Ouch! If I had properly taken account of that I probably would have patrolled SQL, elite for that one extra armour - that will teach me not to keep track of building health properly
P1T6
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Pesh
Lone Swordsman
STARTING HAND
Bone Wyvern 3/2 Flying, takes 1 damage on attack [-]
Mirror Knight
Pivot
WORKERS
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier
Doomed Peasant 1/1 drops a 0/1 token
Bone Wyvern 3/2 Flying, takes 1 damage on attack [-]
NextHand
Blessed Troops
Mirror Knight
Choose Fate
Legionary Heavy #2 3/4A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrolelrs
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($11)
Tech draw, rebuild tech II
Worker - ($10)
Neshamah - ($8)
Midband Neshamah, gain Patience rune - ($4)
Spend rune, take a spell from my discard
Pesh on Neshamah - gains deathtouch - ($0)
(Note that Neshamah effectively has 1 damage of swift strike against units from his basic ability; at present, we have ruled that this DOES inflict deathtouch i.e. any units attacking him just die before they can damage him if he has deathtouch. This has not been overpowered so far, as you only tend to use this combo if already losing… every time it has been used the player has lost soon afterwards I think!)
Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 1, reshuffle, draw 3
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Neshamah 1/4A deals 1 to attacking units before attack; deathtouch from pesh
Well, even if it really had 3 health left, I still would have destroyed it, just your Tech I would be at full health instead.
Makes sense, though I imagine giving deathtouch to Saint of Swords could be even more oppressive. Unfortunately for Nesh, it’s a moot point in this case because I prepared to face damage-proof units and heroes via Shine, and so I don’t even need to attack him…
Nesh’s maxband is a problem because some cards can destroy workers and that mechanic is built around the assumption that workered cards can’t be recovered and therefore workers are not distinct in any way so no selection needs to be made. If you want to keep his maxband ability as-is, you’ll need some kind of homebrew rule to tweak how worker destruction functions, or perhaps some other clever workaround.
P2T6
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Cursed Ghoul
Plague Lab
STARTING HAND
Spreading Plague
Wither
Sickness
WORKERS
Older Brother
Fruit Ninja
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Timely Messenger
Wither
SoS already has deathtouch! Still less good than Ebbflow Archon or Pirate ship though.
My first instinct: when things destroy workers, just select a worker randomly to be destroyed.We really like Neshamah’s max band as it is, as it puts a completely different spin on workering than any other card. Playing it, both of us have found ourselves workering key cards as a kind of “pseudo stash” to get a reliable single use out of them at a critical time.
P1T7
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Take
Take
STARTING HAND
Blessed Troops
Choose Fate
Legionary Heavy #2 3/4A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrolelrs
Mirror Knight
Forgive
Take
WORKERS
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier
Doomed Peasant 1/1 drops a 0/1 token
Bone Wyvern 3/2 Flying, takes 1 damage on attack [-]
NextHand
Mirror Knight
Pivot
Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
Lone Swordsman
Arcadian Double
Discard
Choose Fate
Blessed Troops
Take
Forgive
Mirror Knight
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($10)
Tariq - ($8)
Choose Fate - reshuffle (mix in the two cards I just tech’d), draw two, discard 1
Legionary Heavy - ($5)
Float ($5)
Discard 3, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Legionary Heavy #2 3/4A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrolelrs
Technician: Tariq L1 2/3 Healing 1 at end of turn
Lookout:
In Play:
Dwarven Supplies [1 rune]
Buildings:
Base HP: 16
Tech I HP: 4
Tech II HP: 5 (Good)
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 3
Disc: 5
Gold:
Gold: 5
Workers: 10
Thoughts
Plan - fast Take. It will cost me 16 gold to play and max cat (7), and then play Take (1) with D&D (8).
Oh, so it does… so without any bonuses, it can kill 10 things per attack… that’s some serious destruction. Or, wait… is it similar to regular overpower in that it has to attack a patroller in order to redirect the excess damage? If so, does only the initial victim need to be on a patroller, or do all but the last need to be patrollers?
P2T7
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Death and Decay
Martial Mastery
STARTING HAND
Plague Spitter
Crypt Crawler
Tenderfoot
Too ambitious to go for Plague Lord ATM, and I don’t want to deal with the hassle of Abomination, especially when I might want to replay Brick Thief. So, I’ll take spells… Martial Mastery is an auto-include, and the other pick should be either Reversal or Death & Decay. Kind of a tough call, but… I think it may be worth having D&D as an option.
