[Custom Character/ Spec for Neutral Deck] Lum The Gambling Panda

I have always been a big fan of Lum and the Neutral decks in general in Codex, so I set off to make a Lum the third character so I could use the neutral deck as a complete unit. There’s a lot of fun stuff with them and I felt like they deserved more use. I wanted to make Lum’s units, spells and buildings based around casinos, gambling and a lot of the lore found in Pandante. So bonus points for Pandante fans!

Starting off, I made a few small adjustments to the Neutral starting deck. I removed Wither and Messenger because they were weaker cards that I felt could be replaced by buildings to make Neutral have a unique feel. The two replacement cards are:

Big Paw Club Casino: Building. 3 Cost: 2 Life: Gain +1 Gold from the bank at the start of each opponent’s Upkeep.
Who cares if it’s legal? It makes money!

Jokers Wild Resort: Building: 2 Cost. 4 Life: Pay 1, Stash a card face-down under this building. (Max: 3). One turn after Stashing you may summon a unit for its cost with an additional +1/+1 token, or you may play a spell or upgrade for -1 gold cost. (If the building is destroyed or taken, all units and/or spells in the resort go with it.)

These two cards give a unique economy and stash effects that can allow some wiggle room early.

Next, I made Lum. I wanted Lum to be both a solid fighter and have a gambling ability like how he played in Yomi.

Lum Hero card:

Level 1-3: Pay 1 then flip a coin.
On heads: Do nothing
On tails: Gain 2 coins.
Once per turn

Level 4-5: Tap: Target: Spend money to deal X damage to a hero or unit, where X is the amount of gold spent.

Level 6: Gain an additional +1 gold from the bank if you win any gamble.

His basic gamble ability is a simple way to get some economy, and at max level, you can really start to get an economic advantage on the opponent. His target ability is essentially his coin throw attack from Yomi, so you can use some of that economy to take out the opponents.

Next was his Ultimate. I wanted it to emulate his Acs in Yomi, so I tried to create a Codex version of playing blackjack.

Ultimate Spell:

Pandamonium: 2 cost

Draw the top two cards from your discard pile and your draw pile, one face down and one face up and then chose one card from your hand. If the total gold value of the revealed cards is less than 21, you may reveal one or two of the facedown cards or end Pandamonium. If you end under 21, gain +4 gold and draw one card. If you go above 21 at any point, all player bases take 2 damage, including your own and you discard 2 cards. If you end with 21 exactly, gain +10 gold and deal 5 damage to all opponent’s bases. Discard all cards used in Pandamonium.

This ability could use some work, but it’s a fun start.

Next, his tech 0 spells. I wanted gambling to shine through here, so I made two spells about gambling and one spell about summoning basic defenders.

Ante Up!: 0 Cost: Gambling Magic: Each player Ante’s 1 gold then reveals the top card of their deck. The player with the highest gold value card wins the pot. You may either place the revealed card at the top or bottom of your deck. If a player can not Ante 1, their base takes 1 damage instead and they are removed from the pot.
The largest gains can come from the smallest gambles.

Protect Your Assets: 4 Cost: Gambling Magic. Summon two 0/3 Bouncers. Bouncers have: Can not deal combat damage; while in play an opponent cannot attack your buildings.
Nothing in life is free. We make sure to keep the prices low.

All-In: Cost: 0. Roll one D-6. If you roll above a 5 or above, double your gold. If you roll 4 or below, you lose all your gold and your base takes 2 damage.
What’s the point of gambling if you have nothing to lose?

If you are feeling risky, you can gain a big economic boost with these gambling cards. If you want to play is safe, bouncers act as a weak but useful stall if your opponent is running through your buildings.

As far as tech 1 units, I wanted to make a basic unit with armor and resistance and a unique unit that you can build up using gold. So:

Doublepaw Den Dealer: 3 Cost: Unit- Mercenary: 2/3 w/Resist 1 and +1 Armor.
There’s two rules at the table. 1: Always tip the dealer and 2: The dealer will win any fight you start.

Gold Hog: 0 Cost: Unit- Pig: 0/1. Ability: Pay 1 gold to place a +1/+1 counter on Gold Hog, up to two per turn (Maximum of 5).
No matter how much he wins, this old Hog will never leave the table.

Gold Hog may need to cost at least 1, but the jury is still out on that.

Now, tech II units I had some fun with. I wanted to do some things a little different than the other decks, so I made some effects unique to Gambling.

