Hail to the King baby!

For thoughts on the art, please see my Chainsaw blog. In short, the art is awesome, and if you like it, you should check out Aribuwana's deviant-art for other great FF fanart. I'll probably change the art for chainsaw in the future, because this is IMO the definite Edgar piece, and it belongs on Edgar himself.
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How can you not love Edgar in FFVI? Of all characters in FF, he fits among the truly unique. He's a witty womanizing king of a submersible castle in the desert, with crazy steampunk weapons at his disposal. In the card game, I hope he'll be just as infamous.

Edgar's ability is simple, down or up a Female character. But the strength lies in his versatility.
-Keep down Lightning before she can tear through your front line?
-Give Yuna a chance to summon bahamut a bit faster?
-Have Lulu throw almost your entire deck at the opposing force?

He can do this once a turn at no cost, which is pretty badass. Of course the ability is limited by the leader text, but Edgar also does well when he isn't ruling over your field with his 1400/1400 ranged.

This is of course limited to females, because Edgar wooing Umaro is just a bit creepy. (There are easier ways to get Terrato, Edgar!) Not that Porom, or Quina wouldn't be creepy, but it makes it less thematic. (and I don't want us to have a yaoi fanfic on our hands)

At this point, I've redone 15 or so characters in the new template. If you'll notice, some of the descriptors are bare, but I'm going to run through them again and see what I can add.

Basch lives!

Here's the next character for set 1! Not much to say about the art, it's badass, but it's the official FMV of the game... I guess Basch wasn't as popular as I thought, because I couldn't really find any card-suitable fanart for him. Anyone care to point me in the right direction?
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Basch is the ultimate knight: fiercely loyal, and steadfast in his convictions, especially in regards to his country. I had three abilities in mind for him, one I ended up using for Snow because I think it fits him a bit better, one we will be seeing in another set because it seems more applicable there, and there's this one, possibly the strangest, but useful nonetheless.

IMO, Basch is thematic, strong, and balanced, which is a good trio in ccgs. Basch's motive is simple, put the right guy on the throne, and you can be sure your opponent will be playing some unworthy leaders for him to usurp. In game terms, Basch is a free revive. Killing one character and reviving another gives you a net advantage of 2, which could be the dagger in a close game for sure. With Basch possibly coming up in your decks, it may curb the desire for players to stack their deck with leaders, one thing I feared in designing the mechanic.

Also, since Basch gives this character the leader trait, it helps to balance the ability. If you'll remember, "Leader" is technically a negative trait. Without being the leader of your group, characters with "Leader" cannot use their unique ability. This is common on some characters like Edgar with killer abilities, because they're natural leaders and it makes sense for them to only have the ability when they're at the helm. In this case, Basch revives your character in a somewhat gimped state. Yes, they may have their high stats, or magic abilities, but this may help curb some broken combos in the future.

Anyway, hope you like Basch, I can't wait to try him out. In the meantime, I did mention Edgar didn't it...

Blackjack

Here's another example.

This card is the second offering from Captain-Sunshine. Just like the last one, this piece is completely traditional watercolor. I really like the coloring, especially in the face, the free-flowing streaks of color really seem to compliment Setzer and his airship. You can definitely see the care that went into making this, from the carefree smile to the scars on his face. The entire piece is actually really cool. It's in a portrait format, so some of it had to be cropped out, so check out the rest of the piece at Captain-Sunshine's deviant-art.

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Setzer definitely has the potential to have both sides of the table scream when he shows up depending on the moment in time. Despite the great cost to do so, Setzer has the opportunity to take out any character on the board at any time. The question is: do they have a potion?

Yeah, you've gotta take a risk, but what Setzer card would be complete without some form of gambit? Also, if you have a dead hand, or some means of discard recursion, it may be in your best interest to discard the cards anyway.

You'll notice Setzer also has the "Pilot" trait. Airships anyone? Guess you'll just have to stay tuned.

The Flaming Amarant

Here's the first foray into the new set!

As you'll notice, there is a number on the bottom right of the card, this is the set number. Amarant is our first card in the set, and I'd like to tell you about him some.

