Breakdown | Breakdown [Legacy - Crucible]

[russianspy1234]

With a high cost, it will be relegated to late game denial. At that point it should be okay since quanta denial becomes less potent as the game progresses.

And with too high a cost, it could end up UP becuase by the time one raises several time quanta, the game could already be over.

theres just no way you are going to be able to balance the pillar blocking, especially not the upped one blocking them for 2 turns.  pretty sure this deck would nuke most FGs:

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?=upped breakdown
mark is earth, failing to show up it seems.

[Arum]

Make it drain all quanta, so, in essence, it is a "time" fractal. That should balance it well.

[Zaealix]

In theory, it's a decent concept, but the fact of the matter is...
This thing pretty much is instant death for any deck that faces it.
Even if you decide to not rob your foe blind of any quanta left after playing due to the pillar lockdown, They only get quanta either every other turn or one every three turns.
Not to mention a deck reliant on it's shield suddenly has a shield every other turn or once per 3 turns.
On it's own, sure, it's fine, but it just massively boosts everything that pairs with it, to the point of being a no-brainer card pick, like trying to make a deck without creatures to give you an idea of the advantage Breakdown gives to a deck, it's like all decks without breakdown are instantly and horribly UP.
And that's assuming it doesn't stack with itself, if it does stack with itself, Elements the Game PvP would become 'Who draws their BreakDown first?' This thing is easily in the SoF category of OP, it sounds harmless, but in practice, it's power is horrifying.

[OdinVanguard]

The main hazard in trying to balance this is that it is broad spectrum. As a single target effect, its not so bad. The fact that its hitting everything on the field makes it a nightmare in terms of balance.

There really needs to be a limiting mechanism in place I think.

E.g. make it stackable and affect the first N permanents that get used each turn (N=stacksize), or have it be a targeted ability.

[russianspy1234]

Not to mention a deck reliant on it's shield suddenly has a shield every other turn or once per 3 turns.

less often than that, the first hit of the turn delays the shield and the rest of your creatures break through fine.

[eaglgenes101]

Made another change. Now the only difference between upped and unupped is cost.

[Arum]

8, 7 cost, all remaining consumed.

[OdinVanguard]

I had a weird thought... what happens if both players have one of these? Can they delay (and thus disable) each other?

[OdinVanguard]

A thought for how to keep the delay mechanic from brutally overpowering pillars:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,43859.0.html

Essentially, each round of stun effectively reduces the stack size by 1 (so a stack of 4 pillars w/ 2 rounds of stun would produce 2 quanta that turn, 3 the next, and then back to the original 4)

This was one of the cards (along with SoF and a couple others permanent stun oriented ideas) that inspired the stack delay mechanic.

[eaglgenes101]

Changed the card yet again. Comments?

[Arum]

Now it's balanced, assuming Passive Permanents (pillars/towers/sundial) are not affected.

[eaglgenes101]

Now it's balanced, assuming Passive Permanents (pillars/towers/sundial) are not affected.

Which they are. The point was mass PC, with denial as a side use.