Spectromancer Forum

LordVanmaru

2025-06-28 13:05:52

This is my first time writing, so please be nice :-)

. Also, some of the effects stated here may have already been presented somewhere else in the suggestions, so please excuse me for that. After all, there are only a finite number of effects that can be added in the game, right?

I wanted to write a class that uses stealth as the core concept. How exactly does one incorporate this idea?

Introducing, the shadowmage!

Most of the idea behind this class is to apply an immense level of protection, but temporarily. Like an effect that "fades". This way, the idea of stealth as a mechanic can now be imagined in the spectromancer universe.

Class: Shadowmage

Specialization: Stealth

1. Shadow Archer 3/9 - Shadow Archer deals 3 damage to opponent when summoned. When shadow archer dies, the opponent heals 3 life.

2. Shade Stalker 5/17 - The Shade Stalker's position in the field is not revealed to the opponent until it makes its first attack or when it receives damage.

3. Nightshroud Weaver 4/18 - When Nightshroud Weaver is summoned, its neighboring creatures ignore all damage until the end of the opponent's next turn.

4. Silencer 5/23 - When Silencer is summoned, it disables the opposing creature from attacking, and the opponent is unable to cast spells from that creature's element until the end of their next turn.

5. Shadow Reinforcements - When Shadow Reinforcements is cast, all ally creatures gain a 2nd attack worth 4 damage until the end of the turn.

6. Eclipse - Eclipse increases its caster's Fire, Water, Air, and Earth powers by 2. Also, the caster ignores up to 30 damage until the end of its opponents next turn.

7. Dark Warden 7/33 - Once per turn, after Dark Warden receives damage, it becomes invincible until the end of the turn.

8. Grandmaster Assassin 9/30 - When Grandmaster Assassin is summoned, it deals 12 damage to the creature in the opposing slot. Grandmaster Assassin can replace any ally creature in the field. If the replaced creature is a Fire, Water, Air or Earth creature, the owner receives power equal to half of the cost of the replaced creature (rounded up).

Hope you guys like it :-)

Wavelength

2025-07-04 23:22:27

Nice first draft for a class. These ideas seem pretty original (and even the few effects that were suggested in other classes a decade ago, are still good ideas if they fit your new class' strategic and aesthetic theme!), and individually I think most of them would be fun to play. 7 and 8 feel like they're falling off the theme of short-term benefits to the player a little bit, even as I really like 8 as a card in a vacuum. I also believe that several of the cards are somewhat underpowered and need some more "oomph" to make up for their lack of long-term power; will address each one individually.

1) Very cool idea but definitely underpowered. Compare Griffin (1 special mana equals, depending on who you ask, about 1.75 regular mana, so they are similar in cost even if Archer is more spammable), which deals 5 damage "permanently" and is a 3/15 to Archer's 3/9... or Insanian Berserker which is permanently doing an average of 3.5 damage per turn (even though it costs 2 special mana). I think you could go as far as 6 direct damage on summon, 6 heal to opponent on death, and 4/13 stat line. Alternatively, you could increase the damage and stats by a lot and make her a Cost 3-4.

2) Assuming the glitches with invisible creatures (like the hidden Mines in the campaign battle) could be worked out, I LOVE this stealth idea, and the mindgames that could come from trying to divine why your Shadowmage opponent might have put the stealth creature down in each possible slot. However, I don't think this creature really justifies the mechanic - most of the time I am not really going to care where you decided to play a dinky 5/17 poor boy, and I'll just kind of make my plays as if he weren't on the board. Next turn, I'll know where he is anyway. Compare Goblin Saboteur, who is a 5/20 with a rather threatening effect. I don't think simply upping the stats is a good solution, so how about a cool replacement?:

*** Alternative Shadowmage 2: Shaded Intentions (Spell)

Summon one of your creatures, paying its full cost. Any "On Summon" effects will be ignored. The creature's position will only be revealed to your opponent when it affects the opposing creature or receives damage.

3) Good design. Might be fine where it is, or might need to be increased to Cost 4 for its spammability. Very strong counter to global destruction spells like Stone Rain when they are telegraphed too obviously.

4) Nifty idea, and could be good to prevent E2/E4 a turn in advance, but feels too expensive for what you get - compare 5/18 stunner Scorpion at half its cost. I think you could notch its life up to 27 or so, and change the effect from No Spells of that Element to No Cards of that Element for a turn, widening its use cases significantly.