First off, the art. I really like the effect, and the style for this fanart. The coloring is really cool, and I like how his hair seems like it's aflame. I think this is the first piece in the ccg with an action pose, and it works really well. Toni has a variety of art on her site, including Trance versions of Amarant and Zidane which I thought were really cool. Check it out at: Toni's Deviantart, and her website.
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In card land, Amarant Coral was hard to design. I mean, the dude is a silent monk that throws equipment with an offensive and defensive skillset. Not quite as much of a design nightmare as Cecil, but still tough.

I think the gist, is that Amarant is a student of war, very Terry Bogard. The only time he really got into trouble in the game was when he lost his cool and got captured trying to prove Zidane wrong. In a way, he needs to maintain his focus to remain deadly.

So anytime he has nothing equipped or attached (monk equipment excluded) he's an offensive beast. But the second he's buffed by an ally, or poisoned or slowed, he loses his focus and becomes more of a target.

Dually, this let me give him the throw command, which is new to the game. The throw command reads:

Down character and discard a weapon card from your hand to perfom a ranged attack against a legal opposing character of ATT equal to that character's printed STR, if that character is defeated, it is doomed. (Basically a neat way to get around 'cure' and 'potion', this is more typical for Rogues. Amarant may be the only Fighter with the throw command.)

Since Amarant's "printed" strength is 1400, his throw doesn't break the ranged damage cap.

Even with the limitation, he's solid. Maybe too solid, but we'll see. That's what playtesting is for :)

So...wtf is going on with the game?

Even though the last update was pretty recent, all 3 of you that read this blog may have noticed that there was no mention of the demo deck.

I've decided to take it a step further and release an entire set instead of just one deck. That way I'll release the cards one at a time as playsets like I planned, and you guys can make decks yourselves. Eventually, I will make a demo deck, but until then, you shouldn't have to wait until I make one I'm satisfied with for you to play.

16 year old girls : Oh, what will I wear for my first date?!
Me : Oh, what will I put in this demo deck.

You get the idea.

Expect the first card soon... really soon.

It's about damn time FFXIII!!

**Minor FFXIII spoilers on card**

**Minor FFXIII spoilers on card**

Welcome back!
Guess what I've been up to?

Yeah, I'm only 7 or so hours into FFXIII, but I figured I'd try the new template out on our new protagonist first!

I've tried to add a little detail to the template, but also tried to organize it better.
I thought the attack/defense on the top would be a better use of space.

I know it looks like I'm wasting space again with the side-bar, but think how many traits I need for a character with a complex class like Edge or something.

Anyway, there's attack and defense on the top, sandwiching the name and title...

-The left bar are descriptors, basically they're traits that don't do anything on their own right. But because Lightning has the Female trait, Edgar has a chance to woo her with his ability! Sabin might be upset with his brother for being such a floozy, so he can hit him over the head with Tiger Claws that are only equippable by those with the Monk trait!

-The tab above the left bar lists the character's core class. The core class can only be one of 3 things: Fighter/Rogue/Mage. These help you build your army, because the classes follow the hard rules of the game. (aka rules that can't be broken, that balance the game) It's pretty easy to say that a balanced deck should be made up of 1/3 fighters, 1/3 rogues, and 1/3 mages, for instance.

And then we have our original traits on the top of the main textbox, ranged, counter, leader, all sorts of stuff. The difference is, these traits have innate abilities of their own. Leader for example, is just an easier way to point out the character having a crazy leader only ability. Most like the other ones mentioned will be the same. However, "Thief" will become "Steal", and Thief will be a descriptor trait instead.

Don't worry, I'll find something to call them other than "traits", I'm aware it's a little vague.

All else is the same. But just this simple change will let me add tons more depth to the game.
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I guess we can talk about Lightning some.
For all you who haven't played FFXIII, Lightning is pretty much a female Cloud. Just more angry and solitary. She kicks ass just as well if not better.

I tried to show her combat prowess by giving her 1600/1600. She belongs on the front line for sure.

I tried to make her ability interesting. It's worded in a way that it has to go off. This attempts to represent how temperamental she is. Sure, she'll help out, but she has her own agenda at the same time.

A 1600/1600 is pretty buff, especially with counter. But I think her auto-run away offsets the strength some. You most likely wont be putting Relics on her, and she'll definitely set you back if she's the only character in play...

Of course, it's a bit weird to make judgments about a character so early in the game. But this is just a representation of her early character. So who knows what she'll throw at us later.

I've got a few more cards to show you guys. I'll post them soon.