Shandalar - Feature Requests

[Korath]

I've been holding off on this, because it turns the lair into essentially just another duel, like you could've gotten by bumping into a normal monster. There's technically still a bonus in that you can get away for free instead of paying a bribe, and the ante cards are 2-4 known rare cards instead of one known card from the monster's deck plus up to five or so unknown cards; but it doesn't feel like a bonus anymore.

Some brainstorming; further suggestions welcome:

• Give each lair type a free card during the duel, like how Hall of the Sultan gets you a King Suleiman. I'm blanking on what cards to give, though - I initially thought Intrepid Hero for Dragon's Lair, but the artwork I was thinking of actually appeared on Reprisal instead, and every other bright idea I come up with tends to require colored mana to activate or is otherwise color-specific (e.g. Undead Slayer), or has too large a body to give out for free (e.g. Rashida Scalebane).
• Ante something other than cards. Hall of the Sultan could take an amulet of each color if you lose; Dragon's Lair some amount of gold; Spectral Arena could remove a mana link from a random town (though that's even worse than anteing a card, of course). I can't think of a fourth.
• Guarantee something besides cards for a win. Pick-any-card and duplicate-a-card are obvious, as are several of the other lair types - getting access to a Nomad's Bazaar or Diamond Mine would usually be a bigger incentive than whichever random rares got rolled up for it to ante, and an amulet-of-each-color (or several amulets of the lair's color) is strong in the early game, at least. Get a mana link in a random town would be worth several cards' ante, too.

The four lair types with duels, if that helps any, are Hall of the Sultan (13 base life enemy with 2 ante cards), Abandoned Shrine (either 13 life with 3 cards, or 8 life with 2), Dragon's Lair (18 life with 4 cards), and Spectral Arena (3 cards; any enemy type, but base hp raised to 16).