Post Playtest Report + a new friend

So today, I had a fairly brief, but thought-provoking playtest with Jesse.

He offered a lot of advice, but one part in particular sticks out in my mind.

Jesse: Why are there six of this card in the deck?

Me: This card has the Common keyword, that means you can have up to six.

Jesse: Oh... well, that's retarded.

And really... he was right.

With cards like Potion being common, the first battle lasted about 10 minutes, and really, that's a hell of a long time for one battle. 6 Potion and 6 phoenix down cards were the main culprit, we nearly decked...

So, I've tried to come up with a fairly simple and elegant solution to both problems.

-Your regular deck is a minimum of 40 cards. (Character deck will have a higher minimum , this is touched on in the comments of a previous post)

-No more than 3 of each card (Rare cards still exist however, Summons and such)
-If you deck, you lose the battle.

-At the end of the round, only your discarded characters are added to the doomed pile, normal cards are re-shuffled into your deck to begin the next battle at full strength.

Having a 40 card regular deck lets you get your needed cards easier, however you run the risk of decking quickly. You can have as many cards as you like, maybe in hopes to protect against decking, but without the security blanket of 6x Ether, you run the risk of a watered down deck. (Vivi, why can't you remember your spells!?)

This ruling also opens the door for one new card, and adds effectiveness to another.
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(Yeah, the art screams 'meh' here, don't worry though, there is no lack of quality Rinoa fan-art on the web, I just had this done quick because Rinoa was integral to this post.)

After the composite offered by Matt, and my own rundown of the FFVIII script, I ended up with this card for mid to endgame Rinoa. After Rinoa discovers her Sorceress origin, she gains access to 'Angel Wing' where she sprouts wings and goes Berserk with magic power, as she cannot control it fully. I tried to reflect this in the card. Rinoa isn't a mage proper, she doesn't benefit from the innate magic defense while standing that the Black and White skills grant, though she gets to turn a select spell into a full-powered one-shot. Of course by dooming the Spell, you lose the ability to use it in subsequent rounds. Hopefully this will cause you to weigh your options a bit.
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Also, the decking aspect adds a little umph to our new warrior accessory...



To any curious of the origins of this card, the character pictured is a Warrior from the FFXI online game. (Hey, it's a true Final Fantasy, of course it's going to be included.)
Warriors in FFXI for any familiar with MMORPGs, are the basic tank class of the game. Basically they take the heat off your DPS at they backstab or nuke the crap out of your enemy.

DPS classes tend to be squishy, so they need this guy to keep the enemies attention.

So here we are in FFTCG, where you can hopefully do something similar. When a fighter puts this on, you better ignore Rinoa for one more round, or kiss 1/8th of your deck goodbye.
This can also get fun if the attached fighter has Counter, or even better, more than 1600 DEF and Counter (good luck with that though)

Hey dudes

Well, most of the equipment is up. I'm binging away on Super Street Fighter, so here's a short list of the new stuff. Also, some of the numbering has changed, and the cards haven't reflected this yet. However, this only effects the equipment section of the set (like #37-51)

Aegis Shield
Black Robe
Greatsword
Koutetsu
Warrior's Mantle
Wild Chocobo
Zephyr Cape

Feel free to post your thoughts. And of course, the art will change. Equipment isn't the highest priority as far as fan-art goes right now :).

I'll probably do a more in-depth post later.

Auto Includes

Just a quick question for you guys.

After I wrote the last entry, I sat down and tried to actually build a deck.

Do you guys see any auto-include cards? Matt had mentioned Aeris, and I'm inclined to agree.

At this point in time, for me? Top 3:

1. Aeris
2. Auron
3. Kain

With Vivi as an honorable mention in 4th.

Thoughts?

Expanding the card pool

For the sake of playtesting I'm going to add some more cards with official art to the card pool. Like I mentioned, the art will be replaced with fan-artists as I find them, but lets fine tune the game in the meantime.

The descriptors are kind of in disarray, some characters have a bare 2, some closer to 6. I'll work on tweaking and balancing those later, but first, lets talk about some of the new cards.



