Giving more elements permanent control, eh? Nice. Why not
next? ![Tongue :P](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/tongue.gif)
I agree. Aether desperately needs something, anything really. So many indirect nerfs to aether lately, it hurts. Only Tower shield will likely have any place in an aether deck. Cards like mitosis and overdrive are almost totally unusable by aether. Shockwave is now as good as lightning since, for the same cost, does 1 less direct damage but can also target opponent directly, destroy frozen weapons and insta-kill frozen creatures. Yikes. Skull buckler is horrible news for immortals/phase dragons given their high price and inability to multiply them. (I did not forget about Silence--it's interesting, but overall pretty ho-hum.)
Skull buckler is almost completely useless against aether generally, but particularly against the dragons. It has a 1/12 chance of turning a phase dragon into a skeleton. That's practically insignificant. The reduced damage actually counts for more. It counts for something (not much) against immortals, but I'd hate this shield against aether generally without a lot of luck.
"Almost completely useless" is a pretty strong claim unless you're going to apply it to every shield that reduces 1 damage or less. Nearly every other element will have the chance to do something with its skeleton (rewind, devour, bless, chaos power, mutate, adrenaline, cremate, luciferin, gravity force, momentum, basilisk blood, drain life, liquid shadow, or some combination of these) while aether will either:
A) not be able to do anything (if they're untargetable)
B) PU a skellie from a phase spider for 7
![Aether :aether](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/../../../images/Misc/aether18x18.png)
but get no additional damage (since Buckler blocks the 1 damage a skellie provides,) or
C) fractal skellies that it cannot play (no death quanta) or would not play since, again, they do no additional damage.
# of attacks before "cumulative" chance of survival <50%Spark: 1 (2 damage for no cost)
Phase spider: 3 (3 damage/turn for 3
![Aether :aether](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/../../../images/Misc/aether18x18.png)
)
Immortal: 4 (3 damage/turn for 6
![Aether :aether](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/../../../images/Misc/aether18x18.png)
)
Phase dragon: 8 (7 damage/turn for 13
![Aether :aether](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/../../../images/Misc/aether18x18.png)
)