Cactus Game Design Message Boards

So then, I can still block with Proud Pharisee and play Balaam's Disobedience to win a battle. I'll think of something more nasty later.

No, you would lose the battle. An immune character has to be alive to block, and the enhancement would be discarded with the character.

Okay, now question:

I have a */0 or lower assyrian archer with 2kh. I block, and play achans sin. What do? am I discarded or removed?

Which ones other than the Gates?

Tower of Thebez.

Rather than talk about "power creep" as if it's a separate entity, let's look at how the new set impacted viability.

Last season:
Disciples
TGT
maaaaaaybe Genesis

This season:
Disciples
TGT
Genesis
Red
Purple
Isaiah/Prophets
maaaaaybe Judges

Looks like a good thing to me.

Rather than talk about "power creep" as if it's a separate entity, let's look at how the new set impacted viability.

Last season:
Disciples
TGT
FBNB
Prophets
Teal Priests
maaaaaaybe Genesis

This season:
Disciples
TGT
Genesis
FBNB
Red/Purple
Isaiah/Prophets
maaaaaybe Judges

Looks about the same to me.

FTFY

BACKWARD SHADOWLOLOLOLOLOLOL

My thoughts exactly.

Kirk

How do you suggest that we improve them and avoid power creep in those themes?

First off, I like Maly's idea of never printing another draw card again. I'm pretty sure 1/6 of the set could draw. (Samuel, Abigail, Jair, Angel under the Oak, Ishmaiah, The Dreaming Pharoah, That Egyptian Sabbath Breaker, That Canaanite Dude, Year of Plenty, and one other?) And those are almost all characters, so they can be used multiple times. It's not the best way to try and fix an FTMayhem. I thought you had some nice ideas in your anti-mayhem thread.

Make things negatable. It's more fun when you go back and forth with interrupts than straight up killing them CBN. Ahimelek should have a "opponent may discard two cards from hand instead", or something like that. He'd still be really powerful, but as it is, you really can't do anything about him when he's ambushed.

Limit yourself to how many abilities you put on a card. If you're going to put anymore than two on it, it's too much. Unless there's a condition. I really like Stone of Thebez. It's only great when combined with Women of Thebez, but can also be used on Fallen Warrior for a decent effect.

And finally, the best idea would be:

Spoiler (hover to show)

Make me a card designer/playtester. 

The main reason we added a lot of draw cards in this set is this: drawing is quite obviously one of the most powerful abilities in the game. Which is why most top decks center around themes/combos that allow you to draw. Disciples/Pharisees was wildly popular this year (and won T2-2P) because of their ability to have effective drawing. So, in order to make other themes playable, we had to give them a bit of drawing. Previous to this set, the only drawing character Red had was Chloe, and she wasn't part of Red's biggest theme, which is part of reason Red was so slow. Red does have Mustering for War, but two turns is a much greater cost than the one-turn draw set asides available to Priests/Disciples/TGT. Now Red has Ishmaiah, which I personally think will have more impact on Red's playability than Ahimelek in T1 at least (I could be wrong, but I doubt it). Judges, Genesis, and Egyptians were also really slow, so we added characters to bring them up to par. I think that the main reason that so many of the themes in this set are now seen as playable is the fact that there are now options for drawing that the themes never had. If we didn't add drawing abilities to these themes, why would anyone abandon the drawing themes that are already proven to work for ones that don't?

CBN abilities are largely the same concept, but we do agree that there needs to be a bit more balance there. That's why most battle winners introduced that can become CBN have conditions. But if we didn't give Red some CBN abilities, then why wouldn't people keep playing with Purple? When we were playtesting, we determined there were three reasons Red wasn't competitive, at least not without another primary color (such as Purple or White): No capture protection, very little drawing, and no CBN battle winners, or even easy ways to make battle winners CBN (exception: David's Mighty Men, but the usefulness of that depends on your opponent). We endeavoured to fix all of those problems, and here's hoping we did. I guess it remains to be seen.

Did Purple Royalty need Abigail? No. They had Reach, Pentecost, and The Throne of David. Genesis has awful drawing, and I bet we'll see quite a few Genesis decks this year.

I agree that red needed drawing power.

Will get back to this...first day of school...ugh...

Purple royalty probably didn't need her, but she does give players a reason to use purple royalty instead of purple Disciples (as her drawing won't help a Di deck at all). Genesis actually got one of the most powerful drawing cards in the game. You only draw one at a time with 7yoP, but it basically allows you to draw at least 4 every turn, regardless of if you attack or not. No other card does that. Not only that, but the natural synergy between Genesis offenses and Egyptian defenses (which became uber fast) will help the popularity of Genesis.

I think you are doing a great job and should print more drawing cards. I have a vision. One day, there will be no discrimination. Every good brigade will have dozens of CBN battle winners that interrupt, draw, cannot be protected from, and cannot be insteaded. Then, there shall be peace in Redemption except TGT is still OP.

Alex is very right. And now with Joseph? It's a nightmare.

You forgot buying grain.