Tifa is one of my favorite cards in design. Getting to stand on a whim is just asking for broken combos, but hopefully, the card drawback will keep Tifa's ability on a short leash. You'll get to have fun with potentially broken stuff, but only for a limited time :)



Whoo! My favorite character in FFVIII! Laguna always kind of reminded me of Vash the Stampede. Refreshingly simple, yet extremely dangerous with a little dumb luck thrown in. What other character do you know who does things like toss a grenade into the fray, and follow it on a grappling hook with one hand blind-firing with a machine gun, and yet, can't talk to girls because he gets cramps in his leg when he does?

Anyway, Laguna is going to make heads roll. He can cancel an ability at... the cost of *down*ing all of your characters? Yeah, Laguna and his crew might be clumsy (oops! brought the wrong map!) but they get the job done. Of course the cost might not even be an issue, "all of your characters" might be one character up. And straight up cancelling an ability on a card is huge. Anything with a bolded title is an ability, this means Laguna can cancel anything except for skills, base actions, and summons. Anything!



Hopefully in the game, Kimahri will be true to form. He's designed to be versatile, and he's designed to be your leader's best friend. He lets you use an action your Leader initiates via *down*, and takes the *down* for your leader. This could be their unique ability, moving, attacking, what have you. There's some tricky stuff in there if you think about it. Think about the way this is worded, and think about the way Laguna is worded... SAVE SOME FOR KIMAHRI!



The FFX gang is pretty much all here! Lulu is a card for combo lovers. Players who would rather get some elaborate combo going off than actually win the game. Not to say she doesn't have practical use, she does... but set-up correctly, she may be most dangerous thing your opponent comes against. Get those Gold Hairpins ready!

There are a few other cards up in the margin that you should check out, namely Edward, Bio, Haste, Shiva, and Shuriken. Hopefully you guys get a little more customization with these. Any comments? Requests? Thoughts about the descriptor issue? Let me know, guys.

Secrets Revealed!

Here's a fun one.

Thanks to Juri for letting me use this piece, and for replying so quickly! I love how true Juri is to Amano's rendition of Relm in this piece. The colors are great, totally vibrant and clean, and I mean, really... there isn't anything remotely dark or emo about Relm, so it's a great style to draw her in. I've really gotta stress visiting Juri's deviantart, if you consider yourself a gamer, (especially if you consider yourself a niche gamer) check out the fanart section. There's even some Guilty Gear in there, how cool is that?

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Relm brings a new mechanic and a new wording to the table.

The first is "revealing in your reserves". If you'll remember, the reserves is a face-down pile of characters that you are free to play from. To reveal from your reserves, just turn the character face-up. The potential downside is, this gives your opponent a look at what you'll be playing in the next couple of turns, so they can plan around it. Implementing this means that when characters return to your reserves (say, through the leader card), they return face up as well.
These abilities tend to be really good, so this helps keep the mechanic under control.

So let's take a look at Relm, shall we?
Yeah, she's pretty stacked. Gameplay-wise, she was the strongest mage in FFVI, and that shows here, she's got some serious versatility. Playing characters from you or your opponents discard always looks killer on paper, but it IS a little bit situational. Especially when you are only allowed to pull from your opponent's pile. Early game, this makes Relm a little less of a bomb, however, mid-battle is where she shines, especially if your opponent doesn't know she's coming up. (I'm gonna paint your portrait Uncle Umaro!)

The only catch, is you'll notice the bottom line "...this character is bound to Relm." This is a concise way of saying, "When Relm leaves play, discard this card from play." You'll notice the term "bound" showing up in summon cards as well, once I update them. Of course this means, when Relm has Umaro backing her up, you need only take care of Relm to take him down. And Relm has the combat presence of a bowl of cereal, so if you catch her without a recover ability, or with the Throw skill, momentum should immediately shift back in your favor.

Dear diary...

You guys are in for a treat.