Ten one-health things, yes. Or nine one health things and an X-health thing. Or a 5 health thing and a 6 health thing. Deathtouch does not mitigate the need to use 5 attack to kill a 5 health thing if you do have 5 attack “left” to spend, so putting a high-health thing in SQL absorbs a lot of the attack.
Yes, it does require the last-but-one thing to be patrolling (I think that’s how we did it @dwarddd?). It’s a card we have tinkered with considerably in terms of stats and cost, finding it insufficiently impactful with less attack, and then too good at a lower cost; certainly may need further changes. We may have been playing it against a high health board and undervalued it.
P1T8
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Saint of Swords
Saint of Swords
STARTING HAND
Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
Mirror Knight
Lone Swordsman
Pivot
Arcadian Double
WORKERS
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier
Doomed Peasant 1/1 drops a 0/1 token
Bone Wyvern 3/2 Flying, takes 1 damage on attack [-]
Arcadian Double
NextHand
Pesh
Take
Mirror Knight
Legionary Heavy #1 3/4 A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrollers
Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($15)
Mirror Knight - ($11)
Tech III - ($6)
Worker - ($5)
I actually imagined her being able to overpower from anything to anything, and am personally reconsidering the deathtouch as it only matters for the last unit/hero hit anyway but adds confusion (to explain our decisions to Nekoatl, when the Saint of Swords is on the field in world nothing will stop her for good she just keeps killing, best you can do is slow her down; and wounds from her r pretty nasty (hence the deathtouch))
Oh right, I forgot about that. Yeah, that sounds quite reasonable for a tech III.
I think Arcadian Double doesn’t cost enough for what it does, though, at least for a minor spell. Like, Scorch costs $3 for 2 damage, and Spark costs $1 for 1. I think it’s fair to say that $1 for 2 is reasonable for Double because you have to have both a hero and a 2/2 unit in play to pull that off, but allowing Double to work with tech I units will normally mean bumping that up to 3 damage (and possibly 6). Manufactured Truth can get away with tech I compatibility because whatever unit you modify still takes damage when it attacks, but Double doesn’t have that liability… the original unit remains unscathed. Also, it has additional synergy with cards that trigger on unit creation/destruction like Blooming Ancient and Corpse Catapult, though this is a minor consideration. I recommend limiting Double to tech 0 units or increasing its cost to at least $2.
You forgot to set your Tech III health. Don’t pay for it twice.
If possible, I want to take down that Tech III without spending Grave’s sword rune, so I can use the Plague Lab to replicate it. Actually, it’s probably worth saving the sword rune even if I can’t take down his Tech III, 'cuz I can use one of Grave’s multiplying swords to take out the Saint of Swords if it drops. At least, I’m not aware of anything that would give it haste… But, I’m sure glad I have -1/-1 runes to put on that Mirror Knight, seems like it would be quite dangerous otherwise.
You’re probably right RE double, 2 cost is probably more in line with other things. It’s the card I’m least happy with in the starter personally, and could be replaced with a better idea if we have one - There needs to be some kind of out-of-hand surprise Grey starter spell though.
I expect I will be tapping out in a turn or two, but a last hurrah before then to show you something you have to look out for in Grey There was a chance I could have done this last turn, which would maybe have been a bigger swing.
P1T9
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Take
Legionary Heavy #1 3/4 A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrollers
Pesh
Mirror Knight
Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
WORKERS
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier
Doomed Peasant 1/1 drops a 0/1 token
Bone Wyvern 3/2 Flying, takes 1 damage on attack [-]
Arcadian Double
NextHand
Lone Swordsman
Saint of Swords
Saint of Swords
Blessed Troops
Take
Discard
Mirror Knight 2/8AA Resist 1 Printed attack becomes printed attack of combatant
Legionary Heavy #2 (3+1)/4 Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrolelrs
Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
Legionary Heavy #1 3/4 A Gives 1 armour to adjacent patrollers
Mirror Knight
Pesh
Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($16)
Cat - ($14)
Max Cat, Crow Sisters token arrives - ($9)
TAKE - Orpal is Max band, allowing me to cast it even though Cat arrived this turn targeting him only - ($8)
Pay for Death and Decay - ($0)
Orpal, plague spittern sparring partner, and turtle all die. Three damage to tech buildings, base and plague lab.
