actuallyacardgame

[actuallyacardgame]

Adapting to the ban list pt 3 - Restricted Objectives and conclusions

A lot of the objectives on the restricted list don’t have lesser equivalents, it’s more they are a class of objectives that give you too much for not enough effort.

Advancing Strike (Shadespire #234), Defensive Strike (Shadespire #252), Precise Use of Force (Shadespire #284) Three score immediately cards which reward you with both points and a free objective draw for simply doing almost exactly what you would have been doing anyway.

Escalation (Shadespire #257) Similar to the above, but trading the score immediately bonus for a second point

Fired Up (Nightvault #319) Similar to the strikes, but trading the score immediately bonus for having nearly no restriction. The unrestricted version is Shining Example which is leader only.

Alone in the Darkness (Shadespire #235), Loner (Nightvault #342), Extreme Flank (Nightvault #317), Perfect Planning (Shadespire #280) Cards that give you points for positioning with minimal risk and limited ability for your opponent to interfere (with the notable exception of Alone in the Darkness, presuming they spot it).

Change of Tactics (Shadespire #243) A score immediately that literally cannot fail to proc and you can score on the second activation of the game and synergys well with Keep them Guessing, the noticeably harder version of the objective

Conclusions

My opinion is that this is a good thing for the game. It shows at least a moderate commitment to avoiding a stale meta. The choices are by and large sane, and relatively limited.

Partially due to the relative number of them and the lack of replacements, I think your best place to spend your restricted slots is on objective cards rather than gambits / upgrades. That and the fact it is better to spend your easily earned glory on slightly inferior upgrades than not have the glory to spend on your better upgrades. The main exception is Earthquake as there isn’t really anything quite the same for mass objective deck disruption.

#warhammer underworlds #shadespire

[actuallyacardgame]

Adapting to the ban list pt 2 - Restricted Gambits and Upgrades

Restricted cards are a more interesting choice than banned. Most competitive decks will have run more than 5 of them, so dropping some is required, but you get to choose. In general, you will need to expect that there will not be a like-for-like swap available (with one exception), so if you must keep an effect, but not enough to dedicated a restricted slot to it, you will need to tolerate a more limited version of the card…

Earthquake (Shadespire #321) A big push card for fighting objective based warbands. The next closest cards for AoE enemy movement are the recent Centre of attention and Irresistable prize, both of which suck models in a 2 hex radius inwards one hex. Of those, only centre of attention has the capability to pull people off objectives (due to the combination of range and objective placement rules1). If you have wizards, then Abasoth’s Unmaking is a fun one (tip: focus that on objectives 1 and 4 as they appear on slightly more objective cards).

Illusory Fighter (Shadespire #332) A bit of an odd include in my opinion. It does allow you to charge someone in and then rescue them to safety. Hidden Paths and Faneway Crystal are the closest jumping cards (and to be honest, they are the two I would run ahead of it before the restriction).

My Turn (Shadespire #343) A free push+attack action in response to damage? With no limits on who you attack? Yeah, that’s powerful. Next closest card is Retribution_2, which is both faction specific, lacks the push and makes you attack your attacker. _Rebound gives you a 1/3 of both avoiding the damage and inflicting it back upon the enemy, which is sort-of an attack. Aggressive Defence lacks the push, makes the enemies attack more likely to succeed and forces you to attack your attacker (albeit with not requiring the enemy’s attack to actually succeed).

Pit Trap (Nightvault #436), Trap (Shadespire #369), Twist the Knife (Shadespire #372) These three cards have substantially boosted the lethality of the game and allow for risk-less (because of being played after the attack) one-shotting.

Ready for Action (Shadespire #348) In the same way that Earthquake is the still good but not as good as the now banned great concussion, this is the also good but not quite as good time trap; although it is more arguable here. Still, a bonus move / attack for doing something you were going to do anyway? There aren’t many cards that give extra attacks/moves, let alone a choice. Momentary Madness sort-of gives you the attack (maybe). Tyrant’s Lash lets you get extra attacks (and can be used multiple times), but … only if they miss, are next to your (surviving) leader and can survive taking 2dmg. And that’s about it.

A Destiny to Meet (Shadespire #373), Slumbering Key (Nightvault #539) Straight up better versions of the (not restricted): Leader’s Mantle (leader only), Shifting Map (requires you draw a 1 glory objective and Formless Key (need to be on an objective).

Awakened Weapon (Shadespire #376), Helpful Whispers (Shadespire #393)

Incredible Strength (Shadespire #395) The slight oddball in the restricted set in that if you were running just this, you can swap the identical in all but name Great strength, so in effect the restriction is in having two for the consistency / power of it. Other options if you want two are Fighter’s Ferocity (requires a crit, but works at any range) or Gloryseeker (only works on large guys, but also works at any range).