What a killer piece of Kain art. I don't know why, but I couldn't find suitable art for Kain, and I'd been looking since I started the game. Of course, I look recently, and Maiji uploads this awesome piece, which is not only suitable, but absolutely awesome. Watercolor is slowly becoming one of my favorite mediums, this is something I'd want to put on my wall!

Maiji also went above and beyond to get me the right to post it (the piece was a commission). I also wanted to thank the owner of the piece for allowing me to use it. Thanks so much you guys!

Check out Maiji's deviantart and site here.
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Like I said, kind of weird right? Kain is a really popular character, and there isn't a lot of fan-art for him... how paradoxical.

Also, how is it that Kain is among the most badass characters in Final Fantasy, and yet... he's the most emo by a landslide. Kain is just full of paradoxes.

I tried to design Kain, similar to Amarant, where he is usable by all types of card game players.

For the thematic players, I hope I've captured the essence of Kain. Once he's in the field, he loses -400 ATT for each Baron character out. This is to illustrate his game-long love triangle with Rosa and Cecil. Yeah, with the Red Wings out in full force, he isn't going to be able to do too much but close the door and cry in the dark. This is great if Kain is your opponent, because this works on both sides of the field. Also note, that Kain affects himself. How's that for self-loathing?

For the combo players, yeah, Kain has this irritating drawback, but what if there was a way to suppress his ability? If you can manage, Kain is swinging for 1800 in your regular field, yeah, Auron can do this too, but Kain doesn't end up in your doomed pile after you win, plus Kain has the Jump skill.

For the power players, Kain is an 1800 attack one-shot. In case you forgot, the Jump ability is:
"After character is played from your reserves *down* it to immediately take a Fight action against an opposing character in play using your character's printed ATT. Jump cannot be countered." He's pretty much surgical removal for any problem you'll have on the board, and if you have the leader card, or generally some way to bounce him back and forth, he can get pretty nasty.

Whew, anyway, hope you like the card. It's time for bed.

Come on, let's go! Bodyguard!

So here is a character you guys may have been waiting to see for awhile, and hopefully, she wont disappoint.

The art here is really cool, Charlene used mixed media to create it, (specifically watercolor and colored pencils) which is something that I hear only really talented artists can pull off. I don't know if you guys can tell, but the resolution on the card is really low, I've asked for a higher resolution pic if she can provide it, but man, for a low res pic, it still looks really good.

Check out Charlene's deviantart if you can. Her work is great, even photo-realistic. I'm pretty sure she sells prints also.

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As far as I can tell, Aeris is going to be a staple card. She's pretty much a portable cure. If you can keep her protected, people are going to hate you. ("Edgar! You're such a gentleman!")

I remember playing Game of Thrones, and there was a card that pissed my friend off so bad, he grabbed it off our other friend's field and bit right through it.

This is that card.

Keep in mind, Aeris can cast White Magic in addition, and that Cure doesn't require you to *down*. Irritating? Maybe a little more than that when you can use Protect and Shell.

Of course she's not invincible, as I alluded to, she can't use it on herself, so if she doesn't have other means to cure herself, (cure,potion) she's pretty easy to get rid of. Also she "recovers", the direct definition of recover is to protect from being discarded, so she can't do anything about effects that doom her, or others. Regardless, I would have my thieves at the ready to pull your opponents recovery cards out of their hand before they can lock you down with this.

Errata

Yes, sirs. There is already an errata list, except the list is temporary.

What will happen, is I will update the list by dropping errata as I fix the card online. So the list won't get cluttered. So if you see any errors, including specific grammatical errors, leave a comment here, so I can address them.

Anyway... current errata:

-Common no longer exists. Yeah, it's "retarded".

-Cecil: Dark Knight of Baron should read "...doom the top 4 cards of your character deck." instead of "...doom the top 4 cards of your deck." The latter would probably make him near unplayable in the current state of the game.

-Mythgraven Blade should read "...cannot be targeted by abilities that give Status..." not "...cannot be targeted by cards that give Status..." Saying "cards" would mean the wielder couldn't get hit by any form of cards like Fire, while it should only be immune to the Status portion. Also if I created a character that granted some form of Status in his abilities, he couldn't even attack the wielding character :/ ... Targeted is also mispelled on the card.

