Elements 1.29

[Captain Scibra]

Just throwing a quick bug out there, but AI continues to prefer using Rewinds on the Skeleton that is next in the order that the field is filled with creatures, rather than weighing which one was a better target for the Undead effect.  In other words, it doesn't take into account the one it wants to target has a skill, or that another one might have antimatter or some other defect that can be removed when the Undead skill is triggered.

[Rastafla]

Regarding new colors.

Entropy got lighter and lost edge. If this is bad or not depends on your viewpoint on entropy. Clashes horribly with the art of pillars and pendulums but instead meshes very well if not better to several of the others card. Good improvement overall.

Death is now metallic instead of bone/ivory. No clash in colors. Just change no improvement.

Earth got earthy, real perfect coloration and its no longer possible to mistake time and earth cards. Instead you mistake earth and gravity but to a lesser degree than how much you switched earth and time. Too bad the light coloration of all earth cards clashes with the border except Steel Golem to varying degrees, will be fixed with new specific card art as time passes. Medium-Good improvement.

Life got poison green which shines artificial and dead. The vibrant and alive leaf pattern removed. The only bad change and I mean BAD.

Darkness became gray and lost most of its menace and edge. Works I guess. The color clashes with a few cards and blends with a few. Just change and no improvement.

One more update:
Fixed a few bugs with SoR
New Darkness background
Cap increased to 75 for more testing
AI learned how to use adrenaline and mitosis on multiple targets

With this the change to darkness card borders from bleak gray into consuming darkness the new assessment of darkness is "Dangerous and menacing" superb coloring at par with the earth change.

Earth is superb (upped earth and upped gravity is too close though)
Darkness is superb
Entropy is good
Death is neither good nor bad
Life is dead, bad bad bad bad bad

   

[Rutarete]

With this the change to darkness card borders from bleak gray into consuming darkness the new assessment of darkness is "Dangerous and menacing" superb coloring at par with the earth change.

Earth is superb (upped earth and upped gravity is too close though)
Darkness is superb
Entropy is good
Death is neither good nor bad
Life is dead, bad bad bad bad bad

Couldn't agree with you more.

[artimies7]

I think that you just need to flip the Life BG sideways and add some more lines and contrast.

[furballdn]

new colors! death, air, light, and entropy look a bit weird compared to the others. Darkness looks pretty awesome. So does earth, but life looks a little bit odd.

[Post]

I've tried so many snova variations of dune and death scorps, I just gave up on the idea.

Your argument is illogical.  Everthing you just said can be applied to momentum, with better and more consistent results.  If fact, you're basically proving my point, that dune scorpion already works with existing cards and that SoP brings nothing new, and thus, does not overpower dune scorpion.

Exactly what he said.

Not only is momentum better, since you only need 1 dune scorp and only need to attack once with it for the effect, you only need a simple buff.  Gravity mark and momentum works so well.  Plus with eternity to send their creatures back and they replay them to boost the poison further.  Dune scorps decks that don't use gravity towers will always have to wait til the 2nd turn to attack.  So, with SoPa, they would also have to wait for the 2nd turn, but at least with momentum, you can bypass shields.

Oh, and dunescorp decks don't do that well against other players anyway.  It's too slow to get going, unless you play against a fractal deck.  Against fgs they are awesome because they draw 2 cards per turn.

~sigh~

Tired of going back and forth between this.

If you want to do a direct comparison between Dune/SoP to Dune/Momentum, of course momentum is better! However, as you are doing this, you are overlooking the tremendous differences during the deckbuilding and quanta accumulation processes. The impact of adding a quanta type during the deck building process is far greater than the casting process that you want to focus on. The consistency with which a Dune/SoP can get out is far greater than any other combination. The shields you keep wanting to introduce are by no means likely that early in the game.

There are plenty of situations in which one will be better than the other. What I'm saying is that the utility of Dune/SoP is now wide open and, when combined with the speed and consistency with which it can be utilized, it creates imbalance. On top of that, this will be the case for many other cards due to it being a generic quanta mass buff card.

@Post
Using your rough deck outline I play tested it against a Momentum variant (-5 SoP, +5 Momentum, Mark of Gravity instead of Time)

SoP + Dune Scorpion inflicts neurotoxin turn 2 for 3 + 1 (4 towers)
Momentum + Dune Scorpion (using Mark of Gravity) inflicts neurotoxin turn 2 for 3 + 1 (2 towers + 1  mark)

Momentum Dune Scorpions is more likely to inflict neurotoxin on turn 2 because it requires only 2 towers rather than 4. It does come with side effects (+1hp, ignore shields, -1 per turn, effects of Momentum/SoP ing the 2nd scorpion)

This is another result of a direct comparison that doesn't take into account the metagame. See my response above.


Anyway, that's my last attempt to bring to light this issue. I'll let people continue to do the direct comparisons with buff cards, which I'm sure will follow.

The fact is, a generic quanta mass buff in a game with this few cards makes no sense, and will create a lot of challenges when designing and balancing cards in the future.

[OldTrees]

@Post
Dune SoP is definitely something to watch. I think that although SoP is directly buffing Dune Scorpion slightly over Momentum it does so at the cost of consistent speed. The big question is whether the impact from the freed Mark will have too large of an impact.

Scorpions will be the test for if SoP's generic cost will be a design problem for 0 atk creatures because other 0 atk creatures would need to be balanced to the Scorpions standard anyways.

