[Official] Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[eaglgenes101]

Extreme case of point 3:
Card A wins the game for you unless you are holding card B in your hand, in which case the opponent wins. Otherwise, card B is useless and occupies a useless position. Is either card A or card B balanced?

[OldTrees]

3) Your final claim is that card X is not OP because it is countering strong/OP deck Y. This is fallacious. A counter to a strong deck can be balanced OR OP.

But denial seems to be in accendancy, a strong counter to [[that deck]] changes the meta but maybe i have a case of the stupids but I don't see how this is a fallacy

Claim: Because Card X counters strong/OP deck Y, Card X is not OP.
P -> !Q
Counter example: A 0 cost spell that deals 100 damage to the opponent would counter any and all strong/OP decks. Such a card is demonstrably OP.
P & Q
Conclusion: Either the claim or the counterexample is false.
!( (P & Q) & (P -> !Q) )

[Odii Odsen]

No nerf - its already perfect.

Its cost are already very high and there are enough counter cards to Sofo like Lobotimzer, Mind flayer, all Bolt's, SW, Drain Life, Mutation, RT (In some cases), Oty, OE, Enchant Artifact, LS, etc ...

I have not yet seen or made a viable deck that can easily deal with first-turn sofo.  As most CC requires two novae as well as the CC in hand, managing to create a deck that can usually do this is nigh-impossible without it becoming completely unviable against most other things.

No nerf - its already perfect.

Its cost are already very high and there are enough counter cards to Sofo like Lobotimzer, Mind flayer, all Bolt's, SW, Drain Life, Mutation, RT (In some cases), Oty, OE, Enchant Artifact, LS, etc ...

lol, what? You act like all of those are really easy to get out first turn. Upped, maybe, but unupped, not at all.

1. Win coin toss. The probability is 50%.
2. Get one SoFo in starting hand. (rainbow)
- If we win coin toss, we have 7 cards in hand.
- I act on the assumption of 30 cards in our deck.
- We have (2 or) 3 SoFo's in that deck. This is approximately 10%.
- The probability to have one of three SoFo's in our deck is about 70%.
- Plus we need at least one Nova.
3. If point 1 and 2 are fulfiled, we could play one SoFo, but the creatures (and permanents) suffer under too less quanta in turn 1-3. (Worst case, but not unlikely).

Thatswhy it isn't OP imo. I think SoFo is just one of many strong cards in that game.

[OldTrees]

@Odii Odsen
1) SoF has 3+ uses of hard PC for much less than the pre-nerf Deflagration.

2) There is about a 56% chance of having 1 of 3 SoFs in the starting hand of 7. 83% chance of having 1 of 6 novas. There is less than but still about 46% chance of being able to play SoF on your first turn. It is unlikely for an unupped deck to be able deal with such an early SoF. 50% of the time they would have 1 turns worth of quanta and their starting hand to hope for CC.

http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx

[JuneIsSunny]

yea even though i don't have one of these it offers too much control for the amount of health it gets

[inthisroom]

Heh, I'm aware I mostly post when I'm not happy, but this is really a topic I don't want to miss.

This is yet another shard I despise. In my opinion, the last two updates - especially with the introduction of the (now slightly nerfed) SoSa and SoFo - changed the entire game and broke it, to the point where I almost completely stopped playing since war. It used to be Elements, but it is hardly more than shardements now, it's really all about having and spamming SoFo which is splashed into just about any deck in arena or pvp. More often than not, you face a turn 1 SoFo followed by many others, and the previous nerf hasn't changed anything in my opinion. There will of course always be those who don't have a problem with anything because they're so incredibly pro that they'll just "CC it away", but my point is that the entire game has shifted towards "anti-SoFo" decks, just the way it was before with SoSa, and that doesn't help keeping the game varied but makes it just boring.

Now that I expressed my disdain of the recent evolution of Elements, I might as well try to make some suggestions to improve this.

Not sure raising the cost even more would make a big difference. Right now, 2 Quantum pillars are enough to play SoFo on turn 1, even with raised cost, it would probably not take more than 3 Quantum pillars to do so.

One suggestion would be to let it use its ability only once before turning into a BH, that would limit it to a max of 12 perm destructions even in an arena deck with doubled card amount.