-Palom: Brash Twin should read "...may target an entire row instead of 1 character... instead of "...with a target area of Single, become Row" This was a mechanic that ended up being scrapped.

-In the Ultros Reference Card "Reinforce" should also mention "Attach a legal Equipment or Relic card to a character you control" in addition to "Play a character from your reserves"

As my eyes gently bleed...

So, I just finished the necessary tedium of transferring enough cards over to the right side margin for playtesting! That's right, you can finally play the goddamn game!

Thanks for your support everyone, of course this project is far from finished.

There are about 4 characters in each class available, the leader card, complete set 1 location/relics, ultros reference, card back, 2 equipment cards, 6 spells, and 1 summon. So customization isn't quite in full force, but at least you can get a feel.

If you're printing, I'd recommend using the draft setting on your printer, since these cards are in 300 dpi .tif format, and could rape your printer.

Just as a reminder, all of the official art, and ghetto photoshop art I've done is temporary, and thus, the artist pages have *TBA* by them. Once I update the cards with fan-art, the artist's site will be updated into the margin.

To Arms!

Time to introduce a new card type.

Here are a few equipment cards.

I really like the design for these so far. They're fun to make.

As you might see, the Long Sword has kind of a weird ability that affects Biggs and Wedge. Man, I've been wanting to do cards for Biggs and Wedge for awhile (specifically the henchman versions). Since Long Sword is "Common" I'm able to put 6 in the deck, which will make for a really annoying Biggs and Wedge theme when you see what they do. It also might be nice if you have a ton of characters with the Throw keyword.

I just hate filler cards, if you've ever played a CCG before, you'll know there's that ONE card that you have 6000 of, that is completely worthless, and not just that, completely thoughtless. If Long Sword was just +200 to attack, that's exactly what it would be, but it will be fun to give it kind of a niche use.

Gold Hairpin and Thief Glove are pretty standard utility cards, but cater to different deck themes and subthemes, pretty much every job-like descriptor is going to get a unique item of their own, and hopefully that will give us some more diversity in the decks.

A Summoner and her Guardians

First off, I've got to apologize for the extremely common picture of Yuna. It's cool, but you guys are probably tired of seeing it by now. Still no luck on Yuna fan-art. Yuna seems to suffer the same fate as Rikku, in that people love drawing her X-2 self, while this card is meant to showcase her FFX self, specifically early Yuna, travelling from Besaid.
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As a leader ability, you may find Yuna's a little lacking, because it isn't that powerful from the get-go. Just as Yuna from the game relied almost entirely on her Guardians, she's at her most powerful alongside them in the card game.

But really, when you think about it, that's not really a bad thing. In Guardians, you already have a pretty balanced subtheme going, Auron and Khimari as Fighters, Wakka, Rikku, and Tidus as Rogues, and Lulu as your Black Mage. I can see the Yuna sub-theme getting pretty popular, because throw 3 guardians in there and you have a 1500 defense Summoner with White Magic. That's extremely hard to kill, assuming you get through, who says she doesn't have a cure?

However, it does take a little set-up to get this started, which is where the balance lies.

I haven't really tried to create too many cards that deliberately add synergy. As far as CCGs go, I'm more of a power player, than a combo, or thematic player. I'm just used to strong single cards with strong single abilities, and thus: like to create them. I should pay more attention to cards like this though, because it really does make it more fun in the end to be able to have a Yuna's Guardians deck, or what have you. I have a really cool idea for a key card in a Dalmascan deck. It's not in this set though, so you'll have to wait a bit. Unless you really want to see it :)

Updated Rules

I will make this prettier later. But until then, here's the "concise" version.

---------------------FFTCG---------------------------

Objective: To control 4 Relic cards.

Defeat: You have no cards in your hand or deck (or you are the player that DOESN'T control 4 Relic cards.
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Card Types:

Character
-Characters used to battle. When all of your characters in a battle are discarded, you lose the
battle and your opponent gets the relic.