[Xenocidius]

Were the new backgrounds linked somewhere in this thread (and found outside of the trainer)?  I thought I remembered seeing it but couldn't find it.  I just wanted to visualize old vs. new.  Also, I am lazy.

New backgrounds are in the original post (except for new new Darkness).

[furballdn]

Oh! Just noticed HP is now displayed as X/X. Just found that pretty cool.

[bored_ninja777]

im not fan of the new SOR.. use a time ability twice? big deal? 5 time creatures to use that with? scarab, pharoah, nymph, deja vu, and fate egg... or a possible mutated creature thats time with an ability... more or less nerfed it to useless for time imo. also the huge health loss for SOSac i think is too much now to use. 20-30 was acceptable but 40 is way too high.. near half your life to stop more often than not (early game) less than 40 damage.. better off just taking the damage and using healing methods as usual. 

[RRQJ]

I've tried so many snova variations of dune and death scorps, I just gave up on the idea.

Your argument is illogical.  Everthing you just said can be applied to momentum, with better and more consistent results.  If fact, you're basically proving my point, that dune scorpion already works with existing cards and that SoP brings nothing new, and thus, does not overpower dune scorpion.

Exactly what he said.

Not only is momentum better, since you only need 1 dune scorp and only need to attack once with it for the effect, you only need a simple buff.  Gravity mark and momentum works so well.  Plus with eternity to send their creatures back and they replay them to boost the poison further.  Dune scorps decks that don't use gravity towers will always have to wait til the 2nd turn to attack.  So, with SoPa, they would also have to wait for the 2nd turn, but at least with momentum, you can bypass shields.

Oh, and dunescorp decks don't do that well against other players anyway.  It's too slow to get going, unless you play against a fractal deck.  Against fgs they are awesome because they draw 2 cards per turn.

~sigh~

Tired of going back and forth between this.

If you want to do a direct comparison between Dune/SoP to Dune/Momentum, of course momentum is better! However, as you are doing this, you are overlooking the tremendous differences during the deckbuilding and quanta accumulation processes. The impact of adding a quanta type during the deck building process is far greater than the casting process that you want to focus on. The consistency with which a Dune/SoP can get out is far greater than any other combination. The shields you keep wanting to introduce are by no means likely that early in the game.

There are plenty of situations in which one will be better than the other. What I'm saying is that the utility of Dune/SoP is now wide open and, when combined with the speed and consistency with which it can be utilized, it creates imbalance. On top of that, this will be the case for many other cards due to it being a generic quanta mass buff card.

@Post
Using your rough deck outline I play tested it against a Momentum variant (-5 SoP, +5 Momentum, Mark of Gravity instead of Time)

SoP + Dune Scorpion inflicts neurotoxin turn 2 for 3 + 1 (4 towers)
Momentum + Dune Scorpion (using Mark of Gravity) inflicts neurotoxin turn 2 for 3 + 1 (2 towers + 1  mark)

Momentum Dune Scorpions is more likely to inflict neurotoxin on turn 2 because it requires only 2 towers rather than 4. It does come with side effects (+1hp, ignore shields, -1 per turn, effects of Momentum/SoP ing the 2nd scorpion)

This is another result of a direct comparison that doesn't take into account the metagame. See my response above.


Anyway, that's my last attempt to bring to light this issue. I'll let people continue to do the direct comparisons with buff cards, which I'm sure will follow.

The fact is, a generic quanta mass buff in a game with this few cards makes no sense, and will create a lot of challenges when designing and balancing cards in the future.

I've already said that momentum+dune is faster and more consistent than SoP+dune. And when I say that, I mean gather the appropriate quanta, play the cards, and attack successfully. In fact, in OldTrees' post that you yourself quoted, he says that you're more likely to hit the opponent with a momentum dune than an SoP dune by turn 2.  And that's primarily due to the fact that in order to hit the opponent with an SoP dune by turn 2, you need to play all the necessary cards on turn 1 (SoP's 1 turn delay).  OldTrees mentioned it, but I'll be more specific: that means you need 4 towers, a dune, and an SoP - 6 cards out of the 7/8 you'll start with.  And, you make the risk that the opponent won't lightning/fire bolt/something that does 3 damage.

Compare that to needing two towers, momentum, dune, and having a gravity mark among the starting 7/8 card hand + the card you draw for the second turn.  That's 4 cards out of 8/9.  And you don't need to worry about CC.  The only situation where SoP dune comes out ahead in this situation is if the opponent plays a silence.  But that's it.  And it doesn't count for much in the comparison.

So now, explain to me in what situation a SoP dune deck is better than momentum dune deck.  I'm emphasizing deck to cover the deckbuilding and quanta gathering process that you believe I ignored.

[OldTrees]

im not fan of the new SOR.. use a time ability twice? big deal? 5 time creatures to use that with? scarab, pharoah, nymph, deja vu, and fate egg... or a possible mutated creature thats time with an ability... more or less nerfed it to useless for time imo. also the huge health loss for SOSac i think is too much now to use. 20-30 was acceptable but 40 is way too high.. near half your life to stop more often than not (early game) less than 40 damage.. better off just taking the damage and using healing methods as usual.

Why would you be using SoS in the early game? SoS costs 40|32 hp and becomes efficient if your opponent fields 11|9 attack. If the opponent has not breached this threashold then it will take them a minimum of 6|9 turns to prevent you from using SoS. The 6th|9th turn is not early game in my opinion.