Quince’s Palace Casino: Legendary Building: 4 cost: 5 health. Tap: Roll a D-6. On a 1 or 2 summon a tech 1 or 2 unit corresponding to the role from your Codex for free (ignoring all requirements) with: Illusion, ‘When dies trash’. On a 5 or 6 play, a non-ultimate spell from your codex for free (ignoring all requirements) then trash the spell. On any other number, draw a card.
At least once a week a ‘cease and desist’ order is filed by Flagstone. No attempt has been made beyond this to shut down the casino.

The Cooler: 6 Cost. Unit- Mercenary 5/4 with Haste; May replace a unit who has taken damage. If replacing a unit, lower the summoning cost by 1 gold per damage on the unit, to a minimum of 1.
It’s not that he can’t be beat, it just hasn’t happened before.

Yakkusa: 3 cost: Unit- Yakk Enforcer: 4/4. Tap: Target: Pay the gold value of a tech 1 or tech 2 unit on the field and return it to the controlling player’s Codex. Exhaust Yakkusa. (Doesn’t untap during the next upkeep phase).
The casino has ways of making problem clientele disappear.

George ‘The Whale’: 6 cost. Legendary Unit- Sophisticated Whale. 6/8 with Gain 3 gold each upkeep. At the end of your turn, all opponents flip a coin. If heads, they gain +2 Gold. If tails, nothing happens.
Money has no value to him anymore. If he wins, marvelous! If he loses… well, let’s say the other poor sap just needed it more today.

Stanfor Shark: 3 cost. Unit- Card Shark. 3/5 with: Haste, Stealth. Opponents reveal the first card they draw each turn. I folded because I already knew what you drew. I also know what your next draw is. It isn’t good.

Quince gives you a unique way to play cards from your codex with a bit of gambling involved. Cooler and Stanfor give you different haste options to bring in some quick damage. Yakkusa is a hard removal and George is just a powerful unit in both economy and power. These cards a lot of fun to use and give the neutral deck a unique feel when chosen.

Finally, the tech III. Who else could it be other than G. Panda? I wanted to bring in a lot of Pandante here, so I made it Panda and his entourage. The entourage are all as true to their Pandante selves as I could make them.

G. Panda

10 Cost. Legendary Unit- Panda Lord: 0/10: Arrival: Summon G. Panda’s Entourage

G. Panda’s Entourage

Waggles: 1/3 with Flagbearer
Lea-Leafa: 2/2 With: When attacking, draw 1 card.
Cassy: 2/2 with: Arrives: Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. You may reorganize these cards however you see fit.
Fern: One 2/2 with Arrives steal 2 gold from all opponents.
Bumbleclod: 4/4 with: Arrives: Exhausted. Overpower
Mari-Dori: 0/2 with: At the start of your upkeep, you may pretend Mari-Dori is another card from your hand, and your opponents must go along with it. (Place it on top of Mari-Dori, use its attack/ damage and abilities, then discard it at the end of your turn.)

It’s impossible for me to bust… I own the casino!

3 Likes

I know there is a ton of info on here, but I figured you all may appreciate the thought process behind my Gambling deck. If you have any comments I’d love to hear them. I want to make this as balanced as possible for when I play with my friends!

this is by far the most unbalanced card in the deck. It can wipe out most cheap illusions or peace/purple engine almost for free, destroying one deck, since they go back to codex.
Seriously, need a complete re do

This is a worse Rich Earth, and Rich earth is already problematic. I think you drastically underestimate the power of Wither and a hasty 1/1 for 1g.

Joker’s wild resort is slightly more interesting, but its effect on spells/upgrades is underwhelming, and the +1 rune is perhaps a little too powerful. The fact that it effectively let’s you invest in hand size and get the dubious benefit of Bigby is kinda meh.

Why does the neutral starter need buildings?

Lum’s midband should just have a maximum allowed, though I can see how that might effect the flavor.

Yakkusa probably meant to say disable, rather than exhaust. And I agree, returning to codex is a bit extreme, better to just send to discard.

1 Like

Thanks for that feedback. My friends mostly play Black or Red so I may have inadvertently made it balanced for competing against those decks. I never thought about how it could ruin decks with 0 costs. Funnily I recently gave it a buff from exhaust for 2 turns to 1 turn because it was seeing no use due to it being such a huge target when it hit the field.

Out of curiosity, what would you do with the card?

I sure I am underestimating WIther and Hasty 1/1, but they were the cards that were always being turned into workers when we played, so I kinda just felt like trying something new. Neutral doesn’t need buildings, but it was to give the deck a little bit of a different feeling early game. I could make Big Paw Club a little cheaper to help give it better return when playing 1 V 1, but the card is super powerful when you play with multiple people. I realize the game is balanced for 1 V 1 above all else, but it was something I was thinking about.

