Hey, it's a 5 diff, 4 dmg attack that flips a 2... It's not THAT good... /sarcasm

I don't think we should bust out the RAGNAR BANHAMMA on I-Spin just yet. Try getting through Earth 's wall without it if you're Air . All of a sudden, it gets a whole lot harder, for all 3 symbols. I-Spin is a way to compensate for a building disadvantage/punch through a very solid wall. Ironically enough, I-Spin discourages grey wars (up to a certain extent), because it's a card that can be passed on T2 easily, and punishes the opponent for hiding behind a wall of foundations.

griffinman01 said:

Indeed. Seeing as you were a multiple deck, I had to be ready for anything you were going to pull. We should have played another game for fun now that I think about it...o well, next year

LordAggro said:

It doesn't punish Wall o' foundations.

If anything, it encourages wall of foundations. iSpin's ability to take away an opponent's 2 most critical foundations will put them in a mindset of "Oh crap gotta have as many resources on the field just incase he starts using Ira Spinta."

It also being a throw means that its damage will get through, marking an inevitability that if the opponent gets Spinta'd enough, they will die. Control decks don't care how they kill you, so long as they do.

A card that punishes hiding behind a wall of foundations could probably look something like this.

Action card

7/4

Symbol Symbol symbol

First F: Your opponent loses X vitality or destroys X of their foundations (their choice). X equals the number of foundations in your opponent's staging area minus the number of foundations in your staging area.

Archimedes said:

Quoted for truth...and in lieu of starting a thread that everyone would just flame.

ROTBI said:

Only problem is it wont do much against earth. They'll just take the damage and then get it all back with Battle Prowess...

Archimedes said:

Not debating that you can use ISpin that way. But this goes both ways; you can use it to negate early board advantage, and then grab it back via From the Mouse, Humility , either of Seong Mi-Na 's abilities, or however the heck else you want, and use it to crush a heavily board-dependent deck. That's the thing about staple cards; they're usually useful to a very wide spectrum of decks, and can thus be used in different ways.

I like your Wall Hate, but I think it should be a bit harsher on the wall than that. Dropping the cost to 6, avoiding control symbols (IOW, giving symbols that have a hard time getting through a wall a shot at it), and doubling the vitality loss would make it fair, methinks.

Ira Spinta simply does not have enough realistic counters. What people seem to be either forgetting or merely putting aside is that it doesn't just target foundations...

I'd be more partial to it if there were more counters to it than just Lotus and Calming (and bah to Calming, I have yet to see it see play), but as it does not really, it's simply too troublesome; not NEARLY enough drawback for its overall performance.

...also, why is this thread still being bumped? When was the last time Make a Difference saw play?

Oh, right, never.

(seriously, it's a GREAT card, but I wouldn't call it TOO good, not by a longshot)

MarcoPulleaux said:

I actually saw it quite a bit during the So Cal Regionals, hence why I made the topic in the first place.

As for Calming, much like other 'counter' cards all they seem to do is counter the one card. Calming will stop only 2-3 things effectively: Felicia's F: (and thus some of the feline spike nonsense), Ira Spinta, plus any deck that relies on multiples (of which there aren't many good ones). In 80-90% of decks, Calming the mind is pointless. I'd see it as sideboard material at best.

MarcoPulleaux said:

calming the mind is played all the time here, and make a difference, it comes and goes, still a very common card to see in decks. you may never see them in play where ever you are, but from the general sounds of it from your other random troll posts, your area isnt overly good anyways. so who cares if you never see cards played, other areas definately have cards you would never see play get played.

@Arch: How bout a 6/6 +0M character with E Commit 1 foundation: Your [Earth] or [Fire] attack gets +X damage. X equals the # of cards in your opponent's staging area minus the # in yours

;p

also, I could honestly see an Ibuki deck that hides behind a wall of control for X turns until you try to attack, then uses Cutting Edge [or something similar] to put it at huge board disadvantage and then win with the burn. Although, I guess giving them the out of "destroy X foundations" would balance it well enough...

If they took the words "Your turn ends" off Final Confrontation, that would work too

@kiit: oh snap

kiit said:

*sigh* Well then allow me to reiterate.

Make a Difference has Air, All, and Life. Life, as we know, sucks. All doesn't suck persay, but it certainly isn't what it used to be, and is seen only so frequently (Alex and Sakura being the two primary candidates).

Now there's Air. Air, IMO, is grossly overestimated as "top tier". IMO, it isn't as good as people say. Top tier? Eh...debatable, but without Makai and ESPECIALLY Chester's, Air has lost some super speed tools. My point is, Air is pretty much the only symbol to run Make a Difference. Or rather, when it comes to regionals (as I ARDENTLY keep up with regionals), Air top 8s much more frequently than All, and Life, obviously hasn't top 8'd.

When it comes to Air, it truly depends on the deck. Staple? I'd say so, honestly, but it truly isn't for everyone, mostly because it's a 3/4 no block.

The question of this thread I have already answered.

Once again, if the words of your mouth are "going to be ****", please refrain. I make my posts simple SO THAT I don't have to elaborate as I have done here. Make a Difference may "see play" physically, but because its presence in the top 8 is so minimal

IT

DOES

NOT

SEE

PLAY

Gettin' it?

MarcoPulleaux said:

once again you try to make a claim that you know is wrong, just because a card is or isn't in every top 8 deck, has no bearing on if people play the card. life doesn't actually suck, what it is (and I will have a better idea if this may be the case after tekken is released) is more of the resource for effectivly character only build (look at ivy's support, pretty much does nothing for anyone other than ivy). while not useful, that doesn't nessisarally mean that it sucks. Life isn't a "point and click" resource that order/evil/death/air are, you actually need to take the time to figure out how your going to do things unlike the "point and click" resources.