Shadeglass Dagger (Shadespire #410) ,Shadeglass Hammer (Shadespire #412) 3-4 dmg makes them easily the two best shadeglass weapons, and arguably the two best weapon upgrades available, despite being one-shots.

Soultrap (Shadespire #420), Tethered Spirit (Shadespire #424) Basically the same card. Slot Rebound instead

Okay, so you could use Imbue with life to move an objective closer to another one then use prize to pull someone off it if you must be pedantic. ↩︎

I know I said I wouldn’t look at faction cards, but well, I know the farstrider cards more or less. ↩︎

#warhammer underworlds #shadespire

[actuallyacardgame]

Adapting to the restricted list pt 1 Approach and Banned cards

One of the most fun1 times in a deck building game, even more than when new cards drop, is when ban/restricted lists change. Why? Well with new cards, you can just compare the relevant new cards with any corresponding slots in your deck and decide if they are better or not. With a restricted list change, your old (competitive) deck is probably not legal any more so you must change it. The question is how.

Option 1: Abandon the deck.

If your deck is built around a single core combo / interaction and that is now illegal, then it may be that your deck simply won’t function any more and you have no choice but to go build a fresh deck. Because Underworlds doesn’t really have combos so much as synergies, I don’t think any decks will have been broken like this. What is more likely is that they will have been weakened so much that other decks will now be superior, especially if you have lost a lot of cards (I’ve certainly seen people saying they were running all 3 banned cards and 10+ of the restricted cards).

Option 2: Swap cards.

Often there are cards that either do the same (giant vs incredible strength) or similar but in a different way (my turn vs aggressive defence), or if all else fails similar but a bit worst (slumbering key vs the formless key) and such substitutions can be made. Two things to be careful of here - Presumably you were playing your old deck because you felt it was (for your skill, experience and play style) the most competitive deck. If you have made a lot of swaps (especially for ‘objectively’ inferior cards), then you should stop and consider - is it still the best deck for you? The second point is whether the card swaps have made other swaps appropriate due to synergies - for example; my turn can be proc’d by shardgale, but aggressive defence can’t, so maybe shardgale is now less relevant in your deck

Option 3: Pick a new deck.

I know this sounds a lot like Option 1, but it is different. Honest. Rather than abandoning a deck as now broken, it is the point of view that a previously non-viable deck now is viable. Certainly with the loss of great concussion (and earthquake restricted) objective decks have got, well objectively more playable.

Looking at the list

For the purposes of these considerations, I’m only going to look at neutral cards. Factions may well have more suitable substitutions however.

Banned cards

Great Concussion

The ‘death’ of objective decks. If you still want the effect then slot Earthquake as a restricted card. And I think for now you very much should - the meta tends to over swing in response to such changes, so I would anticipate a lot of objective decks in the near future.

Quick Thinker

This card was almost always used to negate a charge (although was a bit more flexible than that). There is no decent option for running away from the charge, so instead possible options to replace it are mostly focused around surviving the charge:

Last chance / On your feet / rebound. Not quite the same effect, but does allow the effect of the attack to be ignored. Doesn’t grant the move, and not 100% to go off, but can be used on models that have moved. Soul trap / tethered spirit have slightly more flexible properties on upgrades, at the cost of being restricted.

Potion of constitution. Like Last chance, etc, but you still take 1 dmg as the cost of it definitely going off.

Countercharge / Ready for the Fight. Covers one of the other uses of Quick thinker (getting guys into the fight), handy for gaining support rolls, but that’s about it.

Parrying blade / Aggressive defence. Both grant a counter attack and prevent knockbacks. Parrying blade is a bit pants, but you do still get your defence rolls.

Time trap

Frankly, this was worth banning for the levels of confusion it caused, especially with the charge / move token interactions. The closest thing to it is Ready for Action, which prevents double charge, requires an equipped upgrade and is restricted.

Actual levels of fun may vary ↩︎

#warhammer underworlds #shadespire

[actuallyacardgame]

So. Underworlds. Or Shadespire, or Nightvault. Whatever you want to call it, it’s Game Workshop’s competitive living card game disguised as a miniatures game.

For those out of the loop, GW have just affirmed this with the release of the first ban/restricted list1. This is fairly normal for L/CCGs and appears to being met with generally positive responses. It’s also pushed me into actually getting on with starting this blog, as I feel there is still a relative dearth of material for Underworlds and this has helped confirmed to me that it looks likely that it will be going for a while.

I am (relatively) new to underworlds, with a background mostly in competitive Android: Netrunner, so expect my viewpoint to be skewed from that angle, but I’d rather post content than talk about such things, so I think that this is quite enough for an introduction.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/14/warhammer-underworlds-news-bans-restrictions-and-a-new-deck-buildergw-homepage-post-1/ ↩︎

#warhammer underworlds #shadespire