V-11 : interesantne stvari

[stalker]

Virtual Set 11 Spoiler: Endor Shield (V)

Napomena : original preuzet sa dole navedenog sajta

http://www.decktech.net/starwarsccg/art ... c6f214989d

Overall Rating: (4.93)
Author: David "nWeDLL" Lankton (Subscribe to this member)
Date Submitted: December 14, 2005
•Endor Shield (V) 5
EFFECT [Virtual Set 11]
Text: Deploy on table. Unless Rebel Strike Team on table, opponent generates no Force at Endor system. Twice per game, may / a general, admiral, moff, or commander. At any time, raise your converted Endor system to the top. [Immune To Alter].
Original concept by David Lankton, Wisconsin States 2004
11•19

"General Veers, is your strike team assembled?"

Obviously, comparisons to Strike Planning are going to be made. To save you the trouble, here is the gametext:

•Strike Planning 5
EFFECT [Death Star II]
Deploy on table. Opponent's Force generation at the Endor system is canceled unless Endor Operations on table. Twice per game, you may search your Reserve Deck and take any general (except Obi-Wan) into hand; reshuffle. (Immune to Alter.)

The Light Side has been using Strike Planning to treat Endor like its personal twix battleground. No longer.

Not only does Endor shield prevent the Light Side from generating any force at Endor (unless, of course, Rebel Strike Team is on table), but it also allows the Dark Side player to re-convert Endor at any time.

FORCE GENERATION

There are four cards that will affect players' generation at Endor: Endor Shield (V), Strike Planning, Endor Operations, and Rebel Strike Team. This is how generation shakes out while Endor Shield (V) and Stike Planning are both on the table, depending on which objectives are out:

Endor Operations Only: DS 2 LS 0
Rebel Strike Team Only: DS 0 LS 2
Endor Operations and Rebel Strike Team: DS 2 LS 2
Neither: DS 0 LS 0

Of course, when Strike Planning is not on the table, the DS is always generating 2, and the LS will generate 0 unless they are playing Rebel Strike Team.

Therefore, with Endor Shield (V), the LS force advantage at Endor exists only if the LS player is playing Rebel Strike Team and has Strike Planning on the table and the DS player is not playing Endor Operations.

This helps negate a LS force choke strategy in addition to giving the DS a small force choke strategy of its own.

ENDOR CONVERSION

Here is the gametext for both versions of Endor:

•Endor [Dark Side]
Dark: 2 Icons / If you control, for each of your starships here, your total power is +1 in battles at Endor sites.
Light: 2 Icons / If you have no Ewoks on Endor, Force drain -1 here. To move or deploy your starship to here requires +1 Force.

•Endor [Light Side]
Dark: 2 Icons / If you have no Imperials on Endor, Force drain -1 here.
Light: 2 Icons / Force drain -1 here. To move your starship here from Sullust, Rendezvous Point or Haven requires -1 Force.

The DS has never had a consistently good system for force drains, at least nothing remotely comparable to the LS Kessel. DS Endor was always a good system, but the popularity of LS Endor, along with the ease with which LS players were able to get Endor on the table, kept DS Endor out of many decks.

Now, DS Endor, once it hits the table, will stay there, which gives the DS player a solid battleground system with good gametext. DS will have a consistent drain for 2, while giving up only a drain of 1 if the system is controlled by the LS (unless they have Ewoks on Endor, but that's not so likely). The LS must also pay +1 to deploy or move a starship to the DS Endor, which is a major advantage for the DS, especially in the late game. The DS also get the "premiere bonus": If DS controlls Endor, they get power +1 in battles on Endor for each starship at the system. And finally, due to the activation gametext of Endor Shield (V), in many games the LS will not activate any force at the system. Plus, no more free movement from Rendevous Point to Endor for the LS.

In many cases, the DS has a 2 / 0 system where they can drain for 2, give up only a drain of 1, the LS deploys and moves +1 there, DS gets a power bonus on the ground, and it can't be converted. Endor Shield (V) takes away a popular LS system and replaces it with a strong DS system.

