BlazBlue: Battle Cards™ - Collectible Card Fighter

[victorkm]

Just in case the user known as eric reads this thread....I am SO sorry for bringing you down to 1 life in round 1, bursting your first card in round 2, and playing azure grimoire (At the end of each round, opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life) as my first play in round 3, and relenting to kill you.  It was really not very fair. NERF HAZAMA, 

[HoudiniJr100]

actually you have to go with lower reach with tager's magnetism, unless that got changed and I didn't know it

 

so say I had a reach of 4 with magnetism, I'd have to use 3, then 2, then one, etc.

[Mightfo]

Just in case the user known as eric reads this thread....I am SO sorry for bringing you down to 1 life in round 1, bursting your first card in round 2, and playing azure grimoire (At the end of each round, opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life) as my first play in round 3, and relenting to kill you.  It was really not very fair. NERF HAZAMA, 

 

If you got to the top 3 rankings with your Hazama build, that'd help prove it is a particularly powerful deck.  19 damage in one round certainly seems ridiculous though.

[Nox]

Hey all, Just thought I'd drop in real quick to let you know about some incoming card updates.  Note that at this point we only have rudimentary data regarding the overall balance between characters, so you won't find any grand sweeping changes here, just small tweaks that have more to do with maintaining internal consistency between costs and abilities than trying to pull a character off the top of the ladder.  For example, you'll notice that Tager lost some damage, but Atomic Collider became a better combo enabler. Tao's Kaboom now deals less damage, but Cat Spirit Encore is now a much more useful card the turn you play it.  Anyways, here's the list, brace yourselves:

 

Universal:

 

Backhand, Crippling Kick, and Blinding Slash heat gain reduced to zero (down from 1).  

Remarks: This cycle of cards allowed players to play a critical mass of resource denial cards, which proved too oppressive on certain characters. While these strategies could be beat by particular characters and builds, it was overall just not a fun way to play the game. Reducing their heat gain to zero means that players who are really dedicated to resource denial will have to sacrifice some raw power in order to effectively use this strategy.

 

Bait now causes relent when used as an action instead of swapping combat control.

Remarks: Bait is intended to be a viable card to tack onto the end of a combo that might goad an opponent into wasting their Burst. Instead, the risk of being attacked with only a few cards left in hand dissuaded players from using it in this manner.  Therefore, the risk of using bait as an action has been reduced.

 

Ragna:

 

Dead Spike and Infernal Crush now require you to hit in order to benefit from Drain.  

Remarks: While Dead Spike and Infernal Crush are still difficult to defend against, players are now rewarded for effectively answering them.

 

Not Over Yet's damage has been increased to 1, up from 0. Drain reduced to 1, down from 2.

Remarks: Because Not Over Yet used to deal 0 damage, it would not re-stun an opponent when they got hit by it in a combo.  To remedy this, it now deals 1 damage in order to cause a stun, and it’s drain has been reduced to compensate for the increased damage. The side effect of reducing Ragna’s overall ability to gain health is welcome.

 

Jin:

 

Chilling Howl now forces the opponent to spend 1 heat, down from 2.  Heat gain increased to 1, up from 0.

Remarks: Chilling Howl was combining with Backhand/Crippling Kick/Blinding Slash to create a very oppressive deck that made it nearly impossible for opponents to play their most powerful cards.  While resource denial will continue to be one of the tools at Jin’s disposal, forcing the opponent to spend 2 heat regardless of whether the attack hit was a bit too much. To compensate for this reduction in power level, Chilling Howl's heat gain was increased.

 

Ice Fang can now counter Hazama's drive attacks, as intended.

Remarks: This is simply a bug fix.

 

Taokaka:

 

Kaboom’s damage reduced to 2, down from 3.  

Remarks: Kaboom’s power-level was too high compared to her other drives.  While it is still a powerful attack, reducing its damage should narrow the gap, allowing players the freedom to experiment with other strategies.

 

Cat Spirit Encore’s reach reduced to 3, down from 4.

