Cactus Game Design Message Boards

That red site is absurdly broken and should absolutely be printed.

I actually like the red site as a concept, as site access through sites is not exactly prevalent right now (as far as I have seen, site access is gained other ways), so it should not be as terribly broken, and it is a fun counter IMO.  Could be wrong, though.

I do not like the Babylonian EC, as it can be splashed in without an issue in many decks, and would also be terrible x4 in T2.  Particularly with the CBN.  Just look how nasty ASA is and make it blow up everything without needing any support.

The PG Assyrian is very interesting, and I don't see it as being broken based on the number of angels that get used.  However, that last part means that it won't get played very often, as far as I can see.

The Egyptian EC is terrifying to me as a T2 player, particularly if it is generic and there are 4 of them in a deck.  3 heroes is not a lot in T1, and in T2 10 is very common very early.  A CBN capture, regardless of protection, of humans or angels, and the only way to get instead it would be to discard a huge portion of my deck?  Far too OP.  Toning it down to something similar to Entrapping Pharisees might be more realistic.

Gray Emperor...not sure who it would be, but I'm intrigued.  This would be an interesting suicide block, and while my initial reaction is that it is too powerful, I think it could become balanced and be a fun add.

Gray Enhancement, please no!  Underdeck is already insane, Gray is great at it already, and this would be far too powerful.  Underdeck 2 good cards and play next?  Add in Sorrow of Mary, underdecking from Gray characters, and either low numbers or Namaan's Horses to play it, and you'll be assured of leaving your opponent's hand devoid of any good cards that could undo it.  There is a reason why Gray hand-control has become powerful, and it doesn't need more, IMO.

On the Demon, I love playing with Orange Demons and all that comes with it, so I'm looking at it from that perspective.  First, there is an extra CBN on that card, the one at the end would suffice.  Second, this may not be OP, but I don't see what all it is useful for.  Bands could still be negated, but could be used against Thaddeus and to band to characters inside protect forts (like KotW and Tower of Thebez)...though is there anything else this was intended to do?  Just curious, as that seems to go against a rather narrow set of cards/scenarios.

On the artifact, I really like it, and it has a cool off-condition.  However, I would recommend having it be "Protect your hand and deck from look, reveal, and search abilities used by an opponent with more cards in their hand than yours.  Cannot be negated."  As it stands, I think this card is a bit OP in terms of the amount of protection, but you could change it so it would protect from the worst abilities (underdecking, targeted discarding, and more), unless the opponent gets under your hand size (which becomes intentionally harder to overcome if they get rid of cards in your hand, so it works well on that).

Fine with the Lost Soul, interesting ability.

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Overall reaction: Too much CBN, and too much power in many of the cards, but some promising abilities.

I do not like the Babylonian EC, as it can be splashed in without an issue in many decks, and would also be terrible x4 in T2.  Particularly with the CBN.  Just look how nasty ASA is and make it blow up everything without needing any support.

I don't really understand how you can "splash" a character that doesn't work if there are other evil cultures in your territory. In some ways it is more balanced then ASA because it targets your artifacts too and has a stricter spotting requirement (unless you block with him alone). I made this card with type 2 in mind because I don't like  artifacts or temples. I don't think they have enough checks. I would rather not have to build and Assyrian defense all of the time to control my opponents artifacts. Also the deck it hits hardest also has one of the best counters to it in Temple Priests.

The Egyptian EC is terrifying to me as a T2 player, particularly if it is generic and there are 4 of them in a deck.  3 heroes is not a lot in T1, and in T2 10 is very common very early.  A CBN capture, regardless of protection, of humans or angels, and the only way to get instead it would be to discard a huge portion of my deck?  Far too OP.  Toning it down to something similar to Entrapping Pharisees might be more realistic.

Well it wouldn't be generic that would be silly like you said. I made this card because I would like to see Egyptians played in type 2. The instead fits nicely with the egyptian discard theme and I don't think is to broken because 1) It punishes people for being to willy nillly when placing heroes down and 2) It counters Bullet proof Gideon and Thaddeus and the ubers 3) It targets deck which is probably more balanced then the entrapping pharisee. Perhaps the X can be toned down. The just of it though was a counter to the uber characters that will make people more careful of what heroes the put down and fits into the deck discard theme.

On the Demon, I love playing with Orange Demons and all that comes with it, so I'm looking at it from that perspective.  First, there is an extra CBN on that card, the one at the end would suffice.  Second, this may not be OP, but I don't see what all it is useful for.  Bands could still be negated, but could be used against Thaddeus and to band to characters inside protect forts (like KotW and Tower of Thebez)...though is there anything else this was intended to do?  Just curious, as that seems to go against a rather narrow set of cards/scenarios.

Its supposed to be able to help demons against Thaddeus in Type 2. The catch is you might have to burn Gates of Hell to get a block and help him out in battle unless of course your opponent drew and extra 2 a card then hopefully you can set up a wandering off the bottom or something.


