[Official] Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[kimham8a]

Anyone have a deck idea that HARD counters sofo rainbows that are almost always first these days? I mean, if we know what opponent we're facing, that should help.
I'm thinking mono with protected dims, or mono (since doesnt need important perms to have a good deck).

[rob77dp]

Anything permanent-less is good vs SPAM'd SoFo.  OR packing lots of quick/easy hard CC (get the SoFo cleaned up when it is still 0/1). 

[TheAccuso]

Anyone have a deck idea that HARD counters sofo rainbows that are almost always first these days? I mean, if we know what opponent we're facing, that should help.
I'm thinking mono with protected dims, or mono (since doesnt need important perms to have a good deck).

Light Earth with sanctcs/ miracles,PA and stone skin.

[DarkBaron12390]

unfortunately, he is partially right.
e all the members do?

Indeed he is partially right, but i think that is important to give more emphasis to the "...Then all the game is unbalanced;screw the developer of this game, learn to do this..."(wich surely isn't true and show how poor of mind and negative is this guy) then highlight a thing that as much we can say it is logical grammatically correct, surely doesn't bring anything new, good, positive to the game, that's the job of a good member, not discuss on technicalities just to be in the absolute right.

In all your self righteousness, you forget that I've been trying to give feedback for this card for over half a year, to a dead developer. The "free game" argument is poor--that doesn't change the fact that the card is broken and destroys balance. Just because a game is free does not mean it is immune to the rigor of balance. That's what we call a strawman, and it is logically bankrupt.

Only a fool thinks in absolutes, and judges a character on one statement. The Arena is possible the most important aspect of this game right now for single player use, and it is on this aspect I am saying it is unbalanced. If your most prized aspect of a game is unbalanced, the game is unbalanced. There is nothing to argue here against that. The only argument you can logically make against this is that SoF is NOT unbalanced (saying it's fine for PvP doesn't excuse its imbalance on the single player scale, fyi). The fact of the matter is that it is unbalanced, and the developer made an unbalanced card with very pisspoor testing, and then took a buckshot to the face or something and died, leaving an unbalanced game. That's why I'm quitting. Now go along and judge more without all the information at your disposal on a character.

[TheAccuso]

unfortunately, he is partially right.
e all the members do?

Indeed he is partially right, but i think that is important to give more emphasis to the "...Then all the game is unbalanced;screw the developer of this game, learn to do this..."(wich surely isn't true and show how poor of mind and negative is this guy) then highlight a thing that as much we can say it is logical grammatically correct, surely doesn't bring anything new, good, positive to the game, that's the job of a good member, not discuss on technicalities just to be in the absolute right.

In all your self righteousness, you forget that I've been trying to give feedback for this card for over half a year, to a dead developer. The "free game" argument is poor--that doesn't change the fact that the card is broken and destroys balance. Just because a game is free does not mean it is immune to the rigor of balance. That's what we call a strawman, and it is logically bankrupt.

Only a fool thinks in absolutes, and judges a character on one statement. The Arena is possible the most important aspect of this game right now for single player use, and it is on this aspect I am saying it is unbalanced. If your most prized aspect of a game is unbalanced, the game is unbalanced. There is nothing to argue here against that. The only argument you can logically make against this is that SoF is NOT unbalanced (saying it's fine for PvP doesn't excuse its imbalance on the single player scale, fyi). The fact of the matter is that it is unbalanced, and the developer made an unbalanced card with very pisspoor testing, and then took a buckshot to the face or something and died, leaving an unbalanced game. That's why I'm quitting. Now go along and judge more without all the information at your disposal on a character.

Some order:
"...to a dead developer"+"...judge more without all the information at your disposal on a character".
Zanazarino created a free game with a little money return due to commercials and donations, wich you (player) don't have to pay.
He worked his ass off to create this and that's why he presents it as a fairly strong part of his career portfolio, he is the only 1 developer.
From time to time he go to the forum, boring his ass of reading all the crappy gripes from the users like you, but with patience accumulates all the meaningful info.
When finally he found some time from WORK to dedicate to this PROJECT he start to work ON HIS OWN to a new patch for FREE PLAYERS.
Some people are here since 2010 and they are extremely passionate to the game, probably more than you; but guess what...they don't whine for no reason.Get a grip.

[meowww]

Just a little interrupt, something just came to my mind.
Is it possible to raise some money to make a more frequent patch worth his time?
I know there are donation, but what if we raise it specificity for patch?

[kimham8a]

Anything permanent-less is good vs SPAM'd SoFo.  OR packing lots of quick/easy hard CC (get the SoFo cleaned up when it is still 0/1).

