Elements. Fantasy cards game

[-Manwe-]

Well, I just switched to the mono Fire strategy... and won a Fahrenheit. So I'm sticking with it

It DOES have a very high win consistency. Simply because there is no "mana control" in the game apart from the weapon that destroys pillars. When you play the AI it often sits with a full hand of cards cuz it has no idea what to play when you have zero creatures out.

It's pretty boring to play however. And, it will not win you money or a top 50 place, as it's basically waiting for the opponent to nearly kill you, then play all the firebolts you have and hope it works...

[-Manwe-]

Actually maybe the AI is bugged...

I just whacked an Aether deck to death with Fahrenheit, the AI just sat there and discarded cards from its full hand... Elemental victory... AI doesn't know how to deal with creatureless decks I guess.

[Levethix]

Anyone disagree?

The reflective shield and the emerald shield were both designed to deal with this very problem. It's pretty simple to use an emerald shield in a firelfly deck. The only problem with both of these cards is that they are both easily destroyed by a deflagration. Zanzarino should make both of these cards immune to deflagration(not steal though), and therefore they would better suit their purpose.

On second thought - those shields should not be completely immune to deflagration, but perhaps only immune for two turns - they would essentially become the dimensional shield against a mono-fire deck.

[Midge8000]

I am glad that nova was nerfed, it was too strong.

Currently using an aether/time deck with my quite new account and on 82 wins and 7 losses so far. It has good defence as I have 3 dimensional shields and 2 lightnings and VERY good offence because I can pump out devonian/phase dragons and then use 2-4 parallel universe on them.

Loving the game so far, totally addicted

Also looking forward to updates, can't wait until we get proper pvp =)

[Bianary]

so is all about if he can get you before 10 turns! (well 10 turns is like the the faster that deck can be ..) .. and i think there is some speedy decks that can kill before that

Minor detail: The fire deck is dumping rain of fire, fire shields, and single target firebolts on any speedy deck all the time. That means that as you get out the creatures you need for your combos, immortality, whatever -- it's just killing them. And that gives it the time it needs to roll over you (Fahrenheit would be out softening you up in the meantime)

cool, wait.. i'm confused.. is a weapon .. why the momentum?.. something to do with the dimensional shield..?

The damage reduction/chance to miss shields impact weapons (Contrary to their description) so momentum will influence the weapon.

The reflective shield and the emerald shield were both designed to deal with this very problem. It's pretty simple to use an emerald shield in a firelfly deck. The only problem with both of these cards is that they are both easily destroyed by a deflagration. Zanzarino should make both of these cards immune to deflagration(not steal though), and therefore they would better suit their purpose.

Hard counters (A card that totally kills an opposing deck is a hard counter) are almost always bad ideas -- they'll only be worthwhile if the metagame is revolving around that deck, and that indicates a serious balance issue. So ideally they're never worthwhile because you won't have one deck be so supreme, and if they are worthwhile it means you need to be looking elsewhere for the fix.

I agree that if they're to have any use they should be immune to deflagration (But not Steal, like you said) but I'd prefer to just see super specialized counters like that gone and more versatile options put in instead.

[Pilchard123]

Sorry for the double post, but this is a new issue:

Mutation seems to be buggy. I used it on a Virus, and it turned into a 5/0 Spark with the ability Deja Vu. Fair enough. So I used the Deja Vu ability (Immediately, I assume that's intended as the creature had been in play) and it created a 6/4 Spark with Momentum. That was not the expected result.

Edit3: I also just had a Photon get mutated into an 11/8 Azure Dragon with Deja Vu, and when I activated that ability it duplicated into a 13/11 Azure Dragon with Infection. So the deja vu clone ability seems really, really buggy with mutation.

Mutation is a card that (if I remember it right) "Mutates the target creature into an abomination, unless it dies or becomes something wierd"

The "wierd" aspect may be that effects, such as Deja Vu are also semi-mutations. Or it could be a bug.

