Spoiler for The Alchemy Card:
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NAME: | Evanescence
| ELEMENT: | Aether
| COST: | 2 
| TYPE: | Spell
| ATK|HP: |
| TEXT: | Summon a copy of the target creature with health set to 0.
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| NAME: | Evanescence
| ELEMENT: | Aether
| COST: | 2
| TYPE: | Spell
| ATK|HP: |
| TEXT: | Summon a copy of the target creature with attack increased by 4 and health set to 0.
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ART: | N/A
| IDEA: | Zawadx
| NOTES: | Copies are exact, so they act similar to Parallel Universe just with extra modifications.
Health equaling 0 naturally means they die after attacking.
| SERIES: |
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Spoiler for The Nymph:
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NAME: | Turquoise Nymph
| ELEMENT: | Aether
| COST: | 9
| TYPE: | Creature
| ATK|HP: | 5 | 3
| TEXT: | : Evanescence
Summon a copy of the target creature with health set to 0.
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| NAME: | Turquoise Nymph
| ELEMENT: | Aether
| COST: | 9
| TYPE: | Creature
| ATK|HP: | 6 | 4
| TEXT: | : Evanescence
Summon a copy of the target creature with attack increased by 4 and health set to 0.
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ART: | N/A
| IDEA: | Zawadx
| NOTES: | Copies are exact, so they act similar to Parallel Universe just with extra modifications.
Health equaling 0 naturally means they die after attacking.
| SERIES: |
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So when I started to design this card, I knew I'd have to fill up a huge thematic gap in Aether. I mean, immortality was pretty much one of aether's core concepts - beings so distant from normal realms that our spells couldn't touch them. So I decided I'd try to expand on one of aether's other themes. The two which came to mind were mindgate's ability, and 0 HP creatures. Mindgate's ability proved too hard to build off of, requiring something as revolutionary as a shard (at least, something whose power level wouldn't fit into the alchemy slot), so I decided to go for 0 HP creatures.
So you have Evanescence - a spell that employs the same wonder of self-similarity that creates replicas in Parallel Universe and Fractal. But here the caster uses significantly less quanta, and thus the creature only leaves a faint imprint on our reality. Even as it attacks it starts to fade, until it disappears completely. Works, right?
BalanceEvanescence is not that strong in-element, due to the fact that Aether doesn't have a targetable dragon. Phase Recluse can be a decent target, but 7|11 damage for 2 quanta isn't that great when it isn't refundable. It might serve a niche in Aether Rush fully upped, which would make an interesting spot for aether in the upped meta.
The main place for Evanescence to shine will be off-element. It has a clear combo with HP buffs, such as blessing, plate armor and chaos power. Of course you can't really capitalize on doubling these buffs as you must buff the copy, not the original - this balances out the power in buff decks.
One surprising application of Evanescence is in OTKs. Until now, most OTKs used at least 2 copies of PUs and thus needed to generate Aether with mark/pillars. This meant that OTKs would often treat aether as a main element, putting in dims as well - making it hard to add in other main elements beside time for drawpower. With Evanescence, you can replace PUs with a much cheaper card, thus removing aether as a main element in a rainbow OTK. This can open up new ways to build OTK decks, perhaps utilizing other elements in interesting ways. You might even see the development of hybrid OTKs with new playstyles. At the very least, it would increase the viability of unupped OTKs and let them build fast versions capable of competing in unupped metas. Something like this:
Can easily manage 10 TTK, allowing for it function as a viable break to stalls in unupped/6 up metas without the usual mix of fire bolt/fractal.
Effect on WarLosing quintessence will not really effect Aether in War. Ever since Fractal has become prominent as aether's prime card, the use of single-target CC vs aether has significantly reduced. So using Quintessence means slowing down your deck for protection against an uncommon card type, which is only going to get punished by the usual denial decks/rushes which aether faces. The only effect losing quintessence would have on Aether is completely removing the viability of Shard of Wisdom, but since that was too expensive to use anyways it will have no consequences.
Gaining Evanescence wouldn't be a huge boon for Aether, which is a good thing since Aether doesn't need another big boost when it comes to War. Evanescence might come in handy to give Aether's rushes a bit more punch, which might give them a chance to power through some of the dark domins which have cropped up as a counter to Aether. Evanescence also opens the possibility of OTK decks for Aether, which aren't essential as Fractal can decimate stalls by itself, but might be used to reliably counter some of the peskier stalls like Air's sancstall.
