MArcomage

After a longer pause I was able to return to MArcomage development :). I already announced the change in token gain mechanic (in other thread) and also much of the card code has been cleaned up, so it's easier to create new cards and maintain the old ones. I will be posting information about Christmas update, but for now I just wanted to ask to comment on which 10 cards from this card pool would you like to see implemented and why.

Thanks for feedback.

Well, here's my choice:

Ancient city — Legend-based decks definitely need something like this.
Guildmaster — because Alliance is still weak.
Hell hound — great concept overall.
Hydromancer/Whirlpool combo — I'd take these two without any doubt in my Mage deck, also Aqua needs some inexpensive uncommons and more dynamic hand.
New growth — well, that's just what Nature and Restoration need.
Temple — Holy keyword needs something like this.
Treetop village — another buff for Alliance.

I'd also add these two:
Mana renewal
Sun shrine

Restoration keyword nerf made it a subpar core for any deck, so I think we need some Restoration uncommons to rebuff it.

If cards not from this pool aren't available, then add Arcane school (MY MAGES NEED MORE TOKENS) and Clay elemental (just to complete that summoners-with-+2-to-facility set).
If Hydromancer/Whirlpool combo counts as one card, then add Hellmare — Fire fox with similar effect made Beast MUCH stronger.

Just 10?? Psh... I'll go through all of them.

The Good
Ancient City - I like it. It's pretty different from any other card.
Arcane school - This is a great card with a variety of synergies. This should definitely be implemented.
Barracks - I may be biased, but this card should be implemented. It is great in Soldier, Horde, Barbarian, and Brigand decks. In my opinion, horde-based decks really need a buff right now.
Darklord Vashna - Solid attack option for Demonic - I like it.
Geomancer - Great card with some awesome synergies.
Guildmaster - This card is too good the way it stands. It's not unreasonable to get a facility to 10 in a game, making the production multiplier 20 (assuming the Alliance keyword triggers) and therefore giving someone 200 of their highest resource (and something lower for the others). I think this needs a cap, similar to what was done with Ancient sage.
Hell hound - Very interesting card. Situational against a lot of decks but very useful under the right circumstances.
Hydromancer - Great card in both Mage and Aqua decks. However, I would remove the attack and make it Wall +7 or something. This would diminish the effectiveness in Aqua decks (since you're likely triggering the Aqua effect anyway) and increase the effectiveness in Mage decks.
Incarus - Well done Moj! A very interesting card! I like it a lot.
Ice demon - Very solid addition to Demonic decks since Demonic doesn't have any defensive cards at the moment.
New growth - I really like this card because it has some great synergies with both Nature and Restoration, but I also may be a little biased here... ;)
Night demon - This is another great card that fits the Demonic theme.
Pit spawn - I like it. not only does it do some damage, but it also prevents your opponent from rebuilding.
Shadow demon - Same as Night demon.
Tartarus ravine - Awesome card that is great for Titan decks (something we don't have enough of).
Temple - Okay, I like this. It fits the theme well and gives Holy some more defense.
Treetop village - Wow, what a great card. I would play this card even without the Far sight, which I think makes this card too strong. My vote is to remove it.
Trogolodyte - I get the theme, but I actually think this one is better balanced than Horned grunt and certainly better than Horned reaper. It helps that this is a common card while the others are Uncommon.
Whirlpool - Really cool card.

The Okay
Clay elemental - 20 gems for a +2 Quarry and a rare Unliving? Will be really strong in Unliving-based decks, but still doesn't address Unliving's lack of offense. My guess is that this will be more useful in facilities+ decks.
Dwarven architect - Okay, so it's a little Runic card. I would rather see this cost gems instead of bricks since the majority of Runic cards are already brick-intensive.
Hellmare - Fun picture aside, I think it's a good card, but I would like to see the resource gain be higher to offset the negative effects of the Demonic keyword.
Hill castle - I'm not really a fan of durable building cards, but I think the cost should be increased.
Horned grunt - I like the theme of the card, but if you're going to be taking 5 tower damage, shouldn't the regular attack damage be higher?
Horned reaper - Same comment as Horned grunt.
Master of the elements - Okay, so this is basically the magical version of Bounty hunter. I don't think I'd really play this card in any of my decks... it's too situational.
Runic cage - I almost think the cost should be increased on this card since you're preventing your opponent from getting a card that, in theory, would really help them or really hurt you, all from a 3B1G common card. In my mind, it's almost as good as Intrigue.

The Bad
Blood Imp - I can't say I'm a fan either way... you'll be taking 2 tower and 2 wall damage to do at most 8 damage to the enemy's tower and that's if their deck is full of rebuilding cards. The cost is low, which is nice, but I would expect this card to be used more for its keyword than actually played.
Phantasmal castle - Eh... it's pretty expensive but has the potential for a large tower gain. I feel like other gem-based rares are better because they are easier to guarantee (e.g., Myr citadel).

