[Squirrelloid]

The royalty have always been junk. They were the poor-man's nation SC (poor insofar as they had no other options except tarts if they could get the factory going or wishing for Seraphs). They were and are extremely overcosted.

FWIW, i stopped seeing elemental royalty when gemgens went unique, even before EDM was released. They were never cost effective, and when gem supply got tight, people stopped using them. And i still see QoAs and QoWs, who were the only ones even plausibly worthwhile before. (And anyone who thinks a Grendelkin is better than a QoW doesn't know what he's talking about).

So anyone claiming that its EDM which has marginalized elemental royalty has it wrong. Its not. They were marginalized because they were not efficient summons, and making gemgens unique forced people to be more efficient. No one wishes for Seraphs any more for the same reason - 100s is simply too expensive when gem supplies are tight. They'll never pay off in the long run.

I think there was also a metagame shift at some point. SCs tend to be *very vulnerable* to certain tactics, and people figured out what these tactics are. The value of SCs fell through the floor. I rarely see lone SCs tearing it up these days. They accompany armies or act as glorified thugs raiding PD. No one takes just an SC or a handful of SCs into an army and expects to win these days. (I've seen it attempted just once, and it resulted in the deaths of 2 out of 3 of the SCs involved).

So yes, elemental royalty became less desirable. They don't see as much use these days. But the cause was most certainly not EDM. The change happened before EDM was even released.

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But using Sea King's Court as an example of a good spell is hilarious, btw. Really? It wasn't really worthwhile even when gemgens were non-unique and you could blow gems on useless crap. Its a bad spell, its always been a bad spell, and its lack of use has absolutely nothing to do with EDM.

Streams from Hades, which has more right to feel trod upon by EDM than anything else, still sees play.