Equipment
-Cards used to augment characters, these are physically attached to the characters and are commonly only usable by certain types of characters.

Item
-One use cards that effect your battlefield in some way.

Spell
-One use cards that effect your battlefield in some way. Limited to characters with the Black, White, or Summon skill.

Relic
-Powerful equipment that also counts as your victory total. They are kept in a sideboard once
acquired to be used as if they were equipment from your hand. These have no requirements.

Location
-Cards that effect the battlefield in some way, these are chosen prior to battle, and had different
qualifications for leaders in your party.

Leader Card
-Card you attach to your party leader. When your Leader's class or descriptors match that of the
location, you may use the leader abilities on the card.
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Areas:

Deck
-Where your items, spells, and equipment go. They are drawn to your hand.

Character Deck
-Where your characters go, they aren't draw to your hand, but to your reserves.

Hand
-Where your drawn items, spells and equipment go.

Reserves
-A facedown pile that holds characters ready to be put into play.

Discard pile
-Cards that have been used or defeated go here, it's common to have effects that return cards from this pile.

Doom pile
-Where cards go to die. It is very, very, uncommon for cards to return from this pile.
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Card States:

*Down* -Whenever you see the down arrow on a card, that refers to "down". To down a card, you turn it 90 degrees clockwise, this shows the card has been used and can't be used for *down* abilities until the card is *Up*, which means it goes back to the upright position. Certain card effects will *Up* cards prematurely, but they will *up* naturally when both players consecutively pass during battle.
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(To start the game)
-Put your characters in one deck and shuffle, your opponent does the same.
-Put all of your equipment, spells, summons, and items in another deck and shuffle, draw 3 of these cards, this is your hand. Your opponent does the same.
-Place your 5 location/relic cards in the center of the table. Your opponent does the same.

(THE MINIMUM DECK SIZE IS 30 CARDS, THE MAXIMUM IS 50. EACH DECK MUST HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF CARDS)

(YOU MAY HAVE UP TO 3 OF EACH CARD)

*Relic Phase*
-1P chooses a location from the location pile.
-Both draw 6 characters from the character deck (seperate from your hand)
-1P plays a character as the leader, attaching leader card
-2P plays a character as the leader, attaching leader card
-1P plays characters face-down (up to 5 more, in 2 rows of 3, put remainder face-down in reserves)
-2P plays characters face-down (up to 5 more, in 2 rows of 3, put remainder face-down in reserves)
-1P reveals characters (for every character less than 6, they draw 2 cards)
-2P reveals characters(for every character less than 6, they draw 2 cards)
:location effect goes off
-Both draw characters face-down to the reserves until they have 3 in the reserves, then discard any extras.

*Battle Phase*
-1P uses an action or passes.
-2P uses an action or passes.
...until... both pass.
Then *UP* all characters and start again...

Actions available to use are:

Fight: *down* a character to have it attack an adjacent character, if your character's attack is
equal or higher than the opposing characters defense, the opposing character is considered "defeated" and discarded.

Cast/Use: Use a Spell or Item card from your hand. A spell will generally require a character with
the "Black" "White" or "Summon" skill to be cast, the cost will described on the card. (Usually just *down*)

Move: *down* character and move it to either row in any position. (note the max amount is 3 in the front and 3 in the back)

Reinforce: Play a character from your reserves, equipment card from your hand, or Relic from your sideboard to play. (Regarding characters, this is only usable if there are less than 6 characters in your party)

Recruit: Discard 3 cards from your hand to draw one character and put it face-down in your reserves(after the battle starts, there is no limit to the reserves) BTW, you can also look at your reserves at any time.

Appoint: Discard 3 cards from your hand to choose a character you control and attach the leader card to him. This character becomes your leader.

Retreat: Return all of your characters to your reserves. You lose the battle.

Pass: Draw 1 card.

-When the last character of 1 player has been discarded, that player loses. (If both players lose all of their characters in the same action, the battle is a draw and the location goes back in the
location pile.

