The Last Homely House

Middle-Earth => Chamber of Mazarbul => Topic started by: Doom on April 01, 2011, 10:00:42 PM

Title: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 01, 2011, 10:00:42 PM: I honestly think that the most fun decks to play with are rainbow ones.
Sadly, it seems that single culture decks have really taken the spotlight. So I though, what if there were cards that encouraged multiculture play?
Enter: Cultureless cards!
Basically, these cards would have no culture, and have multiple texts that could splash in many different decks.

Here's a few examples

[4] •Gandalf, Emissary of Valinor
Companion•Wizard
Strength: 8
Vitality: 4
Resistance: 7
Spot 3 Free People's cultures to play Gandalf.
For each Free People's culture you can spot, each minion is strength -1.
When you cannot spot 3 Free People's cultures, wound a companion each time the fellowship moves.

[4] •Aragorn, Feared by Sauron
Companion•Man
Strength: 7
Vitality: 4
Resistance: 7
While you can spot a Gondor companion, Aragorn is a knight.
While you can spot a Rohan companion, Aragorn has muster.
While you can spot an Elf companion, exert Aragorn to make him gain archer till the regroup phase.
While you can spot Gandalf, Aragorn is Damage +1.
While you can spot an unbound Hobbit, Aragorn is a ranger and Defender +1.
Each time the fellowship moves, if you cannot spot three cultures, exert other three companions.

[3] •Galadriel, Helper of Middle Earth
Companion•Elf
Strength: 3
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Galadriel is strength +1 for each possession she bears.
Skirmish: Exert Galadriel and add a threat to make another companion strength +X, where X is the number of cultures you can spot.
Each time Galadriel wins a skirmish, you may remove a threat or heal another companion with resistance 5 or more.

[2] •Orcrist, Forgotten Blade
Poessession•Hand Weapon
Strength: +2
To play, spot an Orc or 3 Free People's cultures. Bearer must be a Dwarf or an Elf.
While you can spot Glamdring, bearer is Defender +1.
You may exhaust bearer to discard a minion skirmishing a hobbit.
Place bearer in the dead pile to heal a companion twice. You may not play Orcrist again.

[1] A Common Enemy
Event
Skirmish: Make an unbound companion strength +X, where X is the number of cultures you can spot.

[5] •Alliance of Middle Earth
Companion
Strength: 0
Vitality: 1
Resistance:1
To play, spot 3 Free People's cultures.
Alliance of Middle Earth counts as a companion of each culture. You may not play events involving this companion.
This companion may bear up to one possession and one artifact of each culture, without race restrictions.
For each possession or artifact borne by this companion, it is strength +1, vitality +1, and resistance +1.
Skirmish: When bearing one possession or artifact from 5 different cultures, exert Alliance of Middle Earth to discard a minion if you can spot only minions of a single culture.
Maneuver: Spot 3 Free People's cultures and discard all other companions except the Ring-Bearer. Alliance of Middle Earth is strength +2, Vitality +2 and Defender +2, and the minion archery total is -2 till the end of the game. Events may not be played involving Alliance of Middle Earth.

Shadow:

[6] •The Witch-King, By Greed Mastered
Minion•Wraith
Strength: 12
Vitality 4:
Site Number: 3
To play the Witch-King, discard any number of minions. For each different culture discarded, the Witch-King is +1 strength until the end of the turn.
If you discarded 2 culture, the Witch-King is Damage +1.
If you discarded 3 cultures, the Witch-King is Damage +1, Fierce, and you may exert him to assign him to an unbound companion. You may exert another companion twice to prevent this.

[20] •Sauron, Master of all Evil
Minion•Maia
Strength: 24
Vitality: 5
Site Number: 0
Fierce, Damage +1
Spot any number of minion cultures. Play Sauron at twilight cost -2 for each culture spotted.
Sauron is site number +1 for each Free Peoples culture.
Skirmish: Exert Sauron three times to make a minion of each culture strength +2.
If a companion is skirmishing two minions of different cultures, exert Sauron to exhaust that companion.

[1] •The Servants of the Dark Lord
Condition
To play, discard a minion.
Shadow: Discard a Nazgul to add [twilight]1 for every [Gondor] companion.
Maneuver: Exert three minions of different cultures to add two threats, or add one threat for each [Rohan] companion.
Archery: Exhaust a [Sauron] minion and spot a [Evil Man] archer to make the archery total +2, or +3 if you can spot an Elf.
Skirmish: Discard an orc to wound a Dwarf, or discard an Orc and an Uruk Hai to exert every Dwarf.
Regroup: Exert an Uruk Hai and discard a minion of another culture to exert a companion for each Ent and unbound Hobbit you can spot.
If the fellowship moves during the regroup phase, discard this condition.

[3] Spy
Minion•Man
Strength: 5
Vitality: 1
Site Number: 1
To play, discard all other minions.
If you can spot only one Free Peoples culture (other than the ringbearer), Spy is strength +4, Vitality +2, Fierce, is not roaming and cannot take wounds.
Skirmish: Exert Spy to wound a companion he is skirmishing.

And more to come...
(https://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flotrtcgdb.com%2Fforums%2FThemes%2Fbluee_plus%2Fimages%2Fwarnpmod.gif&hash=ee569cdda7eb4f1c4f47c19ce5c0f2c79df66d20)
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: TheJord on April 02, 2011, 03:22:31 PM: Are you printing these on oversized cards, because there is a LOT of text!

