Gameplay change chapter 3: supports

Morphis

Chapter 3: supports.

Support in this game are nice.
The transposition from paper magic was good.
They stay on the field, give ongoing benefits and you can even interact(activate, damage and destroy) with the match 3 portion of the game.
This is good.

They lack in some cases:

- Reinforcing makes them durable but over some shield values its pointless

- Shield values is on a vacuum a good way to balance(or introduce a weakness for) supports. This fails horribly when supports end in corners

- A single support can provide unlimited value. While this in itself is not a problem(bar some supports) it's again most likely based on luck.

What is my suggestion?
Well make all support work like clues: at start of the player turn they lose one shield value.
Of course ALL shield value would need and adjustment(increase).
Supports would STILL be damaged by gem match.

What this change will achieve is:

- An hixus in the corner won't last forever

- A thopter spy network won't produce unlimited thopters

- Supports that benefit from being destroyed would have finally a place

Remember all the shield values would be changed.
Out of the blue the so hated hixus could have like 4 charges.
That means that with no gem match reducing the shield it will effectively block 3 attacks. No more disabled forever cases.

It's not a nerf.... Have you ever cast a hixus that did literally nothing cause it got destroyed through gem match right away?
Yes that's also very unlikely to happen with this change.

Please discuss and vote if you like this.

wink

I like this idea a lot. It would be a dramatic change in the game--a lot less varience. Deck-building would change a lot.

Stormbringer0

The only thing I read is "Hixus mimimimi". I'm playing this game for about ten months now and I never had any problems with a Hixus trapped in a corner.

I still like the idea though. This would make drawing gem conerting supports way less redundant.

MTG_Mage

This is good, but I suggest that when reinforced the support gets only half (rounded up) the charges of being cast with none on the board.

Ithilglin

I like the idea, I would just change one thing.

I think it's a good thing to keep some supports with a low number of shields, even only one.

So why not making the countdown an additional characteristic of support ? This way it would create two ways for getting rid of a support : either you try to destroy it, either you wait for its natural end.

arNero

I support the idea to make supports deteriorate instead requiring them to be matched to be damaged. While this does run a bit counter to enchantments, artifacts and lands in paper Magic, the problem is some of these supports are too game-changing that a single drop of them (Hixus, especially, but several others as well like Tutelage, Sanctum etc) can easily end the game in your defeat, which is unfun; no single card should be able to swing the game so much (this is why I'm glad they nerf Carriage, and also why I hate too, too many of the mythics out there)

I personally have another idea, but I fear this may be a bit harder to implement: Make it so that supports also take damage when any gem beside them is removed, whether via match or other effects. This might be too much to implement, I admit, but the reason for this idea is so that Supports still contain the feel of permanence in them, but at the same time being more vulnerable to any deck that is not red or green (or Anguished Unmaking).

Another, even more complicated idea to give each support some condition that automatically trigger them to lose shield, but that's way too complex even compared to my previous one, so forget me saying XD