Guest posts by Gaff

1

Card Ideas and Art / Re: E3CDC - Winds of Fate

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:52:09 pm »

And it cost 2, not 3..... (or did i miss something), make the cost 5, and the damage 1|0

I'm proposing raising it to 3 based on feedback. If you make it cost 5 or drop the damage to 1|0 then it become a specialist tool for preventing deckouts and I wanted it to be a generally useful card.

As a pure damage dealing mechanism it seems reasonably balanced, 4 damage for 3 quanta every turn is nowhere near as good as growth / ablaze / devour / etc but is a reasonable boost early on in a speed deck plus a good way of sinking quanta.

As a deck-out prevention mechanism it's better than eternity, but then like wisemage says many people would keep eternity anyhow since it brings more utility, cards are tight in 30 card anti-FG decks and I suspect in the end if you had eternity you wouldn't bring this card.

Currently there's only only one way to prevent deck-out (which I think is a bit lame) so we don't have comparison / discussion as to what a reasonable cost to prevent deckout should be. As it stands if you want to make a 30 card anti-FG deck then you have to pack eternity, which means you must be time or rainbow in order to power it. With this as an option you can be more flexible which should bring more variety to anti-FG decks which, in my opinion, would be a good thing.

2

Card Ideas and Art / Re: E3CDC - Dryad / Hamadryad

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:30:15 pm »

Much better, this is on much more level grounds with eternity, while your other too are just ridiculous.

Thanks. In all honesty this is probably a stronger idea that the other two . Plus the image fits well.

3

Card Ideas and Art / Re: E3CDC - Winds of Fate

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:24:20 pm »

So for 2 Air you get a permanent deck out card that can never be stopped (upgraded) AND it deals 4 damage per turn?

Thats ridiculously over powered.

I'm not convinced it's that unbalanced. I know it looks good but, but remember It costs you 2 air per turn since the creature has 0 hp (like a spark) so dies at the end of the turn.

Early in the game this is a fairly significant drain on your quanta - compare it to a minor phoenix or giant frog which cost 2 quanta but will continue to do damage 'for free' on the next turn. Later on in the game this might seem like a good deal, but again 4 damage per turn isn't that big and it costs you quanta to maintain it. Compare this to growth which does 2 damage per turn but accumulates every turn, by the time you've had 3 turns of growth you're doing more damage than this card does.

It is however better than eternity which could be a problem. Maybe if the cost of the upgraded version were increased to 3 it would be more balanced?

Here is a neat-o comparison table:

	Eternity	Winds of Fate
Cost per turn to prevent deckout	3	3 (proposed)
Damage per turn	4 (always)	4 (only if you pay the quanta)
Initial cost	5	0
Utility	Can rewind opponents cards	None
Vulnerable to	Destroy	None

Is Winds of Fate better? Probably. Is it rediculously overpowered? I wouldn't say so.

4

Card Ideas and Art / Re: E3CDC - Star Gazing

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:02:24 pm »

Hmm, on reflection yeah you're probably right. To be able to recycle a card and get quanta is overpowered. However sacrificing a card for quanta might be reasonable, after all most anti-FG decks aren't made with many spare cards in them, and for speed decks the quanta gain wouldn't generally be worth the loss of speed. Would it be better balanced that way?

(And yeah the name is mostly driven by the image which is driven by the competition, maybe card design is not my calling  )

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Card Ideas and Art / Re: E3CDC - Corrupted Soul/Corrupted Wraith

« on: May 03, 2010, 06:43:05 pm »

5 cost for 9 damage? Either up the cost or lower the attack.

you have to sac a creature to have it enter play. the cost of two physical cards, and the cost to put the previous card into play is included in the cost. 5 for 9 is completely reasonable in this scenario. i'm not going to nerf this card out of existence.

So basically this is a spell a bit like blessing that costs 5 and grants (up to) +9 / +4 and can only be played on creatures with >= 5 hp? It would be easier to comprehend if you rewrote it as a spell I think.

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Card Ideas and Art / E3CDC - Dryad / Hamadryad

« on: May 03, 2010, 06:15:39 pm »

NAME: Dryad ELEMENT: Life COST: 8 TYPE: Creature ABILITY: A copy of the target creature's card becomes the first card in your deck. ART BY: Provided by Contest IDEA BY: Gaff	NAME: Hamadryad ELEMENT: Life COST: 6 TYPE: Creature ABILITY: A copy of the target creature's card becomes the first card in your deck. ART BY: Provided by Contest IDEA BY: Gaff

Q: What theme did you choose and why?

