[RULES] Battle Boards V1.218 - Neo Dynasty - Battle Gaiden

Cyber's a bit different in my mind because how else are you going to pull off only having Planeswalker Mastery?

And correct me if I'm wrong, cajun, but I kinda doubt that we'd have Karina & Friends as a single "character" if reincarnation was easier to hit (and if cajun wasn't seemingly going for ALL of the non-mutually-exclusive achievements - an admirable goal ).

re: a cast and crew

It does raise the question: "If I can add any character to my roster, as long as they follow my character's technical limits, why would I ever reincarnate?"

If you have all the skill points, why ever lose those?  Just add another character and/or a new color and bob's your uncle.  I don't mean to be rude about it, because it's nothing worth getting upset about, but it is mildly against the spirit of limiting yourself.  If you can design close to any card, where's the challenge/fun/point, y'know?  For the inevitable argument about cyber, it's different in the way that the 7CI is the character.  The director is Rettai (or Hana or Tim or whomever), but the character itself is the organization, and the cards they can design are severely limited, because it's a planeswalker only run at present.

I feel like it hasn't been against that spirit? Like, technically any of my characters can cast whatever WUBRG spell they want now, but they aren't. Karina is still only using URW, still using planeswalkers/creatures that represent herself, Hannah, or someone immediately with her, I'm not using the Karina commander when Karina's not involved, etc. All the characters have this stuff.

I get that the &Friends is weird mechanically, which is why I made the explicit effort to not making unprompted attacks with them once they changed from "weapons in Reyhsia's arsenal" to "friends at Karina's side." This is why Aevia/Saia's attacks follow a Null Reincarnation ruleset (WUB, cmc2, multi1, Artifact, Instant, Sorcery, RarityUp, +phasing at 100Valor)

And ye, I could just keep rolling this character sheet forever, but what I'm going to do when Karina's business is finally done is roll this colorless mono-artifacts build I've been waiting to do since March :b

Hey everyone,

5 years ago, I created a small forum game with the intent of making a catchy, interesting card design game that people could channel both roleplay and card design aspects into. As we all know, that card game is Battle Boards, and a lot has been changed since then. As some of you also know, I currently have a broken computer and a pretty frustrating real life situation all around that's made it hard for me to thoughtfully respond to rules updates, clarifications, and concerns, and I know there's been talk in the community of having a more direct hand in change without me impeding what needs to get done.

So, without further ado, I'd like to roll out a list of changes that will be potentially implemented regarding the past few months on Battle Boards. This is all taken from user feedback and won't be implemented right away: the idea is to give everyone time to react to and discuss the changes as needed, as well as explain a few thoughts on them. Please note that this entire list is still open to change/suggestions! (At the very least, I am looking for more suggestions on effects that Achievements could give instead of skill points - please read the spoiler for more info.) Likewise, if there was anything I left out from preliminary discussions, please let me know.

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Also, once this update hits, I'm implementing the idea of the "Community Suggestion Thread". Basically, if someone wants to make a change, they can post it in the suggestion thread and have it discussed by everyone whether it's balanced or not. If there's at least a 4 to 1 majority on the change (i.e. 4 out of 5 people have to agree with it), then our new GM windydelcarlo should be notified by one of the people with the proposal and update the rules with an approrpiate patch note at the top. This is to ensure that even if I get eaten by a dragon one day and disappear from the forums the game can continue on without my input. (I will be reserving the right to occaisionally interject and say if I don't think a rule is a good idea, but for the most part I feel like I've mostly just mediated out the deeply thought out suggestions people have given here. For the most part Battle Boards has a pretty good history of self-policing.) If anyone wants to talk about secret edge cases with their characters, you can run it by Wind as well.

One last thing I want to re-emphasize despite it being noted in the rules rework post is that communicating with each other what you think is bad is important. If you don't like if a player is repeatedly using the same old overpowered combos on you, you can give them low scores and even directly ask them to cut it out if you're not enjoying that playstyle with a character. Sure, it might not be pretty, but it beats everyone thinking individually that X needs to change in the rules and then waiting to bring it up to me only to find it's only one or two people that are doing it. The whole point of the scoring system is to encourage everyone to give feedback on how much an action, be it calling for aid, using a commander, just designing a card, or all three in same action, are great/terrible as a whole. Please use it!

