Energy Surplus Provides Too Little

Yeah, only monsters, effects, modifiers and locations in play affect Allying. Spells don't, and nor does anything in the graveyard.

Thing is, if the cantrip worked without any generators in deck (this is the intent, it's just hard to fit a good wording into the limited space), what's the problem? 11 to draw a card at the cost of a card? Compare to Reflexes, which is 1 to cantrip, and Coffee Shops, which cantrips but costs no mana (dizzies your monsters however). Both of these actually do something other than Cycling at this point however.

Cantrip working without a gen in the deck would prevent it from being dead weight towards the end of a match, but it would not function as cheap card draw, as the unconditional draw part wouldn't work with no gens in the deck.

Also, if you want Sasha's profile it's here.

NPC is a much better cantrip card. At least with NPC you draw a card and next turn you can potentially sac the NPC to regain the 1 you paid for a cantrip (and even if it's killed, 1 costs less than 1/1).

The biggest abuse I can see is Messengite Mural + Kel'sor Elflands though Battery of Souls + Kel'sor Elflands for NPC is still technically cheaper.

Battery of Souls doesn't work on the play phase anymore, so you're still limited to five per turn with that.

Reflexes is where it's at. All you need is a monster with an ability speed (even your opponent's monsters work fine for this) and you're ready to go. It only takes Kel'Sor Elflands to make Reflexes free, and playing a monster with an ability speed (zero cost Dirlend or Lowly Slime?) is a lot easier than emptying your deck of generators and meeting the Allying:4 requirement.

Total non-issue.

�ルノ Wrote:

Sasha, who appears to be trying to make his profile inaccessible for some reason Wrote:Not to mention the ability to use the undizzying part of the Zero-G Facility without an allying deck.

... how?

If you have 5 allying gens, Zero-G facility undizzies your monsters at the end of a turn, and with Energy Surpluses you only "need" 5 allying gens in your deck to use this effect.

�ルノ Wrote:This still leaves you spending virtually all of your resources to get mana out until about turn 5, and then use up extra in order to 'really' draw your card if you get a further Energy Supply. How will this be better than not using any Energy Supplies at all?

How it will be better can be broken up into 2 parts.  Assuming if you have no energy surplus, you have generators in its place.
Case 1: before your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus gives you 2 gens instead of 1.
Case 2: after your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus would assure you a card draw for 1/1.  Having a gen would make you not get your card draw no matter what.  If you do not have the mana to play the energy surplus, you can just leave it in your hand, and it is no worse than a regular generator.
So, making the additional card draw only work when you have generators in your deck would get rid of the second benefit, while keeping the 2-generator benefit when you still have generators in your deck.
Do note that clockworks would make energy surplus totally worthless.
The other cantripping cards do not meet the case 1 benefit.
Also, it is up to you to decide whether you want the second benefit for energy surplus.  The reason I made my case is merely because it seemed to me that almost no one else was seeing it.

�ルノ Wrote:I'm pretty sure that cards with allying in your graveyard have no effect on your Allying count, if that's what you're arguing.

I'm sorry, I am not seeing how that could connect with my point.  Please elaborate.

Since you mentioned it (because I wouldn't be comparing these two cards otherwise) Energy Surpluses are certainly no better than a clockworks. Clockworks are gens that cantrip when you play them while energy surplus merely get you gens OR a cantrip. Therefor, when using Energy Surpluses, you *usually* have to pay an extra 1/1 for every gen you play rather then just having the gens. This will slow down your deck by a lot, especially because you're most likely using allying gens, while all Clockworks require is a 1/1/1 payment for a power cell and then they can be played without any extra cost. There are a few other things to factor in (namely the difference in weaknesses between effects and spells), but again, I normally wouldn't consider comparing the two cards except that Sasha brought it up.

​​ Wrote:

�ルノ Wrote:

Sasha, who appears to be trying to make his profile inaccessible for some reason Wrote:Not to mention the ability to use the undizzying part of the Zero-G Facility without an allying deck.

... how?

