Card Usage Statistics

[jmizzle7]

No, quanta pillars are not specifically better than normal pillars, because they generate 3 RANDOM quanta.

Yea i understand that. But its still 3 quanta regardless.

 
beats
 
lol.

Not in mono-Aether.

[Xinef]

I don't know why so many people want to balance things by bringing down the successful rainbows... I think balancing should be done by improving the other ones, so that mono, duo, trio and rainbow decks can be equally successful, not equally useless.

If we keep nerfing rainbows instead of improving other decks, there will be no decks capable of even 40% wins against FG. People trying to beat false gods for the first time, with a partially upgraded deck and still little experience in this kind of challenge will have a winning percentage of 5%-10% I guess, or even less, so I wouldn't be surprised if many people simply stopped playing Elements when they see they have to grind for weeks and then lose a hundred times against FG to finally reach a point when fighting FG is more rewarding than draining electrum.

On the other hand you should consider that most FG are duo/trio, so if we add more cards that are good in mono/duo/trio, but poor in rainbows, then FG will become stronger (they will be using better cards and will have better synergies).
This would in fact nerf rainbows a lot - FG become stronger, rainbows stay the same = rainbows are no longer the best against FG

And that idea to make duo-pillars and trio-pillars... I would love that implemented, but there is one HUGE problem... try calculating how many different pillars would be needed, and you will see the point. I'll just remind you there are 144 half-bloods for a reason... and if there were one-third-bloods there would be 1728 of them
In MtG it is possible, because there are 5 colors, so 25 duo combinations... and as far as I remember, they considered that number too big and made only 5 duo-lands (one for each pair of neighboring colors) and 5 trio-lands (for each three colors that are formed by one color and his 2 neighbors).*

In Elements, I guess even that solution would not work, and anyway I don't like the idea of making Elements like MtG.

And if you suggest making only duo or trio pillars for some possible combinations, but leave other combinations without one, I guess that would be unfair.

So does anyone have an idea how to solve that problem?

*(Note to people who don't know MtG:)
duo-lands offer you a choice of either one mana of their first color, or one mana of the second color each turn, not 2 at once
and to keep them balanced they also have the disadvantage that you cannot use them the first turn you play them, and can have only 4 of each kind in the deck (they are not basic lands)
trio-lands offer a choice between three colors, and their disadvantage is that to play one you have to remove one non-trio land you own from play (back to your hand, but in MtG you can play only 1 land each turn, so in fact it gives you a total mana disadventage when compared to your opponent), so you need non-trio lands in your deck anyway, and also a limit of 4 of each kind.

[xdude]

No, quanta pillars are not specifically better than normal pillars, because they generate 3 RANDOM quanta.

Yea i understand that. But its still 3 quanta regardless.

 
beats
 
lol.

  doesn't beat
 
When you're playing mono 

[Wisemage]

I dont think the answer is to nerf those cards.  The cards are popular because they are staples in a rainbow deck, which is the only deck that can beat ALL the gods.  So the answer is to buff Mono and Duo decks, not nerf quantum pillars and rainbow decks.  If you nerf rainbow then making money will get even harder than it already is (as of now, the only reasonable way to upgrade any number of cards is to win cards from Fake Gods)

[Chemist]

[...]And that idea to make duo-pillars and trio-pillars... I would love that implemented, but there is one HUGE problem... try calculating how many different pillars would be needed, and you will see the point. I'll just remind you there are 144 half-bloods for a reason... and if there were one-third-bloods there would be 1728 of them
In MtG it is possible, because there are 5 colors, so 25 duo combinations... and as far as I remember, they considered that number too big and made only 5 duo-lands (one for each pair of neighboring colors) and 5 trio-lands (for each three colors that are formed by one color and his 2 neighbors).*

In Elements, I guess even that solution would not work, and anyway I don't like the idea of making Elements like MtG.

And if you suggest making only duo or trio pillars for some possible combinations, but leave other combinations without one, I guess that would be unfair.

So does anyone have an idea how to solve that problem?[...]

