[AotA] Expansion PVP cards discussion and feedback

Immovable
Trait. Attach this card to yourself. Duration 2. While attached, you cannot be moved to or placed in a new location by enemy cards.

Immovable Blessing
Attach to target. While attached, target cannot be moved to or placed in a new location by cards controlled by its enemies. Duration 3. May Self Target.

creep: duration 2 -> duration 3, self target only -> targeting choice
comparable: card cycling vs minor altruism synergy

Boost vs Assist: imo, as an assist card, its fine as is. I don't see why its not playable, shrugs... I'd rather see the attack version of immovable in future with more aggressive board control.

 

This seems not-OP but quite playable to me: duration 3, encumber 1, immovable, armor 2 (2+)
Or more extreme: duration 3, encumber 3, immovable, armor 3 (1+)

See also, encumber. ^_^

 

OK, I am slowly getting a creeping feeling that as is, for duration 3, Lockdown Blessing isn't bad for a bronze card. It's just another card that can trigger Altruism.
It's simply not very useful against priests and warriors.

 

Just triggering altruism isn't worth the deckspace.

This card already has drawbacks. 1) It requires you to play a priest. 2) It requires LOS (a difficult proposition for a priest playing with step warriors). 3) It's only an attachment, so it has a duration and multiple ways to remove it.

You can't just make an answer card and expect it to get played, it has to also be at an appropriate power level for the format. These days Magic tends to stick answers to aggressively costed bodies, so that even when the ability is dead you still get a good creature out of it. That's what it takes to make the cards playable in tournament formats. This card is being designed backwards. We have an answer, but nothing that makes it playable.

My suggestion with armor is just one possibility, but the card has to good enough to deserve a spot in a competitive PvP deck, and some small bonus isn't going to do it. No good PVP deck is playing similar spot answers now, so why would this be any different?

 

Well put @Oberon

 

well, this is healthy discussion. Just sharing how I see the card designs here. Taking immovable as an example,

Core design: movement effect modifiers for board control

Boost version: immovable
Assist version: immovable blessing
Armor version: suggested in prior posts, add armor modifiers
Attack version: eg: say 3dam, 5range, magic, arcane, target cannot be moved by allied cards, duration 1.
Handicap version: Trait, target can only be moved by enemy cards.
Block version: eg: Block Any, you may move the instigator up to 2 squares.
etc...

imo, encumber's core design isn't identical to immovable's. Its a form of suppression play whereas immovable is board control.

Perhaps a little boost to Immovable Blessing with a spot heal of 2 ? Fits with assists and small synergy with talented healer for cantrip... I think it boils down to how the devs want the creep to grow, lateral or vertical...shrugs...

 

Why are you calling it "creep" ? Immovable is a much better card than Immovable Blessing, by a ratio of "bomb":"not playable". And it should be better—it's silver. But I'm not sure how you compare the two cards and say that power creep is happening? Or it some other kind of creep?

 

I'm talking about design/feature creep and not going to sidetrack here. I'm well aware that Immovable is a good card (heck imo, its too good as an instant control boost and cycler). The discussion is on whether or not IB is playable, ie, enough to take a slot in a deck and how to make it so its worthwhile.

Immovable: Boots and dwarf skills
Immovable Blessing: Divine Armor, Divine Weapon, Divine Item

I still don't see any reason why its not playable. You can get a max of 4 immovables for a dwarf-only deck. Now that IB is available for priests, that means more board control for non-dwarf parties. Maybe it will free up slots in the warriors/wizards. Maybe not...I don't predict metas.

My worry is if it turns out that its not good enough, then is the next 'immovable type' card in future expansions going to be faced with the same high bar set by the current Immovable every single time ? How do we solve that design problem ? Nerf immovable to make space for future immovables ? Or boost IB with what, card draw ? dam buff ? heal ? discard ? team movement ? If we buff IB now, are we going to keep buffing every spot answer in future just so to give them a place in decks ? Is that a healthy card pool ? Shrugs...

