I just disagree with your point that some shards are more 'well themed' than others.)

Overall, shard design seems to have suffered badly from the same reason you can't simply create a 12-card idea series without taking your time or being dedicated to the mechanics - some ideas in the series are inevitably lower quality than the best ideas in the series, and as a result drag the group down as a whole since people generally seem to judge the quality of such cards based on how well the series as a whole does or just ignore the series expecting 12 carbon copies of the same thing. (Both views are generally inaccurate and more common than some may think. It seems Zanz tried to avoid the second problem but forgot to avoid the first one.  From what I've seen in card design, it usually a lot better to release series cards gradually so each develop their own mechanic and 'taste' of sorts, so to speak.)

Just my  , as always.

[OldTrees]

ZBlader is accurate.

However we should consider and discuss how low of quality a Shard can be before we need to start requesting a new ability. I think that line falls above Shard of Focus and perhaps below Shard of Sacrifice. In other words: I think Shard of Focus needs to be redone from scratch.

[ralouf]

I agree with Zblader but I think we are having too a lot issue with balancing the shards..
SoG after beeing nerfed is good.
SoR after beeing buffed is very good and allow fun news decks.
SoD stayed pretty good.
SoV is a pretty good idea but is UP I think, or need some other cards to works with at least.
SoP is just totally meh.
SoSe is a total success for me, fun and balanced that's the best shard we have IMO.
SoSac is just awfull, both unfun and completely OP (specially the upped one, the unupped is pretty ok, but still not fun)
SoF seems completely OP, I'm okay with adding more PC to the game but this one is.. meh.
SoC seems just boring, It don't give anything better to the game and just make denial more effective..

And Yes they're ugly (the unupped are for sure) but that's not the main issue in my point of vue

[dragonsdemesne]

I think the current shards are balanced except for Sacrifice, which is overpowered, and Patience is underpowered, but I think it's one of those ones that will get stronger as the card pool expands, and more things synergize with it, so I'm okay with it being a bit weak for the time being.  Focus is going to be just as bad as Sacrifice, in that every deck will have to take it into account.  Conscience will be probably used more than patience, but not a lot more.  Void is alright, and more of a niche card; I think it's at just the right power level, and has an interesting and useful, but not overpowered effect.  Serendipity is just pure fun

[dragonsdemesne]

I just noticed how on the 'in development' page, the shard now gets +15hp each use instead of +10, and also costs 6 unupped instead of 3..  This is definitely a step in the right direction.  Another thought I had was to simply change the starting hp and hp gain of the shard, such that it can still be used, say, 3 times before passing the hp threshold, but have low enough hp that it can be realistically killed by thunderbolt or shockwave or something.

Something like this:

Starting stats 0/4
Accretion: Destroy a permanent and gain +0/+4.  Turn into a black hole if it reaches 15 or more hps.

This would allow things like shockwave, otyugh, fire bolt, or even less obvious countering methods like blessing or chaos power to work.  The flipside of this is you could do things like use eagle's eye on it to damage it so you could keep using it indefinitely.  This would be fixed by the following change:

Starting stats 0/4
Accretion: Destroy a permanent and gain +0/+4.  Turn into a black hole if it reaches 15 or more -maximum- hps.

I think that this prevents any abuse by things like eagle's eye, red nymph, aflatoxin, etc, to 'refresh' the number of permanents you can destroy, and gives ways for several elements to actually counter the card.  It does take away the catapult synergy, but gravity already has loads of synergy with catapult anyway.  It also leaves the possibility of fractal, mitosis and rewind/eternity, but it does get rid of some of the other problems, and even in the case of something like mitosis, at least the creature is actually killable with my suggestion, rather than being uncounterable by anything short of rewind or a fire lance backed by 50+ quanta.  A card like fractal is also still soft-counterable by something like nightmare or discord, and rewinds run out and eternities are destroyable, so I think this would help quite a bit in balancing the card.

One more possibility would be to leave the card exactly as zanz wrote it, but add the following line:
If shard of focus is the target of any spell or effect, destroy it.  (owner still gets the black hole in hand)

This would give any element the possibility of countering it, it would prevent fractal/mitosis/eternity abuse, it would leave the catapult synergy, and it would actually be somewhat thematic. (the spell/effect representing some kind of break in focus)  It would allow any element to have permanent control, but it would be unreliable at best with such a clause; you could kill it dead with antimatter, lobotomy, or blessing, to name a few, while the elements with natural permanent control (explosion, steal, butterfly effect, pulverizer) would not have their PC be overshadowed by shard of focus.

[furballdn]

If I want to add something to how to balance SoF, instead of making it gain hp, make it gain charges. Once it hits 4 charges, it is destroyed and becomes a black hole. I'd also prefer it being a permanent, because it feels odd having a creature shard.

[zhangvict]

Decreasing the HP and making it charge based will pretty much ruin it's theme. Gravity is all about mass and gaining mass, and SoF is all about gaining mass until it gets big enough to become a black hole.

[kimham8a]

I like the art, actually. It looks really cool when you wave your mouse over all the shards you have.

[Marvaddin]

Can't we just ditch this whole Shard idea? They're uninspired, unflavourful, boring, look ugly and in at least two cases irrepairably op. (Except for SoSe.) Can't we just have a bunch of normal cards as rares, if we need them? The new Seraph looks nice, I'd like to see more cards like him.

Agreed.

Well, I have just tested this a little. Not a card I would like to see every element using. I would even prefer something to protect permanents. But once it is Gravity... looks like that it works great with gravity pull. At same time it protect you, if gets damage and recharges the destruction skill. Also used it for fun in a deck with Fractal Ball Lightnings and Chimera Talking about Fractal... fractaling this to create a massive Chimera and throw it with Trebuchet, hmmmmm, lol. Something more to test.

But seriously, too powerful and cannot be killed by normal CC. Even worse with gravity pull.

[corky]

How about this..

Accretion:

Turn permanent into a 0/1 creature for 1 turn and gain +0/+15.
Turn into a black hole if HP>50.

This will allow permanents to be vulnerable to creature removal from all elements and will have a great dynamic with Otyugh.
This also works well with the gravity theme as you are 'pulling' a permanent down to the creature field. We can even enhance the wording of 0/1 creature to "singularity" providing that singularity card does not make it out of development.

[zhangvict]

How about this..

Accretion:

Turn permanent into a 0/1 creature for 1 turn and gain +0/+15.
Turn into a black hole if HP>50.

This will allow permanents to be vulnerable to creature removal from all elements and will have a great dynamic with Otyugh.
This also works well with the gravity theme as you are 'pulling' a permanent down to the creature field. We can even enhance the wording of 0/1 creature to "singularity" providing that singularity card does not make it out of development.

That would actually ruin the whole gravity theme IMO. The whole point of having an accretion ability is to reference the gravitational effect of a large mass sucking in matter. Hence SoF is the large mass, and it sucks in permanents to gain mass until hp>50 and becomes dense enough to become a black hole. The ability will have to renamed, and the shard would also have to be renamed and the whole mechanic changed.

Side note: thinking of large masses, many EtG things seem to be astrophysics themes. Photon, Nova, SN, Singularity, Black Hole, Phase/dimensional shield, twin universe, etc.