1. The Forces of Darkness - An AnalysisI’ve decided to begin my ruleset design with an in-depth summary of each Darkness card - in order to construct a ruleset which makes things very difficult for Darkness, we need to know exactly where its strengths and weaknesses lie.
I’ve chosen to split the Darkness card pool into five separate tiers, based on my own opinion of the individual strength of each card. During the construction of our tournament ruleset, I will use these tiers as a reference to gauge exactly how unfavourable the rules are to Darkness.
Tier SThe very best of the very best. Cards that offer game-breaking mechanics, or so much value to Darkness that they are almost essential.
  
| Steal | Improved Steal
Arguably Darkness’ most iconic card, Steal is undeniably one of the most powerful cards in the game.
While it comes in at a slightly higher quanta cost than Fire’s Deflagration | Explosion, the increased cost is a mere tradeoff for its ability to not only neutralize an opponent’s threatening permanent, but to take control of it and use it against them.
Alongside Vampire Dagger, and occasionally Nightmare too, Steal is the reason many other elements are able to run such effective “Dark Domin” decks, often used against threats such as Dimensional Shield or Eternity which may otherwise pose a threat to the element’s core strategies.
Steal is a card that doesn’t just add significant strength to Darkness itself - it’s strong enough to allow for viable duos with almost any other element. The utility of permanent removal (combined with the power of taking control of an opponent’s card) makes Steal an obvious pick for the top tier of Darkness cards. |
 
| Devourer | Pest
Another very iconic Darkness card, and an essential piece of several very successful competitive decks, Devourer serves several important functions in Darkness decks.
The first and most obvious is the primary quanta-draining effect. Devourers are most certainly capable of drastically slowing down the opponent in the early game, and - luck-depending - even solely locking down their quanta generation entirely. A set of Devourers can completely cripple an opposing mono or duo deck, and while not nearly as effective against rainbows, can still cause delays against Nova-based rushes.
The second isn’t as immediately obvious, even though it is also stated in the card text - returning 1  to you. It may not seem as significant as the quanta drain itself, but a large number of Devourers on the field can make for a very large quanta ramp for the user. Playing high-powered Drain Life spells by the mid-game, or summoning multiple Black Dragons in just a few turns is certainly not impossible.
When Devourer is available, the opponent is essentially forced to plan against heavy denial decks such as Devtal and Devquake - the ability for these decks to completely lock down anything they face is extremely dangerous. The deckbuilding options this card opens, and the ease at which it can be built into a simple mono Darkness puts Devourer in the third and final spot of my S tier list. |
Tier APowerful cards which fit well into almost any Darkness deck, but have minor shortcomings preventing them from being used universally.Dusk Mantle | Improved Dusk
Introducing an element of RNG into Darkness, Dusk Mantle has the ability to swing the flow of a game enormously. While unreliable at times, most players have had experience against the power of the "Hax Shield" at some point in their competitive careers - blocking an entire field's worth of damage, multiple turns in a row, is most certainly possible for this shield.
Dusk Mantle fits nicely into mid-range decks, most often in combination with Vampire Dagger, which provides the user with some healing alongside the damage reduction. It is a staple card in Darkness-based stall decks, such as Siphonary or Antimatter/Pandemonium stalls, as well as being able to provide stall-breakers such as Drainbolt, Nymph's Tears or Shard of Void decks with the survivability they need to fulfill their win conditions.
It is, however, held back from the S tier by its high quanta cost. In comparison to Air's Fog Shield | Improved Fog, Dusk Mantle has triple or quadruple the quanta cost for only an extra +10% miss rate. While this increase may be justified in terms of elemental balance, it is certainly the limiting factor in the usability of this card. Regardless, for its game-changing potential, I've chosen to place Dusk Mantle in the A tier.
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| Nightmare
Another common pick in the popular Dark Domin archetype, Nightmare provides tremendous value for its quanta cost in several different ways.
With a maximum damage output of 16HP against an empty hand, and the same amount returned as healing... for 2 | 1 , this is colossal. Especially against opposing rush decks, Nightmare's hand-clog, draw-denial and health-drain are often the very reasons for victory. It fits well into Darkness rushes and mid-range decks, and its low cost means it can even be brought in rainbow decks for surprise damage.
However, Nightmare does suffer from "diminishing returns", in a way - in general, and outside of decks like Ghostmare, it's rare for Nightmare to see more than one extremely effective hit per game. An element of prediction is also introduced, as bringing Nightmare against the wrong deck can result in you filling your opponent's hand with playable enemy creatures. For these reasons, Nightmare falls just short of the S tier.