As for the artifact I put the  shut off condition so you don't get burned by Primary objective, however, its your artifact and I guess you should probably just deactivate it if you are worried about it. The point of the card is to counter the hard stuff like vain philosophy, mayhem, and the national winning hand control deck in type 2.

The Lost Soul is for type 2 multi

It is actually more splashable than ASA, because you don't need others of the same civilization in territory.  If I were playing small-to-none on defense already, why not throw him in?  If I'm playing with almost no EC anyway, he's completely splashable.

Having counters to temples and artifacts is one thing, but just CBN discarding all of them is OP.

Temple Priests are not played, really, and aren't the strength of any deck that you would want to use temples in.

Its only splash-able in a smaller defense than the current meta. So no its not broken because you can't splash that into a meta defense with much success. Card space is so limited in type 1 decks that either A) you want defense cards that draw B) you want auto/cbn/cbi blocks. So then in a small defense you would be risking a slot to pack a card that you would have to draw early. In the the type of deck that would splash this card you would be drawing fast so that helps get it up but then again for every card faster you might get an evil character that turns it off. At best, to be fair, people would probably play Nebuchadnezzar and/or Nebushasban with it but anything more than that is really starting to be a light Babylonian defense. You can't really splash a babylonian into a babylonian defense it doesn't work that way. In my opinion its not worth a one slot splash or even worth reshaping your defense. The card was designed to help balanced Babylonian defenses in type 1. In that respect it is balanced because it discards your artifacts too and is shut off by popular crimson characters like Judas and Leviathan. Its really about even with ASA. The Babylonian would work best in the early game and Siege army in the later. Once defenses get set up ASA works best but the Babylonian (if splashed) shuts off easily. ASA has less destructive power but is more precise and efficient at getting a block.

The Egyptians not really a counter if it doesn't say regardless of protection so it would have to keep that. I would be willing to chance it to A) reveal an evil Eygptian from your hand  to capture a human hero... and then bump X up to "over 4" or B) Bump X up to over 4 and then capture and O.T human. Option A really limits what you can reveal and B limits targets significantly.

As for the Artifact I meant to say your hand other wise you could just use it with your own primary objective. The spectrum has to be that absolute because it needs to stop words of discouragement  along with all of the underdeck and discard things. There wouldn't be many risks of play with it other than your opponents primary objective (unlikely) and Entrapping pharisee but it not really a card that need  drawback.

EDIT I changed the Demon so that it allows him to band people into battle from under deck. I thought it would be silly to have to Gates in another demon and then take an aocp. However this might shut down purple too much. I think I will change the evil character to a pale green Magician or something so you can actually get rid of him.

Its really about even with ASA.

While I understand what you are trying to get at, ASA is much harder to get off (there really just aren't that many good Assyrians comparatively and I can actually play the Bab without support), and they are nowhere close in terms of power.  Table wipes are not something we should expand, IMO, and again the CBN is too much from my perspective.

New batch

Egyptian based set aside that function like the persian one

Set and Egyptian evil character aside for 3 turns. On return discard X cards from the top of opponents draw pile. Lost souls are put in play instead.

X= number of good brigades opponent has in play

Persian character

Discard a media to search discard pile for a generic Persian and band that Persian into battle.

Evil  Persian enhancement
 War elephant wc
 Set aside x heroes in territory for x turns.

X is the number of media sites you have in play

Phillistine
enhancement
Search your discard pile and remove any number philistines from the game to take x artifacts.

x is the number of philistines removed.


Philistine evil character

Search discard pile for a Giant and add him to battle. Cannot be prevented.

On the new cards, I do think we need more Persian support, though I'm not sure these would see much use.  I foresee a major release of Persians being needed (seen some proposed before), and these cards probably would not do it alone.

I thought the Persian is pretty good if you are running raiders camp and persian presidents. Which every Persian defense should. I do agree that there must be more persians but you do have to be careful because the have access to to each his own, plot, and gib trick so in type 2 they have a lot already.

Hrm...I'm rereading the new wording you put for the Bab, and it is feeling more...complete.  Full disclosure, I despise all removal from discard piles, but since we now have TC all-brigade enhancements for good and evil that do it, it's not like this sort of ability would be too powerful.

Quote from: TheHobbit on December 31, 2013, 07:20:05 PM

"If all your evil characters in play are Babylonian discard a captured hero to remove x active artifacts and discard piles from the game. Cannot be negated if opponent has a temple in play.
x= number of captured heroes

Now, I just want to clarify, would each artifact/discard pile be a 'target' used up for the X, or does it remove X artifacts and discard piles?  I'm fairly certain the wording would do the former, and that would make good sense.  Next, I want to see whether you meant for it to be "a captured hero in your territory", or if the discard and X would be able to be based on those your opponent has captured as well?

I'll switch it around to make it more clear but its intended to remove X artifacts AND discard piles. I didn't want the ability to be too limited so I wanted it to work off opponents captured heroes and the X to work off them as well. And yes I choose X to be mandatory and not up to so you might have to discard your own artifacts as well depending on how much capturing is going on.