5) Not a fan of this one. Definitely underpowered, but in the few times it would be good, it would also feel pretty cheesy. Compare Ritual of Glory at the same cost, which FULLY HEALS your creatures and also allows them to deal 3 more damage. I understand that having two separate attacks means more slot breaks in theory than simply adding 3 damage to their attack, but it's a small difference. Most of the time, a 9-damage spell would also break the slots and then let all of your creatures attack at their full power, not just 4 power. Feel free to replace with nearly any idea you have as it will almost certainly be better, but I'll throw one suggestion up there which fits into the "temporary advantage" theme:

*** Alternative Shadowmage 5: Spike of Pain (Spell)

Deal 15 damage to all enemy creatures. At the end of your turn, heal all enemy creatures 15 life.

6) Not totally my style, but not bad. Would have two main use cases, the first being to set up for a global destruct spell next turn, and the second to buy one extra turn in the style of Rejuvenation or White Elephant when both players are trying to land the final hit in the endgame without leaving themselves open. Seems well balanced.

7) The idea's OK but the overall package is underpowered. On most turns a creature will only take damage once. Twice usually implies a spread attacker like Forest Sprite or Hydra, or a spell/ability that dealt damage first (and if it's a spell, it probably represented the bulk of the damage the creature would take). Most of the time the best solution to Dark Warden, at Cost 7 with only 7 attack power, would be to ignore her completely or put up a Wall/Hydra/Turtle in front of her so you can ignore her completely. Compare Mindstealer which will always be invincible to attacks (from the opposing creature) and can kill opposing creatures very quickly. Your top Special card is supposed to be the most powerful/valuable creature in your hand. My suggestion would be to raise Warden's stats WAY up - 10/45 sounds good to me... or you could reduce her Cost to 5 (compare Death Falcon and she feels like a fair card at 5).

8) Very cool - gives you the flexibility to produce "void slots" if you have to and then punish the creature placed there, and also works as a bit of a mana engine. The stat line feels good. The one problem I have is that it actually may be overpowered in conjunction with Elementals, who usually make up most of their own cost in the first place. Gaining an extra 5 mana on top of what they've already returned is likely to make the next appearance of that Elemental way too powerful. For that reason, I would suggest allowing Grandmaster Assassin to allow the sacrifice and replace any creature of Cost 9 or lower, and I would also recommend allowing it to sacrifice (and get the mana refund for) Shadow creatures as I don't see any way this would be abusable. Whenever you can expand the possibility space for creative/niche use cases without overpowering a card, you should do so! :-)

Once again, nice job putting this class together.

Comments based on this version of the class:

1. Shadow Archer 3/9 - Shadow Archer deals 3 damage to opponent when summoned. When shadow archer dies, the opponent heals 3 life.
2. Shade Stalker 5/17 - The Shade Stalker's position in the field is not revealed to the opponent until it makes its first attack or when it receives damage.
3. Nightshroud Weaver 4/18 - When Nightshroud Weaver is summoned, its neighboring creatures ignore all damage until the end of the opponent's next turn.
4. Silencer 5/23 - When Silencer is summoned, it disables the opposing creature from attacking, and the opponent is unable to cast spells from that creature's element until the end of their next turn.
5. Shadow Reinforcements - When Shadow Reinforcements is cast, all ally creatures gain a 2nd attack worth 4 damage until the end of the turn.
6. Eclipse - Eclipse increases its caster's Fire, Water, Air, and Earth powers by 2. Also, the caster ignores up to 30 damage until the end of its opponents next turn.
7. Dark Warden 7/33 - Once per turn, after Dark Warden receives damage, it becomes invincible until the end of the turn.
8. Grandmaster Assassin 9/30 - When Grandmaster Assassin is summoned, it deals 12 damage to the creature in the opposing slot. Grandmaster Assassin can replace any ally creature in the field. If the replaced creature is a Fire, Water, Air or Earth creature, the owner receives power equal to half of the cost of the replaced creature (rounded up).

Hope you guys like it

LordVanmaru

2025-07-07 03:18:19

Finally! You have no idea how much I was looking forward to your reply Laugh :-D

I welcome both criticisms and compliments from your comment, and I'll go over them one by one.

1. This is a good point, especially because it's based on mathematical reasoning. But I want to express my doubts. Based on your version, summoning three of the shadow archer would deal a whopping 18 damage from the enemy. Now, the damage isn't really my issue per se, but giving the unit a 13 life would make it more difficult to defeat and thus, make the HP refund more challenging, wouldn't it? I'm thinking of making it a 4/11 instead. How does that sound?