 

@Phaselock: Oberon said it already. Answers aren't answers unless they can get played. You don't want to see the card as unplayable—okay. I see you haven't played a single game of PvP since January at the latest, according to Farbs's meta site which has no record of you. This makes me really wonder whether or not you're on top of the environment, and that makes me wonder what the context is for your defense of this hypothetical card. You haven't explained why the card is playable, you've just questioned its unplayability (though multiple people have explained already, in this thread, why it could never find a spot in their decks). You've mentioned power creep obliquely as an issue with making IB any better than it is right now; when questioned as to how power creep could possibly factor into this discussion you said you didn't want to get sidetracked. Now, in your latest post, your concern seems to be that Immovable is too good, and that cards like it are going to be held to its bar (FYI that is definitionally not power creep since Immovable is the baseline). No one is saying that this bronze assist needs to be as good as a (possibly undervalued) silver boost trait. I think a lot of cards worse than Immovable make it into decks. I don't need IB to be a bomb.

What I do need is for Blue Manchu to not be accidentally designing "answers" that never actually answer anything because they're unplayably bad.

Cards like what IB currently is are literally a waste of space. Here's an MtG equivalent: Favor of the Woods. Cards like these can never be cast because they never show up in decks because you never want to draw them because casting them is never a good idea. Card Hunter is a little different insofar as it's okay for there to be bad cards as drawbacks on items, which is a very cool system. But is IB being designed to be a bronze-quality drawback? Or is it a failed spot answer?

@Phaselock doesn't want to see it as failed because he doesn't want to "predict metas;" what do other people think? I'm pretty sure any argument for IB's playability is itself a form of prediction...

 

If I put IB in my deck it will be because:
A) I'm playing SP and know there is a serious involuntary-movement related threat.
B) It's on an item with something I find really useful.

 

That sounds totally reasonable on paper. However:
A) There is no SP map with a serious involuntary-movement related threat where I'd rather have Immovable Blessing than [basically any bronze card except Raging Strike].
B) There are no good items with Immovable Blessing right now. It's on 9 pieces of gear and they're all pretty bad. A few of them are bad because of Immovable Blessing, but for the most part it's just increasing the token cost of the item (it's on a lot of level 12 gear, so take it away and you'd have level 9 tokenless) without increasing the value of the item. I'd honestly rather see it replaced with something like weak strike on every single item it's on—I think it would make those items more playable. And weak strike is pretty bad, but at least it's appropriately valued for a bad card.

 

I'd fix it by making it so you can cast it on enemies, and either add Encumber (like Soothing Darkness) or have it block all movement effects from other chars so it counters team moves too. I don't know it that's enough to make it playable in MP (because I don't play MP myself), but I do think it's absolutely silly to put 3 copies of the current version on an item.

 

But think of it this way - most of the items are pointless (in MP) anyway. 9 more, so what?

 

I think I explained my reasoning — the card is probably being designed as an answer, and if it's not playable then the design has failed.

I have a couple questions, because I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot lol.

• Am I being unclear?
• Does anyone who understands it actually disagree with my reasoning?

 

I think people agree with your reasoning, but are pointing out that it applies to lots of other cards too. Is anyone planning on using Healing Benediction, Barbed Platemail, or Brutal Charge in MP?

 

I guess the difference to me is that those 3 cards are all options that are relevant in any match. They might be weak options, or they might be decent, depending on your build and the match-up. (Personally, I definitely want to try Brutal Charge!) Immovable Blessing does nothing that you want a card to do except under very narrow circumstances—you would never want a card that does what it does with no other upsides unless you thought that you needed it to answer a very specific threat, and even in those cases it's not good.

 

I'll use Brutal Charge in MP if I get Diamond Moccasins. They're working very well in SP, and should work well enough in my builds. Of course, I'm not a serious PVP competitor.

 

Brutal Charge + Rushing Aura = 14 unblockable damage...... IF you can ever set up a 7-square charge

 

Not me. Just trying to be difficult.

Yep. Charging with dwarves in MP is fun - few will suspect it from humans and elves. Throw in Teleport Self and you can charge through walls.

 

I... it's beautiful... *sniffle* I WILL DO THIS SOMEHOW, SOMEDAY...