Rebuild Tech II
Float ($0)
Discard 4, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Cal L6 2/5A Struggle
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout: Crows 2/2 flying, spellcaster, can only attack base
In Play:
Dwarven Supplies [0 rune]
Take (Channelling, prevents Orpal from casting ultimate)
Your Tech II wasn’t broken… I only managed to get it down to 1 HP, so your Tech II is still at 1 HP, and your base is at 14. I assume you rebuilt your Tech III instead?
I’ll save you the trouble, I have lethal this turn.
But yeah, I think Cat’s ultimate is probably the best in the game, even moreso than the terrifying Summon Revenants. Like, Jurisdiction costs $2 and gives a choice of up to 8 non-ultimate spells that you could otherwise have access to, and Take only costs $1 and gives access to potentially 5 ultimate spells, 3 of which you normally wouldn’t have access to. That alone seems reasonable, but adding on the ability to defy the normal restriction on being able to cast ultimate spells and lock your opponent out of casting their own copies for as long as Cat manages to survive seems excessive, especially for $1.
Believe it or not, I actually was trying to play around Take the whole game, the plan being to use Cursed Crow and Carrion Curse to try and remove it from your hand before you could cast it. The reason I chose not to is that I was avoiding teching duplicates because of Story Trap, but if I had managed to suppress your hand, I could have prevented Story Trap, so I probably should have committed more heavily to the discard strategy.
Overall, I think Grey could still use a bit of tweaking on some cards for balance purposes, but most of the cards feel fair, it has a lot of interesting mechanics, and I definitely had fun during the game, so I think you’re on to something worthwhile here. I’d play against it again.
P2T9
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Plague Lord
Versatile Style
STARTING HAND
Bloom
Martial Mastery
Death and Decay
Sickness
Brick Thief
Plague Spitter
Sparring Partner
Helpful Turtle
Death and Decay
Martial Mastery
Plague Lord
Versatile Style
Bloom
Sickness
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($12)
Martial Mastery - ($11)
Gorgon kills Cat
Maxband Grave - ($9)
Bloom on Ghoul - ($7)
Actiave Plague Lab, add all possible runes - ($5)
Brick Thief breaks Tech II and repairs Plague Lab - ($3)
Grave, Ghoul, and Crawler hit your base for 15 total damage
GG WP!
It is strong certainly - and in play testing it has been cast quite a lot, which maybe shows it needs a tweak. The extra ability to quick-cast if the opponent’s hero is max level we added to add another skill-testing play-around thing to the spell, to make you afraid to leave heroes at max level, but it might tip it over the top as you say. Cat’s other spells are fairly weak or situational, which may make a difference.
Summon Revenants I think is currently about right balance wise, or maybe a little cheap - Neshamah takes ages to level, which is factored in. It started at 8 cost in the first draft, and has been steadily scaled down, but maybe too far. Terror is the emotion Neshamah should evoke, so it should be a BIT terrifying
Part of the design idea was that Take and Summon Revenants kind of catch you coming and going - to counter Revenants you want your heroes on the board, but to avoid Take you want them in your command zone. Also, in a very weird game, a Grey player could Revenants a hero out of the opponent’s zone in order to Take it later!
I’m really glad Story Trap had the desired effect! It is meant to be a lot like Assimilate - a mind game spell, where it mostly acts without ever getting played at all by restricting your opponent’s decisions. Like with assimilate, they might anticipate that and double-tech anyway, and you might anticipate that, etc…
Feel like playing against it again now? I would be up for one more, with a change or two made first if you prefer (Arcadian Double to 2 cost?). You can take P1 if so!
Yeah, it definitely makes having max-level heroes feel like a liability, but I feel like most factions don’t have a good way to play around that. If they choose try to keep their heroes at low levels, they’re opting out of the use of all of their ultimate spells, and that doesn’t even stop Cat from casting them… it just means she can’t plop down and cast them instantly. Even so, I think it’s fine to go that route if you want, but I just don’t think Take costs enough for what it does right now.
I can see Summon Revenants not being OP, I mean, it’s not like adding 2 level 1 heroes to your board is a huge power swing, and having the heroes doesn’t give you access to their spell libraries. The scary thing about it is that it denies you access to your own heroes, potentially indefinitely if you don’t have the resources to punch through and take them down, but I can think of a few ultimate spells that are even more devastating, so I can believe it’s balanced at $5. Hmm… if you do kill your own heroes while under an opponent’s control, common sense would dictate that you’re not able to summon them on the turn you do so or on your next turn… is that your intent?
