Adunaphel Unleashed

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Frodo
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So, thoughts on this? Is taking a character (as a follower who takes up no DI, you're right Thorsten) even useful to the minion player? I suppose we would have to say they are now considered to be a minion character to allow resources to target them, etc. Also, should AU stay with the character, and the charm be "broken" if Adunaphel is wounded or leaves the table?

Another, lowlier option is to go back to the "Stay tapped" idea, but this time she can only target heroes who ARE TAPPED, rather than untapped, and then they stay stuck. Heroes trying to avoid her must try and stay untapped during the site phase.

Btw, it's not a harp she uses! I think it's a "dulcimer" or a mandolin of some sort. Oh well, that sucks... there are no such musical instruments in the game of MECCG!

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Jambo
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I'm not overly keen on the idea of Adunaphel wooing or corrupting characters over to her will. It depends though, maybe someone can think up card text to convince me otherwise.

I am keen on improving the secondary effect so it is at least an option worth considering compared to the highly useful untapping ability. As Joe says perhaps expanding it so that it can have an effect on tapped characters. After all, Ren Unleashed makes characters make corruption checks regardless of status and regardless of site phase.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Agree with Jambo. Maybe can make a card that lets character stay tapped or unable to move away as long as he is at same site as Adunaphel. That means you're locked in it together, for better or worse. Only option then is to start attacking Aduni, if you prepare with cancellers you can 'sing out' [pardon my dutchism but it's apropriate here] a long time and keep him 'captivated' :wink:
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Jambo
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Hey, that's a good idea Thorsten. Let's try to formulate it into something:
Playable on a tapped Adûnaphel the Ringwraith (as your Ringwraith). Untap Adûnaphel. In addition, if at the same site as an opponent’s company, you may tap Adûnaphel to transfer this card (invert card) to a non-Wizard, non-minion character. This card becomes a permanent-event and a character bearing this card may not move to another site. Discard this card from a character if Adûnaphel leaves the same site, taps or is wounded.
Ok, it's a bit rough round the edges, but perhaps someone can take the idea and polish it.
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Bandobras Took
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If you have the card discarded when Adunaphel taps, it's going to go away on your next turn or the next time there's CvCC. I think "leaves the site or is wounded" is sufficient. Otherwise, cool idea.
Jambo
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Good point. Plus, there probably should be a clause for the opposing character having to be tapped or untapped, or perhaps wounded...

Should Adunaphel also be allowed to perform CvCC same turn? Should this card work in End of Turn phase?

If it required an untapped character and it worked in the end of turn phase, then Adunaphel wouldn't be able to initiate CvCC as the defender would just ensure all his characters tap during the battle.. hmm. Lots of permutations. :)
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Aduni should be able to initiate cvcc, why not? just not the same turn. And unless in company with other rw's that would be risky, she might get wounded. I think the power of this card would be more to move to opponent early on and block his key character for some turns, a King under Mountain Dwarf, or Returned King, maybe a dunking Bilbo even. Thus she would be alone, and rather avoid combat. Maybe we should even avoid her being in a (big) company outright.

Adunaphel Unleashed V: permanent-event.
Discard to untap Adunaphel. Tap Adunaphel during the site phase and place this card with a tapped non-avatar non-magic using character opponent has in play at the same site (ignore hazard-events preventing this): Dark-enchantment, character does not untap normally during untap phase, and may not move to another site. If placed on opponent's character, discard this card if Adunaphel is wounded or moves to another site. Cannot be duplicated.

Made it a perm, so has some cardmanagement advantage, but disadvantage that it can't be duplicated, otherwise you could immobilise whole company. (this might be deemed too good already)
Made it playable on tapped character, is a bit harder, and represents character having no defense to her mind games, or whatever it is she's supposed to do.
Character can still use Cram/Arkenstone/Anduril/Forth he hastened etc. to untap, but does not untap normally. I think that's not too bad, do you?
Made it so Aduni doesn't get stopped by River if she wants to use this card, otherwise next turn opponent is gone, or she would have to wait for Uvatha or other guy to help her.
Can also play on minion char., why not? Can be nice vs. squatting orc-leaders playing factions, hehe. They can't attack her? so play Prone to Violence. Also, you're sacrificing the use of an avatar here, there should be some reward at least.
Made it dark enchantment, so people, get your helm of Adamant ready! :)
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Jambo
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I like the idea of your card Thorsten. It's just so hard to gauge how powerful or not such a card would be...

First of all we've got site phase. So that means Adunaphel's got to enter whichever site it is untapped. Not easy. One wasted journey will often transpire to two further missed turns: One to return to darkhaven and one to move out again, assuming that the new site is starter movement away from the same darkhaven.

