[Official] Dimensional Shield | Phase Shield

[omegareaper7]

i suggest dimensional shield
Shield:
Reduce damage by 6 for 3 turns.
spell attacks are unable to hit you while this shield is in play.

Not the worst suggestion in this thread, but still not very good. If you are only going to reduce damage by 6, you are still very much prone to heavy hitters, which are the biggest worry. 3 turns wouldn't be justifiable at all. It would have to be close to 5 or 6. And even then, wings would over shadow it, as a duo can make that just as good as dime shield is now.

[rageingnonsense]

There is a reason this card has 59 pages of replies, and more than any other card. It is OP, simple as that. There are plenty of arguments on how you can counter this card (explosions, momentum, poison, spells), but let's not forget the ultimate goal is to have fun. Playing against this card is simply not fun. Having to make decks specifically with this card in mind is not fun. Aether is not fun to play in general because it is too easy to play with.

It's not OP just because of the card itself, but Aether itself is OP, and this card exacerbates it. Almost all of the creatures are immortal, it is able to lobotomize fairly cheaply, its shard makes already powerful creatures almost unstoppable, It has a new creature to restore destroyed artifacts (as if it needed this), its shield blocks all standard attacks, and is cheap enough to be daisy chained for 18 rounds of relative invincibility (which is the core of the problem really). Hell, look at the arena. Almost every Aether deck relies on this card as a cheap crutch. There are even decks where Aether is chosen simply for this card!

This may sound like I am bitching, and it is because I am. BUT, I have a few ideas to make this card balanced.

Consider Nova and Supernova. The solution to fixing the balancing problem with spamming those was to cause a Singularity to spawn. I think Phase Shield should have the same effect if they are played back to back. The real problem is in the daisy chaining of the card. If you have a deck that has no momentum, or ability to destroy artifacts; it is simply impossible to win. There needs to be a way for a deck to at least get a few hits in.
I imagine that playing it again immediately after it has dispersed could spawn Aether's version of a Singularity.

Another option would be that a side effect of playing this card too often causes your immortal creatures to lose their immortality.

Yet another option could be that your creatures lose their immortality while this card is in play, regardless of how many times it has been played. Now you have to make a choice: do I need to protect my health more, or my creatures?


Bottom line is that this card has been OP for way too long, and is long overdue for a nerf.

[eaglgenes101]

There is a reason this card has 59 pages of replies, and more than any other card. It is OP, simple as that.

No, it's because the status of dim shield is controversial. There's no consensus, just people arguing their heads off about one side or another.

[RootRanger]

But he's not wrong. The card is a total negative play experience, and it's so powerful in combination with fractal that it's completely warped the metagame. Consider how many cards there are in the game, and how few of them are actually effective against the dimensional shield + fractal decks. Yet these are cards you see again and again, while tons of other cards are almost never played at a competitive, unrestricted level.

Of course there is a consensus. Not among all of the forum members, but among all of the best players. All of them know that dimensional shield is a major force to be reckoned with and prepare their decks accordingly: either by using dimensional shield themselves, or by playing the small number of decks that can handle it.

[iDaire]

Dim shield blocks one's only method of winning for three turns, which the opponent could use to get the resources necessary to do it again.
This is OP not just in Elements, but in any game.

[dawn to dusk]

if this was a little weaker, and there was more of a counter to fractal, would it be possible to give etg more of a circulating meta? (i.e half people play dims, so the other half counter it, so that side becomes more used. then since that deck is dominating meta, people build counters to that, etc)

[OldTrees]

There is a reason this card has 59 pages of replies, and more than any other card. It is OP, simple as that.

No, it's because the status of dim shield is controversial. There's no consensus, just people arguing their heads off about one side or another.

Both are incomplete answers. As someone who has been here since before this thread, I can assure you that the primary reason for its bulk is "People don't know they don't know how to balance a card like Dimensional Shield".

But he's not wrong. The card is a total negative play experience, and it's so powerful in combination with fractal that it's completely warped the metagame. Consider how many cards there are in the game, and how few of them are actually effective against the dimensional shield + fractal decks. Yet these are cards you see again and again, while tons of other cards are almost never played at a competitive, unrestricted level.

I think it is more useful to use the "Negative Play Experience" label in cases where the experience is due to the kind of experience rather than an imbalance. Since that is its more common usage, you get inaccurate connotations when you use it in cases like this.

Dim shield blocks one's only method of winning for three turns, which the opponent could use to get the resources necessary to do it again.
This is OP not just in Elements, but in any game.

That is a correct description of the kind of card Dimensional Shield is, but you are mistaken about that kind of card being inherently OP even in Elements. Yes Dimensional Shield is OP but it is not inherently OP. It can be rebalanced and remain the chained turns of protection vs creature/weapon attacks shield.

if this was a little weaker, and there was more of a counter to fractal, would it be possible to give etg more of a circulating meta? (i.e half people play dims, so the other half counter it, so that side becomes more used. then since that deck is dominating meta, people build counters to that, etc)

Doesn't EtG already have a multidimensional RPS meta (a much more complicated form than a circulating or single dimensional RPS meta)?


Also should we not expect a Beginning Game - Middle Game - End Game RPS in our metagame?

[Espithel]

Also should we not expect a Beginning Game - Middle Game - End Game RPS in our metagame?

