History Main / Elements

"Elements" could refer to:

* ElementsOfNature, an index of classical elements.

* [[Fanfic/{{Elements}} The fanfic series]].

* The CCG video-game ''VideoGame/{{Elements}}''

[[redirect:VideoGame/{{Elements}}]]

[[re*direct:VideoGame/{{Elements}}]]

''Elements'' is an online, fantasy-themed CollectibleCardGame. As the online documentation puts it, "[[AGodIsYou The player is an elemental]], a spirit composed of an element; elements are the fundamental building blocks of nature. Each elemental has an arsenal of skills that can be used in a duel against another elemental; each skill corresponds to a card."

The game groups cards into three types:

* '''[[SummonMagic Creatures]]''': These attack your opponent, and can have useful abilities.
* '''Spells''': These give you an effect once, then disappear.
* '''Permanents''': These [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin stay in play when you play them]].

Permanents, in turn, include three important subtypes:

* ''Pillars'': These are your primary source of [[{{Mana}} Quanta]] (singular Quantum). Quanta are the energy you use to play your other cards.
** Some of which are ''Pendulums'', which alternately give you quanta of their element and your "native" element (which you can change outside of duels).
* ''Weapons'': These are another way for you to attack your opponent, and most have useful abilities.
* ''[[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe Shields]]'': These defend you. Most focus on defending you against your opponent's attacks.

Also, the cards are divided into 12 different elements:

* '''Aether:''' The power of the immaterial; Aether is the color to use for [[NighInvulnerable immortal creatures.]] It also includes some psionic abilities, including [[MegaManning spell-copying]].
* '''[[BlowYouAway Air:]]''' The power of the wind; Air doesn't have as much of a unifying strategy as some of the other elements, though it is a good element for creature removal.
* '''[[DarkIsEdgy Darkness:]]''' The power of the shadows; Darkness has a thing for healing you by hurting your opponent, and also allows you to steal your opponent's permanents and [[ManaDrain quanta]].
* '''Death''': Power from the grave. Death allows you to poison your opponent and their creatures, and to benefit from creatures dying.
* '''[[DishingOutDirt Earth:]]''' The power of the earth itself. Earth gives you ways to pump up your creatures' defense and bolster your own HitPoints; it also gives you the ability to destroy your opponent's pillars.
* '''[[EntropyAndChaosMagic Entropy]]''': The power of chaos. Entropy has a number of random effects, including mutating creatures.
* '''[[PlayingWithFire Fire:]]''' The power of the flame. Most of Fire's creatures [[GlassCannon are strong attackers, but have little defense.]] Fire also provides removal for both creatures and permanents, and is one of the elements that can inflict burn damage to your opponent.
* '''[[SelectiveGravity Gravity:]]''' The power of, well, gravity. Gravity tends to have creatures with high defense, and also can allow creatures to not be affected by shields. It can also [[ManaBurn rob your opponent of their quanta.]]
* '''[[GreenThumb Life:]]''' The power of nature. Life's creatures tend to be simple beatsticks. Life is also one of the elements that allows you to heal yourself, and can allow creatures to attack more than once per turn.
* '''[[LightEmUp Light:]]''' The power of light and divinity. Light allows you to heal yourself and your creatures.
* '''[[TimeTravel Time]]:''' The power of the arrow of time. Time allows you to draw extra cards, stall your opponent's creatures, or even return creatures to the deck.
* '''[[MakingASplash Water:]]''' The powers of water and [[AnIcePerson ice.]] Water can freeze your opponent's creatures. Most of its creatures have control-oriented effects. Water also can allow you to turn your pillars into creatures.

You can find the game [[http://www.elementsthegame.com/ here.]]

