Collectible Card Game Headquarters

We've discussed revamping the Pets previously and I think it's worth discussing them again.

Currently we have 4 Pets and a Wall.

With these starting and final stats

Green Wolf - 1/1 - 2/2 Flanking
Black Crocodile - 1/1 - 3/1 Swampwalk
White Bird - 0/1 Flying - 2/1 Flying, First Strike
Red Hound - 1/1 - 2/1 Haste +2/+0 If attacking alone.
Green Plant Wall - 0/1 Defender - 1/4 Deathtouch T: Gain 1 life

Here are my proposed pets (I tried to keep the pet types the same in consideration of the artwork that already exists):

• Blue Bird - 1/1, 1/1 Flying, 1/2 Flying, 1/3 Flying, When ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 1. If you do, draw a card then discard card.
• White Wolf - 1/1, 1/1 First Strike, 2/1 First Strike, 2/1 Vigilance First Strike
• Black Crocodile - 1/1, 2/1 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/2 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/2 Deathtouch. Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block.
• Green Ape - 1/1, 2/1, 2/1 Trample, 2/1 Trample Trigger: When ~ is blocked or blocks, you may pay 2. If you do, Ape gains +2/+2
• Red Hound - 1/1, 1/1 Haste, 2/1 Haste, 2/1 Haste 1 X: +X/+0 until EOT. Sacrifice ~ at EOT.
• (Colorless/Artifact?) Plant Wall - 0/1, 0/2, 0/3, 1/3, 1/3 Wither, 1/4 Wither Trigger: During your upkeep, you may tap ~. If you do, gain 1 life.

Some notable changes:

• Blue currently doesn't have a Pet, so move Flying over to Blue, and giving a looter ability might be handy.
• White trades Flying for Vigilance providing a Defensive Pet. There aren't many White Wolves in the game, so it could be a Pet Cat instead.
• Crocodile stayed mostly the same, Intimidate is more flavorful and useful than Swampwalk. Since Crocodile has higher power and an Evasion ability, it doesn't receive an interesting ability. 3/1 Intimidater might have the same problem that the old Hound has...
• Ape has to have Trample, and has a Bushido-like trigger to help grow to Trample over things.
• Hound's old ability was too strong. Being able to attack with a 4/1 on the first turn led to some short games. A deck could basically be full of cheap removal spells, and run the Hound to a 5 turn victory every game. I like Haste as flavor. And the explosive nature of the last ability is right up Red's alley.
• Plant Wall is pretty similar. I just don't think it should be green. Also, being able to Tap EOT to gain life isn't much of a decision for the player. Now the player will need to decide if they want to Plant around as a blocker, or if they want to gain some life.

I'd also like to see this code removed and load the Pet data from a flat file, plus card scripts, for loading the pets into the battlefield. This will make it easier both testing the Pets, and adding new ones in the future.

The first section would have all of the meta-data of the Pet: name, max levels, and the following for each level - cost, picture, script, description, stats. Then we would have a small script for each Pet level. The card scripts would be the same as if they were real cards, but would only be available when actually playing.

Edit: Basic English. I shouldn't be typing after a long day, late at night. Also, tweaking Pets for Sloth's suggestions.

Edit2: Adding changed Crocodile, although bringing the toughness up to 2 since it's the only Pet with a Drawback.

I like these changes. I think the final stats of some of them are still too strong though:

- The Blue Bird should have a cost of 1 in the triggered ability.
- The Black Crocodile as 3/1 Intimidate is too strong (don't know how to replace it).
- The Plant Wall should have Wither instead of Deathtouch (Deathtouch on a wall makes the AI never attack, since it wouldn't want to trade).

Sounds good I'll put those two changes in. I forgot about the Deathtouch on the wall. I never upgrade it past 0/3 because the Deathtouch makes the AI less interesting.

How about this for the Crocodile?

• Black Crocodile - 1/1, 1/1 Deathtouch, 2/1 Deathtouch, 2/1 Deathtouch Pay 2 Life: Regenerate

friarsol wrote:Sounds good I'll put those two changes in. I forgot about the Deathtouch on the wall. I never upgrade it past 0/3 because the Deathtouch makes the AI less interesting.

How about this for the Crocodile?

• Black Crocodile - 1/1, 1/1 Deathtouch, 2/1 Deathtouch, 2/1 Deathtouch Pay 2 Life: Regenerate

Are you serious? The final state is a BEAST! Unkillable Deathtoucher?

Sloth wrote:Are you serious? The final state is a BEAST! Unkillable Deathtoucher?

Hah. How about?

Black Crocodile - 1/1, 1/1 Deathtouch. Can't Block, 2/1 Deathtouch. Can't Block, 2/1 Deathtouch. Can't Block. Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns

or Maybe

Black Crocodile - 1/1, 1/1 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/1 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/1 Deathtouch. Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block.

friarsol wrote:Black Crocodile - 1/1, 1/1 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/1 Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block, 2/1 Deathtouch. Gains Shroud During Opponents Turns. Can't Block.

This is an interesting creature. Seems fair enough.

For the sake of laziness, I think the Wall could be "T: You gain 1 life. Activate this ability only during your upkeep." There's no need for it to be an optional trigger. Also, Wither color pie is usually green or black, so I think it could be instead "Pay 2 life: Regenerate CARDNAME", contrasting the lifegain ability.

For green, another idea is a Llanowar Elves-like, except it would have some sort of drawback, like 1 damage when tapped for mana.

If the Plant Wall isn't green, then it's not a plant. Every plant creature printed has been either mono-green or green and another color (except red), except for two, one is Creakwood Ghoul and the other is Wall of Kelp .

If a wall is colorless, and must "grow" then we start with

Brick Wall
0/1

Cinder Block Wall
0/2

Stone Wall
0/3

Concrete Wall
1/3 (re-bar is painful)

Concrete Wall with Sharp Objects
1/3 Wither

Fortress Wall
1/3 Wither & "T:Gain 1 Life during upkeep."

lazylockie wrote:For the sake of laziness, I think the Wall could be "T: You gain 1 life. Activate this ability only during your upkeep." There's no need for it to be an optional trigger.

There's two reasons to be an optional trigger. One is that you can only gain one life per turn, if you have a way to untap it. And two, I find upkeep phase limitations very hard to keep track of if they don't popup. You could easily set the Trigger to auto-accept or auto-decline if you like, and then it'll stop for you, your life is gained, and then you move on.

friarsol wrote:

lazylockie wrote:For the sake of laziness, I think the Wall could be "T: You gain 1 life. Activate this ability only during your upkeep." There's no need for it to be an optional trigger.

There's two reasons to be an optional trigger. One is that you can only gain one life per turn, if you have a way to untap it. And two, I find upkeep phase limitations very hard to keep track of if they don't popup. You could easily set the Trigger to auto-accept or auto-decline if you like, and then it'll stop for you, your life is gained, and then you move on.

Wait, are macros for cards already implemented? Or it would be an auto-accept/decline specifically for this card?

When the spell or ability says "(OPTIONAL)" on the stack you can right-click it to decide if you want to always accept/decline it. It was added one or two betas ago as almost an undocumented feature. My fault,that.

Hellfish wrote:When the spell or ability says "(OPTIONAL)" on the stack you can right-click it to decide if you want to always accept/decline it. It was added one or two betas ago as almost an undocumented feature. My fault,that.

Awesome! *starts looking for optional triggers on his decks

Thanks for the info Hellfish!