Shard of Wisdom can be used outside of Aether for a similar purpose as Blessing is used outside of Light. It is balanced (relative to Blessing) when used for this purpose. The same holds true when used for non Immaterial Aether creatures (relative to Blessed Light creatures).
Indeed apparently I overlooked the circumstance, that the 4Ap bonus can be granted to regular creeps.. Sorry for that.
Nevertheless in the course of the few months I have been playing elements I never came across a deck which uses SoW outside the issue I described in my previous post (standard monoaether). Unless u want to splash some other aether cards very badly, I dont see the point using this card outside of monoaether for its Ap boost,since there are much better options within the other elements. As a consequence, while theoretically anything is possible in reality not the card text, but the current metagame determines if a card is reserved for a monoelement or not. (Honestly I believe it may work in a Divine glory,animatewep, sundial deck although i have never met that.) So well ur theory (which is not wrong) and my experience facing this shard (which I have a strong feeling corresponds with the reality) drift away.
Different control decks are situationally stronger or weaker than the other. Usually the situationally weaker control deck changes their in-match strategy in order to equalize the battle. A common change is to rush to victory before the situationally stronger control deck has the time (stronger control takes longer) to setup.
Sorry but I think this is simply wrong. Outrushing a 200hp aether deck with countless shields (I have itemcontrol but even despite that) is rather difficult.
Most monoaether arena decks(silver league+) have a great life and even greater ressource advantage which allows them to build up 21+ damage very quickly and continue spamming shields. They are not "a situationally stronger control deck", where outrush may be an option, but rather direct damage ones, whose whole setup consists of 2 cards. For a triplled marked monoaether with tons of pillars, its not a difficult task to get them out asap. And afterwards he just needs to spamm shards in order to cummulate damage.
Wisdom was made given the existence of Reflection. Problems created by Reflection are not problems created by Wisdom.
Sorry this was not what I wanted to emphasize. Lets put it that way : due to the overall superiority of the other shields, which prove themselves useful outside facing Shard of wisdom, the current 2 shields possessing reflection arent worth much, despite immaterial ability.
All the same which deck I played, creature spamm, bigger creeps etc I completely ignored them and they didnt even slightly influence the outcome. I wasnt refering to any kind of problems created by reflection. I just tried to point out that the current counters for Shard of wisdom are very marginal, not viable, and need a general revision.
My suggestion: (just a thought) -make one of them counter momentum in addition to reflection and absorb
2 damage instead of 1 for a slightly higher cost (light seems like a heal+counter element anyways)
-give the other one some useful ability instead of reflection
(for example life gain from damage for the green shield)
This will make both cards viable and versatile without the need for Shard of wisdom. just saying.