@Nekoatl Excited to try Grey against someone who didn’t have a hand in creating it! The current draft is here. If it is OK with you, I will use the “Named Units” option ie two of the units, Hanno the White Knight and Adjutant, behave like heroes with abilities, levels, and you can only play one of them.
Any questions about how any of the cards work before your turn?
P1T1
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Choose Fate
Stepping Stone Villain
Arcadian Double
Fantassin
Underequipped Soldier
WORKERS
Fantassin
NextHand
Dwarven Supplies
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Pivot
Doomed Peasant
Discard
Underequipped Soldier
Choose Fate
Arcadian Double
Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid - ($4)
Worker - ($3)
Stepping Stone VIllain - ($2)
Catherine Foundling - ($0)
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Stepping Stone Villain 1/1A Dies: Trash this
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Cat L1 2/3 struggle: +1 atk per damage on this
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 0
Disc: 3
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 5
Thoughts
Would prefer giant or peasant to open with, but this will do!
That’s fine, although I’m curious why it’s an option.
Yeah, about the named units:
What tech level are they, as units? Why does one of them have an ability to treat it as a hero and a unit, but not the other? Do they go into the discard pile like units, or are they summoned from the command zone like heroes? Does “you can only play one of them” mean only one at a time, or once you play one you’re locked into it, similar to choosing a spec when building your Tech II? Do they count towards the hero limit, and is that limit considered to be 4 if a player has both a Tech III and a Heroes’ Hall? Can they only cast starter spells, or also spells from their faction? If the “Named Units” option is not used, are those cards not usable or do they just behave differently? Are you planning on making a 3rd at some point for the Bad faction?
About Break:
As worded, it can affect add-ons. Is this intended? If so, that’s kind of terrifying when combo’d with Robber, and doubly so if Ugly is paired with, say, Discipline to put a +1/+1 rune on Robber so that it can kill the Tower in 1 hit. If not, it should say “building card”.
About Unrest:
Is Grey meant to only be playable digitally? If not, how many Unrest cards are there? 2?
About Catherine:
Am I right to think “lose 1 hp” means to put a damage chit on Cat? Or is it meant to reduce maximum health instead?
About Story Trap:
I assume this is meant to be “name a card that was in your opponent’s codex at the start of the game”? 'Cuz it’s possible, though extremely rare, for tech 0 units to go into the codex during a game (Rambasa Twin + Manufactured Truth), though I guess this isn’t really a problem since both players would see the tech 0 unit go to the codex.
About Shine:
How is this supposed to work, mechanically? Is it “Whenever your units or heroes would take lethal damage, prevent just enough of that damage so that it’s not lethal.”? Or is it “Whenever your units or heroes would take lethal damage, increase their health to one more than the number of damage chits until your next upkeep.”? What happens to a unit if it’s maximum health would be reduced to 0 or less (e.g. by Abomination)?
About Saint of Swords:
As written, full-overpower can’t direct remaining damage to buildings. Is that intended?
About Shining Prince:
I assume the attack bonus is not Frenzy 1 because it’s a permanent attack boost? If so, is it applied to the attack or gained after the attack? Is the “-1 hp” meant to similarly be a permanent reduction to maximum health each time it patrols?
That’s all I can think of to ask right now, but if something comes to mind during the game, I’ll be sure to bug you about it.
Gooood questions! Some I can answer confidently, others James might have an answer (some of the cards were invented by one of us more than both of us) and a few are things we’re gonna have to hash out.
Named units are an option because we thought they might be too odd; they are not an option in the sense that them being optional is part of the deck.
(One answer per question)
They are tech 2 units which, for as long as they are anywhere but in play, behave like unit cards.
Both Hanno and Adjutant are the same mechanics-wise (Hanno has a starting ability so we forgot to add the “hero and unit” text).
They go into the discard pile like a unit and you have to wait until you draw it again to play it anew.
“you can only play one of them” is only one copy of e.g. Hanno at a time. With a tech lab you could possibly have one Hanno and one Adjutant but never two Hanno in play. (Will rewrite wording to "you may only have one copy of this card in play at once)
They do count towards the hero limit, and we are considering it to be 4 with a tech 3+heroes’ hall (also relevant when you are using Neshamah’s ultimate spell).
! We never explicitly discussed spells… I personally would vouch for them being able to cast only starter spells as a Grey hero (i.e. pay +1 for other starter spells, no hero-specific spells).
If the Named Units option is not used, there are normal-unit versions of them in the main block of tech 2 units; the Named versions are below the tech 3 unit in the spreadsheet.
We couldn’t think of a good Named Unit for Bad tech 2 yet; if any of the current Bad tech 2s get vetoed it’d be a good replacement.