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!! This game provides examples of:
* [[AGodIsYou An Elemental Is You]]
* AllYourPowersCombined: Due mainly to the persistence of quanta from generation to use (with a computer tracking numbers, there's no need for a physical game's "tap to pay" system), it's actually practical to build decks using all 12 elements at once. In fact, using at least 5 is almost ''de rigueur'' when going up against False Gods.
* ArtificialStupidity: While the AI is mostly competent, every once in a while, it will make some rather boneheaded moves. In particular, the AI doesn't seem to be able to realize that, "Hey, I've already got a weapon/shield, maybe I shouldn't play a different one."
** Also, it likes to bury immortal creatures, as if gaining the meaningless defense bonus was worth halfing the creature's attack.
** It will also draws using the Golden Hourglasses like crazy, often decking itself out in the process.
* {{Cap}}: Your deck must be at least 30 cards, but it can't have more than 60. Also, you can never have more than 8 cards in your hand, and at the end of your turn, if you do have 8, you have to discard one. Other than pillars, you're not allowed to have more than 6 copies of any particular card in your deck. Finally, as of the latest versions, there is a cap of 75 for each individual type of quanta.
** Also, Stone Skin/Granite Skin gives you extra HP equal to the number of Earth quanta you have -- but only up to 73-74.
** There are also limits on the number of creatures in play (23).
* BalefulPolymorph: Entropy has Mutation effects, which change one creature into another, randomly generated creature. These effects can be used on your own creatures, or on your opponent's.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: The Adrenaline effect gives a creature multiple attacks per turn. Bigger creatures get fewer extra attacks, and their attacks after the first will usually have less power.
* ElementalPowers: Pretty much every single elemental power from healing to time and space manipulation is represented in one form or another.
* ExplosiveBreeder: The Malignant Cell, which has very little attacking power in a game where creatures normally can't intercept attacks. What it ''can'' do is copy itself each turn, and so can the copies, up to the hard limit of the number of creatures a player can have in play. Most decks' capacity to kill their own creatures is decidedly limited... this creature is built to be given to an opponent as cancer.
** Time's Deja Vu (a weak flyer) also splits into two copies. While this erases the splitting power on the copies, this game has no creature tokens - the copies are ''real cards'', and so can be returned to the deck (which most Time decks can do ''ad infinitum''). When a card leaves play, it returns to its pristine state and original text... so a Time player need never run out of Deja Vus (or out of cards, for that matter).
* FairyBattle: You can challenge AI-controlled copies of the Top 500 players' decks. Some players in the Top 500 will intentionally build their decks to include a few rare cards, but no way to play them, and no way to win the game; this makes those rare cards far easier to get.
* FlawlessVictory: If you can win the game with full HitPoints, you get more in-game money.
** Note that this doesn't require you to have never been hurt, although it still usually requires a bit of skill.
* GradualGrinder: This is Death's primary style, both against players and creatures. In this game, damage to the latter persists between turns.
** And one of Darkness's secondary styles. Players can build an enormous quanta pool and often do. A focused Darkness player can ''still'' keep an opponent almost completely quantaless for most of the game with a bit of luck, and with Nightfall/Eclipse, can do slow damage using the same creatures.
* [[ImaHumanitarian I'm a Humanitarian]]: The Otyugh can eat pretty much anything, from germs to dragons, provided he's buffed enough.
* IncrediblyLamePun: The same symbol is used for Time and the in-game currency, Electrum. Like we've never seen that one before.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: In addition to the creature, permanent, and spell cards the player character also has access to a variety of elemental shield cards. Its amazing how much the right type of shield can make or break a game.
* MirrorMatch: Aside from the usual, playing against a Darkness player can sometimes resemble one, when their deck can take your weapons, shields, ''and'' the pillars to power them. Or just appropriate the defenses you included against the usual mirror match...
** Aether can be far worse. Theoretically, an Aether player can set up to play up to 6 copies of every card you draw, on the turn ''before'' you even draw it. That includes your quanta generators, so they can ''use'' those cards. Realistically, they can often manage at least 2 of your cards to your 1. While humming "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better".
* MoneyGrinding: [[CaptainObvious You need money to buy cards]], and you can also upgrade your cards for a whopping 1500 Electrum Coins each.
* {{Nerf}}: Over time, a few cards have been changed or made more expensive to play to keep them from [[GameBreaker breaking the game.]]
* NighInvulnerable: In this game, creatures normally attack your opponent directly, ignoring their creatures entirely. This is why players get weapons and shields - and both can be situationally ''very'' effective. Every element has at least one shield. Some elements can make you MadeOfIron (or Rubber), able to ignore armies of weak attackers. Darkness, Water, and Aether can do a passable Made Of Air (in the form of Extreme Luck for the first two). Entropy can do a ManaShield, in a game where there can be immense amounts of "mana" to pump into it.
* ObviousRulePatch: Flooding doesn't affect Water creatures (which makes sense), but it also doesn't affect neutral creatures. What neutral creatures does the game have? Neutral weapons when made into creatures by Flying Weapon/Animate Weapon, and Malignant Cell. That's it. So why does Flooding not affect neutral creatures? Because if it did, it would affect Malignant Cell.
** For that matter, how about Malignant Cell being a neutral creature in the first place? Aflatoxin, the card that generates it, is a Death card. So why is Malignant Cell neutral instead of Death? To keep it from being affected (read: buffed) by Nightfall/Eclipse. For those who wonder why any of this would matter, Malignant Cell's effect is that it makes another of itself at the end of the turn. See ExplosiveBreeder above.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: There's a dragon for every element and no two are exactly alike.
* ReviveKillsZombie: The card "Holy Light" is primarily used to restore hit points, but when used against a dark or death aligned target it deals damage instead. (Usually more then enough to kill even the strongest creatures in one hit.)
* RulesAreForHumans: A player starts with 100 HitPoints, gets one free Quantum of one element each turn from his Mark, and draws 1 card per turn. The Level 5 computer players and Fake Gods start with 200 HitPoints, and draws 2 cards per turn. The Fake Gods also start with what is essentially two copies of a single normal deck. In short, they have twice as much everything as a normal player. Except for the Mark - they have triple the normal amount. For the Fake Gods, the game's [[LampshadeHanging pretty upfront about them not playing by the same rules.]]
** On the bright side, you can get one prediction a day on exactly which False God you'll fight next, and their card lists and strategies are all wikied up.
* ShoutOut: Players can summon an earth based creature called a [[{{Tremors}} Graboid and then evolve it into a Shrieker.]]
* ZergRush: This is usually the main strategy of mono life.
** This is also the main strategy of basically everybody in PVP-1 some days...
** Which can be painful facing somebody who can simply ignore weak attacks. The more so if the rusher hit the creature cap early and lacks free space to summon anything effective.

