''The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance.,, Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair
Class ability: Coin Toss When a justice creature is summoned owner tosses a coin
1. Scales of Fate cost 1 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Heal
5 life to all owner's creatures. âTails: Deal
5 damage to all opponent's creatures.
2. The Adjudicator Kobalth cost 2 3/
14 Whenever a coin is tossed depending on the result gain the following effect: âHeads: Heal 5 life to owner. âTails: Deal 5 damage to opponent
3. Court of Justice cost 3 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Increase owner's lowest power by 3
then heal owner's creatures that have the same attribute 5 life points âTails:Decrease opponent's highest power by 3
then deal 5 damage to all opponent's creatures that have the same attribute4. The Adjudicator Kiel cost 4 5/24 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads:
Increase all owner's basic powers by 1. âTails:
Increase by 1 the attack of all other creatures on owner's side of the field5. The Adjudicator Kristya cost 5 6/
24 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads:
When summoned heal 5 life points to owner for every creature on opponent's side of the field âTails:
When opponent summons a creature deal 5 damage to him 6. The Adjudicator Krung cost 6 6/
25 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads:
As long as this creature is on the field all effect damage done to owner is added to his life points instead. âTails:
As long as this creature is on the field all battle damage done to owner is added to his life points instead7.Judgement cost 7 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads: Select 1 target creature and destroy it.Gain life equal to it's cost. âTails:
Deal 12 damage to each opponent's creatures then heal 8 life points to each of owner's creatures. 8.God of Justice cost 8 4/40 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Opponent receives the same amount of damage that owner took the previous turn.
Increase this creature's attack by 4. âTails: Increase this creatures attack by the same amount of damage that owner took the previous turn.
Modified by ionasku on 2015-01-24 13:15:12
Very interesting class suggestion - intriguing, but also extremely problematic.
First of all, I like the aesthetic theme, with what you did with Adjudicators and justice. Some of the symbolism and (perhaps?) Tarot references give it a cool, mysterious vibe.
I don't have a problem, per se, with wildly random card effects. But to be a good addition to the game, players need to be able to plan for each permutation in a fair way, and need to be able to set themselves to adjust if things don't go as expected (in either the good or bad direction). If a card pretty much assures you someone will be screwed 50% of the time, then you're not playing Spectromancer, you're playing Roulette.
What do I mean by this? Let's use "The Adjudicator" as an example of a well-designed pair of effects. You gain 5 life, or your opponent loses 5 life. There are times where either effect will be quite useful (in an endgame race), and there are times where neither effect will be useful (in some scaling resource games). Thus, both the Arbiter and the opponent can play around this card. On the other hand, the Adjudicator Kiel is a good example of very bad design. You try for the first effect if your opponent has valuable effects on the board, and you try for the second effect if you have valuable effects on the board. Flipping the wrong side basically dooms you, whereas flipping the right side can guarantee a win. That's roulette - will the wheel land on Red or Black? There are probably a few fringe cases where this card could be useful with either flip, but that's very much the exception and not the rule.
So as you improve this class based on feedback, keep that in mind. It's nice from a flavor standpoint for the two effects to appear radically opposite, but if the card destroys the strategic joy of the game, then all the flavor in the world won't make it a good suggestion.
Finally, remember that this unreliability generally makes the class' cards worth less than their effects would otherwise indicate. Each effect should seem
slightly overpowered compared to existing cards of the same cost.
1) The effects are fine, but underpowered. Compare Paladin, Blood Boil, or Golem's Justice.
2) It's strange (though not necessarily a bad thing) that this is the only card in your class with a "whenever a coin is flipped) effect and it's sitting at Cost 2. It's overpowered (compare Griffin or even Insanian Berserker) because according to your class' Passive, you get a flip immediately when it enters play, and it's got 20 HP.
3) Underpowered. Compare Power Chains, or just try to imagine a scenario where using a turn and 3 special mana to unreliably change someone's mana by 3 is a good move. This effect should probably be in creature form.
4) While it's very interesting, it's bad design, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The effects are overpowered by themselves, but the "great or suicidal" effect actually makes it a terrible card to have.
5) To some extent it has the same problem as your (4). There are times where your opponent will want to blow your board up with BOTH creatures and spells, but in most cases they shouldn't need to against a Special 5, 6/24. So you end up putting this against a Titan and getting screwed when you flip heads, or you put it next to your own Astral Guard and you're screwed when you flip tails and your opponent uses Stone Rain, or you flip heads and you end up with a replica Steel Golem as your best-case scenario. Again, it's this "great or suicidal" effect that makes it a terrible card to have.
6) This one's okay. In general I'd rather see this kind of wildly unreliable heal effect on a cheaper card to potentially give you a few chances to hit it, but overall the balance is okay here.
7) The first effect is fine; the second effect is way too weak (compare Cannonade or Sonic Boom, or Hellfire).
8) I like this one a lot. It gives both players something to think about how they want to play the rest of their game, presents a clear timing window (in either coin flip) when you'd want to play it, and has two interesting effects. Right now the Tails effect is going to be stronger in most cases than the Heads effect (which requires you to take an equal amount of damage as you dish out), so I'd probably start the creature at 8/30 instead to balance it out. But besides that, it's great design, and should be the beacon you look to when you're reworking some of the more problematic cards in the set.
This review based off the following, original version of this class:Class ability: Coin Toss When a justice creature is summoned owner tosses a coin
1. Scales of Fate cost 1 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Heal 4 life to all owner's creatures. âTails: Deal 4 damage to all opponent's creatures.
2. The Adjudicator Kobalth cost 2 3/20 Whenever a coin is tossed depending on the result gain the following effect: âHeads: Heal 5 life to owner. âTails: Deal 5 damage to opponent
3. Court of Justice cost 3 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Increase owner's lowest power by 3. âTails:Decrease opponent's highest power by 3
4. The Adjudicator Kiel cost 4 5/24 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads: The abilities of all creatures on the field are neglected as long as Kiel is in play. âTails: Both players cannot cast spells as long as Kiel is in play.
5. The Adjudicator Kristya cost 5 6/24 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads:This creature is immune to spells and abilities. âTails: All battle damage done to this creature is reduced to 0
6. The Adjudicator Krung cost 6 6/33 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads: When summoned heal 5 life to owner for every creature on opponent's side of the field âTails:When this creature destroys an opponent's creature it can attack once again in a row
7.Judgement cost 7 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect: âHeads: Select 1 target creature and destroy it.Gain life equal to it's cost. âTails: Select 1 target creature. Deal damage to all opponent's creatures equal to that creature's cost
8.God of Justice cost 8 4/40 Toss a coin and gain the appropriate effect âHeads: Opponent receives the same amount of damage that owner took the previous turn. âTails: Increase this creatures attack by the same amount of damage that owner took the previous turn.
Some of the new effects are very interesting, while a few aren't, and I think most of the cards are a little underpowered in their current form, but looking at it from a high-level view, your modifications beautifully address the biggest problems that the original form of this class had, so great job with that.
The effects still seem extremely distinct from each other, yet I can name a set of reasonable circumstances for each one where both the Heads and Tails flip would be a good play, which is exactly what a class like this needs.
I'll give everyone else some time to weigh in on the class before I suggest further (minor) changes to the cards; I hope you get some diverse feedback!