Tried pillarless splat and failed (rainbows have purifies )
Tried crema rush and got rushed and cc'ed.
Spamming CC on sofo didnt work either... Costed me more to play CC than for AI to play Sofo. Otyughs worked semiwell though (still always got rushed in the end though).

Anyone have a deck idea that HARD counters sofo rainbows that are almost always first these days? I mean, if we know what opponent we're facing, that should help.
I'm thinking mono with protected dims, or mono (since doesnt need important perms to have a good deck).

Light Earth with sanctcs/ miracles,PA and stone skin.

My light earth builds are aren't working, they are getting rushed superfast... Did you have any specific decklist you were thinking of?

[kimham8a]

unfortunately, he is partially right.
e all the members do?

Indeed he is partially right, but i think that is important to give more emphasis to the "...Then all the game is unbalanced;screw the developer of this game, learn to do this..."(wich surely isn't true and show how poor of mind and negative is this guy) then highlight a thing that as much we can say it is logical grammatically correct, surely doesn't bring anything new, good, positive to the game, that's the job of a good member, not discuss on technicalities just to be in the absolute right.

In all your self righteousness, you forget that I've been trying to give feedback for this card for over half a year, to a dead developer. The "free game" argument is poor--that doesn't change the fact that the card is broken and destroys balance. Just because a game is free does not mean it is immune to the rigor of balance. That's what we call a strawman, and it is logically bankrupt.

Only a fool thinks in absolutes, and judges a character on one statement. The Arena is possible the most important aspect of this game right now for single player use, and it is on this aspect I am saying it is unbalanced. If your most prized aspect of a game is unbalanced, the game is unbalanced. There is nothing to argue here against that. The only argument you can logically make against this is that SoF is NOT unbalanced (saying it's fine for PvP doesn't excuse its imbalance on the single player scale, fyi). The fact of the matter is that it is unbalanced, and the developer made an unbalanced card with very pisspoor testing, and then took a buckshot to the face or something and died, leaving an unbalanced game. That's why I'm quitting. Now go along and judge more without all the information at your disposal on a character.

Leaving aside all the heat of this discussion, when the AI can have 2x draw, it sort of makes every card OP, although it capitalizes on Sofo. Maybe it's just meant to be a real challenge. I mean, there is still no opponent or deck we elements players can't beat without tremendous luck (except 1st in plat that still has 160+ hp, but then there are huge rewards)

[meowww]

My view of Arena:
Yes arena are OP as hell, hence the handsome reward, If you want fair games, go for AI3, that is the standard reward for standard difficulty.
Before Arena there are FGs, they are harder than gold, though now gold arena give better reward than FG.
I assume Pt is harder then FG for now, but their reward are even more handsome.

[Blaze]

I agree, the arena is supposed to be over powered, it's hard! Get over it. You can stil get a 60% win rate or so, which is all you need.

I think the card is fine, and well balanced. It has counters, yes it's strong but permanents aren't required to win.

[neuroleptics]

surprised to see this post appearing in the 'new replies to your post'. Maybe i was unaware of it earlier? new shards modification in trainer, i guess no one will complain that it's over-powered anymore? but this shard had successfully made  's explosion meaningless previously. Salute.

[xsindomanx]

Despite the nerf in the last update, I found it quite surprising that nobody found the SoF not overpowered.

It's quite an all-in-one card with possible:

Permanent control (free). Of course, only up to three permanents per SoF.
But cards with similar effects generally cost at least 6 quarta:

• Explosion (2 per)
• Steal (3 per)
• Pulvy effect (2 per)

Damage control when used with gravity pull, with 15 health per turn (free). A targetable permanent is required, but the great majority of decks use pillars / pendulums.
Cards with similar effects generally cost at least 1 quarta per turn:

• Heavy armor (1 ) x 2
• Basilisk blood (1 ) but with 6 turn freeze

Quarta control. Via free PC and getting an additional black hole allows very good quarta control / denial. The black hole is indeed put into the owner's hand instead of getting casted automatically, but both 'drawing an additional card' and 'getting additional cards not included in deck' are both fairly expansive effects / cards by themselves.

It's quite common to add an SoF or two in a rainbow deck, or to use them in a gravity mono / duo (when I often just quit).

However, SoF has a great weakness that it starts with just 1 hp, making it prone to all kinds of CC (although it becomes quite indestructible after that first turn). Therefore,  I don't think a cost increase makes sense. However, some other nerfs I thought of:

• Increased cost of ability, possibly of another element so as not to limit it to gravity mono decks.
• Card stats changed to 1|1, making it prone to additional CC (fireshield)
• Decreased hp gain per permanent destroyed AND/OR decreased maximum health before being destroyed.
• A shard 'pillar' or 'holder' that is a permanent that appears with each SoF, and the SoF is destroyed with no black hole created if the holder is destroyed.