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!!This game notably averts:
* BribingYourWayToVictory: The game's free to play, and donating money doesn't give you any noticeable advantage. While you will get a card for a big enough donation, said card can be gotten without donating.
* GameBreaker: While some individual cards or combos can be a little insane, the game manages to be pretty well-balanced.

* ''Shields'': These [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin defend you]]. Most focus on defending you against your opponent's attacks.

* '''[[SelectiveGravity Gravity:]]''' The power of, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gravity.]] Gravity tends to have creatures with high defense, and also can allow creatures to not be affected by shields. It can also [[ManaBurn rob your opponent of their quanta.]]

* '''[[LightEmUp Light:]]''' The power of, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what do you think?]] Light allows you to heal yourself and your creatures.

** A not-yet-released card still under development, the Shard of Conscience, will let you lower your enemy's quanta caps.

** There are also limits on the number of creatures in play.

* MirrorMatch: Aside from the usual, playing against a Darkness player can sometimes resemble one, when their deck can take your weapons, shields, creatures, ''and'' the pillars to power them. Or just appropriate the defenses you included against the usual mirror match...

* ZergRush: This is usually the main strategy of solo-life.

* IncrediblyLamePun: The same symbol is used for Time and the in-game currency, Electrum. Like we've never seen that one before.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: There's a dragon for almost every element and no two are exactly alike.

* {{Cap}}: Your deck must be at least 30 cards, but it can't have more than 60. Also, you can never have more than 8 cards in your hand, and at the end of your turn, if you do have 8, you have to discard one. Finally, other than pillars, you're not allowed to have more than 6 copies of any particular card in your deck.

** Also, Stone Skin/Granite Skin gives you extra HP equal to the number of Earth quanta you have -- but only up to 50.

* ExplosiveBreeder: The Malignant Cell, which has no attacking power in a game where creatures normally can't intercept attacks. It's also effectively unbuffable. What it ''can'' do is copy itself each turn, and so can the copies, up to the hard limit of the number of creatures a player can have in play. Most decks' capacity to kill their own creatures is decidedly limited... this creature is built to be given to an opponent as cancer.

* FairyBattle: You can challenge AI-controlled copies of the Top 50 players' decks. Many players in the Top 50 will intentionally build their decks to include a few rare cards, but no way to play them, and no way to win the game; this makes those rare cards far easier to get.

* '''Entropy''': The power of chaos. Entropy has a number of random effects, including mutating creatures.

* RulesAreForHumans: A player starts with 100 HitPoints, and draws 1 card per turn. The Level 5 computer players and Fake Gods start with 200 HitPoints, and draws 2 cards per turn. The Fake Gods also have more cards in their deck than a player can, and can have more than 6 copies of a particular card. For the Fake Gods, the game's [[LampshadeHanging pretty upfront about them not playing by the same rules.]]

* '''Gravity:''' The power of, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gravity.]] Gravity tends to have creatures with high defense, and also can allow creatures to not be affected by shields. It can also [[ManaBurn rob your opponent of their quanta.]]

* '''Time:''' The power of the arrow of time. Time allows you to draw extra cards, stall your opponent's creatures, or even return creatures to the deck.

* '''[[LightTheWay Light:]]''' The power of, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what do you think?]] Light allows you to heal yourself and your creatures.

* NighInvulnerable: In this game, creatures normally attack your opponent directly, ignoring their creatures entirely. This is why players get weapons and shields - and both can be situationally ''very'' effective. Every element has at least one shield. Some elements can make you MadeOfIron (or Rubber), able to ignore armies of weak attackers. Darkness, Water, and Aether can do a passable Made Of Air (in the form of Extreme Luck for the first two). Entropy can do a ManaShield, in a game where there can be immensive amounts of "mana" to pump into it.

** Which can be painful against somebody who can simply ignore weak attacks. The more so if they hit the creature cap early and lack free space to summon anything effective.

* '''Aether:''' The power of the immaterial; Aether is the color to use for [[NighInvulnerable immortal creatures.]]

* GradualGrinder: This is Death's primary style.

** For that matter, how about Malignant Cell being a neutral creature in the first place? Aflatoxin, the card that generates it, is a Death card. So why is Malignant Cell neutral instead of Death? To keep it from being affected (read: buffed) by Nightfall/Eclipse. For those who wonder why any of this would matter, Malignant Cell's effect is that it makes another of itself at the end of the turn.

* LevelGrinding: Well, money grinding, anyway. [[CaptainObvious You need money to buy cards]], and you can also upgrade your cards for a whopping 1500 Electrum Coins each.