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Tier BCards which support the main or alternative win condition of the deck, but are held back by limitations in comparison to similar cards.Black Dragon | Obsidian Dragon
Black Dragon fills the role as Darkness' main hitter, and provides a nice amount of damage for its quanta cost. 5HP in its unupgraded form is decent, allowing it to survive <20 quanta Drain Life or Ice Bolt attacks, Shockwaves, Rain of Fire or two Thunderstorms, but leaves it vulnerable to Rage Potion, and the very common Lightning. Upgraded, it reaches the valuable 6HP allowing it to survive a Lightning, and brings some increased damage with it, but comes at the price of a higher quanta cost.
In comparison to the other dragons, Black Dragon sits towards the top-middle of the pack. With its average HP in unupgraded form, and suffering from a higher quanta cost than Amethyst Dragon with the same stats when upgraded, I've listed Black Dragon as a B tier card.
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| Gargoyle
Similarly to Black Dragon, and despite its defensive ability, Gargoyle is let down by its poor initial HP, being unable to survive through most of the creature control spells in the game.
The upgraded form receives a damage boost for no additional quanta cost, making it quite effective in rush decks. Gargoyle provides a nice benefit to Darkness in the fact that it is also airborne, giving offensive strategies multiple options against the threat of Wings. However, despite its strong offense, its vulnerability to Owl's Eye, Shockwave, Rain of Fire and other common creature control spells holds Gargoyle back as a B tier creature.
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Drain Life | Siphon Life
In terms of killing power, Drain Life pales in comparison to Fire Bolt, but the life steal opens some interesting new strategies. Decks such as Drainbolt, Siphonary and mono SoV benefit heavily from the survivability bonus provided, extending their lifespan and helping to protect against burst damage.
Even with the added survivability benefits, Drain Life struggles against other control cards, needing to reach the 10 quanta interval to take down popular rush creatures such as Shriekers, Giant Frogs, or Elite Wyrms, and 20 to kill most Dragons, Psions, and Elite Chargers. While strong in the mid to late game, my opinion on Drain Life is that its lack of early-game killing power holds it back from being a tier A card.
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| Shard of Void
While certainly still underused as the community continues to adapt to sharded meta, Shard of Void is certainly not underpowered. It provides Darkness with a powerful in-element stallbreaker - and one which doesn't rely on spell damage as a primary win condition. Comparable to Poison | Deadly Poison in terms of its damage output, Shard of Void also adds a rare benefit in that its damage cannot be healed through.
The drawback holding Shard of Void back from tier A for me is the requirement of a Darkness mark to deal its full damage. This restriction heavily limits the flexibility of this card, and limits the options for Darkness users in main events such as Trials or War. I would certainly rate this card much higher if it dealt a flat rate of 3 damage, regardless of the mark used.
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Tier CUnderused cards which serve a core purpose in a range of deck options, but are generally not powerful enough to perform well outside of these specific decks.
 
| Parasite | Bloodsucker
Parasite's stats are terrible, and the dual-element requirement severely limits the usability of this card, but it scrapes into tier C solely for its incredible synergy with Bone Wall.
Bloodwall fills an important role for Darkness, as it is an incredibly strong option against fast, physical-damage rushes - decks which often overwhelm Darkness with pure, brute force. Immolation rushes with Phoenixes or Lava Golems, Air rushes without Shard of Freedom, mono Life rushes, and Grabbows in general struggle to overcome the powerful combination of Parasites and Bone Walls.
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Voodoo Doll
While they can't do anything by themselves, Voodoo Dolls also have some amazing synergies which make them not just viable, but also extremely effective in several decks.
Gravity Pull and Basilisk Blood combined to turn a Voodoo Doll into a wall of pain for any opposing physical attackers. Parasite, Black Nymph and Grey Nymph can use a doll to stack Poison counters and cause additional residual damage to the opponent, and in my own creation, SoPa Dolls, these creatures turn into stallbreaking monsters, disabling threatening permanents like Fahrenheit, Pulverizer, or opposing Vampire Daggers.
With an active ability allowing Voodoo Doll to cause damage to itself, I would rate this a B or A tier card. Sadly, the fact that it is entirely reliant on other cards to serve any function at all holds Voodoo Doll back for me.
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| Nightfall | Eclipse
Not too differently from the rest of the cards in this tier, Nightfall and Eclipse struggle to see use outside of very specific deck combinations.
