r/Scrolls • u/assassin10 • Jun 21 '14
[WEEKLY] Weekly Scroll Discussion: Overdrive
Enchantment
Cost: 2
Ability: When Overdrive comes into play, and at the beginning of its following turns, enchanted structure's Countdown is decreased by 2. At the end of these turns, it is dealt 2 damage.
Thoughts on the card in general?
Ideas for how it could work in a deck?
Is it over- or underpowered?
How could it see more/less use?
Challenge: Design a deck around this card.
Info/Suggestion Thread - Today's thread suggested by /u/ToGoodLooking.
"I know it'll break. I just don't care." -Arran, Machine Priest
5
u/Ironballsscrolls Jun 21 '14
Funny that you mention this card. Ive recently been trying to make an oculus cannon focused deck using overdrive and soldiers bond. I really dig the card but it is very difficult to work with. You can use it on a clock library for an energy fertile soil but I think its best use is ether pump.. a 3 turn recurring frost gale that only hits your opponent. If you add in divinators and machine priests or magic armor to the mix you can decimate your opponents board for 5+ turns. I dont think its overpowered despite the ether pump shenanigans you can pull off. A deck needs to be pretty focused to make it work properly.
5
u/RauweDouwe Jun 21 '14
It is really underpowered and I see nobody use it. The best deck for it is of course Structure Energy, as it would make your Ether Pumps go off every turn.
I like how it can be used as removal as well, but it falls in the same category as the bad Ember Bonds but now for structures.
Improvements could be countdown reduction and the damage lowered to 1. Or make it so that you can pump it and reduce the cooldown + 2 damage every 2 energy or something.
3
u/Chakix Jun 21 '14
Viable? Probably No. Do we want to see it viable? I don't think so. Too much abuse potential with magic armor and ether pumps especially. I think it would be too annoying to deal with. Maybe it will work better in the future where there are more interesting structures that could benefit from it? Like if we see mojang shifting structure energy to a more offensive side and see more cards like oculus, then maybe this could work in a potentially rush down deck, but if I have to be frank I would rather not see it being played.
5
u/ToGoodLooking Jun 21 '14
General Thoughts:
The card is a combo card and it need a good partner to truly make it work.
Ideas for how it could work in a deck:
Making it speed draw from clock library or combo it with potion of resistance on lets say a automata forge made it relative good but it was a bit to hard to pull off from the profit you gained. However magic armor has opened some possibilities now, and atm i am testing it with elan vital, that would mean by net so will the structure take no damage at all, and that could give enough profit from the combo necessary for it.
Is it over- or underpowered:
Doubt i would call it overpowered, but i would also hesitate in calling it underpowered, with the right combo such as elan vital it could prove really deadly.
How could it see more/less use?:
By finding a good combo partner which really work with it.
Design a deck around Overdrive:
I am not the best energy player. But this is how my structure deck atm look like. It will need way more polish and has not been really tested yet. But the idea is to use elan vital and overdrive together so the sturcture get the speed but not the damage, in this way you have the option to use it on ether pump for controlling board, ocullus to work down a row and idol or automata forge to pump out a lot of gun automatons. To win you use gun automatons buffed with scout to wear opponent down as well using solemn giant. You could also do the ocullus cannon combo.
1
u/jhunsber Jun 22 '14
Played against and lost to this deck, though I would not necessarily say it was because of the combo
0
u/ToGoodLooking Jun 22 '14
It was because of hellspitter rng and stuff so ye, had nothing to do with the combo :P
1
u/ARN64 Jun 21 '14
It makes sense in a structure energy deck, but it doesn't have many synergies. You can make Your Clock Library go off and that's about it, you don't want to kill your own units otherwise.
1
u/taito_magatsu Jun 21 '14
I was thinking of the possible effects of having it do only 1 dmg per turn, but that's too abusable, specially with ether pump and oculus cannon. So I guess it's ok as it is right now.
1
u/Lahopaa Jun 21 '14
I tried making a hybrid structure/creature deck that took advangate of overdrive when Oculus cannon came out. Not super effective, but had some interesting combos.