Quote
[4] •Gandalf, Emissary of Valinor
Companion•Wizard
Strength: 8
Vitality: 4
Resistance: 7
Spot 3 Free People's cultures to play Gandalf.
For each Free People's culture you can spot, each minion is strength +1.
When you cannot spot 3 Free People's cultures, discard Gandalf or exhaust a companion each time the fellowship moves.

This Gandalf does not seem to help the Free People's out at all. In fact, because of his spotting requirement, every minion is now at least strength +3! His other drawback requires exhausting a companion or discarding him. You can exhaust characters with only 1 vitality remaining, as exhausting is to exert the maximum amount of times possible. Something to consider.

Quote
[4] •Aragorn, Feared by Sauron
Companion•Man
Strength: 7
Vitality: 4
Resistance: 7
While you can spot a Gondor companion, Aragorn is a knight.
While you can spot a Rohan companion, Aragorn has muster.
While you can spot an Elf companion, exert Aragorn to make him gain archer till the regroup phase.
While you can spot Gandalf, Aragorn is enduring.
While you can spot an unbound Hobbit, Aragorn is a ranger and Defender +1.
Each time the fellowship moves, if you cannot spot three cultures, exert other three companions.

Bold your keywords. Being able to spot Gandalf making him enduring doesn't make sense to me, maybe just damage +1 instead? My top comment applies here, 6 lines of text isn't going to fit on a card.

I'll review the others later, they are so long it takes a lot to go through them!
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 02, 2011, 07:14:04 PM: Oops. that Gandalf is an error. I meant to say -1 Strength. -.- I'll look the other ones over.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Cw0rk on April 04, 2011, 03:52:56 PM: I like the idea of culture-less cards. What about cards with 2 or 3 cultures?
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: leokula on April 08, 2011, 05:12:14 AM: I don't get the point of having cultureless cards...

Culture is not about exactly what that card does, but where it's from, it's features and all... so a cultureless Aragorn for me is like an Aragorn with no home, with no past, with no nothing...

You can have cards that encourage multiple cultures, *as there are A LOT*, like Aragorn, DOFP, Gandalf, FOTS, Aragorn, ET... but even if a card encourages multiple cultures, that doesn't mean that card itself has no culture!
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 08, 2011, 11:06:06 AM: If you picture it that way, I guess Aragorn *strider* wandering around as a ranger would fit. Same with Gandalf I guess.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: FM on April 08, 2011, 11:39:06 AM: Yeah, I find cultureless cards kinda dumb as well. You can simply have a card with no cultural enforcemente whatsoever, but why the #$&*@! would you want to play a card that bears no synergy with your strategy, since it can't be spotted, bear a lot of the appropriate cards, etc? Seems counterproductive all the way. And then, if you then make the card so über that you do not care about not having culture, it simply nerfs the other versions of the card (if it's a character). Lame.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 09, 2011, 10:44:08 AM: Honestly, the cards wouldn't be designed to have "synergy with your strategy". They really are to help create new strategies and to encourage rainbow decks. With the spotting requirements, the cards to get to a more "uber" powerful level, but only if you put it in that right deck with three or four different cultures.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 09, 2011, 10:49:30 AM: If no one really likes the cards, I don't think I'm going to try making any more. :p
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: macheteman on April 09, 2011, 03:24:46 PM: maybe try some cultured cards that just have multi-culture flavor! :up:
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: JoshT on April 09, 2011, 08:02:08 PM: :up: :gp:
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Ringbearer on April 10, 2011, 05:08:45 AM: Grima FTW
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 10, 2011, 09:34:06 PM: Not sure what your saying. Did you think a non-culture Grima would work?
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Ringbearer on April 11, 2011, 01:40:10 AM: Grima, Chief Counselor.

There was a reason this guy was made.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 11, 2011, 11:04:22 AM: Well obviously, there are some cards that can really hurt rainbow decks. The point of these cards is to make those decks a bit more feasible.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: FM on April 11, 2011, 02:32:28 PM: In what sense? Most cards said decks use won't be able to spot culture on these cards, rendering THEM useless as a consequence.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 11, 2011, 09:44:07 PM: Ok. Instead of help existing "rainbow decks," cultureless cards would create *new* rainbow strategies.
On a side note, do you have a problem with the idea itself, or just the specific cards?
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: macheteman on April 11, 2011, 10:42:13 PM: i think he, like a lot of the players here, has a problem with the idea itself. stripping the cultures from the cards seems to take away all the flavor, the essence the game was built on.

in fact, one of the reasons i believe the game went downhill after shadows was because they reworked the shadow cultures. instead of basing them upon region, they just lumped all the orcs together, all the uruks together etc... for me, that really took away a cool element of the game. for instance, pre-shadows, there were SO many distinct orc based shadows. [wraith] orcs are really fun because they combine the nazzies with the orcish rabble, [moria] had the market cornered on swarm, but the also had back pocket beasties like cave troll and balrog, [sauron] orcs had a wide variety, but besiegers and initiative/deck screw come readily to mind.

when you remove a card from its culture, you end up taking away more than you can gain.

your cards themselves have some potential, but it might be better to employ them in a different way. actually shadow cards that encourage multi culture shadow decks would be fun to see. things like hate and anger etc.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: FM on April 12, 2011, 04:47:14 AM: Ditto mm.
Title: Re: Culture-less Cards!
Post by: Doom on April 12, 2011, 12:26:35 PM: I see. I guess I'll try to rework them to regular cards, while still keeping some of the rainbow-i-ness.