[Official] Shard of Patience | Shard of Patience

[Cheesy111]

The problem is that this single card acts as a stallbreaker in and of itself.  Add to that the fact that the strongest stalling elements ( ) have no PC except for BE (not really usable in an entropy stall that would usually pack Pandemonium) and its extremely cheap cost and you have a single card that, when added to any creature deck, takes out a large swath of opposing decks.  It's also very powerful when combined with Burrow, and SoP's interaction with Shrieker is a significant cause (though by no means the major cause) of the overpoweredness of the SoP + SoFo + Purify grabbow.  I would rather that the card be redesigned so that it doesn't act as such a powerful stallbreaker.  By the by, it also slightly nerfs delaying and freezing CC by allowing some benefit to come from those creatures being unable to attack anyways, and it buffs Sundial for the same reason.

[rosutosefi]

And one more thing: it's strong enough that it overshadows nightfall in death, knowing that nightfall is already element-specific and has a higher, non-random cost.

[Higurashi]

Soap isn't the problem. Lack of in-element PC is.

[rosutosefi]

Soap isn't the problem. Lack of in-element PC is.

Still, nightfall. All elements just got a better nightfall.

[supertoxicwaste]

its not really better than nightfall at all. Outside of water, it does +1/+0 and loses a turn of attacking, so after one turn of essentially stasis, it still does less than what nightfall does immediately.

[rickerd]

It's good as it is,
cos otherwise, if this card wouldn't exist, people would go complain about stalling cards being too strong

Not sure about if each element needs PC,  now elements have their positives and negatives
And if all elements need to have PC, they all should need CC too, and they all should need healing too.....
And I quess then this game would be quite boring 

[furballdn]

I really don't see why you think this is overpowered. It gains 1 attack per turn but gets delayed, that's worse than the poisonous ability. If it gains 2 attack per turn and gets delayed, that's worse than ablaze/growth since it gets delayed a turn. You can very likely outrush SoP decks.

[dragonsdemesne]

Shard of Patience does singlehandedly beat some decks, but I'm still not sure it needs nerfing.  It was definitely underpowered in its original form, but I still don't see it used all that often.  It's also countered by shard of focus, and you can put that in any deck you want.

Admittedly, certain deck archetypes are going to lose to shard of patience.  Shard of sacrifice based decks like poison dial are in big trouble, because you can just hold back on attacking until you can hit them hard enough all at once that they can no longer play SoSa, and then they just die the next turn.  You can do the same against Miracles, feral bonds, and that sort of thing, just build up damage until they can't deal with it anymore.  (assuming they haven't killed you in the meantime in all those cases and don't have an answer to shard of patience)

If this card were to be nerfed, here are some possibilities on how to do it:
-have a time limit to how long this card can be on the field, 3 turns or whatever
-have a number of charges on this card, like 10 or 20, and once it has buffed creatures that many times, it is destroyed
-have it be infinite turns duration (until you sac it or it's destroyed) but have it give +1/-1 instead of +1/+0, thus giving it an indirect time limit as to how long it can be in play (or require angels, creature buffs, or whatever to keep your creatures going longer)  This would still keep the card strong for water.  It would also indirectly help gravity, since their creatures could survive almost indefinitely as well
-have it not apply to burrowed/immaterial creatures.  this has some precedence already, because things like sky blitz don't work on burrowed/immaterial creatures,  because area spells like firestorm or pandemonium (or sky blitz) are considered to 'target' creatures in the code (even though this is counterintuitive, it is how it works in elements)

[rosutosefi]

I really don't see why you think this is overpowered. It gains 1 attack per turn but gets delayed, that's worse than the poisonous ability. If it gains 2 attack per turn and gets delayed, that's worse than ablaze/growth since it gets delayed a turn. You can very likely outrush SoP decks.

You're giving ablaze to a shrieker or growth to a physalia, no upkeep, using a 1-cost card. That's silly.

Still, I don't see any "This does not overshadow Nightfall" comment.

And you're ignoring Cheesy's point:
It's a single card that you can add to ANY creature deck to instantly make it beat stalls.

[furballdn]

I really don't see why you think this is overpowered. It gains 1 attack per turn but gets delayed, that's worse than the poisonous ability. If it gains 2 attack per turn and gets delayed, that's worse than ablaze/growth since it gets delayed a turn. You can very likely outrush SoP decks.

