[Official] Dimensional Shield | Phase Shield

[Blacksmith]

The problem with Dim shield is not the lack of counters it's that it forces you to play certain cards in a deck which creates a less wide meta. Furthermore I think it's okay that some cards are a bit stronger than others and is played a bit more as a long as it's just for a patch or 2. This card has affected the meta since the very beginning and in a very boring way to and not like Snova. This card Needs Nerf Now! yes I know that it's grammatical incorrect but I prefer the alliteration.

[laelin]

the problem is it's hard to really nerf just one aspect of this card without making it fade into the background of the meta and become the exact opposite of what it is now. I almost feel they need to add a small nerf to it and then create a separate alternative card for aether so that there is more of a choice with decks rather than just spamming this shield over and over again. But that would still be really hard to do without buffing aether up too much.

[Vangelios]

 Aether continues a very good element without dim shield 3 turns makes the game very annoying.
 I said it is very unbalanced with the other shields, since it is the only shield that worth being put 6 copies, then reduction to 2 turns is fair, just see the amount of FGs you can win with this.

[Captain Scibra]

the problem is it's hard to really nerf just one aspect of this card without making it fade into the background of the meta and become the exact opposite of what it is now. I almost feel they need to add a small nerf to it and then create a separate alternative card for aether so that there is more of a choice with decks rather than just spamming this shield over and over again. But that would still be really hard to do without buffing aether up too much.

I might actually argue that cost would be the least damaging as a true nerf to the card.  It is definitely on the same rung as a dragon, so why not make it around the same cost?

[OldTrees]

the problem is it's hard to really nerf just one aspect of this card without making it fade into the background of the meta and become the exact opposite of what it is now. I almost feel they need to add a small nerf to it and then create a separate alternative card for aether so that there is more of a choice with decks rather than just spamming this shield over and over again. But that would still be really hard to do without buffing aether up too much.

I might actually argue that cost would be the least damaging as a true nerf to the card.  It is definitely on the same rung as a dragon, so why not make it around the same cost?

It is fairly close to being as expensive as a Dragon. (Remember Dragons don't remove your shield slot)
That said, cost is the smallest nerf you can do to Dim Shield.  I think the 18 turns => 12 turns is more likely to have an impact on the card balance.

[Aneninen]

I don't see any problem with this card.
Firstly, almost every elements has a counter; either the shield can be removed or a kind of damage which technically ignores the shield can be dealt.
Also, it's not that the shield is costy (even if it's not the most expensive one). It's about  . This element is really powerful, provides some of the best mono-decks but, most  cards are expensive. So, either you have to balance the quanta between the  cards (which is hard, especially if you don't want to end up with a bigger deck just because of the pillars) or you have to provide enough quanta just for the shields, playing a duo/trio/rainbow deck.
Finally, quanta denial hinders schield chaining greatly. I've beaten plenty of  decks in the arena just because of using Earthquakes or even better, a Poseidon. That's where the advantage of  comes into play against  . As it comes to the other elements mentioned before,  has not only many creature control opportunities but also Shard of Patience, with which you can wait until the chain breaks so as to deal an incredible damage. As far as I know  , which has no counter, is rarely played as mono, though Rewind can hurt a lot if the Dimensional Shields appear in a duo/multi deck (no draw = no new shield).

Thus, including  , only  and  remains with no counter against this card. In my opinion, there are many cards which hurt a lot with way less counter opportunities...

[Higurashi]

Your anecdotes pertain to Arena, in which you duel a dumb AI. In PvP, you'll find MA hard counters the majority of  monos. That's 8/12 elements.

Entropy decks very rarely pack BE, and if they do, they run into Lobo, which can cause summoning sickness and thus prevent instant use of BE. That's provided they even draw BE before they're beaten down since they won't be packing many copies. Discord does help with getting damage in before the Dim chain, but without dedicating heavily to BE+targets, there's still no hope. If you do dedicate to it, you'll be a lot slower (imagine sacrificing 6 cards to get PC) and might lose anyway, and you'll definitely lose to other decks.
Gravity might sound like it counters Aether, but once again Lobo takes care of Momentum. Extremely few Gravity decks pack backup Chimeras, and even then their chances are 50/50.
Many Earth monos do pack Earthquake, but it's not nearly as effective against a player. With 6 Earthquakes as max and a pillar/pend split of 7/7 for the MA, you have the choice of either decking the Monoearth out (if you win cointoss), or just beating them to death.
Monolife stalls are extremely rare in competitive PvP because they're just not good. It used to be that you could deck out a classic MA with ML stall 50% of the time (SoG's, Staffs and Thorn Carapace), but then came Psion and Psiontal. Emerald Shield does nothing since you can Lobo your own Psions, and Fractal easily overpowers the healing that was once sufficient.
Few Monowaters pack Trident, but those that do have a decent enough chance against MA. Again the pillar/pend split and slow-playing of them slows down the effectiveness of tsunami, but if the Monowater also has 6 Ice Bolts and some fast offence (Toadfish), it can get in enough damage before the Dim chain to finish off with Bolts. Chrysaoras aren't a factor due to Lobo.
Light can only hope to stall MA out, which doesn't really ever happen even in an unrestricted meta. Since this is monos vs. monos, Light has nothing. It can run Photons and Gold Dragons with Luci and Hope to try outstall a classic MA, but again there's Lobo, and again there's Psiontal. If we Play a Reflective Shield, out comes Lobo.
It might seem like Monoair has a good shot, and it -is- probably the best shot of them all in this mono vs. mono matchup. Unstable Gas decks are fairly common, so it's a reasonable comparison. This matchup strangely still tilts in MA's favour, which is something we've seen in War, over and over again. In theory it seems like Fog Shields, Dragons and UG's should have an edge, but in practice we see the Monoair getting rushed about 60% of the time.
Time has nothing. Literally nothing. This is the most one-sided matchup out of any mono vs. mono. For added hilarity, consider that Time and Aether are elemental opposites. If Monotime plays Etern to try to survive Psiontal, it still won't get to rewind enough Psions to stop the Dim chain because the Aether player just stops playing them and kills with Lobo and any potential Phase Dragon or Immortal it added. Getting to the HP range where Psions can finish them off is far too easy. Sundials and Procrastination only prolong the inevitable.