Yes, you only need to make 12 new pillar types. Here's my example: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,3363.0.html

[Bim]

I agree with the above posters that nerfing rainbow is not the answer. The fact that the best cards in the only reasonable deck to farm FGs are popular should not be a surprise to anyone. If you cripple rainbows, you cripple your game. Personally, I will stop playing the game if the only reasonable way to make money is via AI3 x a million.

The correct answer is to buff up mono/duo/trio decks via new cards that work better in them. If mono/duo/trio decks can reasonably beat FGS, voila, they will be more popular.

[Robsta43]

I have to agree the popularity of rainbow decks are due to them being more powerful then others and the only one that can beet FG.  Some ideas I had to balance this were:

duo pillars -> it seems like a popular idea but one I had on my own.

Information on the next false god -> similar to the oracle, but maybe information on one false god a day isn't enough for many farmers.  Perhaps the ability to buy the name of the next false god would allow you to use the mono deck that can beet it, however changing mark for 100 electrum could easily make this impossible to be profitable.

More cards that are anti-rainbow -> While mono decks have to deal with pests, discord and reverse time(in combination with mutation or fate eggs this will hurt a mono deck alot more then a rainbow), there is only one counter to rainbow decks now, black holes... this is only for gravity and the only way to use it enough to kill a rainbow deck is the very rare nymph card. 
Some ideas:
a card that deals 1 damage to your opponent for every 10 quanta he/she generates.
a card that doubles the cost of each card played and ability used for your opponent if it is not the element of his mark.  (this would also hurt duo decks alot... perhaps it could be if she doesn't have a pillar of that element on the field -> quanta pillars count only for cards that cost quanta from any element)
a card that gains has an ability that activates with your opponent's quanta.  example: cost 2 opponent's water to gain +2/+2. 

[Bim]

You are missing the point. We don't need more anti-rainbow cards. The problem is not that rainbow is too powerful but that non-rainbow is not powerful enough. The goal should be to bolster mono/duo/trio decks, hopefully to the point where they could reasonably tackle FGs. Doing this without further powering up rainbows will be difficult, but probably not impossible.

[Baily18]

The Problem with that is that a rainbow can use any card a Mono/Duo/Trio can use.

[Chemist]

The Problem with that is that a rainbow can use any card a Mono/Duo/Trio can use.

But they wouldn't have enough quana to make the synergies within a single element work.

[Xinef]

In fact rainbows are not even more powerful than mono/duo/trio, they are just more universal.
There are two proofs to that statement - first, if you know which false god you are about to face and try to design the best duo deck to deal with him, it will prove better than the best rainbow designed against him. This is because rainbows are too random and slow to start up (except the fast pilarless rainbows, but they are for AI3/AI4/PvP). A mono/duo deck designed against a false god would probably have both higher win percentage and would be faster than a rainbow designed against him.

The second proof is that top50 is in fact easy to grind, and at least I find fully upped rainbows easier to defeat than fully upped rush decks... but maybe this is due to AI unable to play rainbow effectively...

In fact mono/duo decks (and fast rainbows, but these don't even use quantum pillars, nor most of the popular cards) often win against anti-FG rainbows. The only reason they are less popular than rainbow is that they are less universal. There are gods that will crush them no matter what, even if they deal with other FG better than a rainbow.

Anyway, one comment about that suggestion Robsta43 made for "a card that doubles the cost of each card played and ability used for your opponent if it is not the element of his mark"
This would be very overpowered... make it work on BOTH you and your opponent, and it would be more reasonable, though still too powerful if you ask me. Why? Because you can design a deck that suffers very little or no at all from the effect, while abusing the effect on the opponent (eg. use a discord, and some rewinds and/or quicksands (spells cheap, so you could play them even with doubled cost). If you play against mono, you crush him with discord and earthquakes. If you play against duo/trio with some pillars the same as his mark, you EQ these pillars, so he cannot play spells of that element, and all the other cost him twice and can still be rewinded if played. Against rainbows it would be a instant win card... so I guess it would be OP even if affecting both players.

[Essence]

Can we get a thread split between the statistics talk, the rainbow-deck talk, and the philosophy-of-card-balance talk?