Story Trap definitely feels like Assimilate in that sense, I was thinking that exact thing earlier.
Sure, let’s try $2 Double. Disease is one of the few factions that does have a good answer for Take, so my build probably isn’t a good choice for balance-testing it.
P1T1
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Older Brother
Brick Thief
Helpful Turtle
Wither
Tenderfoot
WORKERS
Older Brother
NextHand
Spark
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Fruit Ninja
Bloom
Timely Messenger
I’m realising that Disease actually counters a lot of Grey! Denies Tariq healing value, clears out goblins and tokens well, [-] runes instead of damage on Cat and the Stitcher’s which denies their abilities, discards the few critical spells Grey has. Finesse also deals with Bad’s token spam via Discord. Hence going for big Good guys last game!
P2T1
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Shining Prince
Dwarven Supplies
Fantassin
Pivot
Underequipped Soldier
Hmm… I think I’ll try a different strategy for playing around Story Trap this game… teching doubles, but returning cards to my codex when called on it. Reason being, doing so should result in a smaller cycle. Not too worried about leaving my base exposed, considering I have access to both Brick Thief and Versatile Style. Speaking of Versatile Style, I should use it to remove Dwarven supplies… not sure why that didn’t occur to me last game, though I’ll excuse it away by saying I was preoccupied thinking about how to deal with other new cards.
Hmm… I think I’ll try a different strategy for playing around Story Trap this game… teching doubles, but returning cards to my codex when called on it. Reason being, doing so should result in a smaller cycle. Not too worried about leaving my base exposed, considering I have access to both Brick Thief and Versatile Style. Speaking of Versatile Style, I should use it to remove Dwarven supplies… not sure why that didn’t occur to me last game, though I’ll excuse it away by saying I was preoccupied thinking about how to deal with other new cards. Holding off on Martial Mastery for the moment because I want to ensure I get Timely Messenger in hand next turn to worker.
Strange, we have been playing with Arcadian double at 2 cost since the second game it existed after we realised how it was too good at 1 in first one… must’ve forgotten to update it on public spreadsheet
Yep! It’s a dilemma we’re pretty proud of. You might even not want to have Tariq close to max level in case your opponent is able to sac a hero to maxband him on their turn and get the heal effect when convenient to them. In world, being “trapped in a narrative” where you are forced to act in a certain way even against your interests because story-logic dictates it is very much a thing, and Tariq often leans in to the “healer and mentor” character trope, so this works thematically as well as hopefully being mechanically interesting.
P2T3
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Goblin Sapper
Goblin Sapper
STARTING HAND
Underequipped Soldier [sheild] 2/3A Dies: I lose one gold
Exploding Goat
Choose Fate
Arcadian Double
WORKERS
Fantassin
Stepping Stone Villain
Choose Fate
NextHand
Dwarven Supplies
Legionary Heavy
Shining Prince
Pivot
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($7)
Worker - ($6)
Exploding Goat - ($5)
Underequipped Soldier - choose Sword - ($3)
Add three levels to Tariq (midband +1) - ($0)
Tap Tariq to draw +1 next turn (still to maximum of 5, so discard 1 draw 4)
Float ($0)
Discard 1, draw 4
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Underequipped Soldier [sword] 3/2A Dies: I lose one gold
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: Doomed Peasant 1/1 (drops 0/1)
Lookout:
In Play:
Tariq L4 2/4 Healing 1 at end of turn
Exploding Goat 2/1 End of turn: Destroy exploding goat if it didn’t arrive or attack this turn. Dies: active player deals 2dmg to a patroller or building
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech I: 5HP
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 4
Deck: 0
Disc: 4
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 8
Thoughts
next turn - use the Goat to clear out Grave or a patroller, Heavy, tech up. After that - goblins for dayz.
Hmm… my plan was to worker Messenger, but now I’m kinda tempted to use it to kill that goat. Not really sure it’s worth it, though… guess I’ll use Martial Mastery to get a better bead on my option, discarding the Thief 'cuz I don’t have any damaged buildings. Not really a good way to defend Grave in this situation… guess I’ll just have him go super saiyan.
Squad Leader: Neshamah 1/4A deals 1 to attacking units before attack; deathtouch from pesh
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 18
Base HP: 18
There was a chance I could have done this last turn, which would maybe have been a bigger swing.
must’ve forgotten to update it on public spreadsheet
Base HP: 20