Cactus Game Design Message Boards

New Polarius cards!!

It only instantly rescues a LS if your opponent takes the risk and goes with NJ. The idea is for NJ to not be an auto-include.

Good point, needs an "except Lost Souls."

I don't understand.

Thanks!

The whole point is for it to work with NJ. See the first one.

Thanks!

Thanks!

Since you've been away for a while, if you'd like to create your own images for these cards, I made a little program that does it for you:

http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/new-card-ideas/redemption-card-builder-v2-0/

An offline one at that! (you'll likely still need the internet for photos, but it's possible to use art on your computer)

Great City is broken now, with the Underdeck portion added.  I can now play IT on my multicolor magician, place both IT and the targeted human hero in Great City, then remove their hero from the game to search deck or discard pile for a hero or demon, and use Shrine to Artemis to shuffle IT back in my deck.

Maybe the problem is Shrine to Artemis' interaction with Great City.

Also, what about using Gideon's Call or Fishers of Men on opponents deck?  I get to put all the cards in Great City instead of under their deck, and remove them from the game one at a time to search my deck/discard for a similar card?  That also seems broken 

Rescuing a soul at high cost to good cards isn't unprecedented. If it were just an EC, it wouldn't be good enough to get played by a long shot, and without the soul protection there would be too little incentive to not run it alongside your own NJ. Also, thematically, many Christians today are still preterists and it seems wrong to make a call one way or the other on a card.

Remove from game was my intent, but I realize that's unnecessary for it to accomplish its goal now. I think it'd still be balanced because card that rely on your opponents' deck building choices are weaker by nature than they look on paper, and I took out the discard search, but if it needed it that'd be a fine nerf.

For Jambres, I just realized he is way too easy to pair with Judges. If I took out the Moses and Aaron portion, what would that do for balance?

Only a dead card if you build it into a deck with no initiative heroes!

Yes...ish. There are a lot of ways to protect Evil in territory from opponents (in fact, part of the point is to discourage splashy defenses), and Demons are great and unafraid of it. Plus, if you're using it on Evil, your opponent isn't using a tosser, Judges, Daniel/Isaiah or Cornelius and you're probably going to win anyway (intentionally does not help TGT at all unless your opponent lets it).

awesome ideas man really glad to see you posting them love the joseph ducreux pic haha the others are sweet artwork too cool abilities great ideas

Yes, you can use it a few times regardless of what your opponent is playing. You're supposed to be able to. It's only over-powered if your opponent is using centralizing cards.

Not true on both parts.  There are more than enough underdeck abilities you can use against your opponent.  This is OP just with Sorrow of Mary, Vain Philosophy, and Persistent Pestering, adding in to other hand control concepts that would be used in a deck with those cards.  That's in addition to the underdecks that target cards in play.  Your opponent could have zero exchange or underdeck cards in their deck and this card would be too strong.  Even if they did use exchange or underdeck, there are plenty of decks that use those abilities without them being "centralizing" cards that get splashed everywhere.

I don't know why you have a thematic problem with a hero discarding a good dominant to potentially redeem a soul but not a lost soul that is so wicked the Son of God can't save it or even anyone else while it's around.

Hence the lack of CBN.  SoG can still rescue it.

No, it wasn't the same silver every time, but thematically there was a lot of money changing a lot of hands.

I get that, but the identifier is already going to be too long as it is, and it may make more sense without with that in mind.

I know what paralyze does. Atheism is supposed to be powerful. AutO is over-powered, Atheism is only over-powered if your opponent is using centralizing cards. I could see making it heroes only, but it seems odd that only heroes could be atheists.

We were pointing out that it is destructive, and will be used for offense (probably by the decks that use the cards you are so against).  On AutO, we had interesting discussions on that while you were out, and I'm not convinced that it is as large of an issue as being perceived.

But again, as above, it is not just useful against 'centralizing' cards.  It knocks out characters as a TC ability that cannot be touched or negated, and that's not just something to counter the cards you dislike so much.

I don't care if you feel AutO isn't a big problem, the numbers from the past *three* nationals prove you wrong. It's not me disliking something, it's statistically proven centralization.

I agree that it gets used in many decks, though it is important to note that it has never actually won T1-2P  We have lots of counters to AutO, as discussed in the linked thread.

As to this card, if it targets the card doing the effect instead, how do you see that playing out in actual games?  Curious about your take on what the true impact would be.

I'm not so much concerned with it winning or not winning as it being in so many decks that place high. The problem of centralization isn't necessarily that it's going to win all the time, but that it's so good it's used to the point that it warps the meta. Whenever I am building a deck, my thought process is, not necessarily in order, "What are the win conditions for this deck? What counters to my win conditions do I need to account for? Is this deck fast enough to keep up with Judges, Prophets and Disciples/Clay? Can I come back from an early Mayhem? Can I come back from an early AutO/Isaiah? Does my defense include enough ways to block Gideon (and to a lesser extent King Hezekiah)? Does my defense include enough ways to block a FbtN Hero? Will my offense be able to get past an Invoking Terror or Persistent Pestering engine?"

