How I’d Do It: Episode 5

I don’t have a full article today, because I spent most of last week and the weekend working on something else for the blog. Instead of delving into a bunch of theory, this week I’m just going to share with you some random (well, not all that random…) cards I tossed together last week for fun. Considering my word-tastic episode from last week was universally reviled (or so I must assume, given the lack of comments), I don’t imagine you folks’ll mind a shorter installment this week.

Without further ado, let’s take get started!

(Sigh… that’s supposed to be Shadowcat. Yeah, I know. I hate it too. I was in a hurry.)

This was, without a doubt, the most difficult card I’ve ever made. Templating that power was an absolute nightmare. I went through almost a dozen different wordings, but they were all either too long to fit in the text box, or else they didn’t quite do what I wanted them to do. Here’s probably the worst of the lot, to give you an idea:

• Whenever equipped character becomes stunned by a character, move him to that character’s controller’s front row, and transfer Shadow King to that character. Then, move the new equipped character to your front row.

Ugh. If you ever catch me writing “the new equipped character” on another card, you have my permission to bludgeon me with audiovisual equipment.

Another difficult thing about this was the cost– I still have no idea how many resources this should cost. I’ve fluctuated from 1 to 4 throughout the development cycle (and by “development cycle” I of course mean “my period of wishy-washiness”), and I’m still not sure where the sweet spot is. On the one hand, you permanently get one of your opponent’s guys. But on the other hand, it’s not optional, and he can always play around it and hand you a 1-drop. So, yeah. I’m not sure where to go. I think 2 or 3 probably works, but this is one I’d really need to test to find out for sure.

Next!

I was inspired by our temporary sister site’s article on The Enforcers– three random goons who somehow manage to be a consistent, recurring threat to the superhuman community. These seem like easy inclusions in the Crime Lords roster, and since I’m going to need to make a contribution to Crime Lords Month at some point, it might as well be now.

Starting high and working down, first we get Ox, the group’s beater. 3 is about the highest I can justify making a “standard human”– sorry, Panther fans. Ox ties nicely into the Crime Lords’ “tricky reinforcement” theme by removing your opponent’s option to “cheat” a small attacker into your 3 for a standard crossover attack. If they try any of those shenanigans, you just reinforce Ox and stun them outright. In the end, your opponent’s only option on 3 is to make an “honest” attack of his own 3 into yours, which should generally work out much better for you.

Ox’ power isn’t really an off-init stun; generally speaking, you’ll almost never use it against a smart opponent. It stands there as a threat– it basically makes his text, “While Ox is ready, he can’t be attacked by characters with a cost of 2 or less.” He forces your opponent’s hand, which is one of the strongest tools in the Crime Lords’ arsenal. Every time you make a decision for your opponent, you’ve won at least a small victory.

Next up on the Enforcers roster is their leader, Montana. According to the BraveAndTheBlog article, Montana’s “thing” is using a lariat to capture his opponents, pinning them down to be beaten on by his associates. After reading that, it took me about six seconds to come up with the power I gave him– he drags people close to them, and then encourages his posse to beat them up. With Ox (and Dan, who you’ll see momentarily) wanting to defend on odds, I figured it was a good idea to put an offensive power on the 2-drop, to make your initiative choice a bit easier. That said, the ability can be used on 3 just as easily as on 2, so it doesn’t hurt that badly if you get screwed on the die roll.

Finally, we get to my favourite of the three– not only because he has the greatest name of any character in the history of comics, but also because I absolutely love the effect I came up with for him.

Fancy Dan, come on down.

I’ll say one thing before I move on: I’m not 100% sure this power works. I’m… I dunno… 95% sure. But there’s never been a trigger off of “becoming reinforced”, so I had to take a guess at how to word it. I also wasn’t sure if the game considers a “manual” reinforcement to originate from a character, or if it originates from the game itself, so that’s another possible way this falls apart.

But let’s ignore that and start thinking about abusing this. I’m not sure if I actually succeeded, but my intention was that you can reinforce him repeatedly during the same attack to pump him through the roof. Put him between your 3 and 4 and reinforce with both, and suddenly you’re defending with a 9/8 1-drop. Even if the attack goes through, your opponent’s dedicated an awful lot of attack power to someone who wasn’t much of a threat if left alone.

Huge pumps on defenders are generally a pretty rare commodity, but in this case it’s not really that bad. First of all, your opponent can see it coming. They’ll know before they ever declare an attack exactly how big you can make him, and they’re free to try to take down his potential reinforcers first to eliminate his source of pumps. Also, you can’t just apply this pump to any character you want (say, a crucial 4- or 5-drop). Instead, all his power is letting you do is to keep your 1-drop around. It’s just powerful enough to be useful to you (worst case, it determines the order of your opponent’s attacks, which is another case of your opponent’s decisions being made for him), without being too abusable and game-stopping.

And Finally, One For Gday

C’mon, I had to.

Like Ox above, Stilt-Man forces your opponent to make honest attacks. Your opponent can’t simply swing up with a pump, because you’ll just bail out and force him to swing again without it. Unless your opponent is packing turn-length pumps, you can force him to team attack with natural stats, or swing in with his 4.

And hey, you can always use him to bail out of your own attacks that don’t quite go according to plan.

Alrighty, that’s all I’ve got for you this week. I’ll be back again next week with a full-size article (though I’ll try to lay off the in-depth technical stuff, since you guys apparently hate that). In the meantime, go check out our thread on VSRealms to see if you won anything in our March Madness prize giveaway!

BUMP OUR THREAD, DAMMIT!

-Spud