Shards: How They Affect the Meta

Shard of Wisdom

With Psion, Aether gained the ability to bypass shields. However, if the opponent is playing a shield that reflects, you might end up killing yourself. Shard of Wisdom gives you more versatility with Phase Dragons, depending on the shield your opponent is using. In the unupped meta, you'll usually see this card in a stallish deck with Dimensional Shield and Phase Dragon/Immortal.

In the upped format, Phase Recluse can combo well with Twin Universe and Shard of Wisdom. With these cards, a mono deck could be built that wins in 4-5 turns.

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Shard of Freedom

Shard of Freedom is a really strong card that has become a standard in many mono-Air decks. The percentage stack, so if you get 4 of these out, your airborne creatures will completely avoid shields, do 50% more damage and, if Air, fully avoid opponent targeting, but not yours. Once you have gotten this and some flying creatures out, combine it with Air Blitz for massive damage (300% of normal damage). It can also be used in Duos with other elements that has strong flying creatures, like Fire. In the Arena, you'll see this card quite often (below is an example of a FFQ build).

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Shard of Void

This shard works slowly but surely. It decreases the maximum amount of the opponent's HP, so even with healing they cannot reach 100. The shard works slowly though, so if one plays this as a killing condition, they must be able to draw the game long enough. Note that the effect doesn't lower the opponent's HP below 1, so a method to deal actual damage is needed. The effect of this shard can be countered by Stone Skin or Shard of Divinity. It is worthy of note that currently this shard is not too heavily played, mostly because even when in multiples, it takes too long for the effect to be lethal.

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Shard of Sacrifice

Considered to be one of the best shards, Shard of Sacrifice helps players to survive hard-hitting enemines, most notably Gold and Platinum arena opponents and False Gods. The AI doesn't hold back creatures and this can be easily exploited to make the opponent's creatures heal the player for lots of HP. In PVP, however, the opposing player can play around SoSa so using it is harder.

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Shard of Integrity

This is an interesting shard. Most often instead of complimenting a deck idea like the other shards, it demands a complete building-around it. The shard is at its most effective when coupled with many more shards, preferably a full hand of them. Using this shard creates a powerful Shard Golem. Ther statistics are based on what other shards were in the player's hand at the time of using SoI (those shards disappear from the user's hand). With a full hand of shards, one can create a very powerful golem, capable of fihishing the game in a few turns. Basically, this shard acts as a "glue" between the other ones. Even if a player has only a few copies of a shard, and so s/he is unable to make a deck based on them, they can still build a powerful shard golem deck with their shards. Various composition of shards equals various golems. The effect of certain shards can be discovered with the Shard Golem Calculator, found here: https://elementscommunity.org/tools/xenocidius/shardgolem/

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Shard of Serendipity

The 'fun' card of the bunch. Getting random cards means that every game will be different. However, there isn't much beyond the fun of this Shard, in the meta, you probably won't ever see it played.

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Shard of Bravery

This card enables the fastest kills in the current version of the game. Agressive fire decks generally have the problem of running out of cards in hand and this shard can solve that problem. In environments where this shard is enabled, all players must be prepared for facing very fast decks. The fire player should use the best creatures possible so that the average quality of cards s/he draws will always be better than the average quality of cards given to the opponent. When facing SoB decks, one is advised to include ample creature control so the extra threats the opponent plays can be answered with the extra CC cards given by the shard. Often forgotten is this shard's ability to deck out the opponent.

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Shard of Focus

This is widely considered to be one of the most powerful shards. If not dealt with immediately upon entering into play, it can get out of hand fast. The shard offers repeated permanent control (most commonly used to destroy opposing pillars) leading to huge card advantage. On top off that, the "Blackhole" effect will rob the opponent of some of their remaining quanta. Using as much copies of this shard as possible is recommended to be able to fully destroy the opponent's quanta sources and other permanents. When facing this shard, neutralizing should be top priority, but returning it to its controller's hand is avoidable. This shard had a huge impact on the metagame after its release. It was colorless, and such, very powerful cause it was castable with a single nova. Even after getting nerfed, it is a very dangerous card, worth including gravity quanta sources for this card alone. In PVP environments where it is legal, one should always expect to either play it or play around it.

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Shard of Gratitude

This is a pretty old shard. Actually, this was the first one to be introduced in the game. Since the latest patch it has an element which makes it less universal. Before that it was generally used in slower decks as a tool for continuous healing. Now only decks with Life mark can make full use of it, and so the card lost much of its popularity. One can expect to see it much less than previously. Still, if not expected, it can be a huge problem. When playing it, one should use as much copies as possible. When playing against it, a player should be able to destroy them or outdamage the healing.

An interesting fact: The reason shards were collectively banned from Weekly Tournaments was that SoG made the games last too long. The tournaments were going on too slowly, so SoG (and all the shards with it, which were at that time only SoD and SoR) got banned to ensure the smooth process of events.

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Shard of Divinity

This shard is used mostly for stalling. Combined with Shard of Sacrifice or Miracle, it can make your opponent unable to do enough damage to kill you. You'll often see this shard paired with Earth's defensive cards and Stone Skin to increase the players HP to 500. As shown above with Poison Dials (Shard of Sacrifice section), they can also combo well with Death. Other than stalling, you probably shouldn't see this card too much... outside of the occasional mono-Light.

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Shard of Readiness

There seem to be two main uses of SoR. The first exploits the fact that Time creatures can use their ability twice with this shard. This enables for powerful decks with time creatures like Pharaoh, or sometimes with additional cards like Mitosis. The other type of decks simply uses the shard to make various abilities cost zero. This enables the more consistent use of creatures where the casting quanta and the ablility quanta differ, like Steam Machines.

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Shard of Patience

This shard has gone through some major changes in its life. The current version is a very popular stall-breaker/SoSac counter. The increase in damage can be by as much as 46 with a full board. Arctic Squids and Iridium Wardens are very popular cards with this shard.

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