Other Named Units clarification: they follow the hero levelling system, including gaining levels when an opponent’s hero dies and gifting 2 levels when they die. They only have a starting band and a maxband.
It should not be able to affect tech buildings; will amend the wording.
Great point! Putting a limit on it is frustrating though, definitely more than 2 (when playing with the physical cards do you limit the number of skeletons you have? Me and James have a few pieces of paper labelled skeleton as we didn’t know there was meant to be a limit xd)
She gains one damage chit each upkeep.
Your wording is correct and clear, will change it to that.
I defer to James, on instinct I would say “prevent enough damage so that it’s not lethal” but the implications may be weird e.g. the amount of deathtouch damage that is lethal is 1.
I think that was a slip of the keyboard and SoS should be able to hit a building or even buildings but will wait for confirmation from James before confirming
That should be frenzy 1, we meant to change that on an earlier draft i think. The -1HP should probably say “takes 1 dmg” as that is what happens…
if you meant why they exist at all - to try and recreate more flavour for the novel which inspires a lot of these cards. Heroes and Villains are a big part of that world, and this seemed the best way to make some of the units more heroic/villainous.
I think only starter spells, if any spells at all. We probably should have decided on this earlier.
It may be that they are just a step too complicated and we just get rid of them and go back to the normal card options
Grey is built around digital play, and the idea is that you can play it as much as you like. In the unlikely world it where it is printed, a few Unrest cards would have to come with the codex, like Green comes with 4 Frog tokens and quite a few Wisp tokens (my copy at least).
Prevent enough damage to avoid lethal, and negate “deathtouch” first. If its maximum health would be reduced to 0, negate the last effect which does so until Shine wears off (snap ruling for what sounds easiest). If weird situations arise often enough re-think.
So the “only one at a time” for Named Units just means they’re Legendary? That seems simple enough.
Add-ons are not tech buildings, that’s why the multicolor rules say to pay $1 for your first tech building or add-on. The current wording is fine.
There is no limit on tokens, unless a card specifies that there is. But, the Unrest spells are different because they can exist outside of the play area, e.g. they need to be shuffled into the deck, and so would need to have actual physical cards to represent them. I suppose you could just substitute cards that aren’t in play, but it’s a completely unprecedented situation, so I had to ask.
Shine still seems a bit confusing, but I think I get the general intent. So, like, with Shine active, a single 1/1 unit could defend against massive numbers of attackers without even so much as getting exhausted as an indestructible unit would. But, how does that interact with overpower? I’m guessing it negates all the overpower damage as well because nothing can deal lethal damage? So exhaust, disable, and return effects are extra-valuable against Good. How about obliterate? It doesn’t deal damage, so it seems like it should still be able to kill units… I guess the same applies to Doom Grasp and Sacrifice the Weak.
With Taric in play, it basically doubles your healing from all sources, yes? Because it doesn’t say “instead of during your upkeep”, that implies that all your healing effects trigger at the end of your turn, and then again during your upkeep.
Can I assume that every Grey card that interacts with specific objects in play has a targeting icon?
Have you tried comboing Arcadian Double with Inverse Power Ninja? Seems like it would be wild.
Alright, I think I understand enough to get started. GL HF!
P2T1
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Brick Thief
Spark
Tenderfoot
Bloom
Older Brother
WORKERS
Older Brother
NextHand
Wither
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Helpful Turtle
Fruit Ninja
Timely Messenger
This is a lot of information to take it, but in general, I think I should avoid teching in 2 copies of the same card as much as possible and focus on denial mechanics as much as possible. Of my 3 specs, Finesse seems the least useful, and Disease the most useful. In particular, Cat seems best handled by dealing damage in the form of -1/-1 runes, same for Pivot, so Orpal’s up.
Yes, except they don’t get buffed by Mythmaking. Mythmaking honestly restricted our design space a bit for “only one” cards!
Yup - we were going for unprecedented mechanics! This seems like the thing you would have to do if you ran out of printed “unrest” cards, just shuffle in some eg purple cards in a game with no purple.
Yup, “destroy” or “sacrifice” effects would still be able to kill Shining units or heroes, but “Overpower” effects would whiff. Honestly, we haven’t managed to play Shine much in playtesting so far, so not completely sure how good it is (apart from the fact that it isn’t the card we most want to tech in games so far).
No, it should say “end of turn instead”. However, if I have Tairq and another healing effect in play, my healing occurs at the end of my turn, and then if you kill Tariq on your turn, the other healing source DOES then activate again in my upkeep!
Yes.
No, we hadn’t considered this interaction, and it may mean that Arcadian Double needs changing! It is maybe the card I am least sure about in the starter anyway.
