Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Sometimes I look through really old posts, to see what the hubbub used to be. I happened upon a 2010 discussion I have no recollection of, about Ithamar. It was proposed at the time that Ithamar could activate a non-Tabernacle artifact on The Tabernacle, because he didn't specify. After much deliberation, that possibility was quashed, one reason being a certain strong combo:

EDIT: a playtester just remind me of a combination of artifacts that we simply cannot allow.  One of them is Holy Grail, and I can't say what the other one is. 
As a result, and because of other potential combos both present and future, I do not expect Ithamar to be allowed to activate a non-Tabernacle artifact on the Tabernacle.  Further, it would be too restrictive as we design cards, since we'd always have to consider combos involving multiple artifacts (a consideration we previously only had to consider when designing the Tabernacle/Temple artifacts, or how new artifacts would combine with those).

I'm curious what this super-powered combo is. There were four Disciples artifacts (and one 2011 artifact), and the only one that would have any interaction with Holy Grail at all was The Master's Table (Each time an Evil Character is converted, you may discard a demon.) Is that combo so obscenely ridiculous (you can get rid of an extra EC twice, maybe, depending on what your opponent has) that it couldn't even be considered? Or was The Master's Table originally something different? Or was there some other ultimately unreleased artifact that would've actually had an amazing interaction with Holy Grail?

That was about the time he and Kurt were playtesting an early version of the 2012 set. I know there was a fun artifact at that point, but don't recall what it did, and I think it got cut.

If he was just being coy to hide the combo until the ruling was finalized, only Three Nails seems to be a big enough combo, but also very obvious.

Actually, that post was in reference to The Master's Table, and I was the other playtester. I don't seem to recall saying that it was a massively OP combo, just something to be aware of if the ruling were to go the other way.

IIrc, The Master's Table underwent many changes during playtesting.

True, but I can't think of any point when it would have been more overpowered than it is now with Holy Grail active. I'm fairly certain it roughly had the current ability when I pointed it out. Like I said, I just brought it up as something to consider, not necessarily anything that would break the game.

The oldest version I remember was basically the same except that it could heal an unusual type of card.