In the end, mono vs. mono is the last possible scenario you'd want to bring up if you're arguing -against- a Dim Shield nerf. Time and time again we've seen Monofires with as many as 4 Deflags losing to MA in War because they either don't draw enough of them or 6 turns of protection is just too much. Another way to look at it is this: Aether gets 6 turns of free attacks. That means Fire has to be that much faster about inflicting the damage. Kind of insane.

Of course, the classic 3 Deflag 6 Bolt Monofire with Phoenixes beats MA on a regular basis, but you also have to consider restricted metas like War, because that's where Dims have the largest impact by far. In Leagues you don't really see Dims all that often, which would speak against a Dim Shield nerf if it wasn't for the fact that the meta in Leagues tends towards rushes, rush counters and denial. This is why you see things like Monoentropy, Monoair, Monolight and Monotime in Leagues.

In closing, I'll clarify that the above argument assumes the common monos used for each respective element since MA is the common Aether deck, but for the sake of the argument I also included a part where the mono would be geared towards beating MA specifically. As I've stated there, even then most monos lose consistently to MA. The fact that they'd have to change their decks up a lot if they wanted to have a chance against MA speaks volumes on its own.

Dims are a meta-defining card in every environment as they remain the biggest reason for all decks to pack PC. This is why it's one of the cards we have to consider banning in every tournament that aims to create a fun restricted meta. A 2-turn Dim Shield would retain this position; whether you give a deck 18 or 12 free turns of damage doesn't matter much.

With all this said, I don't think a Dim nerf is the solution. I think more elements need viable ways to either beat permanents or stall better. Unfortunately our stall chances got slaughtered by the advent of Shard of Wisdom and Psions. That leaves us with one option. Soft PC like the time stasis for perms suggested in the Card Ideas and Art board would be fine. The only requirement to new ways of PC, soft or not, is that they're at least effective at what they aim to do.

[Aneninen]

Oh, it was unclear for me that the thread was about mono-decks and PVP. I only tried to watch the "bigger picture" of the Dimensional Shield, thatswhy I told that, eventually there are many ways to take it out.
As it comes to mono-decks, Aether is clearly the most effective one according to many and among the top 3, according to everyone.

[iancudorinmarian]

Dimensional shield itself isn't OP. The only thing that made it OP is SoW, I don't have anything against mono aether with shields, dragons/immortals and lobo, but SoW is making it just too strong. You may argue that it's a 3 card combo and costs a lot, but even so...

[Higurashi]

Oh, it was unclear for me that the thread was about mono-decks and PVP. I only tried to watch the "bigger picture" of the Dimensional Shield, thatswhy I told that, eventually there are many ways to take it out.
As it comes to mono-decks, Aether is clearly the most effective one according to many and among the top 3, according to everyone.

PvP is the major part of this forum, and it's in organized PvP we can make more interesting, more balanced metas. As for monos, that's both a design and a gameplay issue; it's not very fun to have fun with Monolife until you run into MA's and autolose 99% of the time, and at the same time it's also bad design.

PvP is a huge part of the bigger picture, so that's why I had to include it. When I do, yeah, the argument changes a lot. Although there's still PvP1, PvP2 and PvP Duels between friends to consider even if you ignore the existence of this forum x)

When it comes to AI, Dims are very much OP as long as you're unupped. They're the main reason MA can farm AI4, Bronze, Silver, PvP1 and even FG's (especially daily FG predictions, in which rivers of electrum can be found) STRAIGHT out from modifying the starter deck. No other element has such a short path to riches.

Once you go upgraded, SoSa are more effective since a fair amount of FG's and higher league Arena decks have ways around Dims. That's why you see people moving from Dims for Silver and below (including AI4) to SoSa decks for Gold and Platinum. Both cards are extreme in all senses of the word.

[Espithel]

We just need to make it counter more softly.

I'd elect what I'd do to nerf SoSac: When the chain spam ends, you get dealt all the damage you prevented.
So instead of just neutering entire onslaughts, you delay entire onslaughts.

[Aneninen]

Higurashi: not everyone has time for PVPing all the time however, I keep trying to consider all aspects. However, I still don't think that Dimensional Shield has too few counters. Some cards have less. But, here's another idea? What if Silence were moved to  (with a different name and artwork, maybe)? That would help the rush against not only Dimensional Shields but also against other chainable effects, like Shard of Sacrifice and Bone Wall...

Frozengaia: I don't understand your idea clearly, but getting all the damage later would be absurd. Consider a shield chain interrupted by a Steal...