P1T2
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Legionary Heavy
Bone wyvern
STARTING HAND
Pivot
Doomed Peasant
Dwarven Supplies
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Hmm, regarding the 3rd option to pay to charge Dwarven Supplies, can it exhaust a unit with arrival sickness? And since it doesn’t say “friendly unit”, that means it can exhaust one of my units to pay for its cost? Similarly, the power-up portion doesn’t say “friendly unit”, so you could use it to manipulate which of your opponent’s units dies to Sacrifice the Weak?
Should definitely say friendly unit in both places (edit now made on the sheet). Yes, it could exhaust a just-arrived unit, though that would of course mean you can’t patrol with that unit.
Attacking seems very inefficient ATM, so I’ll focus on trying to build a stable board for sustained aggression in future turns. Looks like he can’t use Supplies to get past Orpal using only units next turn, but if he uses Double he could, especially with several 3-attack tech I units to choose from. I’ll switch Orpal to SQ… I’m betting he’ll want to avoid takingj -1/-1 runes on Cat, so that defense should hold if he doesn’t have Double. There doesn’t seem to be a good way to deal with the tech I unit/Double combo short of discarding the card from his hand, which isn’t an option yet. Since there’s a good chance Orpal won’t survive, I’ll need to patrol with the Turtle, and shouldn’t expect any Disease spell I cast to be usable next turn… but on the other hand, if I get lucky and he doesn’t have Double in hand, I’ll definitely want to try to discard it, so it’s worth teching in a Carrion Curse now just in case the stars align in my favor.
So he didn’t cast Double, but I didn’t get either of my teched cards, so I’m probably just going to have to eat a Double attack, but I can at least use Orpal to cut down on his board presence a bit, though I’m going to have to burn through some cards to do it.
STARTING HAND
Underequipped Soldier
Choose Fate
Legionary Heavy
Priest
Pivot
WORKERS
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier
NextHand
Choose Fate
Arcadian Double
Legionary Heavy
Legionary Heavy
Doomed Peasant 1/1 drops a 0/1 token
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($8)
Tech draw
Worker - ($7)
Tech II (Good) - ($3)
Pay one to put a final weapon rune on supplies - ($2)
Tap supplies to arm Wyvern by +3; kills your tech 1, your base to 18, wyvern falls apart
Priest - ($0)
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 2, reshuffle, draw 3
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Stepping Stone Villain 1/1 Dies: Trash this
Elite:
Scavenger: Priest 3/3 like a healing firebat
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Dwarven Supplies [0 runes]
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 5 (Good)
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 4
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 8
Thoughts
Bone wyvern + supplies is a very strong early attack, but leaves me quite bare afterwards. The plan is to stodge him out with good into a SoS.
STARTING HAND
Plague Spitter
Brick Thief
Timely Messenger
Carrion Curse
WORKERS
Older Brother
Fruit Ninja
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Timely Messenger
NextHand
Spark
Bloom
Sparring Partner
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($8)
Worker - ($7)
Rebuild Tech I
Carrion Curse, discard both spells - ($4)
Orpal kills Priest
Turtle deals 2 damage to your Tech II
Brick Thief deals 1 damage to your Tech II and repairs my base - ($2)
I wasn’t expecting him to take down my Tech I, that was quite well-timed. Guess I’ll postpone tech II units until after the reshuffle. Geez, he has some strong tech II units, especially that Mirror Knight.He seems to have a lot of flying, and I’ll want to be able to strike with Crows reliably, so Crawler seems like a good investment, and I’ll need Plague to deal with his strong Tech II units. With that decided, let’s see what I can catch with this curse… 2 spells to discard, nice… and this is quite a surprise, but he has 2 non-Good tech II units in hand. I guess he plays to Tech Lab into Ugly and just didn’t have the extra $1 he needed, that’s some rotten luck to draw both right off the reshuffle.
Looks like you missed the 1 damage the Brick Thief did to your Tech II last turn.
P2T5
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Cursed Crow
Gorgon
STARTING HAND
Bloom
Sparring Partner
Spark
WORKERS
Older Brother
Fruit Ninja
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Timely Messenger
NextHand
Wither
Spreading Plague
Discard
Spark
Bloom
Brick Thief
Cursed Crow
Gorgon
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($11)
Surplus - ($6)
Spark away a point of armor - ($5)
Orpal kills the unprotected patroller, infection spreads to other patroller
Bloom - ($3)
Brick Thief trades with surviving patroller, deals 1 damage to your Tech I and repairs my base
Sparring Partner - ($2)
Turtle breaks your Tech II
Derp… the Heavies aren’t tech II units. Surplus is more urgently needed than a Tech II building, but I’ll start teching in units on the assumption I’ll get it the tech building up next turn.
Squad Leader: Stepping Stone Villain 1/1A Dies: Trash this
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20
Squad Leader:
Elite: L1 Orpal Gloor (3/4) Infecting touch [1+]
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20