Remarks: Cat Spirit Encore was too clunky to use effectively at Reach 4.  Now it combos nicely with Tao’s drives.

 

Trick Edge's cost increased to 3, up from 2.

Remarks: The ability to dodge non-basic attacks was under-costed, this brings it in line with other characters’ signature defensive cards.

 

Azrael:

 

Sentinel Dump no longer has “can’t be countered”, and the wording has been simplified a little.

Remarks: "Can’t be countered” is an ability that should be unique to Distortion Attacks.

 

Howitzer Crush now requires a hit in order to apply both weakpoints.

Remarks: Players are now rewarded for effectively answering Howitzer Crush.

 

Hakumen:

 

Firefly no longer has “can’t be countered.”

Remarks: “Can’t be countered” is an ability that should be unique to Distortion Attacks.

 

Tager:

 

Tager Driver’s damage reduced to 4, down from 5

Terra Break’s Damage reduced to 5, down from 6

Tager Buster’s damage reduced to 7, down from 8

Remarks: Overall, Tager is a formidable character with a very large health pool.  The fact that he also dealt massive damage with attacks that are difficult to answer turned out to be too deadly, even for experienced players. That said, Tager wouldn’t feel like Tager if his command grabs weren’t fearsome, so we’re taking baby steps with his damage output.

 

Atomic Collider’s damage reduced to 2, down from 4.  It lost the unusual ability “can’t be dodged", and gained “May follow any basic attack”.

Remarks: Atomic collider was too similar to Tager Driver, its ability was too narrow, and its uses weren’t congruent enough with how Tager players use Atomic Collider in the fighting game. Atomic Collider now serves to extend combos, rather than start them.

[SolxBaiken]

Hmm, while these don't address balance issues I have with the game, they're still really good overall changes.

 

Sadly, I might not be able to play this game for much longer until more platform options become available (losing access to an iPad lol)

[Capablanca]

Backhand, Crippling Kick, and Blinding Slash heat gain reduced to zero (down from 1)

 
One of the best cards for Hakumen now

[SolxBaiken]

Huh? Thanks to White Void the meter gain on any card is a moot point for Hakumen, this change is a universal nerf for everyone else, sure, but it doesn't specifically change any strategies.

[Mightfo]

I'd like two report two bugs. Is there a particular place to do this? In the meantime, I'll just leave them here:

 

1)I relented, and when the window to ask me to discard cards should've shown up. I couldnt do anything. There were no buttons, waiting did nothing, clicking everywhere did nothing. However, "practice slash" was in the middle of the screen, which was one of the cards in my hand. I guess it was trying to display it for the discard window. I eventually disconnected. When I reconnected and did a new match, practice slash was still there at the start of the match. I could do my round, but once it got around to when I needed to draw a new hand, I was stuck again. Restarting the ipad fixed it.

 

Screens:

http://i.imgur.com/B1b8UjE.jpg Ran into the bug

http://i.imgur.com/MTIUKTA.jpgThe bug lasting into a new match

 

2)One time when I opened a pack, one of the card's name and type were bugged.

 

Screens:

http://i.imgur.com/0moDW5O.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/sUwLM8d.jpg When not zoomed in, it was still bugged.

 

haha, in retrospect i didnt understand tager's magnetism when i played that match.

[Nox]

We received your email regarding these issues, and we're on it! Just as a reminder, any bugs encountered while playing the game are best directed to our support e-mail address.

[Capablanca]

So, guys, i created a wiki for our beloved game
http://bbbc.wikia.com/wiki/BlazBlue_Battle_Cards_Wikia

Please help to fill it, organize and so on!

[Nox]

Hey, dropping in for another balance update. Note that we have not taken any action on the following observations... yet. 

 

We're reconsidering the role of universal reversal options like Jump, Duck, Quick Dash,  and Air Dash.  The existence of Jump and Quick Dash essentially means that basic attacks are unsafe in every matchup, regardless of how much heat your opponent has. Air Dash is also an offender, as it punishes players that go through the trouble of playing around Jump/Duck/Quick Dash, only to get spiked by Air Dash. As a result, many players refuse to play combos, which is unintended behavior. Furthermore, characters with a limited array of Drive attacks have a harder time mounting an offense than the rest of the cast.