Eclipse is very commonly used alongside Minor Vampires in Devtal, and is used to supply the win condition for this deck. Eclipse can also see use in decks with upgraded Vampires, or as a support card alongside Gargoyles or Obsidian Dragons... however, in a similar fashion to Vampires themselves, this strategy is rarely better than using the card space for other support cards, like Vampire Daggers, Dusk Mantles or Nightmares.
Nightfall, in its unupgraded form, very rarely sees any competitive use.
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Tier DCards rarely seen in competitive play outside of very specific decks. Stronger options are usually always available.
 
| Black Nymph | Dark Nymph
While working quite nicely in combination with Nymph's Tears in its upgraded form, as hard as this card is to obtain, it is even harder to find a competitive use for.
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2. Dark Connections - Card ComparisonsLet's take a side-by-side look at every Darkness card, and see what connections we can immediately spot between them. Pillars and pendulums won't be taken into account here.
a. The CardsBlack Dragon is the only Darkness card with no card text.
Black Nymph, Devourer, Gargoyle, Parasite and Shard of Void all have a quantum symbol in their card text, whether as part of an activation ability cost, or in the description of the card.
Voodoo Doll and Liquid Shadow also have quantum symbols in their artwork - it is difficult to see in Liquid Shadow, but it is visible on the rounded top section of the stopper.
b. Quanta Costs8 out of 16 Darkness cards have an even-valued quanta cost.
Black Dragon is the only Darkness card with a double-digit quanta cost.
Black Nymph, Devourer, Gargoyle and Parasite have active abilities with an activation cost.
c. Card Names9 out of 16 Darkness cards have a name with the first letter in the first half of the alphabet (A-M).
No Darkness cards have a name with a vowel as the first letter.
Cloak, Devourer, Drain Life, Liquid Shadow, Shard of Void, Steal and Voodoo Doll all contain at least one pair of consecutive vowels (OA in Cloak, OI in Void, OO in Voodoo, etc.)Devourer, Minor Vampire, Shard of Void, Vampire Stiletto and Voodoo Doll all share the common letter V in their names.
d. MechanicsBlack Nymph, Devourer, Drain Life, Liquid Shadow, Minor Vampire, Nightmare, Steal and Vampire Stiletto all have mechanics involving stealing something from the opponent.
Black Dragon and Voodoo Doll are the only Darkness creatures without an active ability.
Devourer and Voodoo Doll are the only Darkness creatures with a passive ability. (Devourer, Voodoo)
Black Nymph, Liquid Shadow, Minor Vampire and Vampire Stiletto are directly related to the Vampire active ability. In the case of Vampire Stiletto, this can be seen using Flying Weapon.
e. ArtworkAll Darkness cards, with the exclusion of Nightfall and Dusk Mantle, contain black colouration in their artwork. This is debatable, as Black Nymph and Drain Life can also be argued to only contain shades of purple or blue.
Cloak, Liquid Shadow, Nightmare, Parasite and Voodoo Doll contain visible circular or spherical structures in their artwork.Dusk Mantle, Gargoyle, Nightfall, Shard of Void and Vampire Stiletto do not contain any biological or organic material in their artwork. Gargoyle is made of animated stone, and I have chosen to exclude Liquid Shadow and Voodoo Doll from this list based on the materials we can assume they are synthesized or constructed from.
Black Dragon, Black Nymph, Cloak, Gargoyle, Minor Vampire, Parasite, Steal and Voodoo Doll all have visible or assumed eye structures in their artwork.
3. Purging The Shadows - Weakening DarknessNow that a few comparisons have been made with Darkness' entire card pool, we can begin analyzing them to come up with a new, creative and interesting ruleset for a tournament or PVP event.
For a ruleset to be valid for this task, it needs to be highly unfavourable to Darkness. In this situation, the comparisons which eliminate to most strengths from Darkness, leaving only a few other cards to build with, are the most viable ones to build a set of rules from. There were a few that caught my eye:
a.
Cloak, Devourer, Drain Life, Liquid Shadow, Shard of Void, Steal and Voodoo Doll all contain at least one pair of consecutive vowels (OA in Cloak, OI in Void, OO in Voodoo, etc.) b.
Cloak, Liquid Shadow, Nightmare, Parasite and Voodoo Doll contain visible circular or spherical structures in their artwork.I believe that these two would make for interesting rulesets to play in a tournament. Let's investigate them further.
In order to evaluate the "unfairness" of a ruleset, I'll analyze them based on the tier listings constructed earlier. Points will be allocated to each tier of cards, and we'll calculate exactly how many "points" are eliminated from Darkness based on the ruleset chosen.
