[Official] Dimensional Shield | Phase Shield

[ARTHANASIOS]

Heck, Dim Shield is even more PC-resistant than Titanium Shield. You need to destroy 6 Dims compared to at most 3 Titaniums in a deck.

IMHO, this is a completely wrong way of thinking because:
1) Titanium Shield can be as PC-resistant as Dimensional Shield. Just include 6 copies of Titanium Shields in your deck! If you include just 2 Titaniums, it is either your fault or 2 copies of Titanium are enough to protect you, so you have 4 more free card-spaces in your deck to add something more useful.
2) Titanium Shield is permanent. After 1,000 turns it would be still there. Dimensional Shield lasts only 3 turns.
3) Titanium Shield is the most PC-resistant shield right after immaterial shields (Emerald, Reflective, Hope) and that's because it is in-element with Enchant Artifact. That means with 2 cards & 6 you have an immaterial Titanium Shield.
4) Titanium shield is cheaper than Dimensional Shield (4 is better than 6 ), so it is easier to replace a destroyed Titanium than a destroyed Dim Shield. 

[jawdirk]

Heck, Dim Shield is even more PC-resistant than Titanium Shield. You need to destroy 6 Dims compared to at most 3 Titaniums in a deck.

IMHO, this is a completely wrong way of thinking because:
1) Titanium Shield can be as PC-resistant as Dimensional Shield. Just include 6 copies of Titanium Shields in your deck! If you include just 2 Titaniums, it is either your fault or 2 copies of Titanium are enough to protect you, so you have 4 more free card-spaces in your deck to add something more useful.

Optimally, you want to play dim shield once every 3 turns. If you have 6 dim shields in your deck, roughly every 5th card is a dim shield, and you probably start with a dim shield in your opening hand. Thus, unless you are drawing a f-ton of cards, the optimal number of dim shields in your deck is 6, regardless of PC. Decreasing creature damage by 100% over the course of your chain is likely worth 6 draws. Against 3 PC, you still have a reasonable expectation of being protected for some of the game.

With titanium shield, calculating the optimal number of titanium shields in your deck is more complicated. You have to consider how much damage you will take before you draw the first TS. You have to consider how many dead cards will glut your hand if your opponent has no PC. Adding more TS beyond what you need to counter PC is worse than a diminishing return. 6 TS is actually worse than 3 TS unless your opponent has PC because it is 5 dead cards in your deck. Thus, the optimal number of TS is going to be something like 2-3 if you don't expect PC, and 4-6 if you do. But alas, you can't predict whether you are going to face PC (or how much) so you compromise and put in 3 TS. 3 TS is nearly worthless against 3 PC, and has a small but annoying chance of glutting your starting hand against no PC and an expectation of a dead draw at some point in the game.

It gets even more complicated when you put in PA with your TS. Now you have to consider the chances of glutting your hand with PA. If your opponent has no PC, every PA is a dead card. Ouch. If your opponent has PC, and you draw the PA before the TS, it is dead until you draw the TS. If you draw a TS before the PA, it is dead until you draw the PA! And finally, if you draw a TS after a PA + TS, it is dead. In practice, outside certain niche decks, you never see more than 1-2 PA, and usually only in support of better cards than TS.

That is the beauty of 6 dim shields. They are almost never dead, and if your opponent doesn't answer them, no creature damage!

2) Titanium Shield is permanent. After 1,000 turns it would be still there. Dimensional Shield lasts only 3 turns.

Unless it was blown up by PC, in which case it lasted 0 turns. Oh, and it also will last 1000 turns in your hand as a dead card if you've already drawn a TS.

4) Titanium shield is cheaper than Dimensional Shield (4 is better than 6 ), so it is easier to replace a destroyed Titanium than a destroyed Dim Shield.

This is your best point. But two things make it not matter:
1. As I have explained above the optimal number of TS in your deck is 3, so you are likely going to have to wait for much of the rest of the game for your 2nd or 3rd copy. But since the optimal number of Dim shield is 6, you will only have to wait about 5 draws to replace it.
2. They are both getting owned by the PC. 4 is still vastly more than the typical cost of PC.

[ARTHANASIOS]

^Against a deck with tons of PC or Momentum or poison or Spell damage, your 6 Dim Shields suddenly become 6 dead cards. On the other hand, Titanium Shield has Enchant Artifact as an in-element card, which makes it at least indestructible against PC. Furthermore, needing 6 Dim Shields in order to make your deck function is worse than needing only 2-3 Titanium Shields (though you still can put up to 6 into your deck), in which case you have extra space for extra cards. Furthermore, since Dim Shields require to draw them as soon as possible in order to start the chain, you have to play mono Dim Shield stall with only 30-card decks (or 35-card deck at max.), making predictable and beatable by stall decks with more than 35 cards. No matter how you see it, Dim Shields are very reliable and un-reliable at the same time, since they require the whole dekc to follow a certain strategy and force you to make your deck a mono for better performance (leaving you with only expensive creatures to do your job). Seriously, mono is one of the most underestimated deck-types ever...

[jawdirk]

^Against a deck with tons of PC or Momentum or poison or Spell damage, your 6 Dim Shields suddenly become 6 dead cards.