 

for reference:

 

Jump: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 2 or less and discard 2 cards. Otherwise, draw a card.

Duck: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 3 or more and discard 2 cards. Otherwise, draw a card.

Quick Dash: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 2 or 3. Otherwise, reset your Reach.

Air Dash: As a reaction, dodge a Special attack. Otherwise, increase the following Basic attack's damage by 1.

[Mightfo]

So far I've felt fine about those moves. They feel nice because they give you an ability to deal with pressure besides "Do I have a card that exactly matches that one? No? I get hit by a large combo and lose 50% of my life." Plus, they help to make non-basic attacks more valuable, which feels needed for some characters. They also feel flavorful, it feels nice to evade large normals like you might do in an actual fighting game. They definitely feel strong though, which i think is part of the issue- they feel good when you're doing them but feel obnoxious when your opponent does them.

They can be frustrating, but being on defense can be frustrating as well. But it is true that they're pretty hard to play around.

 

I think it would make sense to make them relent after dodging(no discard in that case though, i guess) so that it is purely a defensive choice and not something that leads into damage, so that it isn't really a reversal but just another way to avoid damage. That would make "I couldnt play around it" less frustrating because the attacker doesn't receive damage, without removing a defensive option that makes "I don't have the exact reach to block with" less frustrating. I wonder if that would be too weak though.

 

If you want to nerf them, you could increase the discard amount. Perhaps you could also make it to where when they dodge a chain, the rest of the combo is returned to the opponent's hand rather than lost.(There's a card that already does this, i just forget the name) 

Also, it seems like you forgot to list their discard aspect, or am I missing something?
 

Part of the problem with analyzing them is I'm not sure what counts as healthy card design, what sorts of decisionmaking should be encouraged, etc. In MTG-esque games you can look at a game's metagame/design and go "Oh, this really favors x, this could be a problem in a/b/c ways," etc. With this game there's not really a decade-old history to analyze the gameplay with. You can't even analyze card advantage in this game the same way as others. I wonder if top ranked players have a better understanding of what is good and bad in the game.

[Nox]

fixed the incomplete text for duck and jump.

 

while I won't talk about solutions yet (it's listening time, not speaking time for me) I'll just add that:

 

a) the types of decisions we want to encourage hinge on risk-reward. Specifically, the rewards should be in-line with the risk required.  The more resources the card requires, the more you can skew the rewards.

b) top ranked players are playing max copies of Jump (or Quick Dash if available).

[Capablanca]

relent after dodging

 

Agree. Mothod 1

 

 

increase the discard amount

Agree. Method 2. Discards ur hand completely

or maybe Method 3. If u use those cards, u randomly exchange cards in hand with ur opp. or something like that. would be fun, can turn things over

But IMHO i dont think those cards we`re talking about somehow ruin comboing. Barrier, Burst and Reversals stop people from comboing as well. Yes they cost meter, but still.

againg IMHO but i think it`s time to concentrate on char balance first. 

Ragna has a lifesteal, why he also has Reach4 Echo cards that dont cost meter? 

JIn is way too OP overall:

- Reach6 projectile card that freezes, and u cant guard it anyhow without Barrier. So its a free combo afterwards

- He has  Grimoire card that doesnt cost meter and prevent opp from using\gaining Heat - for free, omg why?

- He has too much heat gain\spend deny cards overall. Combined with his Freeze ability is deadly

Each character has its own unique stuff, which u can read about in Collection menu

And look at Hakumen lol. He has no super feature, he has harassment - white void.

If u make him kinda counter-based character, then remaster his Basic cards counters for Reach1 and 2. Why cant i counter drives with it? 

Its hard to use Meter-depend cards for Haku, i cant keep them in hand for long waiting for opportunity, cause im being attacked by characters that gain Heat easily, i might need my heat for counter any second, not for attack.