Why site phase if you're automatically going to remove any effects of cards which prevent site phase action (e.g. river)? Why not just have it at the same site? Or if it should require the site phase, does it really need Adunaphel to tap?

Prone to Violence doesn't allow any attacking of a company containing a Ringwraith, so such a card might be overpowered vs minion. Against minion I think the untapping will be cool enough as it is. (Her vanilla card is useless vs minion.)

Adunaphel Unleashed V:
Permanent-event.
Playable on Adunaphel (as your Ringwraith) during the organization phase. Discard to untap Adunaphel. If you have not initiated CvCC this turn, you may tap Adunaphel to place this card with one of your opponent's tapped non-Wizard, non-minion characters at the same site: Dark-enchantment, character does not untap normally during untap phase and may not move to another site. If placed on opponent's character, discard this card if Adunaphel becomes tapped or wounded, or moves to another site. Cannot be duplicated on an opponent's character.

This way, Adunaphel could have two placed on her. One to untap and one to tap. :)

Becomes tapped then means she's effectively using herself up to keep the character there, and can't tap to defend strikes or play resources without losing the card. Writing it this way also means it won't get immediately discarded when it's first transferred since she'll be tapped already.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Prone to Violence not against rw? good, we skip vs. minion, though I still like the idea.

Well, I don't like playable only in org phase, it messes with your cardmanagement bad. Besides, you want to get up and about, not wait till you got 2 on her. Requirement of Aduni to tap isn't that hard, like you say, you just need 2 AU, one to discard, one to play in site phase. If you at least can play it in site phase that is! :wink:. And since you will probably not pull this until turn 3 (you need Aduni, need a mode, and need to effectively locate your opponent), you will have 1 or 2 AU by then. Or use Ring Leaves it's Mark.
There should be some defense against Aduni moving towards you at least, not like Malady...
But, the idea to make it duplicable as perm but not on opponent works too. Just skip the org phase, that is definitely worse than not duplicable.

Like I said, if you get rivered, you may do nothing, which includes transferring cards I suppose, be it site or end of turn phase, and next turn comp is gone, so you need the clause or wait for help from Uvatha.

Like Bandobras said, if Aduni has to be untapped to keep the card on opponent, then it won't last long, so I don't understand that choice. Any maia will probably end it for her.

How strong is the card? don't know, it won't be stronger than Akhorakil, that's for sure, and the same defenses apply. You lose your avatar effectively, ok she can play marvels still (if she's allowed to tap, that is! :wink: ), and your opponent loses a char. Unless it's a key character, that's not a good trade off.

btw. I liked the non magic user part because I figured he would know her tricks :wink:
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Jambo
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The Org phase was a trade off for it becoming a permanent event which is infinitely more powerful and useful than AU was as a short-event. I've played Adunaphel and AU several times, and hand clog or bad timing with the short-event occurs quite often, especially when there might be nothing worthwhile to untap Adunaphel for! So, even with the short-event there's the conundrum of whether to hold on to the short-event or discard it. As a perm, this is completely removed, since you can just drop it to the table and have free access to an untapper whenever you like or whenever the need arises. That's much better, and very powerful. With three down you can do three things during a site phase. If Org phase is really viewed as bad, one could of course make it playable on Adunaphel at a site instead? That might be a compromise.

I like the idea of the card being discarded if Adunaphel becomes tapped. If she snares Beorn, Aragorn, Thrain or Elrond, that's almost certainly going to be a major headache for your opponent. That's a guaranteed lost turn for a big character, potentially the company if you're opponent is wanting the big character to escape, or to protect the big character from a Ringwraith CvCC. The only way out is to wound her, and at 8/10 that's not going to be easy, and of course she may not be alone.

Now, that's if being tapped doesn't affect it. If tapping her discards the card, the trade off is either tap and lose the spell, or stay untapped at 5/10 and potentially keep the spell going. Seems fair. Either way, the defending company has still lost a turn having to remain and fight, and might well get several characters wounded in the process. Adunaphel can even retalliate again next turn before they get a chance to leave! Good timing with a vanilla AU and that's going to equal pain.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Of course a perm is huge advantage, that's why I made it non duplicable, you have to keep the second one in hand till after you discard this one, you can't drop 3 and play multiple stuffs. What you mean play at a site, you mean a non haven site I suppose?