[Bianary]

Mutation is a card that (if I remember it right) "Mutates the target creature into an abomination, unless it dies or becomes something wierd"

The "wierd" aspect may be that effects, such as Deja Vu are also semi-mutations. Or it could be a bug.

zanzarino did reply to my post and said it was intentional. I still find it a bit too chaotic for my tastes, but it is interesting.

[DarkGate]

zanzarino did reply to my post and said it was intentional. I still find it a bit too chaotic for my tastes, but it is interesting.

Well chaotic is what entropy is supposed to be about after all.

[Elecid]

The reflective shield and the emerald shield were both designed to deal with this very problem. It's pretty simple to use an emerald shield in a firelfly deck. The only problem with both of these cards is that they are both easily destroyed by a deflagration. Zanzarino should make both of these cards immune to deflagration(not steal though), and therefore they would better suit their purpose.

On second thought - those shields should not be completely immune to deflagration, but perhaps only immune for two turns - they would essentially become the dimensional shield against a mono-fire deck.

In my opinion, Emerald shield (and reflective shield) are both terrible cards that need revision. They only really counter 2 cards in the whole game, unless I forgot one. If anyone put it in their decks, there are very few situations in which they would be useful, and their deck would not be competitive compared to more focused decks.

As for your suggestions: No shield should ever be completely immune to deflagration, as that would destroy the main reason for the deflagration's existence. That is just bad design. Putting those shields on a timer is also silly, and doesn't solve the problem. What WOULD solve the problem is to have the shield nullify the next two spells played by any player.

On a more general note (relating to my point in an earlier post), there are decks which cannot win against other decktypes. This is true, but it should not be true. It's natural to have elements or decks that are at an advantage, but to have decks that simply have no chance--that's a problem. If you force every element to use creatures to win, you will solve the mono-red imbalance issue. To do that, you must modify its creatureless win condition. Make the dmg increase faster on fire bolt, but introduce a dmg cap. Do the same to Farenheit (cap dmg at 10).

To fix the aether balance issue, i'd suggest making dimensional shield simply cut damage in half, rounded down, and last for four turns. That will neuter pure stall decks.

Finally, in a 30-card deck, allowing for 6 of each card is too many. It allows for and encourages combo decks which have magic-bullet solutions against them, but more importantly, since there are so many elements, it makes some elements (like light) only playable as a splash color because there simply aren't the cards light needs to win in its card base, but it has a few nice cards. On the other hand, the only thing that Aether or Fire need to win are its own cards. May I suggest going down to 5, or even 4, once each element has at least one or two more cards? This should prevent decks from abusing those few cards that allow them to win (parallel universe, fire bolt, devourer, nova, chrysaora, lycanthrope) to the exclusion of any other strategies, and should help decks such as light, which doesn't have that sort of built-in combo jank, but has an all-around solid card base (except for photon which is only good in conjunction with another color).

[Elecid]

Well, I just switched to the mono Fire strategy... and won a Fahrenheit. So I'm sticking with it

It DOES have a very high win consistency. Simply because there is no "mana control" in the game apart from the weapon that destroys pillars. When you play the AI it often sits with a full hand of cards cuz it has no idea what to play when you have zero creatures out.

It's pretty boring to play however. And, it will not win you money or a top 50 place, as it's basically waiting for the opponent to nearly kill you, then play all the firebolts you have and hope it works...

Seems like you're playing it right. It has such a high win consistency (and so does mono aether) because there is little to no possibility of not getting the cards you need, because both decks start slowly and use stall. There is no such thing as a bad hand. Faster decks are vulnerable to stall tactics AND the occasional bad hand. Against player decks, i've won about 90% of games with that deck, and I have lost once to the computer on the highest difficulty. (about 40 games so far) I lost when I accidentally clicked on two rain of fires when there were no creatures out, mistaking it for fire shield. The computer threw out 2 firefly queens, a few divers, and I was toast.

