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  1. #1
    Lead Developer / Designer Gondorian's Avatar
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    Lost Lands: Design Goals of Part 1

    Welcome back to the 3rd installment in our series of articles about Shadow Era's 4th set, Lost Lands. (In case you missed the previous two articles, follow this link and this one.) In this article, I'll be expanding on the two primary design goals of Part 1 of the set.


    The Stars Are Aligned

    You've probably noticed that a significant number of card slots in Shattered Fates were devoted to establishing the concept of "tribal decks", predominantly through introducing a large number of ally cards that specify an alignment (e.g. Templar, Twilight, Undead, etc.) such that decks can be built using groups of allies from the same alignment for some synergistic pay-off.

    Whilst we hope you will agree the concept was indeed established, we acknowledge the viability and diversity of tribal decks is constrained by the total number of slots devoted to them in our first three sets. For every Ravageruu, Undead Moonstalker and Templar Threbin that has dominated the meta, there's a myriad of potential decks ready to spring to life when some extra ingredients are added to the mix!

    In light of this, Part 1 of Lost Lands has a primary design goal of delivering on that potential. This will be achieved though introducing an additional 37 aligned allies that offer considerably more choice when building your tribal decks, allowing for much better fine-tuning for consistency, flexibility or resource curve. These new allies will also allow for more varied strategies within each alignment and better compatibility with heroes that currently don't work so well with them.

    With that last point in mind, I'm pleased to introduce two new Shadow allies from the Wulven alignment: Wildfang and Wulven Traitor.


    As you can see, we have explicitly made them offer additional benefits when used without a Wulven hero, to bolster the tribe outside of where they are most commonly used to date.


    Space Exploration

    Aside from bolstering alignment-oriented tribal decks, the other main design goal of Lost Lands Part 1 is to continue to expand the deck design space available for each hero, whether tribal or otherwise.

    A good example of this can be seen in the already-spoiled Location, Sosilo: Brothers' Landing.


    While there is obvious synergy there with Templar cards like Knight of Unaxio, Justicar's Cape and Unaxio Bannerman (see previous article), there's also potential to use it outside a Templar tribe deck for fun and profit. I'm sure you can think of at least one non-Templar ally that would like to take a trip to Brothers' Landing...

    In a similar way, I'd like to reassure readers who may not be fans of tribal decks that the majority of the aligned allies in Lost Lands Part 1 have been designed to also work well outside tribal decks as splash allies (as most of the aligned allies in preceding sets do too).

    On the other hand, if you're a hardcore fan of tribal decks, I'm pleased to confirm Lost Lands aims to boost the concept of "pseudo-tribal decks" that are brought together by something other than alignment. If you've run into a fire-themed deck in Shattered Fates, such as Pyramia or Fire Moonstalker, you'll know what I'm talking about here!


    In the case of Entangled Wisp above, he's obviously geared towards boosting the Electrical pseudo-tribe. Beyond that, his immunity to electrical damage is intended to work well with Nishaven.

    Hopefully, you will agree that a much wider deck design space will be explored once Part 1 is released, whether tribal or not!


    Time Travel

    And so we've reached the conclusion of our brief journey through the main design goals of Part 1. Be sure to join us next time as we take you right back to the birth of the game, and then reveal how our card design process has evolved to this point, including more spoilers from Lost Lands to illustrate our current process!

  2. #2
    Senior Member Kross's Avatar
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    Entangled wisp seems like it could be pretty good.. I don't like the name, nor the art though

  3. #3
    Chat Mod Ross013's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kross View Post
    Entangled wisp seems like it could be pretty good.. I don't like the name, nor the art though
    I agree, the name isn't too great. I'd prefer something like 'sparkbond wisp' or 'amplifier wisp'

    Still, the set is shaping up to be quite interesting, I like the idea of tribes becoming more cohesive and significant
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    im starting to get more and more excited for this (:

  5. #5
    Chat Mod Kip thorp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kross View Post
    Entangled wisp seems like it could be pretty good.. I don't like the name, nor the art though
    Art not anatomicaly correct enough ?

    I'm just glad there is art, place holders are abhorant to me now!
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    Senior Member Kross's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kip thorp View Post
    Art not anatomicaly correct enough ?
    Im just not particularly fond of the way it looks, thats all. Nothing really "wrong" with it though

  7. #7
    Senior Member Darkloki's Avatar
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    Gondorian,

    Thank you so much for this update. A few weeks ago I wrote a lengthy post stating how sad I was that SE seemed to be not progressing as a card game and I am glad to see that I was mistaken. I am really excited to see all the new cards and improvements to my favorite Android game.

    Congrats on the new set, it looks great!
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  8. #8
    DP Visionary tman507's Avatar
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    Nice new spoilers there. The art for the two Wulven allies is especially excellent looking.
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  9. #9
    Senior Member Cosmic's Avatar
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    Oh man, I'm liking these new Wulven cards! I've never been a big fan of their arts, but Wildfang looks like he's got some real charisma

    It's nice to see that electrical damage is getting more support, however, are you guys going to do anything with ice damage? I mean, even poison has more support than ice, and that's not even a damage type allies can attack with.

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    DP Visionary BlanketEffect's Avatar
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    Yeah, on Entangled Wisp. I like the name, and I like the artwork, but not on the same card. There is nothing wisplike about the creature in the picture. However, it could certainly be repurposed on another card and new art found that looked like a wisp for this one.

    Lost Lands is indeed going to add some really great depth into the game like we've not seen at this point. Very excited!
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