GENERALS, ADMIRALS, MOFFS, and COMMANDERS

Say good-bye to the days of having to play 6 Imperial Commands. Here is a list of all of the characters that Endor Shield can pull for you:

General Tagge
General Tagge (V)
General Veers
General Veers (V)
Veers
Veers (V)

Admiral Chiraneau
Admiral Motti
Admiral Motti (V)
Admiral Ozzel
Admiral Piett
Grand Admiral Thrawn

Grand Moff Tarkin
Moff Jerjerrod

Sergeant Merril
Tank Commander
Commander Brandei
Commander Desanne
Commander Gherant
Commander Igar
Commander Igar (V)
Commander Merrejk
Commander Nemet
Commander Praji
Commander Praji (V)
Imperial Commander
Lieutenant Commander Ardan
Major Mianda
Sergeant Major Enfield

One could go into insane amounts of detail about combinations of characters to pull, so I will stick to the very, very basics:

Obvious first choices are General Veers (V), Thrawn, Chiraneau, Tarkin, and Piett for their well-known gametext(s).

Merrejk, once popular, pulls systems (which gets your Endor on the table, among others).

Tagge (v) pulls troopers, and can put back all of your effects that are being suspended by Han's Toolkit (V).

Brandei pulls a TIE for 1 force (any kind, piloted or otherwise) once per turn.

Praji pulls an Imperial pilot of ability < 3 once per turn (possibly setting up your biker scouts on Endor?).

Gherant pulls Executor sites for 2 force (Flagship Operations?).

Veers, Veers (V), Merrejk, and Ozzel are ISB agents.

Nemet stops reacts to or from same location.

Most of these characters have some possibly interesting gametext, so check them out.

Also, since Endor Shield (V) allows you to / twice per game (as opposed to /), you can use it in combination with Alert My Star Destroyer (V) to deploy capital starships from your reserve deck:

Alert My Star Destroyer! (V) 4
EFFECT
Deploy on table. During your deploy phase, you may reveal one capital starship from hand to / its matching pilot character (or vice versa) and deploy both simultaneously (pilot must deploy aboard that capital starship). Immune to Alter.

A quick example: Pull Thrawn with Endor Shield (V) and reveal him for the Chimaera (using Alert My Star Destroyer (V)), deploy them to Endor, pull Chiraneau with Endor Shield (V), deploy him on the Chimaera, and you have yourself a nice drain of 3.

ENDOR OPERATIONS

Just to hint at a few things that a DS player may be able to do with Endor Shield (V) and Endor Operations...

Endor Operations lets you start with Endor, the Bunker, and the Landing Platform. It also lets you take Ominous Rumors and Establish Secret Base (V or otherwise) into hand.

Here is the Bunker's gametext:

•ENDOR: BUNKER
DS: 1 Icons / Once per game, you may deploy Endor Shield from Reserve Deck; reshuffle.
LS: 0 Icons / You may move here only from Back Door. While you control, Endor Shield is suspended.

This has both positive and negative effects. First, the DS player is able to pull Endor Shield from Reserve Deck, which means that DS does not necessarily have to use one of their starting effect slots for Endor Shield (V). On the other hand, if LS controls the Bunker, then Endor Shield (V) will be suspended. Generally, the DS player will still have a chance to use his twice per game /, but if LS takes over the Bunker, they will take back their icons at the system.

Keep in mind that the LS bunker also allows the DS player to pull Endor Shield once per game, so you don't have to worry about your Bunker being converted.

Establish Secret Base (V), like Endor Shield (V), limits the LS player's activation, but at Endor sites instead of at the system:

•Establish Secret Base (V) 4
EFFECT
Deploy on Endor system if you control Bunker. At each Endor site you control with an AT-ST or Biker Scout, opponent's Force generation is canceled. Once per turn, you may Dyer, Hewex, Renz, Aratech Corporation, Empire's New Order, Relentless Tracking, Well-earned Command, or an Effect with Endor in the lore or game text. (Immune to Alter.)