Holding up a big guy is nice, but he usually comes with other guys, and the guys you mention have same prowess almost as her, and if they team up they might win and you might lose 5 mp's (ok 10 body is high, but you might discard her). Also you can't play Bade/Yellow Face/faction/ characters/RW's word/or tap to cancel attack, or play something useful, depending on the site opponent's at. So I'm not so sure you get the long stick. I mean, the reason for this thread is exactly that tapping even two guys for a turn doesn't seem enough of profit to most people here. :?

If you don't want to tap against assassin or maia, your Aduni's really got balls :wink: Maybe we can state: Aduni must enter site each turn.
Well, you can always pack loads of Ruse and Sojourns to stay untapped, maybe it's not that big. Maybe we can state: Aduni must enter site each turn and tap. I mean, to become tapped is just so easy, to be tapped gives you bit more respite, you might play AU again. In fact, you can't even play an item if you are not allowed to become tapped...
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marcos
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what about: "discard this card at the end of any turn in wich Adunaphel is tapped or wounded"

this way the multiple copies of this same card can also help her to remain untapped...
Frodo
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I think Thorsten’s right in comparing this strategy to a Malady strategy. In my opinion, we should be aiming to make Adunaphel’s strategy a little less powerful than Malady.

My main problem with not allowing Adunaphel to tap (without releasing her charmee) is that it ruins one of the only other uses I can see for her at the site: sideboarding. There is simply no way I’m going to sacrifice all possible uses of my RW avatar just to take out an opponent’s key character! We all know that key characters can “taken out” all the time—getting wounded, corrupted, Maladied—and the opponent can still win the game. I would much prefer a RW who increased my chances of killing an opponent’s character, or wounding a select key character, thus making that character useless for a few turns. Also, if we start requiring a two-AU combo to let Adunaphel safely tap while charming somebody, it really weakens the whole strategy, and would encourage a player to just use AU for untapping the RW for a more boring and normal resource-gathering strategy.

I like this idea for AU. The way I see it, you need not keep the charm on the character the whole game; you can wait until the opponent moves more than a turn away from his lost soul, or wait until you yourself can wound this character at his site (now that you have time to draw up the perfect creature), then move away from the no-longer-useful chump, and try to charm some “fresh meat” instead!

Or Adunaphel can just attack the lost soul herself. This is very interesting because it gives her some personality; like a snake or a spider, she prefers to inject her victim with poison, wait for a safe moment (paralysis, or being left by his comrades), then make her strike. How frightening for the resource player, who knows he’s going to get attacked if he leaves!

Regarding Rivers, etc. I think that, no matter how weak or powerful AU is, the resource player always appreciates having SOME way to stop his opponent’s strategy. So I’m not that crazy about making her invulnerable to Rivers, etc., although I understand that these cards could really shut down her strategy. On the other hand, something about AU suggests a lone Adunaphel to me, so letting her have characters in her company doesn’t seem like a good route either. Is there no resource that lets you ignore hazard effects preventing you from doing nothing during the site phase? Here is one little suggestion if we’d like to encourage something different resource-wise: have AU include the line “Adunaphel may use rings (except the One Ring).” (Heh, she’s a lady, after all.) This would mean you could potentially turn her into a ranger. Btw, you could play this during the end of turn phase even if you were successfully Rivered.

The requirement that I do think is too tough is to require her to tap to play this card. You already can’t be wounded or the card won’t work (unlike Malady!!). Plus, the opponent can **selectively defend** by trying to avoid tapping his key guys.

So here would be my suggestion:

Adunaphel Unleashed V: Permanent-event.
Discard to untap Adunaphel.
Alternatively, during the site phase you may place this card with opponent’s tapped non-avatar, non-magic-using character at the same site. Dark-enchantment: Character does not untap normally during the untap phase and may not move. If placed on opponent's character, discard this card if Adunaphel is wounded or moves. Cannot be duplicated.

I’m not sure how I feel either way about the organization phase ability. Aesthetically, I like the idea of the card playing as a short-event and becoming a perm, rather than always being a perm, but if the card would be more useful (and not overpowered) as a perm, well then sure, why not.

I think allowing CVCC is fine, if she wants to risk it. That would be one reason the opponent would want to tap her out.

Frodo
Jambo
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Frodo wrote:My main problem with not allowing Adunaphel to tap (without releasing her charmee) is that it ruins one of the only other uses I can see for her at the site: sideboarding. There is simply no way I’m going to sacrifice all possible uses of my RW avatar just to take out an opponent’s key character! We all know that key characters can “taken out” all the time—getting wounded, corrupted, Maladied—and the opponent can still win the game. I would much prefer a RW who increased my chances of killing an opponent’s character, or wounding a select key character, thus making that character useless for a few turns. Also, if we start requiring a two-AU combo to let Adunaphel safely tap while charming somebody, it really weakens the whole strategy, and would encourage a player to just use AU for untapping the RW for a more boring and normal resource-gathering strategy.