The AI is not at fault for keeping all those cards in hand. The cards are simply not relevant because your creatures cannot be frozen, infected, destroyed, etc... like i said, about 50% of your opponent's hand may as well be discarded.

There IS plenty of mana control, but darkness/fire have it all. Even a deck with 3 deflagrations, 6 steals, 6 devourers, 3 dragons, and 12 mana would have a difficult time beating that fire deck because it has 16 lands, and will pretty reliably eliminate your 9 creatures. I'd hate to play that game.

[Cooder]

So I just won two Fahrenheit in three spins. Might be time to try a new deck.

[Midge8000]

So I just won two Fahrenheit in three spins. Might be time to try a new deck.

Lucky. =(

I want a Fahrenheit to try out a mono-fire deck but I have terrible luck.

[DarkGate]

I think you guys are overstating the power of fire decks. You're playing against AI's and not people plus once the true PvP comes out we'll be able to see what really is most effective. Fire doesn't need to have firebolt or fahrenheit capped at this time because in reality its a slower deck that can very well be vulnerable to faster decks and aether decks. Anyways if fire was such an effective strategy at this point you would see many more people in the top 50 running it. Thats not the case and in fact I've been playing against a variety of decks since nova's been weakened.

In regards to your aether being overbalanced if you were to do what you mentioned to the dimensional shields you would effectively ruin(or nerf as some call it) the all aether strategy because its cards are so expensive in the first place. You need to be able to stall with the dimensional shields in order to have enough time to get all the quanta needed to summon a dragon and use parallel universe a couple of times. Aether is a slower strategy so you have to be able to slow down your opponent somehow plus the price of the dimensional sield has been raised as well. I personally have 17 pillars in my deck to make sure I can get enough pillars in the beginning(I'm sure you can guess the rest of my cards yourself :P).

As for a smaller card limit I'd be in support of it because it would provide more variety to the game because players wouldn't be able to focus on a single strategy as much. They'd have to be able to go in several different directions. Another idea might be to bring the minimum deck number up to 40 so that people would have to have a larger deck and maybe even duel type their deck so that they can have the variety to fill the 40 cards up. Maybe even both could be put to use. In an old card game called Yugioh I used to play the card minimum was 40 and you could only have up to three copies of a card in your deck and even less for the cards that were more powerful(granted there were a lot more cards in that game than this one.) Putting either of these two rules in effect would make players have to branch out in their strategies and further differentiate startegies within the game.

[DarkGate]

I have three fahrenheis so far, but I don't really want to mess with my deck yet(especially since I just recently broke into the Top 50 again). if there was an option to save deck combos then I'd seriously consider trying out other decks combinations, but for now I'll just leave my deck as is.

[Cooder]

yeah...having two Fahrenheit (or two owl's eyes for that matter) wasn't enought to make me change again. I'm still running 16 aether pillers, 6 parallel universe, 4 demesional shields, and 4 phase dragons.

[DarkGate]

I have 17 pillars 6 each of dragons, dimensional shield, and parrallel universe personally right now. It works well for me except in certain situations.

[Midge8000]

I am happy with my aether/time deck, but it's getting quite boring now. I have enough electrum coins to make a new deck, but I don't know which ones work well. Any suggestions?

[icecue7]

Well, I just switched to the mono Fire strategy... and won a Fahrenheit. So I'm sticking with it

It DOES have a very high win consistency. Simply because there is no "mana control" in the game apart from the weapon that destroys pillars. When you play the AI it often sits with a full hand of cards cuz it has no idea what to play when you have zero creatures out.

Deflagration and Steal work well as "mana control" as well. Devourer is a good quantum control card too.

[kethaq]

I haven't gotten the update yet. (I think its because my name got changed)

I had to clear my browser cache so new version would be loaded. (firefox)

[icecue7]

Hm, what's causing Ziter to have his score submitted multiple times? It seems to be happening constantly still.