You're giving ablaze to a shrieker or growth to a physalia, no upkeep, using a 1-cost card. That's silly.

Still, I don't see any "This does not overshadow Nightfall" comment.

And you're ignoring Cheesy's point:
It's a single card that you can add to ANY creature deck to instantly make it beat stalls.

I'd need to keep my shrieker delayed for 1 turn, I now need at least 8-9 turns to catch up on damage done. If I delay it for 2 turns, I need 10 turns to catch up on damage. As a card by itself, SoP is actually quite weak.

The only advantage it has is that, like you said, beats stalls, but I doubt ANY creature deck would have this. The only decks that would really have this are either stalls themselves or breaks meant to break through stalls. I highly doubt you'll see a shrieker rush packing these just because it wants to defeat stalls.

[Laxadarap]

I really don't see why you think this is overpowered. It gains 1 attack per turn but gets delayed, that's worse than the poisonous ability. If it gains 2 attack per turn and gets delayed, that's worse than ablaze/growth since it gets delayed a turn. You can very likely outrush SoP decks.

You're giving ablaze to a shrieker or growth to a physalia, no upkeep, using a 1-cost card. That's silly.

Still, I don't see any "This does not overshadow Nightfall" comment.

And you're ignoring Cheesy's point:
It's a single card that you can add to ANY creature deck to instantly make it beat stalls.

Ok lets compare a lava destroyer to a shreiker with "growth", assuming you have an earth mark for the golem (basically makes it free) Golem obviously outdoes it.  Shreiker + SOP is 9 quanta, 9 quanta with a golem would be 4 growths.  Shriekers max damage in 4 turns is actually less if you include SoP, and destroyer ties it at that point.  SoP actually works better with smaller creatures, its better for massive amounts of cards, like comboing with fractal or mitosis, which also takes a lot of quanta.  Ok so take photons, they are free attackers.  Fractal nets about 6 or 7 cards on average, so lets say you have 8 rol on the field.  That is 9 quanta (same as the shrieker).  Take 4 turns again, The lava golem is at 40 damage, while RoL's max damage is 48.  Not counting the fact that mass CC will destroy it, the golem will have a nice healthy 11 HP its not really that overpowered.  Take an upped eclipse and hyppothetically say that RoL's were darkness type.  For only an extra 3 quanta, These 8 Rol's will do 8X3X4=96 damage.  Twice as much.  3 quanta is definietly worth 48 damage.  SoP is only really worth it compared to growh in special occasions, like chrysoras.  It isn't fully effective unless its being used on really low attack creatures.

[rosutosefi]

The only advantage it has is that, like you said, beats stalls, but I doubt ANY creature deck would have this. The only decks that would really have this are either stalls themselves or breaks meant to break through stalls. I highly doubt you'll see a shrieker rush packing these just because it wants to defeat stalls.

In the BL metagame, yes, I use it. I think cheesy uses it. It's strong enough to beat stalls.

Ok lets compare a lava destroyer to a shreiker with "growth", assuming you have an earth mark for the golem (basically makes it free) Golem obviously outdoes it.  Shreiker + SOP is 9 quanta, 9 quanta with a golem would be 4 growths.  Shriekers max damage in 4 turns is actually less if you include SoP, and destroyer ties it at that point.  SoP actually works better with smaller creatures, its better for massive amounts of cards, like comboing with fractal or mitosis, which also takes a lot of quanta.  Ok so take photons, they are free attackers.  Fractal nets about 6 or 7 cards on average, so lets say you have 8 rol on the field.  That is 9 quanta (same as the shrieker).  Take 4 turns again, The lava golem is at 40 damage, while RoL's max damage is 48.  Not counting the fact that mass CC will destroy it, the golem will have a nice healthy 11 HP its not really that overpowered.  Take an upped eclipse and hyppothetically say that RoL's were darkness type.  For only an extra 3 quanta, These 8 Rol's will do 8X3X4=96 damage.  Twice as much.  3 quanta is definietly worth 48 damage.  SoP is only really worth it compared to growh in special occasions, like chrysoras.  It isn't fully effective unless its being used on really low attack creatures.

Of course you don't use it when you don't need to. But if the opponent does any stalling, whether it's dims or sundials or freeze or SoSac or BBlood, it gains its power. This does not mean it's useless if you're not facing those, too. Low attack creatures? Vampires, dolls, devourers, parasites and even nymphs. Darkness is one of the elements that has the most low-attack creatures.