Probably one of the biggest examples of sloppy execution alongside
Shard of Focus, Shard of Sacrifice has been one of the most annoying cards in the game due to its splashability. While recently nerfed by the recent buff to
Purify, Purify is still a situational card at best that doesn't prevent SoSac from appearing in any deck ranging from a rush to a stall - even worse is that players wielding SoSac can immediately empty their hands if they have enough SoSacs to quickly stack on the timer, to the point where I've seen 6 to 10-turn SoSac fields in the Arena being deployed in the first few turns if succesful.
After a discussion with ETG chat, I'd like to propose the following nerf :
SoSac should require a 
creature to be sacrificed in order to trigger.Reasons for this effect:
- If you pay attention, you'll notice that some of the more adequately balanced shards fit decks that can be associated with their Elements - Divinity and Gratitude support healing stalls (a major theme in
/
) , Serendipity supports rainbows (which
excels in), Bravery fits aggression and rushing (one of
's traits), and so on. The effect of sacrificing a
creature is not only thematically fitting of the card but prevents SoSa from being splashed in decks that wield no creatures, forcing players to consider the worth of the creatures they sacrifice.
- The creature is specified as
to prevent players from splashing Photons in and simply waiting through a few extra cards. Given the presence of the ability to increase drawpower such as Electrum Hourglass or Arena Modification, it's possible that letting a SoSa user sacrifice any creature would simply weaken the splashability a very small amount instead of giving the considerable weight needed when using it in a deck. Splashing Skeletons also becomes an option, which is quite helpful for such an underused card.
- Sacrificing a creature make SoSa a two-card combo to operate successfully instead of an 'instant-play when you have 48 | 40> HP', which means players will have increased difficulty setting up for a combo while maintaining steady creature presence if the opponent wields CC. However it also provide inherent synergy with Death trigger cards like Graveyard, allowing you to benefit even if your 'sacrifices' were killed beforehand.
So what do you think? Feel free to give your feedback. I've also put up several variations of the proposed nerf on the poll due to the variety of opinions on it.
Special thanks to
ddevans96,
Laxadarap,
Higurashi,
Calindu,
mesaprotector,
Cheesy111 and the rest of ETG chat, for being involved in discussion. Credit to ddevans96 as well for a previous version of this suggestion and Higurashi for the concept of minimum cost sacrifice.