"once again if the words of your mouth are "going to be ****", please refrain." then take your own advice and stop posting, every one of your posts other than maybe one every blue moon, is you being a ****. or before telling others to "once again if the words of your mouth are "going to be ****" please refrain." lead by example, which from looking at past posts may be near impossible for you.

I do believe what Marco means is this.

If the card was that powerful, that well-costed and that unbalanced, people would build decks around it. As it stands, it may be powerful, but for its stats and cost, it's properly costed, and not undercosted. Only cards that are easy buttons see play, because they do the work for you for little to no cost. Let's take an example.

Absurd Strength, a 1/5 Action with a +1M block that gave your opponent's hand size in damage to an attack of 5 damage or more. Great, huh? Yet in my meta, my reason for quickly getting a playset was certainly NOT the damage boost, although it went well with Mr. Karate. It was to kill the decks that one-shotted me by Powerfuls, Multiples or Terry burn. And in my meta, a BIG argument ensued about the power level of the card; not because of the damage pump like the worldwide meta was using it for, but for the momentum generation. In top 8 in major tourneys, however, you'd see Absurd Strength by the millions.

Then again you have to ask yourself, what did people use it for? Well, an action card that will probably give anywhere between +5 and +8 damage is nice, but on a 1 diff action for no other cost? With 1/5 stats and a +1M block? Which can be done turn 1 repeatedly after a 5 damage throw like Chain Throw? Ridiculously undercosted. Thus it saw play.

Only cards that are severely undercosted are even considered to be troublesome. I don't see many people making big fusses over Light On One's Feet which can change the zone of any attack by committing itself, but Bitter Rivals, who could LOOK in their hand, THEN decide which zone and had an optional discard ability was used and abused to the point of ban, because even though it was a 3/4 it was undercosted because it could do what LoOF did but better for the cost of showing your opponent what you plan to pummel them to death with.

Make a Difference? Well, first off, not many cards with destruction costs see play because of, well, losing a resource in the first place. Only Seal of Cessation, Charismatic, maybe Intolerant to Failure and a few, few select others see play. Most of the destruction abilities played are actually used because they're also negation. Negation is powerful, and negation with a cost less than destroying itself is undercosted (see banning of Chester's Backing and Cassandra). For a destruction cost, you get to "negate" something, and in general that's a fair cost. I'm surprised it doesn't see more play, considering how it renders Knight Breaker as effective as a 3H5 with a shot at destroying something possibly maybe.

Regardless, there's nothing incredibly wrong about Make a Difference. Sure it's anti-keyword, in a way. Big damage kills and multiples need to revise their strategy, but then again Multiples and Powerfuls are possibly more easy-button than MaD will ever be, so if a deck relies ONLY on either of them, then it's not an issue with MaD, it's an issue with the deck.

guitalex2008 said:

I would argue that MaD is negation for attacks because it's essentially charismatic for any attack. It isn't worded like that, but it destroys itself to discard any attack, cancel its enhance step, and negate the damage of the attack.

@waffle:

"@Arch: How bout a 6/6 +0M character with E Commit 1 foundation: Your [Earth] or [Fire] attack gets +X damage. X equals the # of cards in your opponent's staging area minus the # in yours

;p"

Sounds like Astaroth to me . An astaroth deck made it to top 8 in the So Cal Regionals off of earth.

Using your logic, then Make a Difference is no worse than Charismatic. It's a one-shot negation and shouldn't be an enormous problem most of the time.

Unless your kill condition relies on one-shotting or multiples.

guitalex2008 said:

There are a ton of ways to stop R:'s for one (moreso than E:'s). Plus cancelling a whole attack isn't exactly on the same level as stopping a response. It seems like too good of a deal when you consider destroying a single foundation to stop an attack (any attack except Feline Spike really).

Shoulder Rush and Power of the Edge both needed Momentum to kill attacks and both ran off of symbols that had next to nothing for momentum gen back then.

griffinman01 said:

Still, this topic is almost moot if the rotation is happening in, like, two weeks?

Confirmed by two of my guys in Indy, rotaition comes with the release of Tekken. The recent discussions of Battle Prowess and well as this card is now moot.

Not entirely moot

Doing some voodoo magic to ready a Make a Difference after it got Stunned down by your opponent's triple-Hammer'd Chain Throw, seems fairly effective

I agree with the Moot statement on this. Glad to hear about rotation.

bloodocean said:

That's so laughable. Just because you may not play legacy doesn't mean the card doesn't exist.

Hey Shinji, glad I got to meet you. But have to say here that Kiit is right??? (I don't often agree with him).

Then again you are right too, but the non-use in top 8 reason isn't the best reason, it is a good reason though. Keep in mind I am biased, I used it at Canats and US nats and for all intents and purposes toped 8 at 1.5/2 of those.

Please take a look at my Worlds report to see how 'great' seldom used cards can actually be in competitive play.

Other than that, everyone is right. I don't think the OP has enough experience to judge the 'too goodness' of a card, but his opinion is valid, and it is always nice to discuss - civilly without straightout saying wtf! (too that extent I apologize for my toke jopic comment, I really didn't know if you were serious and just wanted a response or not what with all the Zangief hate and Earth invincible junk flowing around, I thought this was another grab attention thread).

Now. Let's let this silly thread die.

- dut