[Ixpellia]

 

a) the types of decisions we want to encourage hinge on risk-reward. Specifically, the rewards should be in-line with the risk required.  The more resources the card requires, the more you can skew the rewards.

 

Does this mean you're going to rebalance weapons? At the moment, quite a few of them have no risk at all associated with them, but have massive rewards. We cannot react to the opponent playing a weapon as it is occurring, and Sunder Weapon has a number of ways of being negated (assuming we manage to draw one in a reasonable time frame). Blood Edge, when used with a 4 card combo, can subtract 8 health (and add 4 to the attacker) even if every card in the combo was guarded. That's an impossible position to recover from - it's basically game over after 2-3 turns. It's even better than Taokaka's Cat Scratches since it doesn't require the defender to guard, which is just weird.

 

Or there is Tager's weapon (whose name I'm not in a position to look up), which can deal an essentially infinite combo because it allows him to draw two cards and reset reach every time a throw is used (yeah, I played against starks...).

 

Meanwhile, I see Jin's discard hand for heat gain or Noel's reveal enemy hand at end of round. Those seem to be balanced fine, but I would never play with them in the current meta because the others are so much better.

[VermilionBird]

I'm curious to see if even non-playable characters or characters from XBlaze/Bloodedge Experience will become playable in the far future...

... Linhua confirmed for best character.

[Nox]

Does this mean you're going to rebalance weapons? At the moment, quite a few of them have no risk at all associated with them, but have massive rewards. 

 

There is risk involved with weapons, although it's not explicitly built into the card itself. Simply spending a large amount of heat on a card is a risk. They occupy a card in your hand until you can afford to play it (effectively forcing you to fight with a 4 card hand until you have the heat), and many of them don't advance your position the turn they're played. Often, players will play an expensive weapon card, only to die the following round. That said, they are certainly not all created equal, and there's definitely room for improvement. 

 

I'm curious to see if even non-playable characters or characters from XBlaze/Bloodedge Experience will become playable in the far future...

 

In the far future, anything is possible.  Currently, we're focusing on the cast of playable characters.

 

JIn is way too OP overall

 

Jin is definitely a popular choice among highly rated players, and you can rest assured that there will be further adjustments to his cards.  

 

And look at Hakumen lol.

 

Hakumen has some small changes coming down the pipe as well, but it will not involve giving him counters for drive attacks. His array of reversal options is already the best in the game.

[Ixpellia]

 

There is risk involved with weapons, although it's not explicitly built into the card itself. Simply spending a large amount of heat on a card is a risk. They occupy a card in your hand until you can afford to play it (effectively forcing you to fight with a 4 card hand until you have the heat), and many of them don't advance your position the turn they're played. Often, players will play an expensive weapon card, only to die the following round. That said, they are certainly not all created equal, and there's definitely room for improvement.

 

I disagree. I've seen weapons come out the opponent's second round. Given the number of card drawing effects, it's quite easy to get a weapon by round 2 or 3. Whenever the matchmaker puts me up against someone in the top 25, I see 90% of their repetoire generating heat. 3 attacks and 3 defends is usually enough to pop a weapon by the start of their round 2. They can certainly cast it by the end of that round.

 

Even if they don't draw a weapon in the first couple turns, unless that player is already on the brink of death, many are good enough to completely negate the current game state to being unlosable for the weapon user. I have yet to win against anyone who has Blood Edge. I've gotten taken from 20-ish health down to zero due to an effectively infinite throw combo by Tager, in the same turn the weapon came out.

 

I have exactly 1 card which might help against weapons, and I think I've only been able to use it the way it was intended to be used once. If I ever manage to draw it, it's always been countered, bursted, or dodged. Or I could have had the misfortune to draw it early in the game, and now I have to make the decision to haul this one card across multiple rounds, or burn it to free up the slot in my hand and pray that I don't have to deal with a weapon. That's a fundamentally broken design. The weapon user has a trivial barrier to use, but the reacting player has a huge mountain to climb to hope to deal with it.

