[Official] Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[furballdn]

Make upgraded protect artifact colorless, like animate weapon. Then every deck will have 6 of them, and nobody will play sofo anymore. Or leave it like it is and let people continue to abuse the hell out of it. Lately I've been using mitosis and quint on a sofo, then you've got a permanent black hole factory, like a ghetto gravity nymph.

Wat. Even if it becomes free I doubt people will do that. Card space is important. If a card warrants every single deck to include a counter it is probably a sign it is OP.

[vivimancer]

red eye does have a valid point though furball, buffing PA would help.  I agree that its not the solution but if there was a reliable counter to sofo spam it might reduce the frequency and potency of sofo heavy decks

[OldTrees]

red eye does have a valid point though furball, buffing PA would help.  I agree that its not the solution but if there was a reliable counter to sofo spam it might reduce the frequency and potency of sofo heavy decks

True. However the damage an OP card does in not the frequency but the warping of the metagame. The existance of SoFo makes the metagame shift to requiring more early CC and anti-PC. This eliminates many potential decks thus reducing the metagame variety. A card could be (SoFo isn't) so OP that it would warp a metagame to the point that every deck ran a counter and no deck ran the card. (If 1 player did not include the counter then another player would be able to increase their win ratio by adding the warping card.)

[redeyesly]

Obviously absolutes like everyone/nobody are an exaggeration. Even if PA were free, not everyone would use it. Even if everyone used it, people would still use sofo anyway. Even when I do run a deck with 6 PAs, they don't always show up when I need them and sofo still ruins my day. So there is currently no way to counter the OP card, and it is used in well over half the decks in plat right now, and overused in at least 1 in 10. Consider the metagame officially warped.

[OldTrees]

Obviously absolutes like everyone/nobody are an exaggeration. Even if PA were free, not everyone would use it. Even if everyone used it, people would still use sofo anyway. Even when I do run a deck with 6 PAs, they don't always show up when I need them and sofo still ruins my day. So there is currently no way to counter the OP card, and it is used in well over half the decks in plat right now, and overused in at least 1 in 10. Consider the metagame officially warped.

However making a counter available will not remove the warping. Rather it will merely change the appearance of the warp from overused SoFo to overused counter.

[redeyesly]

Well the only other solution I can see would be to remove the card from the game. Rewind and black hole can go with it.

[Laxadarap]

Well the only other solution I can see would be to remove the card from the game. Rewind and black hole can go with it.

However, Zanz won't do this.  I think he wants this final shard to be rainbow PC, he just did a fairly bad job of making it (good mechanic, just OP).  Rewind has been argued for a nerf, but its nowhere near metagame warping, and black hole is DEFINITELY not overpowered.  It's very strong with a Discord, but by itself it really isn't that great, in fact, the only time you really use it is when your using a DBH, it's never seen in monogravity.

[vivimancer]

So there is currently no way to counter the OP card,

Snip,

There are lots of ways to counter Sofo; quanta denial (Discord/black hole) creature control (Bolts/RW/Gravity Pull/Oty) and hard counter (PA)

Back on topic, just banning stuff is never the answer, even though I could scream after seeing 10 plat decks in a row with either 1st or 2nd turn Sofos

[OdinVanguard]

So there is currently no way to counter the OP card,

Snip,

There are lots of ways to counter Sofo; quanta denial (Discord/black hole) creature control (Bolts/RW/Gravity Pull/Oty) and hard counter (PA)

Back on topic, just banning stuff is never the answer, even though I could scream after seeing 10 plat decks in a row with either 1st or 2nd turn Sofos

quanta denial doesn't really stop it though. The trouble is, even though it costs 7|6 to cast, the fact that the cost is rainbow makes it easy to just use a nova or immo to pull one out.... Current quanta denial methods are useless against that. Its one of the hazards of making high cost cards.

Creature control helps, but you basically get 1 turn to do it. After that you have a 16 hp permanent chewer on your hands.
RW and GP don't really help that much. In fact they can make it worse if you time them wrong.

Oty can help if it gets out first, but a 'bow or nova deck can get these out well before you can pull one out.

The only reliable counters are PA and Lobotomizer (only if it comes out first though) or mind flayer... the fact is though, these are not viable in all decks. Hence the phrase "just because a counter exists does not mean a card is not OP".

One of the big problems I see is that giving it a high cost really only promotes its abuse in 'bows and nova decks. Best nerf for this, in my opinion, is to make the card more painful and difficult to use for 'bows and nova based decks.
For example, add an activation cost and have the skill drain 1 of each quanta type when used.

[RRQJ]

For example, add an activation cost and have the skill drain 1 of each quanta type when used.

This is a good way to nerf SoFo for rainbows relative to monos/duos, which I think is the main difficulty when trying to find a non-radical change.  It also doesn't really mess with the theme either.

[jumpingbeans]

What we should obviously do is simply change the name. Shard of Focus seems like a powerful sounding card. Maybe if it's name was changed to Shard of N00biness people would stop using it. -nodnod-

Though in seriousness, how about the cost to summon it is either 7|6 Quanta OR one of each type of Quanta available, whichever is more? And add the 1 Quanta/type activation cost?

[furballdn]

Changing to would indeed be a nerf to it, but the cost would have to be lowered a bit.