Agreed. I think that makes perfect sense.
I remember an interview from a long time ago where Lucas said they donât just develop tournament-ready cards, because that would be boring. They develop cards for Timmy and Johnny too, because not everyone who plays this game prefers to win at all costs. I had a lot of fun playing Quetzal for months, but Iâd never bring her to anything bigger than a GNK. Is she worse than Whizzard, and if so does that discount the fun I had playing her?
Khan has a really cool ability that is going to enable some crazy janktastic builds. There is a huge contingent of players that will have some ridiculous turn where they win a game they shouldnât because of something really cool happening off of a jank build. And those people will be chased off of this forum because of the competitive bias this forum has. Donât get me wrong, itâs good that this board is focused on one aspect of the game, but donât forget that people play this game for a bunch of reasons.
I think the problem is that it really isnât. I might be more forgiving if the ability did something weird and crazy but weak. But this is a fairly boring ability - install an icebreaker under a fairly niche condition, for a slight discount. Thatâs really boring as far as ID abilities go, and isnât going to lend itself to much creative play with the cardpool at all.
If you could choose when to trigger the ability, but could only do it once per turn it would be great but not game breaking.
Itâs like Quetzalâs ability - really boring in a vacuum, but it eventually spawned a Paintbrush Surfer deck (was surfer released after Quetzel? Think so, but canât remember) that was really fun to pilot.
Quetzal was halfway through Lunar, and Surfer was the very end of SanSan
For anyone trying non-zero MU programs to save costs, Iâd suggest Datasucker and Multithreader for less influence. Datasucker is particularly nice when it can save you up to 3 credits to get past a DNA Tracker, Archangel, or Aiki. Multithreader seems better than Sahasrara because it saves influence and you can repeatedly use it when you donât want to derez.
Quetzalâs ability wasnât at the cost of three influence.
Like, I get the idea of, shall we say, âcasual identitiesâ. But
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you donât usually also punish them on influence.
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They arenât developing them in a vacuum.
They gave a boring high end ability to smoke and gave her standard influence and then gave Khan a niche ability that almost doesnât come into play and punished her on influence. That just doesnât make a lot of sense to me.
I appreciate your logic here. My initial thoughts were that it seems like theyâre pushing the 12-influence thing in this cycle overall. I think Khan and her ability are somewhat caught in the crossfire, admittedly.
I think itâs more pertinent to ask why most of the IDs in this cycle are 12 rather than to compare Khan to QuetzalâŚ
Sure, but inside that context Iâd also think itâs odd and counterintuitive that theyâre pushing 12 influence but then smoke gets 15. That seems, to my mind at least, to be a fairly pertinent comparison.
I totally agree. Iâm not arguing that sheâs a good ID - sheâs not. Iâm just arguing that yes, sometimes FFG intentionally makes âbadâ IDs, and itâs by design.
Yeah, I donât believe that to be the truth. I believe that all IDs come from a fundamental combo/concept, with the intent that they would see play beyond the kitchen table. I definitely think some IDs were never meant to be âtoppest of top tierâ, but I highly doubt there were IDs wherein the design team knew full well they were creating something mediocre. At worst, IDs such as Exile and BWBI were over-nerfed to ensure they werenât overpowered, and thus we end up with underpowered identities, frequently also with underpowered support cards. Semi-related ancient Lukas tweet:
https://twitter.com/RukasuFox/status/628178832617549824
That being said, some IDs are clearly more zealously/rigorously playtested and âaggressively influencedâ, in certain cases on account of there being more interest in them (from the testers or the designers). Damon has gone on record as saying that Smoke is his favourite ID, after all - yâall really werenât expecting them to let her be anything but great, right?
Topic at hand, though - Khan. In all honestly, Iâm imagining the bird fracter (if there is one) will be only mildly better than Aurora, i.e. also fecal. Iâm far more interested in what her console will be, actually. And yes, she will be getting one, though apparently it will be fairly niche (because thatâs what Khan needs most):
Iâd love it if her console was a hardware called Perch with a london library style effect (or recurring credits for installing breakers). The bird breakers are just too damn expensive for what they do, and the back to hand ability is useless without support.
Influence in general is a tricky thing. In order to support casual players that arenât fully bought-in, 15 influence ids seem important to let players build usable decks from a limited pool. But that is way more influence than you need for most IDâs to get a good deck with the full card pool.
I almost wish there was something like a base influence of 17, and every distinct cycle with cards in your deck reduced it by 1⌠just feels like influence is a little unwieldy as a balancing mechanic.
Games hard.
I am hoping her console is her net mercur. We will see.
I think the best way to leverage Khan no1 said it till now:
Khan Chameleon!
Chameleon is an ice breaker that retunrs to hand + you can choose what type of breaker it is when you play it for just 1 credit and no click after passing the first ice!
If you have a way to up Chameleon Str, having a free mimic for just 1 credit that is pseudo AI breaker ( can choose the type mid run), sounds pretty good right??
Khan+Chameleon+Sherazade = 0 cost pseudo AI every turn.
If you add LLDS Processors doesnt that means you hv the best AI every turn?
Doesnt that sounds good? Yes, it needs 2-3 cards to make that work, but getting Chameleon to hand is always a piece of cake and programs shouldnt be that hardâŚ
Maybe add Technical Writer???
people were actually saying it when she first released. the main problem is 3 influence, so i think Chameleon is a 1-of at most.
also nice point about the LLDS processors. could potentially be worth it over Datasucker tbh, especially if Cyberdex Virus Suite is common in your meta, and not just for Chameleon.
with just one and a single boost, it turns Golden and Peregrine into 6-str breakers on the run you install them, which is pretty solid for reaching Archangel, DNA Tracker, Archer, and Sherlock 2.0 if those are problematic
also hits a few 4-str Code Gates like Lotus Field, Upayoga, and Viper, and 2-str sentries like Brainstorm, Lancelot, Tsurugi, Swordsman, and Chrysalis (but the latterâs probably not the main reason youâd want to use this)
I REALLY think that Golden and Peregrine are just BAD cards.
and ofc Chameleon is a one of. you only need one and can only use Khan ability once per turn. you always have Express Delivery.
If you are using khan ability for chameleon theres no need for any other shenanigans. you are basically getting an AI breaker with 3+ str that cost 0 (with sherazade) for free (not even a click)!
Any way to make that bonus into a working deck?
i think weâre having two completely different conversationsâŚ