[Custom Char PnP Deck] Sun Wu-Dao, the Monkey Queen

Yomi
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A little while ago I made this thread about a custom character I had come up with. At the time, all I had was a design; I did not even have a name for the character! But now, I would like to introduce:

#Sun Wu-Dao
The Monkey Queen

monkey queen.jpg750×1050 119 KB

“It’s finally time to lead my people into the sun!”

[details=Lore]Legend has it that thousands of years ago, the Sunstone monkeys thrived in the lush, verdant forests of Dragon Tail Vale. That is, until Sun Wu-Kong, the first monkey monarch, grievously offended the ancient dragons. In retaliation, the dragons banished the Sunstone monkeys to the mountains, where they have eked out a meager existence on an arid mountainside. Since then, the stigma of Sun Wu-Kong’s mistake has hung onto them like a bad stench.

Sun Wu-Dao, the current monkey queen, is determined to restore her people to their homeland in the Vale and undo their history. Fortunately for her, Flagstone is a kingdom all too eager to discard the past. Its chancellor, Quince, could not care less about archaic stories of thousand year-old transgressions. He is much more interested in gathering allies for the coming conflicts. In exchange for the Sunstones’ support, he promised to give them back the vale. Sun Wu-Dao readily agreed.

The time has finally come for the Sunstones to reclaim their rightful lands and destroy the draconian lineage that banished them to the mountains all those years ago, and Sun Wu-Dao is determined to lead them down that path.[/details]

I created a Print-and-Play PDF for Sun Wu-Dao’s deck, in case anyone is interested in play testing the character! If you do, I would love to receive feedback and comments!

Link to Print and Play

Dropbox - Sun Wu-Dao.pdf - Simplify your life

Let me know if there is any trouble accessing the PnP or if I made any errors on it!

[details=Art Asset Credits]Gibbon Vector: https://pixabay.com/p-37834/?no_redirect
Crown Vector: Free Vector Crown, Download Free Vector Crown png images, Free ClipArts on Clipart Library
Playing Card Template: http://www.timvandevall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Playing-Card-Template.pdf[/details]

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Her 8 & 9 throws are listed at 7.8 speed, but her reference card says x.8.

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Good catch! I will edit it later today.

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I noticed that you weren’t able the squeeze in the bit of text saying which suit is which element, which makes the use of the word “element” in the innate text seem like it’s coming completely out of nowhere; despite having read the original version of the character, it still took me a few seconds to figure out what it meant…

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The real problem was that I was running out of room on the cards in the deck to include a symbol for each element, so I decided that for the sake of play testing having that bit of flavor was not important. However, I do agree with your point that I should change the wording of the innate to be more intuitive for the play test deck! Thanks for the comment!

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I’ve updated the cards to reflect the suggestions above!

Additionally, would anybody be interested in me uploading the photoshop files that have all the layers as a sort of editable photoshop template for making print and play decks? Let me know!

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The face cards don’t seem to have names.

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I didn’t give the face cards names yet because a. I did not want to clutter the cards even more and b. it didn’t seem necessary just to have a print-and-play that could be used to play test. If/when I feel like the character has begun to solidify more, I will of course flesh out the flavor of the deck with attack names and whatnot!

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(EDIT: Turns out some very cool forum members are taking the time to print-and-play this character!)

I know that realistically exactly zero people are actually printing and playing this character, but I decided to write up a quick FAQ to anticipate questions about Sun Wu-Dao’s mechanics:

  1. Q. What does and does not happen when I end a Force of Nature combo with Water/Hearts?

A. You immediately gain 3 life. Until the end of next turn’s combat, the opponent cannot play abilities from hand, and any of the opponent’s abilities that could normally be countered are automatically countered. (Aces and innate abilities cannot be countered.) However, any ongoing abilities played beforehand still work (e.g.: Midori’s Dragon Form or Gloria’s Healing Sphere).

  1. Q. Can I use Elemental Harmony in order to pump Kings with any Aces I want?

A. No. Elemental Harmony only works if the Ace is being used as a linker in the combo. The ability does not activate if the ace is being used as a pumper card.

  1. Q. What cards count as “normal cards” for the Earth/Spades effect?

A. Cards rank 3-10.

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Thanks for including the link to that template! :smiley_cat: I want to set up print & play decks for my characters as well when I have time!

Also, I swear that I glanced at this thread, but I didn’t realize that Sun Wu-Dao was the name for ye elemental character! I thought this was a new one for some reason! I notice that ye edited & added a few things! I like the new hearts ability Sun Wu-Dao has via Force of Nature! I think that the healing on that could even be increased to 4 HP, but I have not tested anything! This is another minor thing, but what if her max HP was 84 instead of 85? Either is fine, but it’d be cool if her HP was evenly divisible by four!