If you have 5 allying gens, Zero-G facility undizzies your monsters at the end of a turn, and with Energy Surpluses you only "need" 5 allying gens in your deck to use this effect.

if you have only 5 generators in your deck and no allying monsters to keep you at allying 4, you'll be pretty vulnerable to effect D, not to mention decks that want to abuse Zero-G have no problem just using allying, giving them access to cards like Scrap Heap and Data Hack.

Yes, Bubbleman, that is exactly what I meant when I brought it up: Clockworks totally outcompete energy surplus in every way imaginable: clockworks you play Power Cell, and play them, and they generate. Energy surplus you need to play and then play the energy. Granted, Power Cell also takes mana to play, but Energy Surplus with allying generators would still slow you down by 1 turn in most cases.
And Nacho, that's why I used 8 generators in my example: to have 3 extra "just in case". I'm sure if they destroy 3 and you just put them back, they'd stop trying. Plus, 3 is not so much as to take up too much space in your hand. And that's also why I put the "need" in quotation marks. Because you only need 5, though you could use 8. Though you're only addressing secondary issues: the primary issue, namely case 2, remains undiscussed. Do you want to give Energy Surplus clockwork-like capacity once you run out of cards? It would cost the same as sacrificing and replaying a Shadow Clockwork.

​​Sasha Wrote:

�ルノ Wrote:I'm pretty sure that cards with allying in your graveyard have no effect on your Allying count, if that's what you're arguing.

I'm sorry, I am not seeing how that could connect with my point. Please elaborate.

The point he is getting at is that you're claiming ability to use Zero-G Facility without an Allying deck. This implies a complete lack of Allying (using Allying gens as well as Zero-G Facilities and Energy Surpluses would count as an Allying deck to most). Assuming a lack of any allying cards other than Zero-G Facility and Energy Surplus, it's impossible to reach Allying:6 - so he assumed that you were under the false impression that Allying cards in the graveyard counted.

Anyway, most of us aren't "addressing" the cantrip because most of us aren't at all concerned about it. In fact I'm particularly curious to see this "issue" in action, because I really can't see it working in theory.

I guess in theory you could get all of mana at the start and have a cheap card draw by turn 5 or 6 but if you just getting set up by then at your best draw possible that deck doesnt seem like its going too far.

About the allying, when I said a non-allying deck, I meant only allying gens and no allying monsters. But the Zero-G facility is but another secondary benefit. And in response to shwqa, the issue I was addressing is not cheap card draw but no drawing cards you cannot use, namely generators.

​​Sasha Wrote:If you have 5 allying gens, Zero-G facility undizzies your monsters at the end of a turn, and with Energy Surpluses you only "need" 5 allying gens in your deck to use this effect.

Then why WOULDN'T you want to use further Allying cards that are just as powerful with that setup, while providing extra Allying to fall back on if one of your gens gets destroyed during the attack phase? That is essentially an Allying deck, and the only benefit of excessive Energy Surplus is that you get ensure you have a field of them as soon as possible. At the cost of delaying a full field of them, by almost a turn for each one you cast. How this guarantee is any better than just running a good number of gens and some carddraw to use up all that mana with I really don't see.

Sasha Wrote:How it will be better can be broken up into 2 parts. Assuming if you have no energy surplus, you have generators in its place.
Case 1: before your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus gives you 2 gens instead of 1.
Case 2: after your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus would assure you a card draw for 1/1. Having a gen would make you not get your card draw no matter what. If you do not have the mana to play the energy surplus, you can just leave it in your hand, and it is no worse than a regular generator.
So, making the additional card draw only work when you have generators in your deck would get rid of the second benefit, while keeping the 2-generator benefit when you still have generators in your deck.
Do note that clockworks would make energy surplus totally worthless.
The other cantripping cards do not meet the case 1 benefit.
Also, it is up to you to decide whether you want the second benefit for energy surplus. The reason I made my case is merely because it seemed to me that almost no one else was seeing it.