A: Currently elements has only one way of preventing decking out, which is to use eternity to repeatedly reverse time a card. This means that a large number of false god decks need eternity and time quanta to fuel it. My aim here is to provide some more options for deck construction against false gods. I've tried to make the cards varied rather than just eternity clones with different colours.

Q: Does elements need to have more deckout prevention options?
A: Well I'm neutral on this, since anti-deckout play seems a bit cheesy and can get very dull. However it seems odd that there's only one element that can do it, it should either be several or none in my opinion. It's up to the designers but I've tried to make the cards generically useful as well as being a way of preventing deckout.

Q: Why did you make this card?
A: Life is a bit short on expensive cards and the image was green so I figured it would fit well. The idea is to have a creature with some sort of deckout prevention.

Q: Is it balanced?
A: This card is a bit like a cross between eternity and fractal / twin universe. It's powerful in that it can be used repeatedly, but equally the dryad is fairly vulnerable. It's relatively expensive to deploy and use, if anything I've erred on the side of being too expensive / too vulnerable.

Q: Does it require new game mechanics?
A: No

SERIES: [/color][/b] Card 3/3 submitted to 'Epic 3 Card Design Challenge' (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6012.msg69427#msg69427)

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Card Ideas and Art / E3CDC - Star Gazing

« on: May 03, 2010, 06:11:53 pm »

NAME: Winds of Fate ELEMENT: Gravity COST: 3 TYPE: Permanent ABILITY: Remove a card from your hand and place at the back of your deck. Receive 3 quanta. ART BY: Provided by Contest, Edited by Gaff IDEA BY: Gaff	NAME: Star Gazing ELEMENT: Gravity COST: 4 TYPE: Permanent ABILITY: Remove a card from your hand and place at the back of your deck. Receieve 4  quanta ART BY: Provided by Contest, Edited by Gaff IDEA BY: Gaff

Q: What theme did you choose and why?
A: Currently elements has only one way of preventing decking out, which is to use eternity to repeatedly reverse time a card. This means that a large number of false god decks need eternity and time quanta to fuel it. My aim here is to provide some more options for deck construction against false gods. I've tried to make the cards varied rather than just eternity clones with different colours.

Q: Does elements need to have more deckout prevention options?
A: Well I'm neutral on this, since anti-deckout play seems a bit cheesy and can get very dull. However it seems odd that there's only one element that can do it, it should either be several or none in my opinion. It's up to the designers but I've tried to make the cards generically useful as well as being a way of preventing deckout.

Q: Why did you make this card?
A: I wanted to make a permanent that could be used to prevent deckouts. Gravity doesn't have any premanents. This also provides an alternative way of generating quanta for gravity-splash decks.

Q: Is it balanced?
A: Sacrificing a draw for quanta seems like a reasonable exchnage. Relying on a permanent for deckout prevention might turn out to be too vulnerable for most false gods so it's utility for this purpose might not be that strong.

Q: Does it require new game mechanics?
A: Placing a card at the back of your deck is a new game mechanic, but I don't think it would be too tricky to implement.

SERIES: [/color][/b] Card 2/3 submitted to 'Epic 3 Card Design Challenge' (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6012.msg69427#msg69427)

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Card Ideas and Art / E3CDC - Winds of Fate

« on: May 03, 2010, 06:07:05 pm »

NAME: Winds of Fate ELEMENT: Air COST: 2 TYPE: Creature ABILITY: Draw a card when this card is played. ART BY: Provided by Contest IDEA BY: Gaff	NAME: Winds of Fate ELEMENT: Air COST: 2 TYPE: Creature ABILITY: When this creature dies the card is replaced at the back of the owner's deck. ART BY: Provided by Contest IDEA BY: Gaff

Q: What theme did you choose and why?
A: Currently elements has only one way of preventing decking out, which is to use eternity to repeatedly reverse time a card. This means that a large number of false god decks need eternity and time quanta to fuel it. My aim here is to provide some more options for deck construction against false gods. I've tried to make the cards varied rather than just eternity clones with different colours.

Q: Does elements need to have more deckout prevention options?
A: Well I'm neutral on this, since anti-deckout play seems a bit cheesy and can get very dull. However it seems odd that there's only one element that can do it, it should either be several or none in my opinion. It's up to the designers but I've tried to make the cards generically useful as well as being a way of preventing deckout.

