[Official] Shard of Focus | Shard of Focus

[OldTrees]

Spoiler for Hidden:

Shards are meant to be useful for any element. A mono Life deck could not use SoFo if it required  .

..EXACTLY. It's that fact alone that makes it such an overpowered card. Yes, it has 1 hp upon playing, yes it has a 7 play cost, please dont waste your breath typing out the typical 'Everything has a counter.' response or 'You lost to it, so that must mean it's OP.'

BUT, the fact that ANY DECK can use this card and have PC now because of it. And besides.. You rarely see SoW outside mono aether decks. You rarely see SoP outside of mono water. You can use SoG but is more efficient in a life mark deck. Same goes for SoD. Even for SoV, it doesn't hit full potential unless you run dark mark. SoI is silly. SoR works better on time creatures. SoFr works better on air creatures, and SoBr works better with fire mark. Only exception to this would be SoSer, SoSac, and SoFo. Grant it, any of the listings above has never stopped anyone from throwing shards into any deck. Even though SoSac is arguably OP as well, this is the SoFo thread. People run this card a high percent of the time with zero synergy with it's effects, nor generate a single gravity quanta for the BH and use it for the sole purpose of, 'Herpderp, i need pc, better run this life rush with 6 sofos.' That's just wrong. If you dont have a way to counter a SoFo turn one and they get one out and you have a bad hand? You're screwed. I remember you or someone else posting something like, and this is a paraphrase, don't get mad at me for twisting words, 'If a card has been a game changer multiple times..' Well, this has. [/rant]

Since you don't like my 'give it a activation cost', what about this:

Accretion:
Destroy a permanent and gain +0/+15. Turns into a black hole if mark is when hp >45.

If neither of the conditions are met, no black hole is generated. That way, people can have their precious splashed PC while having a high potential to take away the 'Getting kicked while down' effect that giving the owner a free black hole gives.

Consider the following statements:
"Effect A" isn't OP because only Fire has access to it.
"Effect A" is only balanced because only Fire has access to it.

These statements don't make sense because no element has more valuable quanta than another. If an effect is balanced in one element then it would be balanced in another element. If a card is balanced with an elemental quanta cost, then it would be balanced if given an equivalent  cost. (Equivalent meant equally expensive not equal amount of quanta.)

So PC can is not OP just because it costs  . (It is OP so there must be another reason)


Shards are intended to have 2 modes:
Disloyal mode: Casting Cost -> Base effect
Loyal mode: Casting Cost + Loyalty to element -> Base effect + Loyalty bonus.
(SoSac and SoW are the worst example of this intent. SoG and SoD are the best examples of this intent.)

SoFo has a problem in that both modes are OP.

Removing the Black Hole does not hurt the Disloyal mode. Increasing the Loyalty cost from quanta to mark will not strongly affect the Loyal mode. Nerfing the base effect would nerf both modes. Giving it an  activation cost (2-3) would nerf both.

If no quanta is worth any more than any other quanta, then how do you explain something like Damselfly compared to Brimstone Eater? One is free, has flying and is air element (relevant for Wings, Sky Blitz, Guard, SoFre) and the other costs one quanta and has none of those attributes.

Many games suffer from power creep. The players create a metagame out of the top cards. Game designers try to balance all new cards to the current metagame. Variance in balance results in cards more powerful that the prior top cards. The metagame changes to the new height.
Brimestone Eater is a very old card. Damselfly's current form is really new.
There has been a power creep of slightly more than 1 during that time (~3yrs). O.O Zanz is really good at balancing. MtG has much faster power creep.

So then would a reduction of ~1 in cost be appropriate for old cards like Brimstone Eater in order to make them more competitive? Or should other balancing measures be taken to make sure that old cards aren't completely outclassed?  It's especially important to keep cards relevant in a game like EtG where new cards do not come out as rapidly as in, say, MtG.

Many cards that have not been changed for a long time probably deserve a slight buff.

The same card costing different amounts in different elements isn't power creep; a card in a different element can't be strictly superior or inferior to another  That reflects how 'natural' it is for certain elements to do something.  Life has cheaper creatures, therefore horned frog is cheaper than blue crawler, for instance, even though both are 3/3 creatures.  Make a water creature that costs 2 and is a 3/3, and that's power creep, because blue crawler will never be used again except possibly in decks with 6 of the cheaper one already.  Make a darkness creature that costs 4 and is a 3/3 creature, that's just a crap card, but it's not power creeped by anything currently in the game.

The same card costing different amounts in different elements isn't power creep unless the elements are balanced based on a 1 = 1 principle. Pillars are the basis of evaluating the value of an element's balance. Notice that each pillar is identically balanced.

[ItzSean]

Removing the Black Hole does not hurt the Disloyal mode. Increasing the Loyalty cost from quanta to mark will not strongly affect the Loyal mode. Nerfing the base effect would nerf both modes. Giving it an  activation cost (2-3) would nerf both.