Case 1: before your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus gives you 2 gens instead of 1.
... but only once you've already got a full field of them in place, pretty much. Even for a guarantee of a second next turn, as I said before, this guarantee requires a huge early-game mana price - and good deck design will usually get you close to a full field with natural draw results anyway.
Case 2: after your deck runs out of gens: Energy surplus would assure you a card draw for 1/1. Having a gen would make you not get your card draw no matter what. If you do not have the mana to play the energy surplus, you can just leave it in your hand, and it is no worse than a regular generator.
This choice is actually a good point. Extra generators themselves don't accomplish much when drawn except as emergency replacements or silly things like discard benefits. On the other hand, being able to sacrifice generators for extra mana in emergencies without having to worry about whether you can replace it later is beneficial in itself.

Do note that clockworks would make energy surplus totally worthless.
The other cantripping cards do not meet the case 1 benefit.

Ahahah, yeah... clockworks... don't bother bringing those up in balance discussions, because they're still utterly and completely broken.

That said, the other cantrip cards have their own side benefits. Reflexes and NPCs can be made basically free while serving as ability speed boost and defenders/flankers, respectively. Speed boosting is less often useful, admittedly, but there's no limit on how many times you can use it in a turn (and in theory could be efficient for abusing Messengite Mural and/or Forest of Light).

Sasha Wrote:

�ルノ Wrote:I'm pretty sure that cards with allying in your graveyard have no effect on your Allying count, if that's what you're arguing.

I'm sorry, I am not seeing how that could connect with my point. Please elaborate.

The others covered my reasoning here pretty well. If you're going to run pure allying gens, you're basically using an allying deck anyway. If you need to undizzy all of your creatures at the end of turn that badly, Energy Surplus will still be about as slow as using a normal mana ratio allying-gen deck with a few allying creatures to help defend and support - which is basically an allying deck, but with a focus on using it for support rather than directly powering (all/most of) the creatures you use. I assumed there might have been a misunderstanding.

most decks assume that they'll have 5 gens out, meaning any deck that uses only allying gens can allready use Zero-G. using allying gens with very few allying monsters because they generate a lot of mana isn't an uncommon strategy, since the only decent allying beatsteaks are in D/G. and if you want to waste whenever you draw an energy surplus in exchange for running less generators in your deck, then that's called a viable strategy for a deck. not broken, just good.

Well, my goal was to make you all see both the benefits, but you instead started being nitty-picky about small print. So so long as you see and consider both the benefits in this balance, I don't care what you do: you must not forget that it is you who play this game: I'm banned.

We see the benefits, we just think they're negligible and not worth fretting over

So instead you fret over the incidentally inherent benefits, like the 5 allying for the Zero-G? I mean, I just brought it up because it was just that, (and I used "not to mention" to indicate that it is a secondary benefit) to show that the benefits of Energy Surplus are not limited to the ones that are related directly to the card itself, and everyone jumped on my case that that benefit is negligible. I mean, I don't care if it gets an extra benefit from Zero-G or from some other card, but I'm sure there is some way out there to add other uses to Energy Surplus. But as I said, I brought the cases 1 and 2 to attention, so you all can decide whether to have the Case 2 benefit or not.
Oh, and �ルノ, the reason I mentioned giving 2 gens instead of 1 is because of the delayed draw thing. After all, you wouldn't be able to play both gens even if you did draw two on your first turn from energy surplus. And after 2 energy surpluses, you will draw 2 energies, just to rid the rest of your deck of energies with only 2/2.

Blue_Elite Wrote:...I'm hoping this will be a quick fix

;_;

We have a majority favor for masa's change. The main complaint against the change is that Energy Surplus can possibly cantrip itself (i.e. outside of gaining generators) and it has been fairly well established that there are better cards for cantrip spam. If there aren't any new objections, can we accept this and let it die?

@aguydude below: Ah. Your argument makes a lot more sense now.

Umm, my complaint was actually that you could pay 2 mana to draw two non-generators once you reached allying 4 and had no generators left in your deck. This point was addressed in Masa's newer proposed card (posted before my post, but I wasn't reading carefully enough).

Blue_Elite Wrote:If there aren't any new objections, can we accept this and let it die?

No objections here.

Awesome. Then aguydude and I, the main seeming-objectors, do not object, so it is decided.