Trenzalore - Suggestions and Feedback

[RootRanger]

I have been considering hosting another similar event, involving the Elements . Before the rules are made, I would first like feedback on a few key issues.

Nymphs
Some of the decks in Trenzalore used a heavy amount of Nymphs, a strategy not available to many of the players. Should Nymphs be banned from the next event? Restricted to 1 copy per deck? Note that the next event will have an Air-themed species, which would arguably be too powerful with 6 Blue Nymphs.

Bans
Cards like Dimensional Shield can be very powerful against Elements that have few answers to it. Should the Aether-themed species be allowed to use it every game, or should there be a ban/restriction on it? Should the strongest card of every species be banned?

Support Card Renewability
Should Support Cards be “renewable”? In other words, should players be allowed to use the same Support Card every single game, or should there be a limit to its uses?

Support Elements?
Should Support Elements replace Support Cards? Instead of 15 Support Cards, players could have 3 Support Elements, from which they can use any card.

Abilities
This section is for suggestions more so than feedback. My intention for the next event is for abilities to be minor, not as strong as what the Sontarans and Silents had. I might not even include abilities if I cannot come up with 7 decent ones.

Balance
I saved the hardest question for last. How should the event be balanced? In Trenzalore, I gave the best abilities to Light, Gravity, and Life, which I felt were weakest. This might have been problematic, however, because a disproportionate amount of the top players chose Gravity. Should I avoid trying to balance the event, and simply give every species 6 upgrades and no ability? I balanced Trenzalore based on the Complete War Rankings, which may have made Gravity too powerful because it has severely underperformed in half of its wars. If more than 8 players choose the same species, should I close sign-ups for it? Should I decrease its number of upgrades?

[mrpaper]

I might save more comments for later..

- Balance things was the right thing to do BUT you didn't take for account the fact that shards were not in the wars so the gravity shard helped that element quite a lot.. otherwise the races would have been way more even.... though you might buff the less popular ones if you ever bring em back.

-  Limiting decks to 1 copy of nymphs makes em almost useless.. I would suggest using them once per match instead if you wanna limit em at all?

- Aether could have a special ability that they need to delete one of they're own strongest asset (they're choice) among dimensional shield, fractal and aether shard?

- Support cards...well if you only have 1 pc card and you use it in game 1, you are in trouble but I'm fine either way as those people can just pick a 2nd pc card if they wanted to.

- Support element... This seems like it would open up the meta too much.

-Abilities... those are great fun, they are defently  a keep!

[Afdarenty]

Anything I don't mention I have no strong opinions about.

Nymphs
I dislike the idea of an outright ban. If you feel Nymphs need restricting then perhaps limit them to 2 or 3 copies per deck, or only let them be played one game per match. But I think a better solution is in the bans section.

Bans
Should the strongest card of every species be banned?
I like this idea. It's not just Dim Shields for Aether that are my worry - it's Discord for Entropy, Nymphs for Air, Firebolt for Fire, and so on. Maybe letting each player ban 1 of their opponents cards before each match would be a good way to go with this (creatures other than Nymphs cannot be banned?).

Support Card Renewability
Personally, I'm a fan of support cards being consumed upon use.

Balance
For the most part I felt the balance in Trenzalore was good, and would be happy to see a similar approach again. The Silents ability was a little too powerful, in my opinion. Gravity gains much more from Shards than most elements do, and probably shouldn't have been on the weaker elements list. Even if these classes were stronger than others I don't think it was to such an extent that it detracted from the event as a whole.

I like the idea of decreasing the upgrades of popular elements. It would provide an incentive for players to choose elements they think others won't go for, hopefully leading to more variety. Maybe starting with 10 upgrades, and removing one for each player who chooses that element? On the flip side, if there was a situation when 9 players picked one element then you'd have 9 players starting with a significant disadvantage, and unlikely to enjoy themselves. Add a minimum of 4 upgrades to avoid situations like this?

I'd like to highlight (no pun intended) Holy Light in the Light vs Death/Darkness match ups, too. Personally I'd like to see it restricted in some way, possibly banned outright.