Hey All! Welcome back to my blog. Today I would like to discuss the topic of powerful cards and their impact on the game. It is not a big secret that Underworlds is a game that is largely dependant on the cards. While the miniatures are extremely important, it is cards that dictate how the games will be played. Often the release of some blatantly powerful cards is met with a critique from players - especially competitive ones. But are those strong cards are deserving the dislike they’re experiencingmet with?
Ready for Action, Escalation, Temporary Victory, Hidden Purpose, Acolyte of Katophranes, Time Trap, Great Concussion, Tome of Offerings, Hunters Talisman… all those (and many more) cards have been extremely impactful during their career in a Championship format. Most of them have been restricted or in some cases even forsaken. They have shaped the meta and in many cases dominated them. Once they were dealt with the community has sighed in relief. But were all of them that bad? And if yes - what made them so bad?
The answer to this question is a bit more complex than it might appear. First, we need to understand that ‘powerful cards’ are considered problematic for various reasons. Some of those cards were very strong - so strong, that they felt being mandatory in any deck - regardless of what that deck wanted to play. Ready for Action was such a card. Others were so powerful that they alone could change the outcome of an entire match - Great Concussion was like that. Another group was cards that were giving a lot of value for very little effort - like Escalation. Finally, there was a very large bucket of cards that were so strong, that they were pretty much mandatory for any deck of the archetype they did support - Temporary Victory was one of them.
It’s important to understand that not all of those categories should be treated equally. Auto-include cards that were making their way into every deck - regardless of its style of play - can easily be considered bad for the game. They typically are more of a tax on your deck, than a meaningful choice. They’re being taken because not having them in your toolkit has a significant impact on your chances of winning. Back in the Shadespire and Nightvault days, we used to joke that during deckbuilding you need to select 9 ploys to accompany Ready for Action in your deck. As a result, this card has reduced the room for fitting in the cards for your game plan. This has resulted in reduced viability of the cards and as a result - reduced variance in the decks played. Decks back then were very similar - only a few archetypes existed and most of them shared about 70-90% cards between them. Games were very repetitive and things were getting boring. So the situation was hurting the game as a whole.
The second group - overly powerful cards that can alone change the outcome of the game - can also be classed as bad for the game. No single card should have this much power. A big play can turn the tide for you in a game, but this should be based on the card’s utility and the player’s ability to use it correctly. Not on the sheer power of the card’s effect. The Great Concussion or Rebound are good examples. They require almost no setup but can alter the game state completely. And there was almost no counterplay to them. They are the cards where you’re playing your game and praying your opponent hasn’t drawn them or you’re screwed. That’s not a good game experience and can cause results that feel ‘unjust’. Similar to ‘auto-include’ cards those often served as a form of a tax on your deck - you’d want to have them if you played the archetype that liked them.
The third group consists the cards with a lot of value that require little to no effort or are uninteractive. Those are mostly reserved for things like Escalation, Show of Force, “Speed Package” or Extreme Flank. The pattern here is fairly clear - those are mostly objectives. And in the vast majority, those can also be agreed as bad for the game. Scoring glory for nothing, or for the things your opponent cannot stop isn’t great for the game. It’s the glory you can assume you’ll get. Things like that shouldn’t have a place in the game. The only exception here are elements of the speed package - often they do require a minimal level of preparation and setup. But in general, they are super easy as well. But thing is that those tend to be needed to help aggressive warbands tool up. So I could see them being allowed in some form where they cannot be abused by virtually everyone else.
And we’re getting to the last category - very strong cards that were taken in most of the decks where it made sense. Here is where things become a bit more difficult. I believe there is nothing wrong with having a selection of strong (or even meta-defining) cards… if they’re are limited to one archetype. Some of those cards could be so strong that they define a new archetype on their own. And that’s fine - even better - that’s great. It does increase the diversity in the game. Cards like Acolyte of Katophranes, Scattered Tome, Magical Storm, Feed the Beastgrave, To The End, Perfect Match, Temporary Victory have introduced new archetypes into the game. Of course, some people might jump in and say that passive tomes or passive magic were a problem and that they’re happy to see those gone. And they would be right - to a degree. It’s not those cards’ fault that the game was allowing to build fully uninteractive, passive builds that were very difficult to play against. The general principle behind those cards was fine - you have to put in some work towards scoring them - gather and equip the right upgrades while protecting your key fighter; or cast enough spells to satisfy some objectives; or have enough draw power to go through your entire power deck; or find enough reliable objectives to score for a big cash-in at the end of the game. Those are all very valid game plans.
There’s a clear effort required, decks have to be built around those things, certain sacrifices have to be made to accommodate the needs of those game plans. Where some of those archetypes failed is the fact that the game had enough cards supporting them that it was super easy to nearly guarantee the successful execution of the said plan. But that was not an issue of the card creating given archetype per se.