My other query is… What did Sun Wu-Kong do to offend the dragons? Dragons can be petty, but maybe it was something really unnecessarily mean like ye lore makes it sound! :crying_cat_face: (Maybe it’s just a legend, though!) Also, isn’t Sun Wu-Kong a main character in Journey to the West? I’ve never read that, but I want to, someday (in Traditional Chinese, of course!). Have ye read that at all, @Zqxx? Is the Sun Wu-Kong from Journey to the West a troublemaker, at least initially?

Back to ye lore… Her quote is pretty positive & inspirational, which I really appreciate! :smiley: I like the lore ye made for her overall, though! But, I am worried… That deal does sound like something Quince would do! I’d be surprised if he kept his word about letting them have the Vale… I want them to get back to the sun! :o Avoid manipulation, Sun Wu-Dao!

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I’m going to get this printed out to test play as I love the concept. I can make use of a phaser printer in work (shhh) so just need to pick up some card sleeves to put them in and I’ll be golden.

Also, I noticed a typo in the first line of the character innate :

If you use all a card of every suit in a combo…
(emphasis added)

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No problem! If you want, like I mentioned above, I can also share the Photoshop files I used if you might find that useful as a sort of “template” for editing your own characters.[quote=“variable, post:10, topic:3215”]
what if her max HP was 84 instead of 85? Either is fine, but it’d be cool if her HP was evenly divisible by four!
[/quote]

This is a cool suggestion! I may do that at some point![quote=“variable, post:10, topic:3215”]
isn’t Sun Wu-Kong a main character in Journey to the West?
[/quote]

Yep, yes he is! He is often referred to as the “monkey king,” so Sun Wu-Dao’s title “the monkey queen” is also a reference to him. The lore here is heavily stolen from I mean inspired by Journey to the West. The first arc of Journey to the West is, to make a complicated story short, about Sun Wu-Kong forcing his way into the Heavens and just being a pain for all the celestial deities. In the end, his extreme trouble-making gets him imprisoned underneath a mountain for centuries. Also, Sun Wu-Kong was born from a stone and his surname is Sun: ergo, Sunstone monkeys.

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Awesome! Thank you so much!

And thanks for catching that! I will edit it later today.

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Oooh, yeah, it’d be nice to have access to those, as well! I don’t use Photoshop myself, but I bet other Yomi-ers do! (And maybe I’ll learn it in the future!)

Oooh interesting!! :smiley_cat: I didn’t know that Sun Wu-Kong was such a troublemaker! I look forward to reading Journey to the West in the future!

Also, I kinda like that Flagstone & Sunstone have an alliance because of their names alone!

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SO! Update.

I printed out this deck and played a couple IRL matches with @lum_at_1st_sight. They were all Sun Wu Dao vs Lum (go figure :stuck_out_tongue:).

My thoughts:

  1. As she is currently designed, making Force of Nature combos is a LOT harder than I originally thought it would be. Collecting cards of four different suits that can also combo into each other properly can be a bit difficult. This would be fine, except that the benefits you get for doing it aren’t wildly good. They are definitely good, but, considering how difficult setting up a FoN combo actually is, it never felt like the effort justified the benefits.

  2. However, she is still at a decent power level because her combos are fairly damaging. A -> K++ -> 9 for 30 damage off of a 1.0 speed attack is definitely nice :laughing:.

  3. Elemental Alchemy is not a very good ability. The main problem with it is that, it doesn’t feel worth it to bother searching for a specific card most of the time since the combos are so delicate. If I search for a card to complete a Water/Hearts -> Wood/Clubs -> Fire/Diamonds -> Earth/Spades combo, but then I fail to win combat with the Hearts card and it goes into discard, that effort is now wasted.

Here’s what I’m thinking I could change to fix some of these problems:

  1. Make J a 1CP Linker that does 4+4 [+1 J] damage. This gives her another rank of cards that is very flexible in how it can be used in combos and might help make FoN combos easier to actually execute.

  2. Reduce K’s damage from 8+6 [+2 same element] to 8+4 [+2 same element]. I feel like K is just a tad too strong a card, and having such a bulldozer move to use lets Sun get away with ignoring her intended game plan in favor of just landing juicy combos for huge damage.

  3. Replace Elemental Alchemy with a different ability. My current idea is to change the 10 throw to pump-able Can’t Combo throw and have ability text that says:

[During Combat]
Whenever you use a card to pump this throw, get the Force of Nature effect corresponding to its suit.

I’m thinking the throw could be pumped two times, which would be interesting because it would allow Sun to mix together Force of Nature effects, such as knocking down the opponent with the Earth effect and also preventing them from using abilities next turn with the water effect. Or it could let her double down on an effect, like pumping twice with Wood to draw four cards, netting her +2 cards overall.

Anyways, let me know what you all think of these changes! Has anyone else tried playing around with this deck yet? If so, do you agree with my assessment? Let me knooooooow.

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