Fair point about the sideboard. Maybe there's another way as suggested by Marcos or Thorsten above?
Frodo wrote:I like this idea for AU. The way I see it, you need not keep the charm on the character the whole game; you can wait until the opponent moves more than a turn away from his lost soul, or wait until you yourself can wound this character at his site (now that you have time to draw up the perfect creature), then move away from the no-longer-useful chump, and try to charm some “fresh meat” instead!

Or Adunaphel can just attack the lost soul herself. This is very interesting because it gives her some personality; like a snake or a spider, she prefers to inject her victim with poison, wait for a safe moment (paralysis, or being left by his comrades), then make her strike. How frightening for the resource player, who knows he’s going to get attacked if he leaves!
Agreed!
Frodo wrote:Regarding Rivers, etc. I think that, no matter how weak or powerful AU is, the resource player always appreciates having SOME way to stop his opponent’s strategy. So I’m not that crazy about making her invulnerable to Rivers, etc., although I understand that these cards could really shut down her strategy. On the other hand, something about AU suggests a lone Adunaphel to me, so letting her have characters in her company doesn’t seem like a good route either. Is there no resource that lets you ignore hazard effects preventing you from doing nothing during the site phase? Here is one little suggestion if we’d like to encourage something different resource-wise: have AU include the line “Adunaphel may use rings (except the One Ring).” (Heh, she’s a lady, after all.) This would mean you could potentially turn her into a ranger. Btw, you could play this during the end of turn phase even if you were successfully Rivered.
Agreed that the resource player should have a way to prevent this from occurring, but please, please, do not make it again rely on River. It's the onimpotent staple hazard as it is, and making it more so is so not what we need. If this is the route we go down, then there has to be a resource designed to tackle rivers for non-ranger companies, something for a scout character perhaps. Rangers do roadblock with Promptings, scouts have a resource for River and maybe diplomats do something else (like Lost in Fd)?
Frodo wrote:The requirement that I do think is too tough is to require her to tap to play this card. You already can’t be wounded or the card won’t work (unlike Malady!!). Plus, the opponent can **selectively defend** by trying to avoid tapping his key guys.
Perhaps yes, but if the card was only not able to be duplicated on an affected character, then Adunaphel could get some mileage from having multiple copies on her. There's also The Ring Leaves Its Mark.
Frodo wrote:So here would be my suggestion:

Adunaphel Unleashed V: Permanent-event.
Discard to untap Adunaphel.
Alternatively, during the site phase you may place this card with opponent’s tapped non-avatar, non-magic-using character at the same site. Dark-enchantment: Character does not untap normally during the untap phase and may not move. If placed on opponent's character, discard this card if Adunaphel is wounded or moves. Cannot be duplicated.
Yes this is nice, but it's got 3 x River smacked all over it. River is the only hazard vs Akhorahil malady. Making is so vs Adunaphel just means 3 x River will never not be option for the hazard portion...

Let's not also make it the same for Adunaphel.
Frodo wrote:I’m not sure how I feel either way about the organization phase ability. Aesthetically, I like the idea of the card playing as a short-event and becoming a perm, rather than always being a perm, but if the card would be more useful (and not overpowered) as a perm, well then sure, why not.

As I said above, the Org phase restriction was designed to be a counter-balance to being able to play multiple copies on Adunaphel. If you make it unable to be duplicated on Adunaphel, removing the Org phase requirement is fair. Either are perhaps just as good, although I'd probably prefer the Org phase restriction and the flexibility of being able to duplicate the card on Adunaphel.
Last edited by Jambo on Fri May 30, 2008 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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hehe, looks alot like my first version :wink: But have you considered the vs. minion play of this card Frodo? It would be strong vs. some strategies without remedy.

Are you sure this could be played in end-of-turn? I'd say it's something you do at the site. I know end-of-turn doesn't specify all you can't do, but if you do things at the site, should you not at least face auto-attacks first? If it can be, there is no reason to fear river, but it feels wrong.

The ring affecting option is nice, but it would induce people to use this card for whole other more profitable reasons than this strategy I suppose. Being a woman, she would fit in well with my 'wear rings on every finger' deck, but being incorruptable it just is not right. Also rings get tested automatically in her presence, that would be huge if you let magic and lesser rings affect her. Lastly, she's a slave to the ring herself.

Doesn't this feel like a lone Aduni thing indeed? Shouldn't we specify it as one of the card's requirements then? that would also be a counter to the untapping power of this card.
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