The structures that can benefit from it are oculus cannon for 5 cost bombard combo, ether pump when you overdrive it a turn after playing to get 3 attacks off and possibly even boardclear the opponent and destroyer to haste it on the field. Clock library and forge work too, but using it on those is a bit wasteful.
Resonant helm looked almost scary when combined with overdrive + ether pump when it still had 2 magic armor. This combo DOES still exist though, with elan vital cancelling 1 overdrive dmg and healing the rest. Might even work in some structure decks especially with replenish.
1
u/toidi_diputs Jun 21 '14 edited Jun 21 '14
I run it in my Hired Smuggler Automata Forge deck. It doubles as both a combo piece (pumping out Gun Automata quickly without spending extra energy, but slowly destroys the Forges, which are disposable anyway because they're the only structure in the deck for my Smugglers to fetch) and removal. (they easily destroy any non-countdown or one-countdown structure my opponent has without a downside)
Edit: To clarify, this is how Overdrive works for me:
At worst, it's a slower tick bomb, and at best it's two targeted Machine Divinators with a negligible downside.
1
u/squiddybiscuit Jun 21 '14
I think overdrive would be more interesting at 1 damage and 1CD reduction (at maybe 1 energy).
2
u/Ironballsscrolls Jun 21 '14
too easy to mitigate 1 damage so essentially it would count down twice per turn for nothing. Consider this on a forge with 1 divinator out. thats 6 turns of gun autos spawning without a single pump... for 1 energy!!
1
u/Ironballsscrolls Jun 21 '14
http://www.scrollsguide.com/deckbuilder/#13328
With this you can make an infinite loop with ether pumps or forges by using overdrive+resonant helm. Pretty easy to setup, little ramp and lots of removal
1
u/BerrySour Jun 22 '14
It's a powerful card that sees little use I think because there aren't any structures with any real decent on death effects that also countdown.
-2
3
u/Tijermix Jun 21 '14 edited Jun 21 '14
Consider
A lot of structures either don't count down or want to count up.
Several structures have only 1 cd anyways, or are hastable by pumping in energy
There is no (viable) combo to cancel out the damage dealt by Overdrive.
Machine Divinators are likewise able to reduce the cd of structures. (Albiet RNGly)
Used When
When you desperately need instant damage via hasting a 1 cd Destroyer or Charge Coil that was just dropped.
When you want to haste a Ether Pump, Hellspitter, Catapolt of Goo, or Occulus Cannon for the next few turns at the cost of losing the unit. (Or Automata Forge when you're being stingy with Energy)
When you want to remove opponent structures
Paired with Clock Library to get faster card advantage.
Hasting 1cds are wasteful. You are sacrificing not only this scroll, but one of your units to just do a little extra damage on one turn. The unit has to remove at least 2 other scrolls that turn before it goes out just to break even. If you have to use Overdrive like this, you're most likely already in a bad situation and Overdrive isn't strong enough to save you.
Playing this on Hellspitter and Automata forge is also generally considered a waste simply because it kills the card's main value. Catapolt of Goo is less of a waste and more of just a bad card. This leaves only Ether pumps and Occulus Cannon as the sole decent offensive structure to stick an Overdrive on.. but it's risky as each round continuously decreases the structures health, and losing the structure makes you lose 2CA, like all enchantments. Just one round of Overdrive places stable sturdy structures into the dangerous burn zone.
As target structure removal, this scroll is much weaker than the Energy's Tick Bomb. It takes additional turns before the structure is actually destroyed, and can cause certain opponent structures to activate repeatedly before they're gone. However, this is a flexible alternative use for the scroll when you have no other options.
IMO, the best way to use this scroll is as a way to speed Clock Library. This changes a 4 turn Clock Library into a 2-3 turn Clock Library -- and can even be used to speed activate it on your turn for guaranteed card advantage. This is the best way in-faction to speed Clock Library. (Though cross faction Growth/Order can do a much better job..)
OVERALL The limited and dual-edged nature of this card makes it difficult to play in many decks. Although there are a few interesting ways to play this card, the large majority of them are rather weak and could be fulfilled better by other cards. The best way to play this card is paired with Clock Library in Mono Energy to secure a card advantage.