[Starks]

Hey, dropping in for another balance update. Note that we have not taken any action on the following observations... yet. 

 

We're reconsidering the role of universal reversal options like Jump, Duck, Quick Dash,  and Air Dash.  The existence of Jump and Quick Dash essentially means that basic attacks are unsafe in every matchup, regardless of how much heat your opponent has. Air Dash is also an offender, as it punishes players that go through the trouble of playing around Jump/Duck/Quick Dash, only to get spiked by Air Dash. As a result, many players refuse to play combos, which is unintended behavior. Furthermore, characters with a limited array of Drive attacks have a harder time mounting an offense than the rest of the cast.

 

for reference:

 

Jump: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 2 or less and discard 2 cards. Otherwise, draw a card.

Duck: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 3 or more and discard 2 cards. Otherwise, draw a card.

Quick Dash: As a reaction, dodge a Basic attack with Reach 2 or 3. Otherwise, reset your Reach.

Air Dash: As a reaction, dodge a Special attack. Otherwise, increase the following Basic attack's damage by 1.

 

Thanks for sharing some observations the BBBC team at Alliance Game Studios have made related to the current meta. I’d love to share some of my thoughts about the Universal Reversal options; such as Jump, Duck, Quick Dash and Air Dash. In addition, I’ll share some of my personal experiences with the game (since I've played nearly since Day 1) and it may address other players issues with cards.

 

A few things everyone should know about me:

1. I own every card in the game (except 7 cards … I think?)
2. I’ve played almost every top 25 player
3. I can play every character (except Taokaka ... mine's sucks on console games and BBBC lol)
4. I don’t play any Universal Reversible cards (except Air Dash, rarely)

If you’ve played fighting games before then you’ve heard the word “footsies”. I use footsies against my opponents like Elyon; who is probably the best BBBC player I’ve played and we have tons of epic battles lol. I don’t want to give away Elyon’s cardstyle too much but he uses a lot of UR cards. I will “footsie” and throw out a single card to see if he’ll use a UR card to reverse and gain control of the match. When he uses a UR card … he is forfeiting 2 cards every time. At that point my goal is either a) turtle and make him discard most of his deck and/or b) brawl and exploit his Reach weakness with heavy damage. How you built your deck will usually decide which is your best option.

 

It took me awhile to figure it out but I’ve had a lot of success against players who have UR heavy decks. Basically, I don’t find the UR cards to be a major issue overall. If anything, specific characters should probably be limited to certain UR cards based on the power of their deck or the characters who are strong with UR cards need to have their decks nerfed.

[Starks]

JIn is way too OP overall:

- Reach6 projectile card that freezes, and u cant guard it anyhow without Barrier. So its a free combo afterwards

- He has  Grimoire card that doesnt cost meter and prevent opp from using\gaining Heat - for free, omg why?

- He has too much heat gain\spend deny cards overall. Combined with his Freeze ability is deadly

 

Agreed.

 

Right now, I think the only overpowered deck is Jin; because of his wide array of high damage counter and reset options (Follow up cards + Freeze). Plus, he can deny players from using high damage grimoire (GM) cards; such as Permafrost without losing heat. As Capablanca stated.

 

Ragna is a strong character too but not cheap. I think if Ragna’s Blood Scythe removed the “Opponent Can’t Spend Heat” penalty or cost more heat then he’ll be a little more balanced with his Blood Edge (Weapon).

[Starks]

Does this mean you're going to rebalance weapons? At the moment, quite a few of them have no risk at all associated with them, but have massive rewards. We cannot react to the opponent playing a weapon as it is occurring, and Sunder Weapon has a number of ways of being negated (assuming we manage to draw one in a reasonable time frame). Blood Edge, when used with a 4 card combo, can subtract 8 health (and add 4 to the attacker) even if every card in the combo was guarded. That's an impossible position to recover from - it's basically game over after 2-3 turns. It's even better than Taokaka's Cat Scratches since it doesn't require the defender to guard, which is just weird.