Really, why only ten?

I belive that the keywords that need more love right now are Demonic, Alliance and Runic that's why we need to implement the following:

Darklord Vashna (who knows the reference?)
Hell hound
Ice demon
Night demon
Shadow demon
Hellmare
Treetop village
Guildmaster
Dwarven architect
Geomancer

Now let's talk about the cards that I need in my decks:

Ancient city
Arcane school
Horned grunt
Horned reaper
Troglodyte
Hydeomancer+Whirpool (it counts as one card)
Tartarus ravine
Temple
Runic cage
Icarus

A comment about the Demonic cards in this lot: they were created and tested with a different Demonic keyword in (my) mind so they need further balancement.
For you to know my version of "Demonic" was a token keyword that damaged both tower when triggered, damge based on the rarity of the played card. It was an attempt to create something new, dangerous to play but fun.

(Is the image for Hell Hound the same as for Cerberus?)

I would like to add meaningful input here, but there are so many combinations! I have no way of holding even half of them in my head at a time...but then again, looking at the supports and vetos, no one else is either. Give me a bit to study my own decks and I might come up with something.

Edit: Ok, I don't know what these'll do to game balance, but a lot of them are fairly easy to put into tiers.

1st Tier:
Tartarus Ravine
Whirlpool
Hydromancer (for no other reason than selectable Whirlpool)
Runic Cage
Ancient City (summon master can get this)
Guildmaster (I can see this pulling productionx20 in some decks; acting like adamantine citadel or Outnumbered and Outmatched as a win-condition rare.)
Treetop Village
Barracks (it's more recruits for fast-attack recruits-heavy decks; more assassin victory with this thing.)
Geomancer

2nd Tier:
Icarus (although this might actually be a nerf to some summoning situations)
Hell Hound (edge case; it's good attack, but I'm not so familiar with attack)
New Growth
Temple (nice card, but actually a slight nerf to holy summon; less Avenging Angel)
Clay Elemental
Arcane School
Pit Spawn

3rd Tier:
Dwarven Architect
(see demonic tier?)

4th Tier:
Master of the Elements (the reason Elementalist gets added to decks is that it's a swift mage with banish; it's discard/-resource-facility is secondary. This would probably be decent if it replaced with something poor, or if it hit Nature too [does nature have a hard counter yet?].)
Phantasmal Castle
Hill Castle (has a bad cost ratio most of the time, and it acts as a distraction to poor players, maybe it's another thing to be paired with--)

Demonic Tier: These are essentially trying to make a demonic-based deck, and their value is dependent on how many of them are implemented; we would need to spend almost all the arbitrary limit you've given us for most of them to be good additions to the game.




...but as to which cards I'd want in the game? I'm not sure; they will all have a shaping effect on what sorts of games are possible and probable. I have a sense that many of the ones that I would put in my decks are also the ones that might not really result in more fun games.

10 cards from the proposed ones I would like to see in the next release, in no particular order:

Ancient City
Dwarven architect
Guildmaster
Geomancer
Hydromancer
Master of elements
Whirlpool
Treetop Village
Night Demon
Temple

What I possible see from these cards are some nice new mechanics that can be added into the game. But on the other side, holy was nerfed to death and probably needs a little rebuff, since i dont see many holy decks floating around (By the way, i miss the old upgrading mechanic of death before dishonor, it was something very unique in the game. It does not need to be added for the zealots again, but it would be nice to see on a set of cards soon). But there are keywords that needs a buff more desperately, like runic, alliance (runic has become stronger than alliance, what is somehow odd) and demonic. and don't forget about restoration, which was nerfed into oblivion.

So ranking from these perspective, heres what i would like to see in the game:
-Night demon (a efficient, interesting card with the demon keyword)
-Hydromancer (See below)
-Whirlpool (Hand manipulation is very healthy for the slower decks in this game.)
-Hellmare (synergy cards are the only way to make a pure demonic deck reasonable)
-Treetop village (Alliance is struggling because many of them are offensive, while they need to increase their facilities and use production cards. Its a remain of the runic/alliance split, since all elf cards back then where offensive, while the dwarfes were the defensive part of the deck. This removed the most defensive cards of this keyword, removing the higly needed defense to make facility increasement worthy. So this is a card alliance higly needs.)
-Shadow demon(I like the idea of punishing opponents slow decks)
-Tartarus ravine (Ok, thats my favorite, i have written at some topics why titan decks want this card...)
-Icarus (I love that concept and flavor. Period.)
-Guildmaster (Another wincondition for alliance doesn't sound bad at all. This card would at least make the allaince deck vaible again. A cap is shouldn't be too low, since you already got rare alliance cards which adds 10x unconditional production.
A little copyright thing: The image is from mtg: http://magiccards.info/m13/en/168.html)
-New growth (I love little cards with good effects, so this one is one of them for sure)