Between Endor Shield (V) and Establish Secret Base (V), it is possible for the DS player to totally negate all of the LS player's force icons at the Endor system and at every Endor site. Also, Establish Secret Base (V) is another way for the DS player to pull Endor Shield (V) from Reserve Deck.

THE CONCLUSION

Endor Shield (V), because of the variety of options it gives to the DS player, is a versatile card that could be found in many DS decktypes. No card design / strategy article is going to summarize everything. I have tried to explain the motivation behind the creation of the card, as well as give you an introductory look at what the card is able to do, and I hope it was at least somewhat helpful.

The rest is left for the playerbase to discover...

-David Lankton
SWCCGPC: nWeCinematics
DeckTech: nWeDLL



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V11 Player Created Card - Deep Hatred V

Overall Rating: (5.00)
Author: Scott "CRingwell" Lingrell (Subscribe to this member)
Date Submitted: December 23, 2005
First off, here’s the card.

Deep Hatred (v)
Deploy on table unless your [Reflections III] Objective on table. Vader’s Obsession may be played to initiate an epic duel as follows: If Mara is present with Luke, each player draws two destiny (add 1 to each destiny if armed with a lightsaber). Add character’s ability. Subtract 1 from your total if Karrde on table. Higher total wins. If Luke loses, place him out of play and you may retrieve 5 Force. If Mara loses, cross her to the Light Side (she is now Mara Skywalker). Unless duel tied or canceled, for remainder of game any Mara is ability = 6, adds one battle destiny, and once per battle involving her, may cancel one just drawn destiny. Immune to Mon Mothma.
Original concept by Logan Suriano, 2005 New Year’s Resolution

Now for the making of the card. I had read the Players’ Committee forums sporadically since they got set up, but never registered. During my winter break at the end of December, the PC announced that they were having a New Year’s Resolution contest, and the winner would get to design a v-card. I decided that I would give it a shot, so I sat down with a friend and I tossed a few SWCCG resolutions off of him. Eventually, I settled on the following: “I resolve to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special to break my mind to the point where I can accept that Ewoks will be a dominant force after v-set 9 is released.” I checked back to the site a few days later to see that I had won first place, so I decided that I would go ahead and register on the forums. It was time for me to come up with what I was going to design.
Having read the Thrawn trilogy, I was excited when Reflections II came out because it seemed like the books were actually going to be incorporated into the game. Unfortunately, Decipher didn’t follow through on the storyline and left a few broken links and just a few of the sporadic unsupported characters (no real Effects, Events, or really objectives). I had thought the v-cards could act as a good way to flesh out these characters by enhancing the storyline. So I decided that I would try to take my own shot at it with my one card. I first designed an impressively bad Thrawn objective based on ISB Operations. I tried to incorporate the Delta Source, the Imperials being relegated away from the Core Worlds, and Thrawn’s incredible battle abilities; all in all, too much. Unfortunately, it failed on every level. Here’s what I tossed at the PC.

ISB Operations
Deploy Coruscant, Galactic Senate, and Kessel.
You may not deploy Death Star locations, Dark Jedi, or Executor this game. Lieutenant Blount’s text does not apply.
While this side up, you may deploy undercover a probe droid from under your Starting Effect to the Senate. This is your ‘Delta Source’ and it may not be moved, battle or prevent force drains. Once per turn, may / Thrawn, Chimaera, Pellaeon, Mara or an Admiral’s Order. May / 1 battleground system per turn or 1 device. All non-locations but Delta Source may not deploy within 7 parsecs.
Flip this card when Thrawn aboard Chimaera at Kessel, 4 battleground systems are on table, and Delta Source at Senate.

Empire’s Sinister Agents
While this side up, Delta Source’s cover may not be broken, and may not be targeted by weapons. Once per game, you may reveal two non-unique aliens from under your Starting Effect. If your Imperial is in battle against an alien of these species, add one battle destiny. Opponent must target a system. If you control this system by the end of your next turn, retrieve 3 force. If not, opponent retrieves 2 force. Opponent then retargets. Twice per turn, may / an Imperial of ability<3 or Dreadnaught. Once per game, opponent loses 8 Force if you control Coruscant with Thrawn. You may not deploy cards with ability to a system of parsec < current parsec of Chimaera.
Flip and lose 6 force if opponent controls Kessel or Chimaera lost.
Place out of play and lose 12 force if Thrawn lost in battle, or you deploy another admiral.