I also like the idea of giving the ability a cost ( Quantum preferably) equal to the cost of an Explosion/Deflagration, depending if the Shard is upped or not. Playing the Shard would still cost random Quanta but actually using it would require to at least have some Quanta in your deck.

The third option - by far my favourite - would be to remove all those bloody Shards and create more cards for each element, making the game more varied, balanced, and therefore more interesting.

[mypetmachine]

In my opinion, it needs multiple of the suggested nerfs. First, it should have an other activation cost (around 3 I think), it should not gain so much HP. I think 3 per use is good. This gradually puts it out of harms way without making it nearly impossible to kill off if it manages to be used once. I think a bump in casting cost and maybe a shift in how many times it can be activated might still also be in order, even with the first two suggested nerfs.

[Cheesy111]

In my opinion, it needs multiple of the suggested nerfs. First, it should have an other activation cost (around 3 I think), it should not gain so much HP. I think 3 per use is good. This gradually puts it out of harms way without making it nearly impossible to kill off if it manages to be used once. I think a bump in casting cost and maybe a shift in how many times it can be activated might still also be in order, even with the first two suggested nerfs.

Compare SoFo to Pulvy.  A 1-4HP creature is much more vulnerable, and for a higher ability cost.  At maximum the ability cost should be set to 2 gravity to equalize with Pulverizer.

[Annele]

In my opinion, it needs multiple of the suggested nerfs. First, it should have an other activation cost (around 3 I think), it should not gain so much HP. I think 3 per use is good. This gradually puts it out of harms way without making it nearly impossible to kill off if it manages to be used once. I think a bump in casting cost and maybe a shift in how many times it can be activated might still also be in order, even with the first two suggested nerfs.

Compare SoFo to Pulvy.  A 1-4HP creature is much more vulnerable, and for a higher ability cost.  At maximum the ability cost should be set to 2 gravity to equalize with Pulverizer.

But that would make it impossible to use without , something I'm pretty sure Zanz doesn't want. It is my understanding that shards are meant to be able to be used in any deck, with any quanta production, but favour a certain element and make using it with that elements more rewarding, but not necessary.

[OldTrees]

In my opinion, it needs multiple of the suggested nerfs. First, it should have an other activation cost (around 3 I think), it should not gain so much HP. I think 3 per use is good. This gradually puts it out of harms way without making it nearly impossible to kill off if it manages to be used once. I think a bump in casting cost and maybe a shift in how many times it can be activated might still also be in order, even with the first two suggested nerfs.

Compare SoFo to Pulvy.  A 1-4HP creature is much more vulnerable, and for a higher ability cost.  At maximum the ability cost should be set to 2 gravity to equalize with Pulverizer.

But that would make it impossible to use without , something I'm pretty sure Zanz doesn't want. It is my understanding that shards are meant to be able to be used in any deck, with any quanta production, but favour a certain element and make using it with that elements more rewarding, but not necessary.

An activation cost of  (weapon) ~=  (creature)

[Annele]

In my opinion, it needs multiple of the suggested nerfs. First, it should have an other activation cost (around 3 I think), it should not gain so much HP. I think 3 per use is good. This gradually puts it out of harms way without making it nearly impossible to kill off if it manages to be used once. I think a bump in casting cost and maybe a shift in how many times it can be activated might still also be in order, even with the first two suggested nerfs.

Compare SoFo to Pulvy.  A 1-4HP creature is much more vulnerable, and for a higher ability cost.  At maximum the ability cost should be set to 2 gravity to equalize with Pulverizer.

But that would make it impossible to use without , something I'm pretty sure Zanz doesn't want. It is my understanding that shards are meant to be able to be used in any deck, with any quanta production, but favour a certain element and make using it with that elements more rewarding, but not necessary.

An activation cost of  (weapon) ~=  (creature)

I like the  idea. And have it gain no more than 10 hp for accretion (max hp before black hole would have to be decrease as well).

[esran]

IMO 2 gravity more equals  4 because of snovas and novas and QTs. when you factor in that the sofocus has limited uses, but also factor in the fact that it is doable in elements without normal access to PC, i say it should cost 4 other per activation.