*Resolution Phase*
-The winning player chooses up to 3 characters in his party and puts them in his reserves, the rest
are discarded.
-Both players discard any of their cards in hand, and draws up to 3 cards.
-Both players put their entire discard pile into their doom pile.
-Play starts again from the *Relic Phase* with 2P taking the place of 1P. (and 1P, and 2P, and so on)

-When one player controls 4 Relics, that player immediately wins.
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Skill cheatsheet:

Black: Character may use black magic; While standing, character is immune to opponent's Black magic.

White: Character may use white magic; While standing, character is immune to opponent's White Magic.

Ranged: This character's Fight action may target characters up to 2 rows away. This character may also counter Ranged attacks if they have something that grants the ability.

Steal: After the character defeats another character, the defeated character's controller must choose and discard a card from their hand.

Counter: While defending, the character deals their attack to the attackers defense simultaniously, the attacker is discarded if your attack is equal to, or higher than their defense. This does NOT nullify the Fight action.

Jump: When character comes into play from the reserves, it may immediately *down* to perform a Fight action against any character with its printed attack total, Jump cannot be countered.

Throw: Discard an equipment card from your hand to make a ranged attack against an opposing character using your characters printed ATT total. If the character is defeated it is doomed instead of discarded.

Leader: Characters ability may only be performed if it is the leader of your party.

Common: You may have 6 of this card in your deck.

Rare: You may have 1 of this card in your deck.

..whew.

If you have any questions, or think I may have missed something, leave a comment.

Breaking the game

I know I touched on Relics in the past, but now is a good time to bring it up again.

In the playtest relics were used, but somewhat sparingly. Knowing this, I decided to beef up some of the relics and make them more attractive to play. Some, like Magicite are just fundamentally broken, so they don't need much help at all.

Masamune is a no-brainer, think about this to yourself. If you had this card sitting in your sideboard, would you use it? Remember, there are no restrictions on the card, relics are usable by anyone, ANYONE. If you decide to have Yuna come out and give the Masamune a few test swings, you can! Why? Because breaking the game makes it FUN!

Also keep in mind that the card doesn't mention your attacker being a legal target, that means you can hit ranged dudes with this. (And really, that's pretty thematic anyway, the sword is huge).

Of course that doesn't mean they aren't still dangerous to play. So far there are 2 cards that can directly deal with Relics, not even taking into account all of the kill cards present in the game. So you're still taking a definite risk using the card, you could potentially waste 1/4 of your victory condition getting jumped on by Kain.

Magicite is nice, because Summoners are generally physically weak by nature, however, Auron is not. Tifa with Magicite will make your opponents run screaming for the hills, seriously.

So playtesters, in short, use your Relics. You know these two will:



I know Locke is from a previous post, but he's been revamped. If you like the art, don't forget to check Nekki's deviantart if you haven't. Locke is my favorite character, and I think Nekki does him justice!

I thought the War of the Lions Balthier would be a fun touch. I'm going to take a few liberties and say in the time between FFT and FFXII, Balthier got a bit wiser. He seems a little more brash then usual in the FFT FMVs. This is why his ATT is high and his DEF has suffered, he seems a bit scrappier in FFXII.

Setlist

For all those who are wondering, here is a card spoiler for the first set. Names in bold are cards that I feel are up to playtest status as of now. As I create new cards, I will update this list, and add links to the downloads here as well.