I received word a few weeks later that v-card winners could not design objectives, a wise policy, I later realized. So I was left to regroup. I decided that I wanted to still add to the Expanded Universe characters/storyline. I created about 10 cards in my own mini v-set that I would cover the majority of what I would like to see. I had everything from Planetary Bombardment cards to cloaked Asteroids that could be towed by Star Destroyers, to Thrawn anti-alien tech to Space Conquest Utinni Effects to an attempt at creating a Hidden Base-like search for the Katana Fleet that both players could compete in (this is possibly the hardest thing that could be designed well, in my opinion).

However, I thought my best idea was the Deep Hatred (v) that you see before you. Mara always seemed like a completely underpowered character in the game. In the novels, her character was crafty and that of a fighter. I wanted to improve her abilities, but I didn’t want to just redo Mara Jade, TEH to make it incredibly strong. I wanted to make a fun new way wherein to give Mara strength, but at the same time make the DS risk having her ‘cross over.’

I knew that Mara could participate in Epic Duel’s before, but it was conceptually wrong that she was trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side rather than the other way around. She was supposed to try to kill Luke, in her role as the Emperor’s Hand, not turn him. I knew from reading the forums over the years that people wanted to see Mara go light, they wanted Dark Side training, etc. Also, dueling had pretty much completed died out in the game, so I decided to try to kill a couple of birds with one stone.

Since dueling had kind of died down in the meta, I thought it might help to change the goal of the duel. In the past, it seemed that every time Epic Duel hit the table, the LS player would ‘turtle’ Luke or not deploy him at all because the risks were too big. Adding enough cards to make dueling a good bet was too costly for the DS player to just have the opponent bury their Luke. Rather than creating some massive penalty if the opponent doesn’t bring Luke out to battle, I thought: “Why not give the Light Side player an incentive to duel?” I thought this could be settled by having Mara do the dueling but have her risk going to the Light. Nothing like the possibility to gain a strong character is worth risking a strong character leaving the table for the remainder of the game.

I wanted to change also the nature of dueling in the sense that prior duels consisted of massive force loss potential. Rather than doing that, I figured why not move past an immediate bonus to something more long-standing: a powerful character. So I decided that if Luke were to lose the duel, he should be placed out of play, but no other force damage should be done to the LS and the DS player should be rewarded with a modest and immediate force retrieval since Mara would have completed her last mission.

Now for the Mara’s specific new abilities. I figured that if she had killed Luke, then she should be elevated the rank of a Dark Jedi. In the books, (where inevitably, she crosses over) she eventually attains the rank of Jedi after training under Luke. So either way, the duel would create a Jedi out of Mara, hence the ability=6 text, giving her access to all cards which target “Jedi” or “Dark Jedi”.

Next up, I thought Mara Jade, TEH was much too weak in battle, so I decided to give her an extra battle destiny to compensate for her low power. Also, I wanted to encapsulate the character’s clever tactical sense, so I decided to take a page from one of the best SWCCG cards made in my opinion: Grand Moff Tarkin, with the “cancel one destiny.” This means Mara’s controller gets to decide if they want to cancel a battle destiny or a weapon destiny or just about any destiny, a very versatile card. Clever and forcing of tactical decisions equates to good in my opinion. Finally, I decided to add a little icing the cake with some ‘flavor text.’ Mara becomes a Skywalker if she crosses over, just as in the novels, but this has some definite gameplay effects.

The first is that if the Dark Side player doesn’t use her text to pull her lightsaber, then the Light Side player can pull and deploy Anakin’s Lightsaber on Mara (just like in the novels). One thing that always bothered me with characters crossing over is that they couldn’t use the ‘toys’ they usually came over with. This removes that problem by letting the LS player give her a lightsaber. Also, it gives the LS player another reason to allow dueling because if they pack a Courage Of A Skywalker, they get to use it with Mara in addition to prepping for the duel. Finally, due to the large role that Karrde had in encouraging Mara to cross over to the light, I figured that I would give the LS player a slight bonus if he was on the table.