Q: Why did you make this card?
A: Unupgraded, this card is basically a combination of spark and precognition. This is basically a free draw making it attractive to fast decks, but still does a little bit of damage. When upgraded the card recycles itself, which means that decking out is no longer a problem but actually slightly attractive - as long as you have the quanta to fund it. I chose air since there aren't many good low cost air creatures, well there's damselfly but that's pretty weak.

Q: Is it balanced?
A: Well as a recyclable damage card it's essentially a quanta sink and air already has this in the form of dive but then one of the interesting aspects of air is balancing quantum generation. The combination of precognition and damage might be a bit OP in speed decks, hard to say without testing it.

Q: Does it require new game mechanics?
A: Placing a card at the back of your deck is a new game mechanic, but I don't think it would be too tricky to implement.

SERIES: [/color][/b] Card 1/3 submitted to 'Epic 3 Card Design Challenge' (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6012.msg69427#msg69427)

9

Competitions / Re: Competition: Epic 3 Card Design Challenge

« on: May 03, 2010, 05:57:42 pm »

Gaff's Deckout prevention 3 Card Challenge Submission

Q: What theme did you choose and why?

A: Currently elements has only one way of preventing decking out, which is to use eternity to repeatedly reverse time a card. This means that a large number of false god decks need eternity and time quanta to fuel it. My aim here is to provide some more options for deck construction against false gods. I've tried to make the cards varied rather than just eternity clones with different colours.

Q: Does elements need to have more deckout prevention options?

A: Well I'm neutral on this, since anti-deckout play seems a bit cheesy and can get very dull. However it seems odd that there's only one element that can do it, it should either be several or none in my opinion. It's up to the designers but I've tried to make the cards generically useful as well as being a way of preventing deckout.

Okay let's see the cards:

(http://imageplay.net/) (http://imageplay.net/)

More details here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6133.0.html).


(http://imageplay.net/) (http://imageplay.net/)

More details here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6134.0.html).


(http://imageplay.net/) (http://imageplay.net/)

More details here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6135.0.html).

10

General Discussion / Re: Which speed deck do you feel works best?

« on: May 03, 2010, 11:21:42 am »

I'm a big fan of speed decks. I find they are like this (fastest-slowest):

Pillarless Fire Golem / Rainbow
Shrieker Rush
Flying druiding staves (*)
Mono air (volatile gas)
Life Rush

Not quite scientific but close, I'm using upgraded decks here. Flying druidic staves isn't that fast but does give you elemental mastery 50%+ of the time so if you're grinding for cash this makes it efficient(ish) vs AI3. I don't think mono-fire would be as fast (though it shines in pvp), and with supernova+rainbow doesn't generally allow you to play as much on the 1st turn as shrieker rush / fire decks. I've not considered speed poison. The only measurement is in terms of speed. Shrieker rush isn't all that fun to play but it is fast.

I'm still trying to find the optimum Pillarless Fire Golem / Rainbow deck

11

Duo-Decks / Re: Fire PVP (fastest viable pvp deck IMO)

« on: April 29, 2010, 10:40:05 am »

Fast yes, but I think you could make it faster!

 - First and foremost you don't have any weapons. Longswords will do 7 damage for 1 quanta, even if they only last a couple of turns that's a nice damage boost in a fast deck. You could consider Fahrenheit but it's probably not fast enough for your deck. Additionally your cremations will generate non-fire quanta which the longswords can use.

 - Are your phoenixes pulling their weight? They cost 7 quanta but only do 7 damage. Would dragons be a better choice?

 - I'd say you're destroyer heavy. You're not generating enough quanta to grow more than 2 destroyers so 4-5 should be plenty for the deck. Admittedly they are a good quanta:damage tradeoff, but dragons / minor phoenixes might be better depending on whether you generally find yourself long / short on quanta.

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Card Ideas and Art / Re: Renewal Pillar | Renewal Tower (Quantum Mechanics)

« on: April 28, 2010, 11:38:33 am »

It strikes me as wrong to have something called a pillar that costs quanta to play, however I like the idea and it's nice and easy to understand. Have you considered making it simpler:


Cost: Free
Normal: Each turn a quantum of the same element as your mark is generated.
Upgraded: Additionally gain 2 extra quanta with the same element as your mark when this card is played.


Why would you want such a tower?

 - It's a good investment for newbies. The problem currently is upgrading towers for each element is expensive which (I reckon) is one reason why rainbows are so popular. This tower would allow players to experiment with different decks more easily.

 - It could be a way of balancing rainbow vs mono. If you made it generate two quanta when played mono decks would suddently become more attractive.