Adventurer's Fan Spec (3rd Neutral)

Raiddinn,

I think you are putting too much emphasis on people’s ability to have a direct answer to Heroes. “Doom Grasp exists” isn’t an exuse for having an overpowered hero.

In this case, if you play and max Kaitlina on turn 2, and patrol her in Elite your opponent cannot attack with any Tech 0 unit except Spectral Aven or one of the unstoppable 1/1 guys. If you play Level Up on her, your opponent can’t attack with any Tech 1 unit, and most heroes are also shut out. This is just a degenerate interaction.

Then, none of the units are actually worth using. Legion is wrong - the units are all criminally weak and unplayable, until you get to Tech 3, where you are again degenerate with getting a discounted and hasty Guargum / Gryphon / Dragon / other Tech III balanced around not having Haste.

So, while the concept of an Adventurer spec is interesting, I think you need to go back to the drawing board flavorwise, and go in a different direction than “more defensive than Rook” for the spec.

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Assuming you are playing all neutral specs

P2T1: Worker, Kaitlina, Bloom if you have it, or midband. Patrol a 2/5+AA in squad lead.
P2T2: Worker, maxband, Bloom if you didn’t on T1. Tech I. Attack something if you want, then. Patrol a 4/8+A with swift strike in Elite.

Absent hard hero removal (which only some specs have access to), that is a functionally impenetrable wall through at least Tech I. The only thing your opponent can hit you with is another maxband hero or a flyer, since every Tech I has 4 HP or less. And if they do manage to hit you, you have access to Cleric to heal, and even Helpful Turtle in the neutral starter. AND you have readiness, so you can kill something first (taking no damage because of swift strike) before patrolling your wall.

It’s also basically guaranteed to set up against most opponents. White starter can disrupt it with Snapback. Red starter can disrupt it, but only with T1 Nauti Dog + BRO and then 2 more hasted/direct damage on T2. From there, only specs that can bring in hard hero removal or direct kill spells can do anything, and then not until T3 or later.

That’s pretty gamebreaking against most specs, and very game-warping and potentially still broken against the few that have answers.

I really like the flavor of this spec, but I agree with others that it is much more powerful than you give it credit for.

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It doesn’t really matter how much synergy something has if the cards that have it are too weak to see play.

Battle Suits is a starter deck card that can affect many units immediately, which stays in play, which hits like 15 possible target units, and gets workered a lot of the time anyway.

Level Up has to be teched in, only works on one target per cast, and has many fewer possible targets. Level Up is the worse card even if they were comparable. Most of the things Level Up can target are either 0/X or 1/X so not even that good after they Level Up.

Mythmaking is also much much better of a buff card than Level Up is.

@Jadiel, I am ensuring my cards are substantially worse than whatever powerful options already exist or that they are better than stuff never played.

My version of Kate is also worse than Rook in almost all respects, just not every respect. That’s fair. I am not sure how making cards that are strictly worse than alternatives is helpful.

I think adventurers should be able to Level Up multiple times. It absolutely makes flavor sense to do so. The idea is just to make doing so weak enough that people don’t actually want to do it. I think we are there atm.

You actually have a point about putting the hero in elite possibly being too good, I will think about that. Maybe swift strike has to go.

The units are pretty weak, but I don’t know about criminally unplayable. At Tech 3, I think it’s important to point out that somebody has to actually choose Adventurer Tech 2 in order to get the Tech 3. You also have to contend with the idea that you have effectively one less T3 option. It does nothing by itself and you have to rely on being able to summon something from one of the other 2 specs.

You also have to contend with it being fairly weak stat wise if the opponent untaps. It’s just plain better to just cast and swing with something and then have it stay in play. It’s also really gold intensive like Present Tech 3 is, which is a really bad quality for Tech 3s. If they don’t untap, that’s what T3s are for anyway, ending games. I think it’s not better than most alternatives.

  • Edit - Changed ultimate ability from Swift Strike while patrolling to Resist 2. That should be a lot worse.

RE: summoner: if it didn’t fetch something on arrival, it would be worse than most Tech 3s. If it does fetch something on arrival, It’s the 3rd best Tech 3, after Gunship (cheaper for the same effect) and Ebbflow (though situationally better than ebbflow, in that it wins a tech 3 fight between them).

I will nerf the tech 3 somewhat.

  • Edit - Cost increased for the first unit that hits the board.

Level up could be changed to only add runes to exhausted things, because they gained experience points from the fight/action.

And then you might as well let it work on anything not just adventurers.

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I like the fluff of that idea, but it makes it anti synergistic with a hero with readiness.

Maybe just make it limited to something which has attacked this turn?

Attacked this turn or is exhausted?

Also consider that these ideas effectively negate Flagbearer.

The current wording already negates Flagbearers…

I’m puzzled as to why the Adventurer spec has a Defensive hero? Seems like a flavor fail.

