A. Propst

Drawing cards is one of the most important aspects of card games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon etc. It ensures that players do not run out of “threats” and “answers”, as I like to call it. Threats are cards that enable you to win the game by attacking the opponent directly or by weakening him or her indirectly. Answers are cards that enable you to deal with the threats the opponent plays or has in play.

Due to Elemental Clash’s game mechanic of having to put one card from the top of your draw-pile (the Spellbook) onto your discard pile for each and every point of damage you receive, with players losing if they are unable to draw a card from their Spellbook, card draw becomes a twofold meaning: On the one hand, it is vital for getting your hands on said threats and answers, on the other hand, drawing a card means you have one card less in your Spellbook. Each card you draw virtually equals 1 point of damage to you, thus making card draw in Elemental Clash a rather ambivalent, but through this a quite appealing aspect of the game.

As a deckbuilder, you have to carefully consider, how much card draw (like the classic Wave of Wisom, the cheap Arcane Teachings or the powerful Rummage) you want to pack into a deck without harming yourself too much, or drawing too much card-draw you do not want to play due to lack of cards in your Spellbook.

What is more, these circumstances offer tremendous potential and opportunites for the game designer: There can be cards which force you to draw cards (Wave of Wisdom for example), and yet other cards that let you choose whether to draw a card or not (like Spell Surge). This tiny difference in wording may be crucial depending on the circumstances. With cards that say “you may draw X card(s)”, you might want to draw early on in the game, but pass in late game when you are already low on cards in your Spellbook. Also, this system gives cards like Coerced Knowledge a double meaning. Coerced Knowledge has target Player draw three cards. Use it on yourself to refill your hand with 3 new threats and/or answers, or use it aggressively to virtually deal 3 damage to your opponent! Cards like Thoughtstopper even allow you to decide whether or not to draw a card during your Draw-Step, saving you the 1 or 2 cards in your Spellbook that may decide between success or failure!

So we have seen that card-draw in Elemental Clash is a very ambivalent thing. On the one hand it is useful to find new answers and threats and on the other hand it may, when used excessively and carelessly, harm yourself and lead you not to victory, but to defeat.

Transform – A look on a versatile new ability:

Besides “Astral”, “Transform” is the newest card ability in the expansion-set “Otherworld”. It may sound a bit strange, but it basically came to me in a dream.

Here is the rules text for Transform:

Transform: You may play this card face-down as an Element-Stone that produces 1 Neutral Energy. During your Main-Phase, you may flip this card face-up and play it onto a suitable ES-pile.

So, what does this mean? First of all, if you play a card face down, your opponent will never know what it is eventually going to become. Then, there are lots of cards with effects that trigger when cards are flipped, making them decent additions to any Transform-deck! What is more, with lots of Transform-cards you may considerably decrease the Element-Stone count in a deck, as you can play these cards as Neutral ES, allowing you to add more Spells and Creatures to the mix. In combination with P-Spells, Transform-cards have another advantage: You can first play a P-Spell onto an ES-pile, thus blocking it, and then turn the Transform-cards from the blocked pile into useful Creatures and Spells.

Below you see a rather aggressive Transform-decklist. To look up the cards, see the “Otherworld”-spoiler. Whenever a card gets flipped, your Spark Spitters and Magma Maulers deal damage, your Transforming Fury strengthens your Creatures and your Miraculous Automatons grow bigger and bigger. With “Astral”, Lightning Sprite and Spirit of War are hard-to-block threats. Spirit of War and Flaming Darts also add “Purge” to the mix, in order to give the deck a fighting chance against DPT- and Reanimator-style decks. And with almost 20 Transform-cards, 12 Element-Stones should be more than enough.

Transformer.dec:

Transform-cards (19):

3 x Lightning Sprite

2 x Spirit of the Storm

3 x Spirit of War

3 x Flaming Darts

3 x Transforming Fury

3 x Amulet of History

2 x Amulet of Fire

Other Creatures (9):

3 x Spark Spitter

3 x Miraculous Automaton

3 x Magma Mauler

Element-Stones (12)

7 x Mars-Stone

5 x Jupiter-Stone

here a merfolk tribal deck – enjoy!

ready-made decks – tribal _merfolk_

here are the ready-made starter-decks for those among you who want to give it a shot, but are too lazy or don’t have the time to assemble the decks themselves (also you save some printer colour):

ready-made decks – starter-deck fire-air

ready-made decks – starter-deck earth-water

hier die kartenliste für elemental clash’s 7. expansion-set “otherworld”, welches im februar 2010 erscheinen wird!

here the cardlist for elemental clash’s 7. expansion-set “otherworld”, due to be released in february 2010!

expansion-set otherworld

for those among you who are too lazy or don’t have the time to compile a deck themselves, i post here four different ready made 40 card decks. the cards fit neatly on 4 and a half A4 pages. so you save a lot of printer colour too!

here they come:

ready-made decks – stronghold

ready-made decks – dpt-exploitation _fire-water_

ready-made decks – dpt-exploitation _fire-air_

ready-made decks – windwheel combo _water-air_