This is not necessarily a problem on its own, but most of my best options to answer "yes" are to use those very cards myself. Further compounding the issue is Covenant with Death, which counters just about everything *except* Judges, Isaiah, and the salient parts of a Magicians defense or splash. The best anti-meta cards right now (Nazareth, Foreign Wives and CWD imo) are all great inclusions in the most common and consistently winning deck, as it is not hindered much if at all by them and all the other decks are. AutO by himself is not a huge problem. Having a lot of ways to get him very early, plus the fact that the best anti-meta cards do nothing or little, plus his utter lack of downsides, plus his synergy with decks that benefit from and are not hurt by anti-meta cards, plus the fact that his inherent speed makes getting counters before he's already gotten rolling improbable, plus the fact that his deck has been consistently top-table since his inception, plus the fact that his theme has one of the best answers to soul drought all scream "centralizing." I would like to win Booster Draft this year specifically so I can try to do something about his warping nature.

tl;dr, AutO by himself is an extremely powerful, but not broken card. The fact that he is not only not hurt by, but works great with cards that counter most other decks and adds huge tempo with no downside, as well as the fact that the best option to keep up with him is to use him yourself, makes him meta-warping (which shows in the hard numbers).


I should further amend Great City so that the exchange still happens (get rid of the instead element). Then how it would look is, you can still use your AutO to set up a bulletproof Gideon after GC is out, but only once. You can still underdeck a Hero with Invoking terror, but only once. You can still scout my hand and underdeck with Vain Philosophy, but I get to reuse an Evil Dom. You can still pester my hand, it just won't be persistent. Basically, it adds downsides to cards that currently have none and stops some too-easy-to-create infinite recursion engines. While I may seem defensive, I really value people telling me why my card ideas are OP when they can explain the reasoning because it helps me hone my ideas. Here's how it would read now:

"After a card exchanges or underdecks, place it here. Once per upkeep, you may remove a card here <remove meaning from the game> to search deck or discard pile for a card of matching type or a demon. Protected from Discard by evil cards. Cannot be Negated."

I think this keeps the power at around the same level (perhaps a bit weaker, would need a "may" if it's too weak now) while removing the big abuse potential. Did I miss anything else?

*EDIT* Can deep-six the Lost Soul exception now since it'd be entirely up to your opponent to give you one fewer soul by using exchanger.

I should further amend Great City so that the exchange still happens (get rid of the instead element).

I should point out that I made an error in my last post - there was a ruling change a few months ago that cards causing special initiative grant SI before "Insteads" like Herod Agrippa II, Great City, etc. can kick in. 

So Herod's Treachery used while Herod Agrippa II is in battle is no longer a CBN battlewinner, unless HT is somehow CBN itself.  The hero gets a chance to interrupt or negate HT, and if they can't, then Herod's "Instead" captures the heroes.

Except CwD stops you from being able to use the searching enhancements to get him quicker (or back from discard) and negates the Moses potential (which is one of the major cogs), Nazareth stops you from being able to get rolling faster, RBD makes that draw a burden, FW is a free block otherwise, and so on.  I'm not sure how the counters don't work against him, I can tell you firsthand they are definitely an issue.

I have to disagree with this.  Judges and Prophets increase in power with the presence of CWD.  If AUTO is being used in a Simeon/Jacob/Moses/Captain bands deck, then yes, CWD hurts the deck.  It still doesn't hurt AUTO though.  And AUTO/Gideon is insanely powerful if CWD is up.  CWD is an auto-include for me when I play Judges or Prophets. 

Nazareth stops both decks from search though.  When it is added to decks, usually that deck won't have many search abilities; it still means that deck will take longer to get other counters to AUTO, etc.  And I like to include Naz in decks that have a lot of drawing, as it protect my hand from Mayhem and stops my opponent from searching at the same time.  Also, it must be drawn and played before AUTO hits the table.

RBD is brutal at the beginning of a game, but is very squishy.  Unless it's being held in a Damascus site so that DD or CWD can also be active (never gonna happen because of the Syrian requirement), it's just asking for Live Coal or Passover Hymn to bomb it.  And once again, it must be drawn and activated first before it can slow AUTO.

Foreign Wives is awesome, and can be tutored via Am Slave and recurred via Fortify Site.  But both Am Slave and Fortify Site are stopped by CWD.  And as above, it must be drawn first.

*****

Consider this:  An AUTO-centralized deck with 50 cards, Hopper, and both of his normal tutors (WWaW, Guidance) has a 48% chance of drawing AUTO or an AUTO tutor in his opening 8 cards.  An AUTO-teching deck with 50 cards, Hopper, and all 4 cards you mention has a 59% chance of drawing a counter in his opening 8 cards.  So 31% of the time, you will draw one of your 4 counters before your opponent has drawn AUTO in the opening 8 card hands.  4 cards (granted, Foreign Wives should be in every deck) that will work as intended 31% of the time?  Not good.

And also consider this.  The rest of the "Anti-AUTO" deck must be built so that CWD and Naz do not harm it - and there aren't many decks that aren't harmed significantly by either of these cards.  In fact, using hard anti-meta cards like CWD and Naz is easiest to do in Judges/Prophets decks that have most of their TC GEs and searching cut from the deck for more "standard" offense and defense.

I maintain that there is no need for a LS exception, first because it'd be up to your opponent to give you such a large advantage...

You'll need the clause.  It won't always be an advantage to the person playing Great City...perhaps not with current cards, but in the future...

Given that Tartaros works without "instead" language (and I think there are others similarly worded that escape me right now), GC should too. The targeting triggers when the card is in play.

Tartaros is actually an instead, because it describes one condition and tells you what to do in place of that.  The wording on Great City if it targets the card doing the exchanging or underdecking is not an instead, but rather just a trigger ("if a card does X, then do Y afterwards" rather than describing an effect and replacing it "if a card does X, it doesn't do X but does Y instead").

The trigger only works if the cards remains in play.  An instead works no matter what happens.