1.Amarant
2.Auron
3.Basch
4.Cecil
5.Cloud
6.Edgar
7.Kain
8.Khimari
9.Lightning
10.Tifa
11.Umaro
12.Zell
13.Balthier
14.Edge
15.Edward
16.Irvine
17.Locke
18.Rikku
19.Sazh
20.Setzer
21.Tidus
22.Vincent
23.Yuffie
24.Zidane
25.Aeris
26.Cait Sith
27.Lulu
28.Palom
29.Penelo
30.Porom
31.Relm
32.Rinoa
33.Terra
34.Vanille
35.Vivi
36.Yuna
37.Aegis Shield
38.Black Robe
39.Gold Hairpin
40.Koutetsu
41.Long Sword
42.Leather Armor
43.Mage Rod
44.Orrachea Amulet
45.Power Wrist
46.Shuriken
47.Silver Hammer
48.Summoner Staff
49.Thief Glove
50.Wild Chocobo
51.Zephyr Cape
52.Bio
53.Blizzard
54.Fire
55.Thunder
56.Toad
57.Cure
58.Dispel
59.Haste
60.Protect
61.Raise
62.Ether
63.Phoenix Down
64.Potion
65.Bahamut
66.Shiva
67.Besaid/Blitzball
68.Dollet/Gunblade
69.Mako Reactor/Masamune
70.Mt. Ordeals/Mythgraven Blade
71.The Auction House/Magicite
72.Zozo/Chainsaw

So, if there's a card here you want to see that I haven't revealed already, let me know and I'll do a write-up on it here.

Girls only! Boys please wait over there!

Time for some more FFX! Auron was the only character I believe I revealed from the game, and even though Rikku isn't as blatantly powerful as he is, hopefully she will make it into some decks.

As far as the art goes, well.. it's more official art. There are a few pieces I really wanted to use for Rikku, but they're from FFX-2. Actually, almost all the art of Rikku I've seen is from X-2. (Hmmm, I wonder why, what a surprise...)

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Anyway, Rikku the card definitely has some utility, but maybe more than you think.

First off, aren't you glad I added in the descriptor column? Rikku is a colorful character for sure. Since I've added this in, it can be a little easier to get a useful leader in a certain area.

For instance... the hardships of the Bikanel deserts may require a Fighter to be an true leader because of the strenuous terrain and giant sand-worms, but since Rikku is an Al-Bhed and is familiar with the territory, she gets the same bonus, even though she isn't a Fighter. Locations will take both class and descriptors into account for purposes of the Leader card bonus.

Also, despite the doom a character on the last hour of a tuesday on a leap year requirement of her ability, dooming a character is never anything to laugh at, especially when it's not very picky about who it dooms. Also with the throw command, she gets a secondary doom ability as well.

There are 3 items with almost universal utility that you will probably see in most decks.

Potion- Saves characters from discard
Phoenix Down- Returns from discard pile
Ether- Draws 3 cards

You don't really have to reach out that much to find items that power her ability. However, it IS tough to pull off for a reason: it's nasty.

Next I'll give you guys a setlist and some download links.

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.

Current update: Descriptions descriptions!

Hey guys!

Still working on the game of course. And now that I'm so close to putting it out, I feel like I should change things again :)

Right now, we've got the 3 designations right? Fighter, Thief, Mage.

Though this makes the game easy to understand, I kind of feel like it makes it too simple for it's own good.

A couple times when I played it in the past, you could tell at certain points it was turning into values vs values, like "pull your biggest guy out and put them against the other guys biggest guy".

The thing is, the game is completely based around characters, and these characters have actual personalities and backgrounds. If the characters are shallow, the game is shallow. I feel their descriptions should dig a little deeper than Fighter/Thief/Mage.

Right now, my favorite option is adding sub-descriptions. You have the 3 main branches: Fighter, Rogue, Mage. Then, you add individual jobs or traits to that. For example, Auron would be a Fighter: Samurai, or Zidane a Rogue:Thief.

That would also make the composite characters easy, like Rydia a Mage: Black Mage, Summoner.

Of course, if I decided to do this, it would be more difficult to use icons, and I may have to rely on text. I messed around with the idea of using the FFV sprites, since nearly every job is represented in V. (It was also cool, because I could use a female character for the females, and actually print the characters gender on the cards for abilities like Edgar's that only affect a specific gender. And there was the issue of when I get to characters like Setzer, where the heck I would find a generic gambler sprite (besides Setzer himself, but really, that's sort of reaching.)

Just some thoughts, I'll post an update later. In the meantime, here's an updated spell. I've been working on them a little.