Lum’s midband could have a maximum, maybe like 5?

Yakkusa is extreme, but I was trying to make a powerful but unique removal. If it’s just send to discard that wouldn’t be very powerful, so it would need to be adjusted. You can only do it every 2nd turn, and the card is usually gone by then because it is a major target the second it hits the field. Out of curiosity, what would you do with it?

Honestly i do not know, i am no expert in balancing a game, i just can tell u what feels off.
Consider that future knights of C, overager cadets, seers etc could be “banished” for free, making the opponent lose an insane amount of tempo.
plus, if an opponent plays red, most of his cards (exp starter deck ones) are cheap, and them too can be forced to codex.
This question was asked in the past, and the answer was “yes even a starter deck card can disapper” (for example, if u use maufactured truth on a tech 0 turning it into a rmabasa twin and it dies, it returns to the codex as it would the rambasa).
this would defuse a anarchy/strenght/growth, since yakkasa could banish all the small troops and tokens (they cost 0) for free, crippling it.
Idk, maybe i would say “return them to hand” and set a limit of targets, otherwise it’s basically OP.

Perhaps instead of sending to the discard, you could trash the target until (condition). Think Prynn’s Maxband.
And send to discard isnt the same thing as dies. It could avoid patrol bonuses. But so would the trash effect. Perhaps it trashes it for a turn, then sends it to the discard, to keep it out of the game in the same way sending it to codex might.

As a Tech 2, I would downplay the concerns that it would diffuse Anarchy/Strength/Growth. By the time this card could see play, the tech 2 growth engine is likely already going. And the manufactured truth play isn’t actually practical, even if it is possible.

1 Like

i simply meant that as it is it can also “banish” starter cards, that could not be retrieved with any mean. :wink:

Teching cards from your codex let’s you tech any card there, even if it was a “banished” starter card, so no, they would be retrievable.

1 Like

On this note, there are already cards that are broken in multiplayer, like sacrifice the weak. We should be trying to avoid cards that have mechanics that improve with more players in the game, in my opinion. They tend to make that player a target, more than being helpful. If you are really trying to go for the casino theme though, you should change it to steal 1g of opponent’s floating gold at your own upkeep. This still tends to get boosted in multiplayer, but a lot less so. change its health to 3 (like all the other starter deck buildings), and cost to 2, and have it steal 1g of the existing float when built. And even with those changes, it seems to me it should still have some sorta tap ability.

why not steal 1g at each opppnent upkeep.
at least you guarantee income and give opponents insentive to destroy the casino

because that would be devastating. Before you can do anything, I have crippled you with 1 less gold than you would otherwise get, guaranteed. Also consider you could play it as player 1 on t1, and suddenly that player 2 econ advantage is gone, and is instead now P1 advantage.

Consider stealing 1g to be kinda like gaining 2g, because you have made your opponent lose 1 and you gain 1, so net 2g advantage to the person stealing. In practice, its not really worth as much as 2g, but it is definitely more than 1g.

My method presents some risk of no return, which is in line with the gambling theme.

4 Likes

Is “Yakkusa” meant to be “Yakuza”? Although since pandas are from China, presumably triad would be more thematically appropriate…

i think it could be a yak yakuza, for the pun.

Yeah, I was going for the Yak pun. It felt too perfect to have the animal/ criminal organization pun even if it wasn’t regionally perfect. Sometimes you just have to take the joke :slight_smile:

1 Like

What do you mean by floating gold? I’m not aware of that term off the top of my head, sorry. I like where this idea is going though. I could come up with a tap ability too but depending on this idea we will see. You’ve had some fantastic feedback, so thank you.

Floating gold is an expression that means leaving gold unspent at the end of your turn.

2 Likes

Floating gold is a term coined, probably not originally for codex, to mean gold that was not spent on the previous turn. Cards like Tax Collector, Gunpoint Taxman and Pillage steal gold, but if the opponent has no gold “floating” then there’s nothing to steal, because they don’t generate any money from workers until their upkeep.

3 Likes

What if the Yakkusa said:

Tap: Target: Exhaust one Tech 1 or Tech 2 unit and Yakkusa. When Yakkusa readies or is destroyed, destroy the exhausted unit.

This would be a little bit more of a traditional removal, but would give a little bit of a lockdown play and could be a good fit with the other Tech 2 cards in the gambling deck. It’s a start but it could move the card more towards fair.