The magic archetype is a good example - magic, in general, was a pretty cool concept and one of my favorite way to play for a long time. There was an entire ecosystem of magic-related cards that was creating a very robust package. Maybe a little bit too robust, as it was very flexible with the toolset it has received. And there were Cursebreakers, who abused the hell out of the archetype. Basically, by selecting that warband not only you’ve received strong fighters, but also 2 backups for your wizard. And those backups had a built-in option to cast spells passively. This did remove all the risks associated with running a wizard-centric warband. There was no need to protect your wizard so hard as if he died you still had an option to score all your objectives. Thanks to innate spell actions you could’ve opted for more ploys to supplement your playstyle, while other warbands had to rely on gambit spells more heavily. That lead to very robust and very defensive builds. And it created the perception that magic as a whole archetype is troublesome. But most of the blame should be accounted to a single warband. A similar thing can be said about hold objective archetype and Thorns of the Briar Queen. Thorns are very good at abusing hold objectives.
The second problem was that some of those archetypes were “too small”. They are cool as a concept, but you could support them with so few cards that you could’ve merged two of those into a single successful list. Like magic+tomes or hold objective + tomes. This leads to a very powerful combo, but again - most often the problem has stemmed not from the ‘capstone’ cards of a given archetype, but from the fact that the game has offered enough very easy and powerful cards to enable the ‘big ones’. Get enough spells to score some easy magic surges and end phase objectives and you can go equip your tomes. There was virtually no clash between the two - they did supplement each other perfectly. The result was an abomination we all had to deal with at some point.
The third problem is synergies. Having a very strong card that pays off a lot is fine as long as it demands some sacrifice. It’s not good when you can build a deck in such a way that you can benefit from a board state multiple times. This is where hold objective became a major offender - especially in the Beastgrave. Thorns and ghouls were so dominant because they could score amazing amounts of glory from spending a single activation/ploy to sit 3 fighters on objective tokens. This is where Temporary Victory became a very problematic card. It’s because typically you’d not only face your opponent scoring that one, but also In the name of the King, Hidden Purpose and possibly some other surges + big end phase glory if you had not enough tools to disrupt that board state - all that while the opposing fighter had to do nothing if left undisrupted. If TV had existed as the only hold surge it would have been a very strong card, but not game-breaking. 2 glory at surge speed that’s often difficult to disrupt is a very tempting option to go for. But not game-breaking. The same is with things like Magical Storm - it would’ve been fairly decent if you wouldn’t be scoring a slew of magic-based surges and some end phases while going for those 4 spells cast. Synergies broke those cards.
Feed the Beastgrave archetype has been a very fun option for a long time - it does offer a significant glory payout, has some synergies, and requires your entire deck to be built around it. It has become a little bit too easy to score with the advent of many new flip cards, but overall it has proven to be fairly decent. I’m finding this as one of better examples of a successful strong card that has created an archetype. It offers a valid gameplan, but is not strong enough to break the game.
The other example would be the deck I’ve built for Grand Clash that has ended up in Top4. It has been a Tomes deck but built in such a way that it did seek to get more aggressive and control the opponent by applying pressure to him. The result speaks for itself and I think that if tomes were designed in such a way that a similar playstyle was one of the few viable options, the general perception on Acolyte would’ve been far more favorable.
So, to wrap up all my musings - the bottom line is that strong cards can be very damaging to the game. But at the same time, they can be very invigorating. Those very strong options can spawn new ways to play the game or bring back the warband that has spent a long time in limbo. Having said that - those cards have to be designed extremely carefully. Allow them to be combo’ed too easily or give them too much support and they can become too dominant. Their power level to ease of play ratio cannot be too high - if you’re creating a “bomb” card, that once resolved turns the game around, better make sure it’s difficult to play. Otherwise, it will lead to frustration and a prompt forsaking.
Right now we’re just weeks before Harrowdeep’s release. With it, the list of dead archetypes will be longer - upgrade stacking options like Tomes, Pages or Avatar will be gone. The whole magic archetype is long gone as well. And FtB objective destruction will follow the suit. Some people might dislike some of those, but ultimately the game is losing its depth with archetypes exiting the stage if nothing new is not emerging instead.
The last observation that I wanted to share comes from Magic the Gathering again. It is a game, that is running for decades now. And in general, one could say that the power creep is real. Cards that were considered very strong in the period that is my personal MtG’s golden age are… not that good when compared with modern cards. What is interesting is the fact that over the history of the game WotC has released several de-powered sets that were meant to dial things down and keep the overall power level of cards somewhat in check. The thing is that while people complained about the power creep, those sets were met with rather average reception. Turns out that the excitement of playing those powerful cards has been so high, that people did welcome new, more powerful sets with open arms after the periods of power drought. In the end, powerful cards are capturing attention, bring excitement, and shape the game. They set the new baseline power level of the game with every new release. The only danger with those cards is that the gameplay can get out of hand. While playtesters and the development team are working hard to keep things balanced they cannot compete with the collective ingenuity of the broad community. So the problematic build might occur. But then it’s in the hands of the devs to address this with a commentary or a FAR list update. But in general, I would not get upset if we will see a host of new, powerful cards being introduced into the game. Well… maybe unless those would be for Grand Alliance of Death. Screw those if you ask me ;)
As usual - I would love to get your opinions on the subject. What are your thoughts on the powerful cards and their impact on the game? Let me know in the comments!
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