Magi-Battery
Magi-Battery is a common Books card.
Description
Costs 0 energy. When played:
- 1. Spend 3 Shard to gain 1 Energy.
Upgrades
Magi-Battery A
Costs 0 energy. When played:
- 1. Spend 2 Shard (-1) to gain 1 Energy.
Magi-Battery B
Costs 0 energy. When played:
Strategy
Magi-Battery trades a high Shard cost to a flexible benefit. It's weaker than Extra Battery and more conditional, but gets Retain and doesn't Exhaust in exchange. On its face, Magi-Battery struggles to make its case - it costs a card draw to draw, and then gives you whatever the 4th Energy would do on a future hand of your choosing. Many Books cards trade Shard to do something that would normally cost 1 more Energy - think Zircon Zip vs. Scramble, Block Evolution vs. Big Shield, or even Mage Hand vs. Deflection. But these cost just 1 card draw, whereas this costs 2 card draws (it, and the target you're spending Energy on). The previously mentioned alternatives also cost less Shard (and are about as good as a basic card in the case when you can't afford their shard cost). So in many cases the Shard cost of Magi-Battery is simply too high, and while it's flexible as to what turn you use it on, it isn't flexible about the fact that you need 3 Shard first to use it, and that if you choose to use your Shard elsewhere it's a dead draw. There are cases where you can use it to more reliably play a 4-cost card like Stun Source or Clean Exhaust, but even then, you'd need up-front Shard (which Resonance Fork can provide) and you'd need to draw Magi-Battery before those cards.
However, Magi-Battery does do one thing quite well: infinites. While it's not an efficient user of Shard, that doesn't matter if you have infinite Shard, which you do if you can get Crystal Shard to draw itself. It is a relatively rare non-exhausting source of Energy. See Guide to Infinite Loops for more.
Its A upgrade reduces the Shard cost to 2, which is a slight improvement, but this card is still not an efficient use of Shard.
Its B upgrade instead adds a card draw effect (and lets you replace itself in your hand for 1 Shard in a semi-failure case). So it makes up for its card draw deficit and improves your outlook of using the Energy more efficiently with 1 more card. It's still probably not an efficient use of Shard. This upgrade is essential in some infinite combos (e.g. Magi-Battery B + Crystal Shard + Multi Blast B).
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