Tier S - 7 points - Steal, Vampire Stiletto, Devourer
Tier A - 5 points - Dusk Mantle, Nightmare
Tier B - 3 points - Black Dragon, Gargoyle, Drain Life, Shard of Void
Tier C - 2 points - Minor Vampire, Parasite, Voodoo Doll, Nightfall
Tier D - 1 points - Liquid Shadow, Black Nymph, Cloaka. De-Vowel-ed
Cards with names containing pairs of consecutive vowels are banned.
Cards Eliminated: Cloak, Devourer, Drain Life, Liquid Shadow, Shard of Void, Steal, Voodoo Doll
= 1 + 7 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 7 + 2
= 14 pointsb. Rings of Power
With the exclusion of lighting and particle effects, only cards with visible circular or spherical structures in their artwork may be used.
Cards Eliminated: Black Dragon, Black Nymph, Devourer, Drain Life, Dusk Mantle, Gargoyle, Minor Vampire, Shard of Void, Steal, Vampire Stiletto
= 3 + 1 + 7 + 3 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 7 + 7
= 41 pointsBased on the "unfairness" cost of the Rings of Power ruleset, I'm choosing to use this as my task ruleset.
Taking all of Darkness' very best cards away (Steal, Vampire Dagger and Devourer) severely limits its options already. Removing Dusk Mantle and Drain Life removes two of our best stall cards. Offensive options are seriously restricted without Black Dragon or Gargoyle, and stallbreaking is hurt further without Shard of Void. I think it's safe to say that in a 50% environment, this ruleset is certainly unfavourable to Darkness. Let's take it further.
4. The Largest Shadows - Opposing ElementsI've constructed a list of all the cards in the game containing the circular elements I mentioned before.
In this list, I've chosen to also include bulbous, elliptical or slightly warped three-dimensional structures, such as the stingers of the Scorpion cards, Miracle's main shape, and the body of the Chrysaora. Nightfall is included, as despite only showing a crescent-shape, the depiction of the spherical moon is obvious. Cylindrical shapes are not included.
Despite the exclusion of lighting effects, I have also chosen to include circular-shaped cards which consist entirely of these effects, such as Nova, Photon and Spark.
I have also chosen to exclude eye structures and head shapes from this list, excluding the rounded skulls in Boneyard, and the glowing elliptical face of Firefly Queen.
A full list of all legal cards in this ruleset:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
4ve 4vj 4vk 4vn 4vo 4vp 52i 52j 52n 52o 52p 52s 52u 55l 55n 55p 55q 55t 55v 560 561 563 58p 58v 590 592 595 5bu 5c1 5c5 5c6 5c7 5c8 5c9 5f1 5f3 5f8 5f9 5fb 5i5 5ia 5ib 5if 5ig 5ih 5ii 5ij 5l9 5ld 5lg 5li 5lj 5lm 5od 5og 5oj 5ok 5om 5on 5rhHover over cards for details, click for permalink
5ri 5rj 5rk 5rp 5rq 5rr 5rt 5ru 5un 5uq 5uu 5v0 5v1 5v2 61p 61t 620 621 622 623 624 626Upon inspection of this full list, several powerful competitive options become immediately apparent.
Graboid + Nova
Ghost of the Past + Nightmare
Poison + Chrysaora
Arctic Squid + Nymph's Tears
Sanctuary + Miracle + Sundial
Sanctuary + Miracle + Antimatter
Horned Frog + Adrenaline
Fractal + Dimensional Shield
Graboid + Reverse Time
A few creatureless stall options are present here, but with the exception of those and Speed Poison (Chrysaora + Poison), the majority of options presented within this meta have a win condition of physical creature damage. This got me thinking...
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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52s 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 71c 71c 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7t7 7um 7um 7um 7um 8pkI'm beginning to develop a bit of a reputation for building with Bloodsuckers...
This deck, despite appearances, has a win condition through damage. It makes use of the unusual interaction between Parasites and Voodoo Dolls - applying poison to a friendly Voodoo Doll will spread poison counters directly to your opponent's life. Each tick of damage the doll takes also inflicts equal damage to the opponent, simulating a "double poison damage" effect. The resultant poison damage can be surprisingly fast. Novas power Sundials, which prevent your opponent's creatures from attacking without slowing down the poison, and provide some more draw power to the deck. I filled the remaining slots with Aflatoxin here as a secondary means of spreading poison, and to provide an alternative breaking option against creatureless stalls through Malignant Cells.
