Rules Team Rulings - 22-APR-2013

jozxyqk wrote:

Really, all Lilith's needs for a balancing factor is a couple of cards that say "Do a thing, or do a nastier thing to Bahari".

Since we don't currently have a nailed-down method of releasing new cards, that's tricky. And at some point, you might just say "Look, we'll do this for now as a sticking plaster." Who knows, it's possible FZD is formulating some new anti-Bahari tech as we, uh, type, but can't print them right now.

But it's not a trouble-free answer. On a simple point, if people have to alter their decks to provide sufficient counters to one card, it's probably suggesting that the card itself is an issue.

Also, however, you end up in a design minefield. You want the card to be good enough to include in sufficiently decent mainstream decks. If the main vehicle for that is to make it a possible include in good Tier 1, 1.5-ish decks, you're competing against some very good cards, so the power-level of the card needs to be quite good. Say, am I about to swap out Banishment for a new vote? Pentex Subversion? Bum's Rush? Mind Rape? Deflection?

Now, you might be able to craft a card that boosted a Tier 2 or 3 deckstyle into something more competitive (say a killer card that makes Thanatosis more playable). But if you're relying on less competitive decks to include the card (say, a Tier 2 deck that stays Tier 2 when playing it), you can end up with non-trivial design headaches, because the Tier 1 decks don't have to adjust at all and can come out of the equation relatively stronger - they get all the discouragement value of lots of anti-Bahari tech being present in the game, without paying the price. (See also: iterative Prisoner's Dilemma scenarios.)

Why's there a price? Typically, the standard design 'algorithm' tends to mean that if you don't want to wallpaper an existing card, you have to have some pluses and minuses. Say you end up with Bum's Rush where the combat is especially punishing against Bahari vampires. To compensate, you put some sort of drawback so that in the mainline case, it's not quite as good as normal. If you Deflection-esque-clone is better when you're being bled by a Bahari, it's probably going to be worse when you're being bled by a normal Arika.

One alternative is that you end up with a bunch of cards that just wallpaper a handful of existing, commonly-played cards. There's no downside to playing Old Card vs New Anti Bahari Card, so you just play that. Enough of them end up in common circulation that playing Lilith's Blessing just becomes a no-go - so really, why bother printing those cards, just ban Lilith's?

Another alternative is similar, but aim squarely at not-Tier-1 cards. So the Tier 2 deck gets a card that is outright better than its current tech, but which is still substandard. This might not happen altogether intentionally - it is the sort of thing that can easily happen when you try to create a card that empowers a new Tier 1.5 strategy, but which fails to do so in actual play. (And how many cards have been released over the years which fail to deliver in reality? More than a few.)


It really isn't that easy to make a card that can provide a meaningful choice for deck-building, such that Lilith's Blessing is still a meaningful choice, where everyone concerned can weigh up pros and cons. You want things that engage people without being an insta-include or instantly dismissed, which is competitive without being broken, preferably which isn't just a silver bullet - and that's really not an easy balance to strike.

Well, thats the primary design herdle from the beginning, isnt it?
Lilitns, like ashurs, like anthelios, like anson, like anything else, is intendex for one ourpose that isnt broken, and you add enough together they become an unstopably well oiled machine.

Its not as easy to see with forsight in making the cards. Into thin air clearly needed not to go with lost in crowds. Liliths et all werent obviously broken, just plainly useful.

The solution is banning, possibly temporarily before changing it, but the issue is still that changing a liftle bit of its words return it to being useful instead of broken.

We will see wherexthis all goes though.

Klaital wrote:

Anthelios and Ashur Tablets still weren't banned though. :/

IMHO, if ashur tablets are reprinted at some future time, the decks that rely heavily on them will run into problems because of the "remove all other copies in play" clause. More people will play them and thus getting three out may become less reliable.

nc-italy wrote:

So the game would turn even more in the ugly "who-plays-more-masters-per-turn" race that is now, which imho isn't desiderable at all: the errata making ashur to retrieve just (less) minion cards is much needed and desiderable instead

What makes you believe that changing Ashur so that it retrieves fewer cards and/or only minion cards would make Ashur no longer in the "who-plays-more-masters-per-turn" race? I think it'd be just as played, in almost as many decks.