Guest posts by WhiteTigerShiro

13

Aether / Re: The Essential Halfblood Farmer

« on: August 03, 2010, 08:40:15 am »

I find it works better with steals, but that's just me

The problem with Steal is that you mainly want Perm control to shut-down enemy shields, since those are the #1 obstacle for an Immaterial Deck.  When using Steal on an enemy shield though, you lose your own shield which you need to remain immaterial yourself.  Not a bad alternative if you're having bad shield draws, but in an typical game Steal is going to be problematic for this deck.

Me?  I've been running the Fire Mark variant for Deflag.  It's just a shame that there isn't much else to use that excess Fire Quanta.

14

Nerf This Card! / Re: Hope | Hope

« on: August 02, 2010, 06:09:14 am »

Yes, and fractal only gets TOO powerful when mixed in with hope. That is my point. They are both OP when used together, however, that is the ONLY combo, and that combo is easily destroyed, so theres ultimately not a problem with either card,

The difference is that we've never seen the phrase "That card can't be implemented because it would be too powerful if combined with Hope."  But we have seen similar phrases referring to a certain other card.

15

Nerf This Card! / Re: Hope | Hope

« on: August 02, 2010, 03:13:24 am »

We seem to have come to a crossroad here. Is Hope OP? Is Fractal OP? To me neither card is op on its own. I could come to the same conclusion with fractal. The only OP thing about it is Hope. I dont see any other problem with fractal.

The problem is that Hope only becomes TOO powerful when you can Fractal a free-cost creature and get +7 to its mitigation in a single turn (on top of anything you might have already put into play).  Without Fractal, you can only have upto 6 of that free creature in your deck, and you aren't guaranteed to draw more than half of them, so from there you need to mix-in other creatures with no abilities and Luciferase (or the Nymph) in order to get more than 3 or 4 mitigation out of Hope.

16

Nerf This Card! / Re: Hope | Hope

« on: August 02, 2010, 01:09:21 am »

hope is OP because of fractal, fractal is the problem.

This is more-or-less my thoughts, too.  Hope only becomes overpowered when your opponent starts getting Fractals off and is able to litter the field with free light-emitting creatures (sure they're only 1/1, but they add-up if you don't have a mitigation shield, and if you do that's what the Angels and Dragons are for).  I definitely agree that the problem is to first fix Fractal, then see how that effects decks that rely on it to fuel Hope.  If Hope decks remain too powerful, THEN we can take a look at things from there.

17

Deck Help / Re: Looking for Aether/?? deck that ISN'T about Fractal

« on: August 01, 2010, 10:08:58 am »

An interesting idea.  I'd forgotten about the whole setting your mark to get a small amount of a less-used Quanta thing.  Definitely a toss-up between Steal and Explosion though.  On the one hand Steal would require finicky timing to destroy his shields (Steal it right when I would be playing a Shield anyway), but has the nice side-effect of being able to steal other perms that look nice when there's no shield to worry about.  Meanwhile, Fire lets me just burn the Shield right away without having to delay any.

18

Nerf This Card! / Re: Black Hole | Black Hole

« on: July 30, 2010, 03:44:53 am »

At current state of the game, I only find nymph to be OP. Black hole as a spell card is powerful against rainbow, but still managable. I would nerf healing a bit though.

Perhaps make it so you get 1 health for every 3 quanta drained?  If that feels like too much, then 1 health for every 2 quanta drained.

19

Deck Help / Looking for Aether/?? deck that ISN'T about Fractal

« on: July 30, 2010, 03:10:28 am »

Here's the deck I'm currently running:

Code: [Select]

6rn 6rn 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80c 80c 80c 80c 80c 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f
It works well enough, the only problem is that it's weakness is very glaring (especially in Top50 farming):  Permanent Control (both the lack thereof, and when facing it).  Simply put, if my opponent is running any form of control this deck is guaranteed to lose.  Likewise, if my opponent has permanents, it's a struggle at best.

I've been looking for a way to modify the deck to splash-in a little Fire or Darkness to fix this, but since Aether has virtually zero synergy outside of Fractal it's hard to find a working combination.  Too much of the other color and it becomes harder to get enough Aether Quanta to do what the deck is meant to do, too little and I can't seem to get the quanta to cast the Perm Control.  Meanwhile, adding more cards makes it harder for the deck to flow, not enough creatures hit the field fast enough and it's harder to draw enough Shields to keep going.

20

Buff This Card! / Re: Steam Machine | Steam Machine

« on: July 28, 2010, 08:47:06 am »

what if you got  when the steam counters got removed? I think I heard someone suggest that

An interesting idea, but is a  / deck going to have use for that  ?

Edit:  Nevermind.  Did a little research, and splashing-in some Shockwaves mixed with freezing would be an interesting combo.  And Unstable Gas isn't SO expensive that it wouldn't be castable (especially since Steam Machine is clearly more friendly in longer games).

21

Nerf This Card! / Re: [POLL] Which Cards are Overpowered?

« on: July 26, 2010, 11:50:47 am »

Shards are meant to be OP. They're designed as gifts for the donators.

NO!!