As for the time span of this update, I'm planning to leave it open for a week card contest style for everyone to give feedback and discuss. The week after that, I will be rolling out the changes as best I can. Here's to a more community-oriented Battle Boards, everyone!

P.S. - To preempt people asking me "Why X change is implemented", I strongly suggest you post your thoughts in the thread for open discussion as these were suggested to me by community members who have a better grasp of the current Battle Boards than I do. Again, friendly reminder that these changes aren't actually implemented yet.

Yeah, go for it. Based on what Amechra had mentioned in prelimary discussion I admittedly thought this was already going to be the case, lol.

woohoo mobile

anywho I think the new achievements are good - it makes them less “I need all of them” and stuff like Lotus Bloom or Holistic Wisdom incentivizes one to have a color or card type that is repeatable and enjoyable to use.  I see what you mean though, some of them now do feel a little less good overall, but I’m not sure if there’s good middle ground for this.  I do think that some of the “? ? ?” ones could probably afford to award one generic skill point though- that wasn’t a bad idea, but soon it got overwhelming in the amount of points one got.

I agree with conspiracies/schemes

It’s not like, a rampant problem no, but sometimes it’s like “alright well, you just stormed off and tactical’d me and they get one card to respond because my mana is much larger so they get like a wood elves” so there’s not a whole lot to do there in response.  Restriction breeds creativity but there’s not a lot one card can do vs that usually.  Then again it’s just how I feel and I’m usually wrong so I dunno

I mean, thankfully there is the rule that if you think the attack is unfair or you can't defend against it, you can just decide not to.  That helps prevent the "I literally cannot do anything about this".

Alright, fine, I yield.  Just call me the buffoon out of 5, apparently, lol.

The counterpoint to this is that with the 'storm' combos you see on BB, it's generally much easier to disrupt by hitting one point in the combo.  Storm is intimidating in MtG specifically because it's difficult to really interact with or disrupt in most cases.  To use the final Nightmare incident as an example, when I stepped in to aid Popcornia on Rudara's defense, my answer to the entire combo was one line of text - 'All players have hexproof.'  This, right there, shut down the combo due to the fact that it relied on everything being able to target opponents, but it did not need to respond to every piece of the combo.  Responses either need to respond to at least one item to ensure that the combo, storm, or whatever cannot go off as the opponent intends, or need to respond to the end result, so I think this may be a bit of what's causing the difference in viewpoint - you seem to be looking at it as having to answer every card that is played.

It is worth keeping in mind that you don't have to obey timing restrictions and whatnot to respond to something.  If you can create a creature that would answer your opponent's instant, great - it doesn't need to have flash to work.  The idea is that, if your card was already in play, then it would be able to inhibit, deny or otherwise respond to the cards your opponent showed, or that your card would be able to somehow reverse, redirect or benefit from the results of the opponent's action.  (Again, scoring should reflect issues like this - if you feel a combo can't be responded to well, then you can score them low based on this, or even give them a 0 score if you feel it's an entirely unfair option.)  

That being said, I am working on a writeup for my own suggestions for reworked achievements (as Cajun alluded to earlier), which will help to mitigate this somewhat (and will actually make the Call for Aid system a bit more useful).  I like the system, simply because we already have examples of established planeswalkers using more generic spells (the WAR Giant Growth is a perfect example - if Jiang Yanggu were on the boards, he would've created Mowu as a card and then CfA'd Giant Growth to get his massive doggo).  But I also agree that the mana provided - at present - is too much, and am going to be suggesting other ways to spend that mana (this will relate to commanders, TacImp, and other effects that let you multi-card).

As for the concern that things like Host/Augment should have built-in TacImp - I agree, particularly since it's been established that the Planeswalker type has built-in Legendary now (for PWs only).  That'll be part of my suggestions to rules updates.

Lastly, regarding the achievement suggestions of having free colors, types, etc - all you're doing is giving free skill points with restrictions on how they can be used.  And when it comes down to it, there's no difference between getting to have 10 starting skill points from achievements on a new character and keeping an existing character after 1000 score, except the latter is more likely to become boring to play or have little storyline reason to remain around.

