[Official] Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[eaglgenes101]

Let's just lower the cost and give it just 1 use. My suggestion is a few posts back, here it is:

How about we reduce the number of shots of PC it brings, and modify it to compensate?
As in 5/4: 0|5. Accretion: Destroy target permanent, gain +0|+10, and generate black hole. (One use only.)

[Cheesy111]

Let's just lower the cost and give it just 1 use. My suggestion is a few posts back, here it is:

How about we reduce the number of shots of PC it brings, and modify it to compensate?
As in 5/4: 0|5. Accretion: Destroy target permanent, gain +0|+10, and generate black hole. (One use only.)

15HP is enough to do well with Accel, but not enough to really synergize with Catapult or Gravity Pull.  As 15HP is already out of CC range, why not have it be a super high-HP creature?

[furballdn]

Let's just lower the cost and give it just 1 use. My suggestion is a few posts back, here it is:

How about we reduce the number of shots of PC it brings, and modify it to compensate?
As in 5/4: 0|5. Accretion: Destroy target permanent, gain +0|+10, and generate black hole. (One use only.)

15HP is enough to do well with Accel, but not enough to really synergize with Catapult or Gravity Pull.  As 15HP is already out of CC range, why not have it be a super high-HP creature?

Would a super high hp creature tread on armagio, titan, and gravy dragon, cards used only for their high hp?

[Cheesy111]

Let's just lower the cost and give it just 1 use. My suggestion is a few posts back, here it is:

How about we reduce the number of shots of PC it brings, and modify it to compensate?
As in 5/4: 0|5. Accretion: Destroy target permanent, gain +0|+10, and generate black hole. (One use only.)

15HP is enough to do well with Accel, but not enough to really synergize with Catapult or Gravity Pull.  As 15HP is already out of CC range, why not have it be a super high-HP creature?

Would a super high hp creature tread on armagio, titan, and gravy dragon, cards used only for their high hp?

None of those are ONLY used for their high-HP.  And I think I didn't make as much sense as I meant to - 45ish was what I meant by super high HP. 

[furballdn]

Usage stats in (k)
Armagio-180
Shard of Focus-108
Titan-78
Colossal Dragon-90

Shard of Focus (U)-349
Armagio(U)-27
Titan(U)-25
Colossal Dragon(U)-21

That's pretty sad. Shard of Focus is already more used than most of those cards, and even unupped, being a rare new shard, is still more used than titan. Also, I am very interested to see you use gravy dragon, titan, or armagio in decks that don't make use of their high hp.

Armagio is a very expensive 30hp heal for 6 + 1 card, Massive dragon is a UP card and one of the worst dragons, and titan is one of the most expensive weapons.

[OldTrees]

With  the usage stats that out of whack*, I am sure Zanz will nerf SoFo.

*Yes, I know usage is only loosely related to balance.

[jawdirk]

Another idea on how to nerf SoF:

Casting cost remains the same. When you use the ability it removes 1 quanta of every color except from your pool (like a mini black hole on yourself), and then gives you 1 . When SoF gets above 45 hp it becomes vanilla.

This would make it expensive in one way for monos, and expensive in a different way for rainbows. It would give an advantage to gravity. It would also improve the synergy with acceleration/gravity pull.

[kimham8a]

Let's just lower the cost and give it just 1 use. My suggestion is a few posts back, here it is:

How about we reduce the number of shots of PC it brings, and modify it to compensate?
As in 5/4: 0|5. Accretion: Destroy target permanent, gain +0|+10, and generate black hole. (One use only.)

Adding hp with the ability is pointless because it's dead when you use it.

[Raitei]

Would it make any difference is the number of shards you can put in your deck is nerfed? Or would that change the game too much? For instance, you can have only two of every shard in your deck. The only problem with this (even with this there are still problems!!) is that an early SoF would have the same effect..

[frimax]

Just destroy 2 permas.
3 is too much.

[Cheesy111]

Would it make any difference is the number of shards you can put in your deck is nerfed? Or would that change the game too much? For instance, you can have only two of every shard in your deck. The only problem with this (even with this there are still problems!!) is that an early SoF would have the same effect..

I hate this solution for any OP card.  For graboid, for sofo, for any of them.  Changing game mechanics to make a card less powerful is a much worse idea than nerfing a card, partially because it leads to a game where the rules vary from card to card.  In this particular instance it would also do next-to-no good, as most SoFo decks only run 1-3 as it is.  Aside from all of that, it makes no sense to nerf every shard if one is overpowered, or change the rules for all of them.  It would not make sense to nerf every dragon if Ruby Dragon was overpowered, and it does not make sense to nerf every shard because SoFo is overpowered.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Would it make any difference is the number of shards you can put in your deck is nerfed? Or would that change the game too much? For instance, you can have only two of every shard in your deck. The only problem with this (even with this there are still problems!!) is that an early SoF would have the same effect..

This alleviates the problem of seeing SoFo spam but doesn't directly solve the balance issue. A first turn Shard of Focus is still a first turn Shard of Focus.

(For that matter, limiting the number of copies of an OP-card usually doesn't eliminate the situation in which they're OP, and would just make an enemy player more frustrated when they appear in that OP situation/combo because it still demonstrates that the card is exploitable and just reliant on luck of drawing instead.)