Okay, that I can agree with. Even then though, it would only barely slow down the inevitable.

[OldTrees]

Removing the Black Hole does not hurt the Disloyal mode. Increasing the Loyalty cost from quanta to mark will not strongly affect the Loyal mode. Nerfing the base effect would nerf both modes. Giving it an  activation cost (2-3) would nerf both.

Okay, that I can agree with. Even then though, it would only barely slow down the inevitable.

There must exist a better nerf than giving it a activation cost. Please keep brainstorming.

[ItzSean]

Giving it an activation cost (2-3) would nerf both.

There must exist a better nerf than giving it a activation cost. Please keep brainstorming.

>Suggests a good starting point in nerfing SoFo
>Puts it down in his next post

OT: Why must there be? It'd be a great start and would slow down a lot of the decks that, in my opinion, have given SoFo a bad name. I'm just going to be honest here. Yeah it's a OP card but it's not truely that bad. It's the fact that people abuse it  to 'splash PC' in any element that made me hate it and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. 'You know what this monowater rush needs? What? Uh.. Squids? A few Crawlers? Nope! Then uh.. What else? SoFos of course! It'll be perfect!'

[OldTrees]

Giving it an activation cost (2-3) would nerf both.

There must exist a better nerf than giving it a activation cost. Please keep brainstorming.

>Suggests a good starting point in nerfing SoFo
>Puts it down in his next post

OT: Why must there be? It'd be a great start and would slow down a lot of the decks that, in my opinion, have given SoFo a bad name. I'm just going to be honest here. Yeah it's a OP card but it's not truely that bad. It's the fact that people abuse it  to 'splash PC' in any element that made me hate it and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. 'You know what this monowater rush needs? What? Uh.. Squids? A few Crawlers? Nope! Then uh.. What else? SoFos of course! It'll be perfect!'

My suggestion raises the total  cost far beyond where is meant to go.  is meant to be usable in rainbow or mono (though at a higher effective cost). As the amount of  increases the advantage rainbow decks have increases until it becomes a forced combo with Nova or Quantum Pillar.

So my suggestion does some significant patchwork. However it remains an incomplete patch relative to the average quality of EtG.

[DarkBaron12390]

Guys... the perfect nerf has already been given on page 20 by a very intelligent user named DarkBaron12390 who has garnered much support over his idea.

[rosutosefi]

Guys... the perfect nerf has already been given on page 20 by a very intelligent user named DarkBaron12390 who has garnered much support over his idea.

I lol'd. Accretion count increase and instant BH cast? What?

The real problem is that shards are other.

And that's why I do not like the simple "don't do this instead" nerfs because it will only make it useless in monos and balanced with Nova, which already looks like a forced combo. Remember that shards were supposed to provide what was lacking in other elements, and we have  lining up for that much-needed PC.

[FIQ]

As the card is still OP and a perfect solution isn't found after 24 pages of brainstorming, doesn't it seem like anything can be done at all? Maybe reworking it from scratch is a better idea?

[DarkBaron12390]

Guys... the perfect nerf has already been given on page 20 by a very intelligent user named DarkBaron12390 who has garnered much support over his idea.

I lol'd. Accretion count increase and instant BH cast? What?

Yeah, the problem is the user gets both PC and quanta control with a black hole. There is no downside. My idea is follows
•Starts at 0/1
•HP increase remains the same, +15.
•BH when HP > 45 (iirc the post had a typo with 50, so no PC increase)
•Black hole activates immediately on both players.
•If your mark is gravity, then it activates on only the opponent.

This decimates the rainbow abuse of SoF, mainly.

[furballdn]

Rainbow users pack sanctuary. Instant free black hole.

Derp.

PSN mark bows?

[RRQJ]

sanctuary doesn't protect your quanta on your turn, so no free black hole.

But I do question how annoying the extra black hole is.  I have always found the PC part more annoying since the opponent can just destroy your pillars.  All that solution above does is force the opponent to only use the effect twice, unless the situation calls for another use and the benefit outweighs the consequences.  It's a nerf, but I really don't think it'll make enough of a difference, especially if those rainbow decks are packing 4-6 SoFos.

[OldTrees]

Guys... the perfect nerf has already been given on page 20 by a very intelligent user named DarkBaron12390 who has garnered much support over his idea.

I lol'd. Accretion count increase and instant BH cast? What?

Yeah, the problem is the user gets both PC and quanta control with a black hole. There is no downside. My idea is follows
•Starts at 0/1
•HP increase remains the same, +15.
•BH when HP > 45 (iirc the post had a typo with 50, so no PC increase)
•Black hole activates immediately on both players.
•If your mark is gravity, then it activates on only the opponent.

This decimates the rainbow abuse of SoF, mainly.

How would this fix the  Nova bows?
It does not. In fact it buffs them by freeing them from the  required to cast BH.

It does nerf non Nova bows from 3 PC down to 2 PC.