So the main idea that I operated on was that the LS player should get a shot at doing well from a duel, but the DS player would get to set the conditions that that duel would take place and they could also win. Also, the DS player has the distinct advantage that if Mara crosses over, they only need to kill her once and she goes out of play. However, since Deep Hatred (v) never leaves the table, they can redeploy Mara and she has the same stats and strengths if they lose her.

I submitted the idea and then came the waiting game. It got passed over for v-sets 9, and 10, but now it has finally made it into v-set 11, much to my excitement. There weren’t any real changes made to the card through playtesting besides making it more legible. Some discussion was made about the possibility of increasing the retrieval to give the DS player more incentive. Also, there was a bit of talk about giving a general table-wide benefit to the DS for when they had Mara on the table. Also, there was a bit of talk about including the possibility of a tie making Vader’s Obsession going to the Used Pile, but there were concerns about that kind of statement could lead to some ‘grabber’ issues.

I was fairly stubborn about trying to give my submitted an idea a chance and it seemed to fair well in playtesting. So I am pleased to see the final product as close to what I had originally hoped for while being deemed ‘balanced.’ There were a few changes though. The first was that I originally submitted Epic Duel as the card to virtualize, because I figured more people had it. I thought that Deep Hatred was a more fitting title, but I wanted people to have access to the card. Near the end of playtesting the rules people suggested that the card be changed to Deep Hatred to get rid streamline the card’s ruling possibilities, which was fine with me. Second, the anti-Reflections III objective deployment was added because there were some issues (once the card was changed to Deep Hatred which is started in the objective) with Sniper/etc that made the deck overpowered/NPE. This was also fine with me because one of my initial concerns with Deep Hatred had been the ability of it to be started. All in all, the card didn’t change much from what I had originally thought up.

Now, some people may see a character that draws two battle destinies and cancel a destiny and say that it is overpowered. However, I tried to keep this card from going obscenely strong, but powerful enough to make it entirely possible that it can hold a site by itself. There are several main weaknesses in the “super-Mara.” The first and most important is that her immunity to attrition is only less than 4. This means that she is highly susceptible to a battle destiny draw to kill her. Her controller can choose to cancel that battle destiny but then she can probably be hit by a character with a lightsaber or other weapon. So it will probably take a weapon and enough ability to draw a destiny to take out a Jedi (ie an EPP has a decent shot at standing up to her). That makes sense in my mind.

As a final note, I wanted the writing of the card to be open and versatile enough to allow it to be used later. By that I mean, should the PC (I am not making any predictions here nor do I know anything more than the next guy) ever choose to create a Hunt Down The Jedi-like objective for the Light Side, I wanted this card to make sense as a possible game aid (in the same vein as Hoth: Main Power Generators is for the Walkers objective). I’m not trying to push anything, I just wanted to make sure the possibilities for the card don’t end with its release.

So there is the card. Have fun with it. I had fun in designing it and hopefully you can make some use of it in your decks. And to anyone wondering if I actually lived up to my New Year’s Resolution, the answer is yes, and it was very painful. Very painful indeed, but definitely worth it for the chance to design this card. I’d like to thank the PC for giving me this chance. I’d especially like to thank Scott Lingrell for putting up with stubbornness through this process and for Rogue4 for giving me some suggestions on things to think about when I first started coming up with hair-brained ideas. Also, thanks to those who tested this card and hopefully made it into a good product. Enjoy.

Deck for Deep Hatred (v)
Alright, people have been saying that Scum has been weakened lately, I figured I’m make a dueling Scum deck to give people a new way to look at things. That’s right, dueling Scum. I got the idea when I realized that you can pull Mara with the Audience Chamber’s text. If you manage to get Expand The Empire down on the Chamber, then you can deploy her to an adjacent location and still get Jabba deployed from your reserve deck. This is not the best deck, but it should be good for a fun game and may be able to be modified into something more tournament worthy. Plus, it kind of follows the way in which Mara tried to off Luke originally.