 

Or there is Tager's weapon (whose name I'm not in a position to look up), which can deal an essentially infinite combo because it allows him to draw two cards and reset reach every time a throw is used (yeah, I played against starks...).

 

Meanwhile, I see Jin's discard hand for heat gain or Noel's reveal enemy hand at end of round. Those seem to be balanced fine, but I would never play with them in the current meta because the others are so much better.

 

Firstly, we (the players) need to remember this is a “Collectible Card Game.” Which means, acquiring cards for your favored character(s) is the objective, IF you want to do one or more of the following:

 

1) Expand your deck

2) Have more playable options or versatility

3) Play more competitively

 

I’m not saying you have to own a lot of cards to enjoy this game and have fun, because I started out with a basic deck like everyone else BUT I wanted to get better … be more diverse.

 

I believe there are 3 styles of playing in BBBC; which are Brawling, Turtling and Dueling (mix of Brawling and Turtling) – just like most fighting games. Every character is UNIQUE and we (the players) have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Every character has the ability to put out MASSIVE damage but it comes with a price. For example: you talked about how I used an “infinite throw” loop using Tager’s Motor Gauntlets (Weapon). Yes, this card is deadly but what’s the risk? You have to sacrifice something in order to have many “Throw” cards. That’s what you have to figure out and exploit that weakness with heavy damage, a bunch of Sunder Weapons, and/or use your Weapon to even the odds. I can't count how many times I've lost with Tager because I dug through nearly all of my Grimoire (GM) cards just to get my Weapon card at the bottom of the deck. Those cards cost heat and when you have 5 GM cards and no heat ... you pretty much screwed yourself. I've also started with my Weapon in several battles ... and those are the matches where you start licking your chops lol. It's just the luck of the draw but you really need to know your deck inside and out.

 

Yes, the game needs a few adjustments but overall the ranking system dictates players with high BBBC IQ's. Not to mention, most of these players have at least 1 character with a Weapon and will normally be using that character. That's just a part of the game and what you have to look forward to when you're competing. Once, I acquired more cards ... I was able to play characters to their full strengths and choose the cardstyle I wanted to play with them depending on my opponent and match.

 

You gave an example of how Noel's "Eye of the Azure" (Weapon) to reveal enemies cards is pretty balanced but you wouldn't use it in the current meta because others are better. I can argue Noel's "Eye of the Azure" is one of the best Weapon's in the game. I've made high level Jin and Hakumen players afraid to play one single card lol. I'm the ultimate, Turtle! haha. However, it took me a very long time to figure out the perfect build for that Weapon.

[Starks]

Hopefully I can upload some YouTube videos later this week explaining BBBC “footsies”, turtling and mix-up options against certain characters and decks.

 

What do you guys think? (I want to hear your thoughts rather you agree or disagree)

[Ixpellia]

I am quite familiar with CCGs. I started with Animayhem (kudos to anyone who knows that one without Googling it), and really cut my teeth on Magic the Gathering. Even after getting out of Magic after a 10 year run, I still dabbled in a half dozen other games, the most recent being Hearthstone and Weiss Schwarz. I've also regularly played non-collectable card games like Dominion and Tanto Cuore.

 

In Magic, there is a set of cards called the Power 9: nine cards so game changing that they ceased printing them forever, and heavily banned their use in almost all professional and semi-pro settings. Why? Because they so severely violated the statistical underpinnings of the game to the point that it breaks. Getting 5-8 mana (a resource analgous to heat) on turn 1 is a massive advantage. Those cards clearly had to go. And in the many years since Magic launched in 1993, a handful of cards in each set have been hit with the banhammer for the same reasons.

 

Battle Cards is obviously its own game. It has almost no concept of Magic's permanents - cards which persist in the play space until destroyed. Everything is an attack that gets played and then more-or-less disappears. But I did say almost. Weapons are the one exception. They provide continuing, ongoing buffs, much like Magic's global enchantments. But since weapons are the singular exception, that means they have to be tuned such that they don't completely overshadow normal play, or they could break the game like the Power 9.