My Top 10:
1. Hydromancer - very nice shuffling tool, I feel he will be viable not only in aqua or mage decks,
2. Whirpool - cool card concept-wise and theme-wise,
3. Icarus - step in the right direction, to make Aria-based decks viable,
4. Geomancer - I like these kind of cards, unpredictable, adding some confusion to opponent,
5. Tartarus ravine - nice buff to Titan, 2 times better than Titan Soldier (which desperatly needs a buff btw, new token mechanics won't be enough imo)
6. New growth - nice and balanced card
7. Arcane school - I'm a big fan of mage decks, so I'm loking forward to see it implemented,
8. Treetop Village - I agree - alliance needs a buff in terms of defence,
9. Guildmaster - nice high-end card for alliance,
10. All demonic cards + Hill Castle which has nice synergy with demonic to control the tower value.

Rest are ok, the only one I don't like is Barracks, this card will be too good for barbarians which are really good right now (especially because Northern Scout and Templar Castle).

Balance changes preview now available :)

Changes:

Gateway - cost lowered to 60G from 75G, lowered facilities gain to 3 from 5, added wall gain
Gnome thief - attack removed
Moon priestess - no longer effects player
Shifting mass - cost lowered to 0 from 5/5/5, production x0 added, can no longer summon self
Stables - conditional summoning effect is no longer conditional, summons non-rare Charge instead of Soldier with Charge
Summon master - token condition raised to 60 from 50 (compensation for token gain mechanic change)
Thief - recruits cost raised to 3 from 2
Titan soldier - attack lowered to 3 from 4, added card replacing effect (like Militia)
Veteran militia - card effect text corrected
Wishing lagoon - cost lowered to 0 from 15G, production x0 added

Gateway: I want to see this in practice. At a first glance I don't like the change.

Wishing lagoon: I guess the change was done to make the card play better when summoning Gateway. In this case I'd prefer if the card was changed to mixed cost like 7/7/7, instead of 0 cost production x0.

Moon priestess, Stables and Shifting mass are good changes.

I like new Gateway, but I don't want to add synergy between Halfling thief and Wishing lagoon. I'd set Wishing lagoon cost to 1/1/1 and leave production x0.

Mojko wrote:
Titan soldier - attack lowered to 3 from 4, added card replacing effect

Could you elaborate, please?

DPsycho wrote:

Mojko wrote:
Titan soldier - attack lowered to 3 from 4, added card replacing effect

Could you elaborate, please?

I suppose it works like militia: you can choose a card in hand to be discarded.
It has stolen the effect of Tartarus ravine.

DPsycho: Take a look at the image; they're all rendered there. (The "preview" link.)


On Gateway: This change will make Gateway less efficient resource/facility wise but also easier to reach, and the wall effect makes it more likely to be successful; I know about 1/6 of my Gateway games would win if they'd had just a bit more defense (those games losing right after using gateway). However, I don't like this change much; the entire reason gateway is cool, hilarious, and has it's own niche is because it's a super-efficient, super-expensive, and super-risky Facilities card. It'll be ruined! [/drama]

Gnome thief: Now it doesn't get hit by Sheath your Swords!

Moon Priestess: Good.

On Shifting Mass: Yes! Something like this change might actually make it ok to put in some deck!

On Stables: I suspect sillenia will be put off about this, but it's a decently well-place nerf (although might be a bit much).

Titan Soldier: If both this and Tartarus Ravine happen, Titan decks are going to get near or above the power of Barbarian decks.

On Thief: Kinda annoying it's no longer the very-efficient-but-too-tiny card, but ok.

On Wishing Lagoon: Seconding dimitris and NG; it should have a little cost, and maybe not hit production as hard. How hard would it be to do production x0.5?



On Master of Elements: I'm beginning to really like the idea of making this card something that can shut down Nature combos.

DPsycho wrote:
Could you elaborate, please?

Militia like effect, I also added this to the changelog.

I like this list of changes. In particular, I think Titan Soldier and Moon Priestess will become very strong, and I look forward to trying them out. I don't know what to think of Gateway after the changes, since it got buffed by the change to Wishing lagoon, nerfed in terms of raw power, but buffed in terms of coming earlier and providing an immediate advantage in terms of wall gain. Overall, I think it will likely become more viable in "competitive" decks. Shifting mass will probably start to see some use, which will be nice to see.

Mojko wrote:

DPsycho wrote:
Could you elaborate, please?

Militia like effect, I also added this to the changelog.

So a selected discard? Sounds good, thanks for clarifying. =D

Djinn wrote:
DPsycho: Take a look at the image; they're all rendered there. (The "preview" link.)

That only shows card text, not coding.

(Aren't all the card selection cards worded the same, and all the random card ones worded another same way? Like "discard a card" versus "discard a common card"?)

Yes, but the community often has to point it out when inconsistencies occur. ;)