2. Hmmm. You're absolutely right, if I'm up against a shadowmage, a 5/17 unit wouldn't really be threatening even if I'm unable to see its presence in the board. But I have a personal problem with your suggestion. Emphasis on the "personal", because this is really more of a preference and not a "reasoning-based" decision. I personally want the classes to have a draw of 3 creatures minimum and only 1 spell maximum (which I guess is ironic considering I'm a sorcerer main lmao). What happens if I replace number 2 with a spell is it becomes possible that the first and third card from the draw are spells (Shaded intentions and Shadow 5 or 6), and only 2 creatures. I personally don't want that. So how about I make the shaded stalker slightly more powerful?

"The shade stalker's position in the field is not revealed until it receives damage".

This way, the shade stalker is able to continuously inflict damage to the opponent until it receives damage, which is easy to counter with a wall of fire or any other AOE effect which the game has a plethora of.

3. IMO this is fine as it is. It has advantages and disadvantages compared to Holy Guard with almost the same stats and the same cost.

4. Brilliant point. It almost feels like a dominator-ish card with even more power. I'll take this suggestion.

5. Ok, now your suggestion in this card was the part where I said "Wow, why didn't I think of THAT". This is an absolutely brilliant idea; it gives shadowmages a powerful card that they have to use very wisely because it's only useful during a guaranteed kill. I'll take this suggestion as well.

6. I actually wanted a card similar to Cleric's Holy 5 but again with the short term theme. But now hearing you say that it seems well-balanced, I'm now considering moving this card a cost lower and swapping places with your "spike of pain". This way, this card becomes as accessible as Cleric's Holy 5. Since I'm also moving the spike of pain up, I'll probably also raise the damage by a bit. I'll write a whole new version of the entire deck later on then let me know your thoughts.

7. You know, the original effect of this card was supposed to be "always ignore the 1st damage for each turn". But I had doubts because it sounded way too overpowered. It's similar to the golem types because it will almost always ignore spell damage (unless your enemy has a continuous damage setup via abilities, such as goblin's ratmaster or Mechanician's chopper), but with higher stats. With that said, I'm open to your suggestion of raising the stats, but I'm also offering the idea of ignoring the 1st damage instead, and perhaps with higher stats. Perhaps another consideration to my other suggestion is that the Dark warden now becomes immune against global destruction spells (such as E9) if the owner of Dark warden is the one casting it.

8. I honestly haven't considered that part about elementals. Good job. Limiting the cost of replacable cards is reasonable, and even after this change, the Grandmaster Assassin still feels powerful. I'll take this one as well.

Revisions based on what I've mentioned:

1. Shadow Archer 4/11 - Shadow Archer deals 6 damage to opponent when summoned. When shadow archer dies, the opponent heals 6 life.

2. Shade Stalker 5/17 - The Shade Stalker's position in the field is not revealed to the opponent until it receives damage.

3. Nightshroud Weaver 4/18 - When Nightshroud Weaver is summoned, its neighboring creatures ignore all damage until the end of the opponent's next turn.

4. Silencer 5/27 - When Silencer is summoned, it disables the opposing creature from attacking, and the opponent is unable to use cards from that creature's element until the end of their next turn.

5. Eclipse - Eclipse increases its caster's Fire, Water, Air, and Earth powers by 2. Also, the caster ignores up to 30 damage until the end of its opponents next turn.

6. Spike of Pain - Deal 16 damage to all enemy creatures. At the end of the caster's turn, heal all enemy creatures by 16 life.

7. Dark Warden 10/45 - Once per turn, after Dark Warden receives damage, it becomes invincible until the end of the turn.

7. Dark Warden 7/45 - The Dark Warden always ignores the first damage it receives every turn.

8. Grandmaster Assassin 9/30 - When Grandmaster Assassin is summoned, it deals 12 damage to the creature in the opposing slot. Grandmaster Assassin can replace any ally creature with cost 9 or lower in the field. The caster gains power from the replaced creature's element according to half of that creature's cost (rounded up).

So here's my suggested revision. I want you to know that I'm enjoying this brainstorming, so I'm looking forward to hearing from you again Wavelength.

Oh by the way, it looks like I'm going to continue the shapeshifter after all. But before that I want to present another class called Plaguebringer first, and then the Emperor after that. See you around!

Modified by LordVanmaru on 2025-07-07 05:22:36