 

Now, you could find cards in Magic roughly analgous to, say, Blood Edge. If I had to make one up, it'd probably be a 6 mana, black enchantment, and the card text would read something like "For every attacker you declare, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life". I think most Magic players would agree that's a pretty good effect. It's unmitigatible damage and life gain that doesn't even require you to land a hit. But in Magic, there are many ways to deal with a particularly annoying permanent. My Magic-equivalent Blood Edge could be disenchanted by green and white color cards, counterspelled or returned to hand by blue, red and black have some destroy target permanent effects, and certain artifacts (usable by all) can do any of the above. What's the takeaway from this? There are a multitude of ways of dealing with powerful cards in Magic. Those methods are neither rare nor hard to play, generally speaking. The rewards are good, but the risk that your opponent has a way of negating it (usually at a cheaper mana cost) is equally high.

 

Battle Cards, on the other hand, has exactly one rare card with which to deal with weapons. A 4 reach basic attack leaves it open to being negated in oh so many ways. Once Sunder Weapon is gone, that's it, that weapon is here to stay. Ragna's Blood Edge is a 50-100% increase in damage output, and his other weapon is an equally powerful 33-50% damage reduction (not even counting its heat reduction effect). That's a massive amount in a game where chip damage is a thing. The rewards are objectively, provably great, and the risk is effectively zero. They are nearly impossible to play against once they come out, because, stat wise, they're far better than anything else that costs heat.

 

As for the notion of "just use a deck with a weapon of your own", that's not an acceptable answer. First, it sidesteps the question of existing weapon balance, which is a discussion I think needs to be had. Second, it presumes that I even have a weapon, in a deck I want to play (they are super rare, so getting a particular one is going to involve a lot of cash or even more time). Third, supposing I did have a (good) weapon, at that point the game might as well flip a coin to determine the winner, because it simply becomes a question of who does the random number generator favor when shuffling grimoires. It's a question of who can get off their insane damage combo first, not a question of skill and choice.

 

A simple way of balancing weapons is to tack on a per round heat cost, probably with a small corresponding decrease in cast cost. Now it becomes a question of choice to use a weapon: do I spend heat to maintain this effect, or should I risk burning through my heat to use my grimoire attacks? It also makes the basic heat denial cards more attractive.

 

In short, a number of weapons are statistically better than anything else in your grimoire, which, when coupled with the limited means of dealing with them, make them grossly imbalanced.

[Nox]

Battle Cards, on the other hand, has exactly one rare card with which to deal with weapons.

 

 

Agreed that this is a problem, one that will be addressed when more cards are added to the game. In the meantime, however, we'll be tweaking their costs and effects. It's a fine line to walk, because weapon cards are indeed the most powerful things in the game, and they should be! We erred on the side of them being very awesome. Fortunately we now have a good idea which ones are too awesome.

 

tack on a per round heat cost,

I think that's a great idea. 

 

What do you guys think?

Thanks for the in-depth treatment of your strategy for playing against universal dodge cards.  I have concluded that Jump and Duck were fundamentally on the right track, but Quick Dash was providing too much redundancy, and Air Dash just plain crossed the line in terms of what a Repertoire card should be able to do.  

 

Again, thanks to everyone that contributed to the conversation!

[SoWL]

If I had to make one up, it'd probably be a 6 mana, black enchantment, and the card text would read something like "For every attacker you declare, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life". I think most Magic players would agree that's a pretty good effect. It's unmitigatible damage and life gain that doesn't even require you to land a hit.

Not really, no. It does not affect the board, it requires some development on your side for its full effect (as you need creatures to use it), and it's at its best when you're already winning. Now, if I understand everything correctly, Blood Edge is more like "Whenever you cast a spell, drain 1 life", and that is a whole different story, alright. Exploit is a decent mechanic even with a mana requirement, and this card does it for free.

Ahem. I suppose I'm just arguing semantics here, as my point is basically the same as yours: the cards that can be played around are more fair than those that cannot.