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

You can just stop right there.  Seriously, Rule #1 of balancing a game is that difficulty/cost in acquiring something only allows for so-much power to be added to it.  Arguing that a card is balanced just because it's hard to get (which shards aren't, btw) is the most asinine thing you could ever possibly say.  Seriously, go look at Magic's early history.  That game is filled with cards from the early days that are hard (if not nigh-impossible and bank-breaking to purchase), and yet that does not stop them from being grossly overpowered cards that destroy the intended balance of the game.

You can feel free to argue that the Shards aren't overpowered if you want.  Maybe they are, maybe they aren't*, but don't argue that rarity = balance.  It smacks of elitism in the worst-case scenario, and makes you look like you don't know how balancing a game works in the best-case.  Either way, it's a highly invalid point.

*Though frankly, I think they should cost more, and this is from someone who runs shards in his deck, mind you.

22

Nerf This Card! / Re: Poll: Most Overpowered?

« on: July 26, 2010, 11:41:08 am »

From that list, Only Earthquake|Quicksand concerns me.

It is playable way too early for its effect. I would like to see it changed to give the opponent a little break.

Suggestion 1 - Earthquake destroys 1/3 of the opponents towers in that stack Rounded up. This makes it better in the late game, always destroys at least one but cannot clear a stack when they have 3 pillars on the table. The opponent can still get some quanta if quite impaired. The Quake user is not losing card advantage because he can guarantee 1 destroyed pillar at least. In the late game if the targeted player has 12-15 Pillars to use for fueling triggers or Pumpspells like firebolt, the Quake can hit a massive 4-5 pillars and slow him down but unlikely to cut him to death.

Suggestion 2 - Turn Earthquake into a pumpspell. It destroys 1 pillar + 1 for every full 10 earth quanta the caster has. In the early game the caster can deny only a limited selection of pillars allowing the opponent a chance to build a counter but in the end game a total denial can still ensue.

This, right here.  Currently Earthquake destroys 3 Pillars for 3 quanta, which can be a crippling disadvantage when played within the first couple of turns because it gives the Earth player a massive Quanta advantage as the game rolls-on.  It's even worse when the Earth player draws two or three Earthquakes within the first few turns because he's able to have you locked-down to only your Mark providing you with any quanta while he's able to drop his full attack force on the field.  Then to add insult to injury, once you finally get some damage on the field he has both a damage-reduction shield AND a healing effect.  All while you're trying to operate on only a couple Quanta per turn because your Pillars keep getting steamrolled.

Also, I would like to add a card to that poll if possible:  Quantum Pillars/Towers.  Those things desperately need to be nerfed in a big way.  The problem with them becomes very evident when you go and farm some Top50 and EVERY deck that isn't a farming deck is running the exact same rainbow deck.  They vary a little from time to time, but each one runs on the same theme:  Use all of the most powerful effects from each element while being able to ignore high-cost cards because you don't need them.  In short, Quantum Towers are overpowered in that they diminish the very name of this game.  The fact that over half of Pillars/Towers that get used are Quantum should be all the evidence that's needed.

As for how to nerf them, two ideas I have are as such:  The first idea is to restrict Quantum Towers to the 6 of the same card rule.  This way you could still run them for a rainbow deck, but you'd still have to decide which elements you're going to focus on since you can't rely on always having around 10 of every quanta type.  Running a card from a color your deck isn't focused on could still be possible, but it would be more risky.  The other idea is to reduce the amount of Quanta they produce by 1.  Instead of 3 random quanta, they would only produce 2 random quanta.  This would slow-down a rainbow deck that's purely focused on Quantum Towers and would encourage actually planning a deck rather than just tossing a few of the best card from each element into the deck and calling it a day.

23

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Arctic Squid freeze nerf suggestion

« on: July 26, 2010, 11:21:12 am »

Not sure what color you're running, so I'll just run down the list:

:  Most of your hard hitters are immune to freeze (so obviously you aren't an Aether player).
:  Use Owl's Eye to destroy his squids.
:  Drain Life his squids.  You can also be sneaky and use Liquid Shadow on his squids.  He'll get a couple points of health back, but it'll kill the squid.
:  This color has more creature-destruction options than I'd care to list.
:  Earthquake his lands to make that 3-quanta cost all the more punishing.
:  Chaos Seed/Pandemonium to try and destroy his Squids.  Also, Discord will make it hard for him to want to keep casting.
:  Burn, burn, burn.
:  Gravity Pull his squids to burn them down.
:  As mentioned already, Adrenaline your creatures and they'll break-out much more quickly.
:  You should easily be able to out-last him until he decks-out.
:  Get your weapon out and start kicking his Squids back into his deck.
:  Try to farm-up a few squids and use them to lock-down his squids.

Also, I know that you're talking about a Fractal deck, and a lot of these are single-target.  The idea is to kill his Squids before he gets the Fractal out (because you know the AI isn't smart enough to hold a Squid in his hand on purpose so he can drop it and Fractal in one turn).  Also, a lot of these cases will let you out-last him while your weapon whittles him down, especially if you're using a shield that renders all the Squids useless for attack.

24

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Ladder system suggestion for T50.

« on: July 26, 2010, 11:00:02 am »

We could even have small rewards for that ladder. Exciting :>

You really can't make the reward any smaller than it already is without making it a smaller reward than the AI3.  Besides, Top50 is about farming rares more than it is for Electrum.