Shield | Tower Shield

[BluePriest]

People shouldnt hate on other. Their requirement is just quanta. Not  or  . Just Quanta. Look at it a different way. If you consider Other to be an element that relies on no set source of power, then how is it any different than splashing some earth and using a diamond shield?

[ddevans96]

As much as I love using this shield, I agree that it kind of does take away from the essence of individual elements. That's why I like playing Yugioh so much, is because there's no reliance on generic cards. But this does not affect the game's thematics nearly as much as people are thinking.

Most of the other elemental shields have something that defines it as a shield. Water's shield freezes creature, Death's shields feed off of death, Light's shields relies on quanta. Even Earth's shield uses the element's defensive theme for extra damage reduction. This has nothing, just basic damage reduction.

[Kael Hate]

As much as I love using this shield, I agree that it kind of does take away from the essence of individual elements. That's why I like playing Yugioh so much, is because there's no reliance on generic cards. But this does not affect the game's thematics nearly as much as people are thinking.

Most of the other elemental shields have something that defines it as a shield. Water's shield freezes creature, Death's shields feed off of death, Light's shields relies on quanta. Even Earth's shield uses the element's defensive theme for extra damage reduction. This has nothing, just basic damage reduction.

In Yugioh, all cards are generic. No card ever needs to be in element there so its a shocking example. Everyone plays Pot o Greed and Change of Heart because they are the best cards in the game.

As for this shield, it takes nothing away from any element. The only remaining vanilla shield is Titanium/Diamond and its a whole extra protection level offered by nothing else.

The card is good as is.

[Sir Valimont]

There are plenty of examples of deck types that will change because of Tower Shield.

Mono Life Rush is supposed to be vulnerable because it has no defense besides some healing and Jade Shield is too expensive. A cheap Tower Shield would alter that.

Mono Entropy is supposed to be defenseless. And that's extremely relevant in a context like War. Tower Shield would alter that.

Death decks are supposed to be defenseless against creature spam (the weakness of Bone Wall). A cheap 2-protection shield like Tower Shield would alter that.

There are many other examples as well.

Basically we are talking about a context in which the ability to block serious damage now belongs to all elements instead of just a few. It is silly to look at decks that were built before that was possible and say "see, decks from before don't use damage-blocking." Well that's because the option didn't exist before. Maybe in general "stronger" decks don't rely on damage-blocking so much as other shield effects. Well that's a different argument. Just because something is not popular does not mean it should become unbalanced. Further, talking about the "best" decks in the deck archives is mostly relevant for senior players with access to all cards and many upgrades. It is nonetheless quite important to the health of the game for newbie-concerns to fall under the same elemental balance that stronger card combinations do, so they should not be overlooked merely because they are underrepresented in the deck archive.

I don't believe anyone here considers this update to pose a major threat to game balance. That's far from the point. I would feel the same way if a 1-cost creature with stats 1/2 were invented for every element. It would barely affect game balance at all but it would take from the unique identity of Earth.

[ZephyrPhantom]

There are plenty of examples of deck types that will change because of Tower Shield.

Mono Life Rush is supposed to be vulnerable because it has no defense besides some healing and Jade Shield is too expensive. A cheap Tower Shield would alter that.

Mono Entropy is supposed to be defenseless. And that's extremely relevant in a context like War. Tower Shield would alter that.

Death decks are supposed to be defenseless against creature spam (the weakness of Bone Wall). A cheap 2-protection shield like Tower Shield would alter that.

To all of these situations : the shield's still pretty expensive for a mono, and you'd get better results from using the mono shield(Life gets CC or Anti-PC, and Entropy should be able to get enough quanta to use dissipation shield unupped).  Got a problem with Bone Wall? Use Skull Buckler.

I don't believe anyone here considers this update to pose a major threat to game balance. That's far from the point. I would feel the same way if a 1-cost creature with stats 1/2 were invented for every element. It would barely affect game balance at all but it would take from the unique identity of Earth.

And... how does this defeat the point of "unique identity"? Every element had a shield to start with, so what's different?  Titanium Shield is still pretty unique for being the only card that can steadily block 3 damage.  Also, when comparing all the shields unupped, it's worth nothing it's the only unupped shield that provides 2 defense.  Please provide a valid example of how this ruins uniqueness.

[BluePriest]

ya know... I bet when Zanz introduced this card, he was thinking, "Here is a nice and harmless vanilla card I can create. *puts in trainer* Holy crap, look at all the ranting!"

[Higurashi]

Haha. He's very used to it by now. A boisterous community is one that cares.

[jmizzle7]

ya know... I bet when Zanz introduced this card, he was thinking, "Here is a nice and harmless vanilla card I can create. *puts in trainer* Holy crap, look at all the ranting!"

Any creative and/or entrepreneurial person knows that their creations or ideas will not be accepted by all.

[Boingo]

ya know... I bet when Zanz introduced this card, he was thinking, "Here is a nice and harmless vanilla card I can create. *puts in trainer* Holy crap, look at all the ranting!"

Haha. He's very used to it by now. A boisterous community is one that cares.

Sometimes boisterous is a sign of caring.  Sometimes it signals a need to get out more for crying out loud.

[Higurashi]

For individuals, sure. A community is more akin to an ant colony. Except that people tag along on other's opinions a lot more.. not that I know what ants think.

[Sir Valimont]

For individuals, sure. A community is more akin to an ant colony. Except that people tag along on other's opinions a lot more.. not that I know what ants think.

My aunts prefer pinochle.

[EvaRia]

For individuals, sure. A community is more akin to an ant colony. Except that people tag along on other's opinions a lot more.. not that I know what ants think.

My aunts prefer pinochle.

Umm, sorry... Off-Topic and random much?

I do agree that the outcry over this card is a little unjustified though. It's not a big deal, and we all know it.