I do think that some of the suggestions made have merit - again, I'm working on a writeup that's taking into account what's been said from both sides of the issue to try and create something that will work for everyone.

Lady Mapi

So, chiming in myself here, I'm inclined to agree with most of what cajun has been saying, but I also see (and sympathize with) your perspective.

I disagree with you about the difficulty of stopping the absurdly clunky many-card combos, because frankly I've deployed four of them and each was trivially stopped, two of them with only a single card in response. And besides, the rules also specifically state you can defend with one card per card used to attack you, so if cajun decides to drop an unprecedented Vanguard plus double Commander plus Tactical Imperator five-card attack, you can respond with five cards in your defense.

Your refusal to use CFA is reasonable, but different people want different things from the Boards. While you feel CFA detracts from your experience, I and many others here find it actually helps with "showcasing our characters" and telling interesting stories. And, frankly, some of us (like me) are playing this as much for the game aspect as for the card design and role-play aspects. The loop of "self-impose extraordinarily tight design restrictions -> gain rewards from doing so and succeeding at designing interesting cards -> gain meaningful advantages in power as a result" is, for me, a big part of what makes BB fun. Saying that I didn't "work hard" for those rewards because it's a game and thus I'm doing it for fun is, frankly, insulting—of course I was having fun, but I nevertheless made choices that deliberately made my card design options more difficult and more restricted than yours; saying that benefiting from doing so is "pay to win" doesn't really hold water.

I strongly support your suggestions of making reincarnation easier, and of quality-of-life mini-Imperators for perks like host/augment. I also agree that the amount of mana available is gratuitous; I haven't felt constrained by mana since my second aid set, and I use CFA a lot. I'd be in favor of reducing or eliminating the scaling, but possibly allowing the expenditure of Valor for additional mana if people want to.

And, finally, I agree with Neottolemo on the achievements. Telling me that my achievement will be useless for my next couple of characters—or possibly never useful again, in the case of new colors or card types, since those are often unique to a character—feels like a slap in the face when, as I've described earlier, a large portion of the enjoyment I find in BB comes from giving myself interesting challenges in order to obtain satisfying mechanical rewards. If those rewards aren't useful, there's no satisfaction there, and I feel as invalidated in my decisions as you do when put in positions where you feel you can't satisfyingly answer a card without CFA.

WindyDelcarlo gurfafflekins ZephyrPhantom (Just to make sure everyone involved is aware of what's going on.)

EDIT: Wrote and posted this before I saw the last two posts but the ideas are still sound, I think.

cajun blueseclipse WindyDelcarlo

Oops, I think I went a little aggressive there - I have a tendency to do so.

1) cajun, I agree that you and I are playing different games . The "well frig" aspect only comes into play if I'm dealing with multiple people, not a jank combo from one person. Jank combos from one person trigger certain gaming memories that are intimately related to some things I'd rather forget (mostly me being an utter failure at running a game ).

2) I apologize for disparaging comments vis-a-vis getting prizes for big cheevos. That's from another bit of personal bullshit I don't need to pull into this.

3) Yeah, in retrospect making some achievements give restricted skill points is a bit eh. I originally suggested it for stuff like "You made purple? Add it to the mix for the future!" or "my new character's sole card-type mastery is Hugs. Fight me."

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Honestly, though, if you're reincarnating with 17 skill points, how is that fair to someone who's hopping on for the first time?

P.S. Can we not make access to Conspiracies require 500+ Valor? Unless, of course, you're going to build in Tactical Imperator benefits for it... This has nothing to do with my next character being a CMC 0, no-color dude with nothing but Conspiracies and Schemes, no sirree bob.

For those of us interested in Ascend or the Monarch token, is it safe to go ahead and just take either as a keyword rather than through the advanced perk? 

Can I have a clarification on characters "returning"?

Let's say I reincarnated at 756 Valor. Would I have to reach 956 Valor on my current character before I'm allowed to switch back? Because that's a bit of a big ask .

Also, for people saying Wojek Veteran/Old Fogey are "medium length"... it's roughly 320 cards to hit Old Fogey. I'd hate to see what you'd call long.