Starting:
Court of the Vile Gangster/ I Shall Enjoy Watching You Die (9)
Jabba’s Palace: Dungeon
Jabba’s Palace: Audience Chamber
Tatooine: Great Pit of Carkoon
Prepared Defenses
Blaster Rack (v)
All Wrapped Up (v)
Bad Feeling Have I (v)
Fear Is My Ally + 7 shields + Sarlacc + Jet Pack + Binders

Dueling (ie. Pullable with Bad Feeling Have I (v) or to be used in duel) (8)
Deep Hatred (v) – the whole point of this deck
Focused Attack – adds one duel destiny
Vader’s Obsession x 2
Mara Jade, The Emperor’s Hand x 3
Mara Jade’s Lightsaber x 1

Characters (14)
Boba Fett (v-set 8)
Bossk With Mortar Gun
Jabba The Hutt (v)
Jodo Kast
Lyn Me
Bane Malar (v)
Dengar With Blaster Carbine
Dr. Evazan & Ponda Baba
Gailid
J’Quille (v)
IG-88 With Riot Gun
IT-O (v)
Gela Yeens (v)
Darth Maul (Tatooine Edition)

Ships (2)
Zuckuss In Mist Hunter
Maul’s Sith Infiltrator

Locations: (1)
Tatooine: Docking Bay 94

Effects: (7)
Security Precautions (v)
Scum and Villainy
Colo Claw Fish
Krayt Dragon Bones (v)
Expand The Empire
Hutt Bounty (v)
Ability, Ability, Ability (v)

Interrupts (15)
Defensive Fire & Hutt Smooch
Always Thinking With Your Stomach (cancel a drain and make a character missing =fun)
Double Back
Hidden Weapons x 2
Imperial Artillery (recyclable 7 + direct damage)
Levitation Attack (v)
Oota-Goota Solo (v)
They’re Still Coming Through
We Must Accelerate Our Plans x 2
Outflank (v)
Pinned Down (v)
Freeze! (v)
Sneak Attack (v)

Weapons (4)
Feltiprern Trevagg’s Stun Rifle (v)
Dengar’s Modified Riot Gun
Boba Fett’s Blaster Rifle (v)
IG-88’s Neural Inhibitor (v)

Basic set-up:
Deploy the Docking Bay for some extra activation with the objective. Toss down whichever Effects you get. If you get a We Must Accelerate Our Plans in hand, get ready to store up a bundle of force to get Expand The Empire down, and ideally Mara and Jabba all in one go. If you opponent doesn’t look like they are playing a deck with Luke, feel free to use Mara as you normally would. If Luke looks like he may make an appearance, get try to track several of the many high destiny cards, and wait to deploy Mara until Luke comes down.

One of the key things about Mara is that she is a spy so she should be able to get anywhere that Luke is. If Luke is at a shielded Hoth site, you can always J’Quille the shield down and then deploy Mara. When you are not going after Luke, you should be trying to capture as many characters as possible with your bounty hunters. Start feeding them to the Sarlacc for some retrieval if you need it. If you want you can hit your opponent with some decent drains if you have a Gailid at the Audience Chamber and IT-O(v) on the table, instead.

You may want to swap out some of the v-set 9 interrupts to add in a couple of Bounties/Evasion staples/etc. Space is weak to put it mildly, but your objective pulls both ships, which I find useful when you are just trying to satisfy Battle Plan/Order. Activation is also a problem with this deck, but with some of your effects, you should get a decent enough boost. Also, you characters can deploy fairly cheap, I have found. You may want to toss in a few Masterful Move combos if you are playing against a battle heavy deck, but your goal isn’t really going to be hitting your opponent with overflow so much as capturing and then feeding for damage. Like I said, this isn’t going to win Worlds, but it might be a staging point and can be used for a few fun games.

Also, I suggest you put a Jet Pack under the Starting Effect rather than something like another Binders or Mandalorian Armor because if you succeed in a duel, an uber-Mara that has landspeed = 3, reacting capability, and a lightsaber is just plain potent.

Logan