Yes, Dim shields do require more cards in your deck, and a more expensive quanta base, than Titanium Shields. But they also do a lot more against many of the dominant strategies. The problem with titanium shields is that they are ineffective against the commonly used dragons, pumpable creatures, and graboids. You can easily get killed through your titanium shield. Imagine if titanium shield was stackable. Wouldn't you run six? I don't think you'd be overly concerned about 3 dead cards against poison, momentum, or spell damage. Yes, dim shields alone can lose to momentum, poison, and spell damage, but they are still over powered, because those are not the dominant strategies (SoW aside).

[meowww]

I don't think "Dim shield are more PC-resistant cause you HAVE to put 6 in deck anyways." is a valid point as well.
It was like, "Pillar are more PC-resistant cause you HAVE to put more Pillar than tower in your deck," or "Ball lighting are more CC-resistant cause they dies in the same turn you play them."
It is a draw-back, not advantage.

Another way to see this:
6 Dim-Shield are always inferior 3 other shields plus 3 SoFo.

[jawdirk]

"Ball lighting are more CC-resistant cause they dies in the same turn you play them."
It is a draw-back, not advantage.

Ball lightning IS completely resistant to CC (unless you try to keep them alive). No matter how many CC your opponent has in his deck, your ball lightning are going to do the damage you intended them to do.
Yes, it is a drawback, but it is compensated by ball lightning having extraordinary attack for a 0-cost creature.

Different cards are affected in varying amounts by counters.

Practically speaking, in general, a deck that runs dim shields is less effected by PC than a deck that runs titanium shields. That is the point that is being made.

[ARTHANASIOS]

Practically speaking, in general, a deck that runs dim shields is less effected by PC than a deck that runs titanium shields. That is the point that is being made.

Practically speaking, in general, more than 25% of decks with Titanium|Diamond Shield use Enchant|Protect Acrtifact on it, making it completely immune to PC.

[thispersonisagenius]

Practically speaking, in general, a deck that runs dim shields is less effected by PC than a deck that runs titanium shields. That is the point that is being made.

This is not true. Only MA runs 6 Dim. Shields, and if you have PC, you tend to have a lot of it. Therefore, such decks will easily rip through MA and it's Dim. Shields.

[meowww]

Practically speaking, in general, a deck that runs dim shields is less effected by PC than a deck that runs titanium shields. That is the point that is being made.

When the PC hits the tower, Dim-shield decks are more affected, due to its MUCH higher cost.
When PC hits the shield, Dim-shield still more affected, in practically Dim-shield decks are more fragile against an unprotected round attack, not mentioning titanium shields often never hit by PC.

[OldTrees]

Strategies can be more PC resilient even when the cards are not more PC resilient. Good thing we balance at the card level while considering the strategy level.

How does this relate?
Cards are balanced based on the average benefit per card provided in games they participate. 6 Dimensional Shields are more than 6x the benefit of 1 Dimensional Shield. Since decks with Dimensional Shield use all 6 copies, the equation is [Value of 6 Dimensional Shields / 6 cards].

If every deck had 2 destroy Shield cards then people would run 3 Dusk Shields and 6 Dimensional Shields. This would result in [1 Dusk Shield + 2 bait/ 3 cards] vs [4 Dimensional Shield + 2 bait/ 6 cards]. This might look like Dimensional Shield is more PC resistant. In a way that is correct, however being reduced from 6 to 4 Dimensional Shields was a loss of more than 1/3 the provided benefit. So while Dimensional Shields are more PC resilient in the 2PC/deck metagame than shields like Dusk Shield, their advantage is less than it would first appear.

[Vangelios]

Heck, Dim Shield is even more PC-resistant than Titanium Shield. You need to destroy 6 Dims compared to at most 3 Titaniums in a deck.

IMHO, this is a completely wrong way of thinking because:
1) Titanium Shield can be as PC-resistant as Dimensional Shield. Just include 6 copies of Titanium Shields in your deck! If you include just 2 Titaniums, it is either your fault or 2 copies of Titanium are enough to protect you, so you have 4 more free card-spaces in your deck to add something more useful.
2) Titanium Shield is permanent. After 1,000 turns it would be still there. Dimensional Shield lasts only 3 turns.
3) Titanium Shield is the most PC-resistant shield right after immaterial shields (Emerald, Reflective, Hope) and that's because it is in-element with Enchant Artifact. That means with 2 cards & 6 you have an immaterial Titanium Shield.
4) Titanium shield is cheaper than Dimensional Shield (4 is better than 6 ), so it is easier to replace a destroyed Titanium than a destroyed Dim Shield.

Greetings Artan,
is it?, I doubt, if had a choose between dimm and titanium, in the aether or earth, surely choose dimm, and another, is better see opponents with titanium with protect artifact than a simple dimm. (at least for me who like to hit heavy)

[ARTHANASIOS]

Greetings Artan,
is it?, I doubt, if had a choose between dimm and titanium, in the aether or earth, surely choose dimm, and another, is better see opponents with titanium with protect artifact than a simple dimm. (at least for me who like to hit heavy)

Greetings, Vangelios!
It is as you said, since you like to hit heavy, Dim Shield or Wings is your nemesis. However, I love playing with Adrenalined Horned Frogs and (especially) Forest Scorpions; for me a Titanium Shield is my nemesis here.