I've added a few legal sample decks for other elements using this ruleset.
Spoiler for Sample Decks:
Time: Ghostmare
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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8ptEarth: Grabbow
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4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 55q 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 5c1 5c1 77f 77f 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77l 77l 7n0 7n0 8plWater: NT Squids
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
5i4 5i4 5i4 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ig 5ig 5ig 5ig 5ig 5ig 5jm 5jm 5jm 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 8ppEntropy: Antimatter Sancstall
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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vg 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 7k2 7k2 7k2 8pqDeath: Speed Poison
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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52p 52p 52p 52p 52q 52q 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 710 710 710 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 8pp
vs. Ghostmare: the closest win by far. The draw denial of Nightmares and Reverse Times slowed down my damage to an enormous degree, but being able to chain Sundials at low HP towards the end of the game allowed me to eventually scrape through with enough poison damage.
vs. Grabbow: quite a comfortable win. The AI incorrectly burrowing its Shriekers was mostly irrelevant due to Sundial chaining, as evidenced by my remaining HP.
vs. Nymph's Tears: the AI is infamously terrible at playing Nymph's Tears decks - to partially account for this, I made a slight modification to the deck used in testing.
Spoiler for Hidden:
Water: NT Squids (Modified)
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 8ppObviously, this is still far from ideal, but it does make a considerable improvement on the standard Tears decks. Squids make this a difficult matchup, but with Sundials blocking all damage from the Nymphs in the mid to late game, I was able to trade away a few turns of my Bloodsuckers being frozen to place a poison counter or two on the enemy Squids. However, I don't think this would be a winnable matchup against a human player.
vs. Antimatter Stall: the combination of Bloodsuckers and Voodoo Dolls makes for a surprisingly effective stall breaker. Antimatter does little to slow down the poison damage accumulated on the Doll - it's easy to see exactly how much poison can be stacked onto an opponent's health pool when our creatures aren't killed or delayed. I expected this to be an easy matchup, and considered this the easiest win of all the sample decks.
vs. Speed Poison: this one, on the other hand, surprised me considerably. I thought the damage output of Speed Poison would be far too much for our own win condition to keep up with - but I was mistaken! I used Sundials very early to draw through my deck, as they were useless against my opponent. Even through Plagues, my Bloodsuckers were able to stay on the field long enough to rack up a considerable poison counter. A very close win, but a win nonetheless.
Now that the effectiveness of this deck has been proven within a very unfavourable ruleset, there's just one thing left to do - write up a full set of rules!
5. Coalescing Darkness - The Final RulesetRINGS OF POWER
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the Darkness bind them!
1. TOURNAMENT RULESAfter signing up, players send in ONE element to the host via private message. This element cannot be changed during the tournament.
The choice for all players will be revealed at the beginning of the tournament.
The event will be a single-elimination style tournament.
2. DECKBUILDING & MATCHESMatches will follow a best-of-five format.
With the exclusion of lighting and particle effects, only cards with visible circular or spherical structures in their artwork may be used. Nova, Photon and Spark are allowed.
Decks must be at least 50% in-element (based on the player's choice at the beginning of the tournament.)
The remaining 50% may be composed of any element, or any number of elements.
Decks may be changed in between games, but must always follow the 50% and card composition legality rules.
Up to 12 upgrades may be used in each deck, but these are not required. Upgrades may be distributed any way the player chooses, regardless of element.
A full list of legal cards can be found here.
Spoiler for Rings of Power: Legal Cards:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
4ve 4vj 4vk 4vn 4vo 4vp 52i 52j 52n 52o 52p 52s 52u 55l 55n 55p 55q 55t 55v 560 561 563 58p 58v 590 592 595 5bu 5c1 5c5 5c6 5c7 5c8 5c9 5f1 5f3 5f8 5f9 5fb 5i5 5ia 5ib 5if 5ig 5ih 5ii 5ij 5l9 5ld 5lg 5li 5lj 5lm 5od 5og 5oj 5ok 5om 5on 5rhHover over cards for details, click for permalink
5ri 5rj 5rk 5rp 5rq 5rr 5rt 5ru 5un 5uq 5uu 5v0 5v1 5v2 61p 61t 620 621 622 623 624 626Players will post their match results in the tournament thread. Decks do not need to be posted until after the event.
4. DISCONNECTIONS AND DESYNCSOfficial Elements Community tournament rules will be followed in the event of a disconnection or desynchronization error.
5. REWARDSCongratulations! You get a big thumbs up for reading through this entire task submission. Thanks for your time!