And where is dimensional shield in this RPS?

Dimensional shield crushes the early game, drags the middle-game into the end-game, and prolongs the end-game to silly levels when used at the end-game.
(Assuming when it's not answered.)

No matter when you use it, dimensional shield is always a good choice.

[Higurashi]

Also should we not expect a Beginning Game - Middle Game - End Game RPS in our metagame?

And where is dimensional shield in this RPS?

Dimensional shield crushes the early game, drags the middle-game into the end-game, and prolongs the end-game to silly levels when used at the end-game.
(Assuming when it's not answered.)

No matter when you use it, dimensional shield is always a good choice.

This isn't entirely accurate, as it always takes you a few turns to get the quanta to play Dim in the unupped scene. Additionally, and this is rather important, you never want Dim to be the first thing you play. First you want offense out to put your opponent on the clock.

While Discord+(BH/EQ/mass-PC like BE) aimed at the opponent's quanta sources isn't a direct counter to Dims, it remains an effective one. Since the quanta denial combo also takes a bit of time to get running, its weakness is also the early game and sometimes still loses to a Dim deck because it managed to get early offense and a Dim out. A mono Dim deck does tend to pack a lot of quanta and therefore has a small unintended edge against denial decks. Duo Dim decks tend to be easy prey, however.

In all other games, if you only have a bit of damage that'll go through Dims, the early game is still what you have to bank on. For instance, a Giant Frog+Epi rush with 6 Deadly Poisons off mark can't win with just the Poisons, but it has to put in as much damage early on as it can. The same goes for an upped Monogravy rush; the Electrocutor will make sure your Elite Chargers only deal 7 damage unless you play several in a turn, and so you have to draw and play your Guards early to do damage before the Dims are up.

Early game is definitely a weakness of Dims that people often try to exploit. It can be hard to successfully do so, but perhaps that gives us a tool to work with that allows for a nerf that isn't all black or white and makes more soft counters better. By increasing the cost of Dims (e.g. to 8 ), you can extend the early game by a turn in most games and make the upkeep noticeably harder mid-game which may very well be all that decks like UG+Fog+Dragon needs.

Edit: A noticeably increased cost of your core card also makes it much harder for a Dim deck to pack all the support cards it wanted. Right now, Dim decks can easily pack both Lobos and Lightnings and will still afford Psiontal. While a 14-16 quanta Psiontal is faster, it can easily be run with 12 quanta. With a higher cost on Dims, that'd be much, much harder and that early rush deck with soft counters to Dims won't run into Lightnings, or the MA might just not be able to afford Lobo early on to completely neuter Chargers/FFQ's/Pharaohs/Blue Nymphs/etc. It'll most likely still afford Lobo mid-game, but that gives the other deck quite a lot of leeway.

2 cost may look like little, but it shifts the entire pace of the match forward.

[OldTrees]

Also should we not expect a Beginning Game - Middle Game - End Game RPS in our metagame?

And where is dimensional shield in this RPS?

Dimensional shield crushes the early game, drags the middle-game into the end-game, and prolongs the end-game to silly levels when used at the end-game.
(Assuming when it's not answered.)

No matter when you use it, dimensional shield is always a good choice.

Let's take a step back from Dim Shield and instead discuss Dim Shield's class of cards (aka turns of protection). This will clarify my point.

Different strategies balance their resources so that their dominate force arises at different points in a game's length. Rush decks are named such since they pour their resources into an early game dominance through cards with high initial strength. Then you have the Middle game. These decks try to balance initial strength with investments so that they can come online early enough to mitigate the Rush deck's early game dominance and yet have enough growth to outpace the Rush deck eventually. Finally there are the decks that focus on the End game. These decks focus almost exclusively on investments so that they can mitigate the Middle game and win in the End game. Although do realize this based on a ratio of types of resources and thus is a continuum rather than discrete sets. Thus we have the Early ~< Mid ~< End ~< Early. (~< used to represent advantage rather than perfect dominance)

Now how does a Turns of Protection card fit into this?

Well building up a hand with enough copies to start a sustained chain should take longer than it does now. So we should only be seeing sustained chains at the tail end of the mid game and only see sustained complete chains(chains until deckout) in the middle of the end game. In this vein a correctly priced 2 turn Dimensional Shield is more appropriate then the current version. Using individual cards rather than chains would fall more into the Middle game strategy if supported with a mid game offense as it tries to outlast the Rush's offense. Although without the mid game offense it should still struggle against a rush deck.*

*Note: Most decks can adjust on the continuum via good play relative to their specific opponent based on their play priority between initial strength and investment plays.

[Fippe94]

As a note on alternative balance: in OEtG unupped Dims costs 4 and lasts 2 turns, upped costs 6 and lasts 3 turns. There are also a few more ways to get around shields.
Almost all pvp in OEtG is unupped, so can't say too much about pvp balance on the upped version, but the unupped version are balanced imo.

[omegareaper7]

and more than any other card. It is OP, simple as that.

I'm not going to imply that I don't think it needs nerf, because it does. But more overpowered then any other card? Freedom and focus, even sacrifice blow it completely out of the water, no contest whatsoever. But that is another story.

As for this, I think diving down to 2 turns would be a good thing. Would balance it out a bit, make it harder to maintain the chain, which is the worst part about it.