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Given the hero’s spells/abilities, I think her tech 1’s actually pretty strong. I’m not sure they’re brokenly strong, though I still think the hero probably is. For instance, Healing is an ability with generally limited usefulness, and attack is generally better than hp. However, healing is at its best when your things have a lot of hp. Not drawing a card certainly weakens boot camp a great deal. However, being able to buff something and then swing with it is a significant improvement, and being able to cast it on herself, which Oni critically can’t do with boot camp, is huge. Wizard looks ridiculous(-ly weak) on the serface, but really, his weakness is basically that he’s not a great patroller, because he doesn’t damage things that hit him. Aside from that, he’s effectively a 2/3 unstoppable that gets infinite armor when he attacks, and can give your hero flying. Having 2 damage to put anywhere is a really powerful ability to have on exhaust. Firebat can only hit patrollers or buildings, and has to pay for the privilege. The downfall of wizard would be (in most specs) keeping it alive long enough to get value from it, but you’ve got a hero with 7 hp and an extra armor and readiness at level 5. With something like that in SQL, it hardly matters that wizard doesn’t deal damage when he patrols, because nothing’s going to hit him, most of the time. If he’s killed, it will usually be by direct damage or removal that doesn’t generally care about the ATK of its target anyway. Basically my point here is that, while your units aren’t great, your hero is amazing, and amazing in precisely the right ways to counteract the drawbacks of your units.

Also, as a side note, while I think it only makes a minor difference power-wise, I really don’t think Second Wind should be able to remove -1/-1 runes. They’re not super common anyway, but one of their major strengths, arguably the biggest one, is that heroes cannot easily remove them like they can normal damage, and removing them at all is difficult. Admittedly, this costs a card while leveling does not, but I just don’t think Disease deserves the specific hate, particularly since even without Second Wind to do it, Level Up already makes Kate the only hero that can remove -1/-1 runes from herself. As the game stands now, the only way to remove -1/-1 runes (or +1/+1 runes) from a unit or hero is to cancel them out one-for-one with the opposite type of rune (or, in a few cases, to use that unit’s own ability to put the +1/+1 rune on something else). I think that’s a solid design, and shouldn’t be messed with lightly.

One other general point that I won’t get into too much, but I think is pretty important is that the words “or hero” add a significant amount of power to any ability, and you seem to use them a lot. Although I did just realize that you didn’t use them on Wizard’s first ability, which does make him significantly weaker than I thought, though I still think he’s playable given the hero that he comes with.

All that said, I’d like to see some playtesting with this spec. @Raiddinn I’m not very good, but I’d be up for some casual pbf games using this spec. If you’re interested, I’ll play monoblack against whatever you put together.

2 Likes

Adventurers tend to organize around and/or hide behind “tank” types.

Generally, those are supposed to be able to take quite a few hits before dying.

Seems to fit with the flavor.

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Player Request:

+1 for you if you come up with a card (for this fan spec, or an entirely new one if you make another) based around the following ‘framework’:

Ongoing Spell
Attach to (something that is not a hero, base or tech building -> so unit, upgrade, add-on, ongoing spell, or building are all fair game)

Attach to ‘thing’

Attached thing gets/loses/does whatever -> wording here based on what you choose to allow it to be attached to, somehow give that thing a buff or debuff, etc

“If (this card) isn’t attached to anything, then do this” -> maybe something related/linked to the attached ability, if you can find a common theme somehow.

i.e.
Example Card:
Ongoing Spell - Buff
Attached unit gets +1/+1.

If Example Card is not attached to a unit then your units get +1/+1.

It’s an interesting concept. Could you simplify the templating to something like the following?

Ongoing spell - Buff
If this card is not attached to a unit, all your Units get +1/+1
0: Attach this card to a unit if it isn’t already. That unit gets +2/+2. Discard this card if the unit it is attached to is discarded

This is a slight buff vs. your template, because in this version you can choose to get the global buff even if you have a legal attachable target in play. However a) those situations are rare and b) it will be confusing for someone looking at the card for the first time to understand how they could get the global buff ("how could it not be attached to something? It says “attach to thing” on the card?)

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Would be better if it was “0: Sack this, put 2x +1/+1 runes on an adventurer”.

I like where this is going.

Yeah, for sure you can improve on my ‘base idea’ (i.e. me trying to implement the idea results in a ‘poor’ implementation). That’s what I need you all for. I have a really general idea, but no idea how to make something playable out of it.

Thanks for helping improve the concept!

It’s a neat idea. I think the mechanic that fits the template is a weak, general, durable benefit that you can sacrifice for a strong, specific, and (usually) temporary benefit. Thematically, it’s probably some kind of “shrine” or similar that gives a general aura, but which you can “break” for a strong boost

A few ideas along those lines:

Card1
Your units and heroes get +1 armor while patrolling
Sacrifice this: target unit or hero gains Two Lives

Card2
Your units have frenzy
Sacrifice this: target unit gets +5 attack until end of turn

Card3
The first unit you play each turn gains haste
Sacrifice this: ready up to 2 units

Card4
Your tech 0 and tech I units have +1/+1
Sacrifice this: put 3 +1/+1 runes on target unit

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Because I’ve spent far to long today staring at Ironbark Treant,my next idea would be a card that, generally, does the following:

Any of:
A.) Move a unit
B.) Move a hero
C.) Move a unit or hero

Coupled with:
into a patrol slot of your choice.

This can sideline a patroller if one is already in that slot if you want to go that route, or whatever else fun thing you can come up with for it -> not to worried about how you handle this part; I just want to a way to get something that isn’t in the patrol zone into the patrol zone.

I don’t know if that card is powerful enough by itself (i.e. it can expose a protected unit/hero) or if it needs something else. Maybe its to powerful as is, and shouldn’t be allowed to target a hero? No clue.

I think you’d want to post in this (admittedly old) thread? Codex Card Laboratory (repost [in idea only]) - #17 by MVashM The thread you’re posting in is more just about OP’s own idea of a complete spec than gathered fan ideas. I’m posting my reply over there.

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I don’t mind. It’s interesting to think about and it could fit here.

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