Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I have never seen the following announced anywhere, so if T2 deckbuilding rules have been changed for Covenants/Curses, please disregard this post.

I think that Covenants should be 1/2 good and 1/2 neutral for T2 deckbuilding purposes, and Curses should be 1/2 evil and 1/2 neutral.  This is based on the following rulings:

1.  Dual-Alignment Enhancements are 1/2 good and 1/2 evil for T2 purposes.  DAEs' alignment is determined by their use, and can be targeted as either while they have not been used.
2.  If a Covenant or Curse is used as an artifact, it is a neutral card and can no longer be targeted as a good or evil card.  Therefore, their alignment is determined by their use, and they can be targeted as either while they have not been used.

For example, if I put two Covenant With Deaths in my T2 deck, I think it should count as 1 evil and 1 neutral card.

Thoughts?

Further, Covs/Curses are never considered to be even a part neutral at face value.

I disagree, covs/curses are neutral at face value, and also good or evil respectively.  They can be targeted in hand and deck as neutral cards or good/evil cards but once played lose one of their alignments.

For deck building purposes, they are considered both neutral and good/evil, not 1/2 of either. DAE balance out because they count as both one good card and one evil card for the balance of good and evil (but only one card for deck count).  As you can have as many neutral cards in deck (up to maximum deck size) as you want, the neutral alignment they have is irrelevant to deck building purposes.

Quote from: Drrek on May 11, 2013, 05:33:22 PM

I disagree, covs/curses are neutral at face value, and also good or evil respectively.  They can be targeted in hand and deck as neutral cards or good/evil cards but once played lose one of their alignments.

I don't actually think this is true. Covenant with Death, played as an artifact, doesn't stop Seraph.

It should, they follow the DAE rules.  I think CwD not stopping Seraph is based on the old ruling from before Covs/Curses followed the DAE rules

EDIT: Actually, found the new ruling.  Its odd, because Covs/Curses can do follow DAE rules for the most part, but the last line in the ruling makes it weird since "they are still always targetable as a Covenant/Curse," would imply that, even as the neutral card type artifact, they are still also a card type that is good or evil once played.  I think this is an odd ruling, but it would mean covs/curses played as artifacts are both neutral and good/evil, and ones played as enhancements are just good or evil.

Rob has officially ruled that Covenants/Curses are treated similar to DAEs:

"A Covenant/Curse is both an Enhancement and an Artifact, and can be targeted as either (in hand, deck, or discard pile) until it is played, held, activated, or placed in Artifact pile as one or the other. A Covenant/Curse that is played or held as an Enhancement can no longer be targeted as an Artifact, and a Covenant/Curse that is activated or placed in the Artifact pile can no longer be targeted as an Enhancement. They are still always targetable as a Covenant/Curse."

This ruling will be posted in an REG update thread, and now that the REG can be updated more easily, it will be added to the REG in the next update.

I would like to suggest that there is no "neutral" alignment. (I know technically to make the ruling on "harm" work there is, but that could probably be reworded to make this work.)

Neutral isn't a third alignment for cards to be in, the alignments are Good and Evil. It just so happens that some cards (Sites, Artifacts and Lost Souls) don't have either alignment, and for convenience we call them neutral.

With this in mind, Covenants and Curses are not Good and Neutral or Evil and Neutral, they are simply Good or Evil.

There are already cards (forest fire, foreign sword, Joseph before Pharaoh) that target "neutral" cards, so clearly the term already exists as an in-game defined term.  I can't think of how that term could not be considered an alignment, so I think we are stuck with it.