Cards explained

Now that the rules and the cards have been published, I have some time to explain the reasoning behind the cards.

Without going back to the genesis of the rules, I decided to go with a Rock - Paper - Scissors relationship between the different moves. The reasons included being able to beat a stronger opponent based on how well you managed to read their moves, and forcing the players to focus on what their opponent was doing instead of merely trying to achieve high Damage Per Second. Thus were born, after many changes, the Attacks, Blocks and Magics.

The cards then fit into three categories. The basic moves, the advanced moves and the special moves.

The basic moves

This category includes the Attack, the Bamboozle and the Block. The goal of these moves was to provide an always-available counter to whatever the opponent might do, as well as a means to get charges.

The goal of the Attacks are to deal damage. As such, the Attack is no surprise, and provides a reliable way to do a fair amount of damage.

The Block is its natural counter. It is slightly faster than the Attack, so that it will fire first (otherwise it wouldn't be much of a use). The first version of the Block was just what is on the card: stop an Attack, and gain B. This, however, allowed the player to mathematically compute the worth of the card. I have 1B, which I can use to power-up the Energy Blast for 3 dmg. So 1B = 3 dmg, so a Block is worth less than an Attack.

The only skill that came into play was reading how your opponent would play, and not "what move is best suited for me now" (also called Valuation). According to the unclear payoffs of moves, I wanted to make them less similar, and introduced the block stun: after being blocked, your next move is slower by 1.

The last of the basic moves is the Bamboozle. The goal of the Magic cards was to be a bit different, and provide some unusual moves. The Bamboozle is for me the most interesting of the three basic moves, in the sense that it strongly affect the next move you will play. Firing one Bamboozle isn't worth much - a mere 2 damages. Firing two in a row makes it as good as an Attack (but still slower). From the third one, it gets really powerful. And it's really interesting to live the mind games going once a Bamboozle has been fired. Should I play Attack to make sure he doesn't get two Bamboozles in a row? But two Bamboozles isn't a big deal, maybe I should Block instead to get my B charge I need to power-up my Energy Blast. Etc.

Once two Bamboozles are out, the reasoning changes a bit. It is more like "he has too much to win if he connects a third Bamboozle that I have to play Attack to stop him". In the end the 8-damage Bamboozle is often that big a threat that it is not worth taking the risk to outread your opponent - unless he knows you're someone who plays safe. Which is why letting the second Bamboozle connect is stronger than it appears: it is not only about the 4 damage, it is also that the next move odds are a lot in favor of the Bamboozling man.

Advanced moves

The first goal of the advanced moves was to provide a mid-term objective to the players. So that they think "I need RR and at least one B to fire my Energy Blast, so I need to play Attack", and their opponent thinking in the same line. In the first versions of the game (including the version that is playable online at the time of the writing), this is what made the random play suboptimal (as proved by the relative weakness of Modnar). It is always more profitable to play according to a strategy than play randomly.

In the current version of the game though, the advanced moves answer specific needs, as illustrated below.

As you may have understood by now, Attacks are not really the subtle moves. The goal of the Energy Blast is in line with this philosophy: do more damage. It also provides a way to convert B charges into quite a lot of damage. To the point that the Energy Blast is seldom worth playing without one or two Bs to power it up.

The Interrupt origin comes from team play. Say your team is loaded with charges (RR, BBB, GG) and you want to throw a strong Energy Blast to one of your opponents. It is however easy for the opponent to anticipate it (that THE move you should do after all) and Block it. And if it fails, they didn't lose much.

The goal of the Interrupt was thus to allow for a coordinated attack. One player Interrupts the target, while the other smashes them with an Energy Blast for 15 damages.

That's why the Instant Guard has been created: to provide a way to counter this scheme (if two moves have the same speed, they both activate at the same time - so the IG is not Interrupted). And that is also why the IG has an alternative way to pay its cost. What's more frustrating than knowing something is going to happen to you and not being able to react? To cope with this, you always have the opportunity to pay 5 life to fire the IG.

The special moves have not been really tested yet - only a couple of solo games - so I will leave them for a future post. And as usual, waiting to hear for your feedback :)