(note: this article was adapted from a series of posts in the Epic Duels Yahoo group)

Last updated 10/30/07

Roman Farraday has done a phenomonal job of analyzing special cards. This has resulted in two highly useful tools - the Special Card Guidelines document, and the analyasis tool. However, there are a couple trends I'm seeing recently not discussed in either document that I thought deserved some attention. Roman's guidelines talk generally about how to distribute the cards in a given deck. The intent of this document is more a discussion of what is or is not appropriate for a single, given card.

While this document reflects my personal opinions rather than any universal facts, it is the result of a large number of hours spent analyzing, designing, and testing various ED decks. I consider these rules to live by rather than rules of thumb, but there has been some disagreement, which is more than welcome as long as you can back up the argument with a supporting position. This document will be modified over time if it makes sense to do so.

PRECEPT #1: ANY CARD WITH A DEFENSE OF 8 OR GREATER IS EFFECTIVELY INFINITE

Only three cards in the entire base game - Bowcaster, Kyber Dart, Precise Shot - have an attack that exceeds 8 - and of these, only Bowcaster exceeds 9. This means that unless you're specifically playing against Han, a defense of 9 will absolutely cancel absolutely any attack.

Defense of 5 or greater will block all basic attacks but not all special attacks. Defense of 8 will block almost all special attacks. Defense of 9 will block every special attack except Bowcaster. Defense of 11 or greater will block absolutely everything.

There is of course a corollary to this:

PRECEPT 1.1: ANY ATTACK CARD WITH ATTACK OF 6 OR GREATER WILL PENETRATE ALL BASIC DEFENSE

Some cards have a special that triggers if damage is dealt. Note that if the card is doing 6 or more damage it will almost always deal damage. If you want a card to have a special effect that doesn't always trigger, basing it on damage with an attack strength of 3 or 4 will usually get it to trigger. 1 or 2 will almost always be blocked; 5 will almost always do at least 1, and 6 or greater will always hit unless the deck has good power defense.

PRECEPT #2: DIRECT DAMAGE IS DISPROPORTIONATLY POWERFUL WHEN COMPARED AGAINST ATTACK STRENGTH

Most games where direct damage comes into play offer rules that allow you to mitigate some or all of it. Dungeons and Dragons allows a saving throw for almost every otherwise unavoidable form of damage; Magic: the Gathering includes a class of cards called Counterspells which can cancel the effect of a direct damage attack; HeroClix requires that all attacks be made with a die roll, so unless a figure with a very high attack engages a figure with a very low defense, damage is not assured, and even then a roll of double ones represents a failure. Epic Duels, however, does not include ANY provision for countering direct damage.

Minor characters can never be healed except in team play, so direct damage to a minor character is effectively forever. Major characters can be healed assuming the death of their minor(s), but this creates a different problem: assuming you've got the dead cards to lose, it takes an entire turn to heal two points of damage (obviously I'm overlooking cards that allow multiple points of healing for this discussion, but they are appreciably rare to warrant the overlook). As a result, any card that deals three or more points of damage creates a defecit proposition for the defender, because it's impossible to counter the damage in one turn. This is why Vader's Choke is limited to minors; using all three of them would kill several major characters without giving them a single chance to defend themselves, whether or not any combat damage was dealt over the duel - doubly so if even one minor had even 1 hit point. This would be more acceptable if the target could voluntarily do damage to or kill their minors so as to gain access to healing, but there are no provisions in the ED rules to allow for this.

Direct damage should therefore be used sparingly. My personal rule of thumb is that there should never be direct damage greater than 3 without limitations - such as a requirement of adjacency, or allowing a player to discard to mitigate some of the damage. (NOTE: Previous versions of this document listed 2 as the upper limit, but I have since been convinced, both by argument and by experience, that 3 is acceptable in most cases.)

PRECEPT #3: NOT ALL MOVEMENT IS CREATED EQUAL

Ignoring for a moment the concept of conditional movement effects (such as Flamethrower's provision to move any character that has taken damage) there are five classes of movement effect. I'm listing them here in terms of their relative value as I see it:

• Move all characters
• Move any one character
• Move all of your characters
• Move any one of your characters
• Move one specific character you control (usually the major but it doesn't have to be)

Take into account the various differing levels of power that different types of movement offer, especially when using the analysis tool which doesn't account for this difference very well.

PRECEPT #4: DRAW A CARD VERSUS DOES NOT COUNT AS AN ACTION

In the Epic Duels system, drawing a card counts as one action against two actions you are allotted in a given turn. This means in a normal turn you can:

• Draw two cards
• Draw a card and play a crad
• Play two cards

This means that, on paper, the "draw a card" mechanic as a secondary effect equates to a bonus action for the turn; as it effectively allows a free Draw action. This means I could, conceivably, play two cards and draw two cards over the course of one turn, effectively doubling my turn's net effectiveness.

That said, the "does not count as an action" mechanic is superior yet. While a pair of "draw a card" cards allow you to double a turn's net effectiveness, a hand full of "does not count as an action" cards potentially lets you take five or more net actions per turn - particularly if one or more of the cards played allows for a card draw!

This leads to a subprecept:

PRECEPT #4.1: NO POWER OR SPECIAL CARD SHOULD HAVE MORE THAN TWO EFFECTS

A Power or Special card should have either one very valuable effect, or one or two lesser effects. In the case of a Power combat card, the offense or defensive value of the card should be considered one of those effects.

Under very rare circumstances, it is occasionally possible for a card to carry 3 effects and not be unbalanced in the specific context of the deck that includes it, but it almost never happens. In such a case, you should defintely be sure that "draw a card" and "does not count as an action" do not coexist.

PRECEPT #5: A CARD THAT DRAWS 1 OR 2 AS ITS SOLE EFFECT IS A PENALTY

The ability to draw one card as a secondary action is a nice one, and can fill out an otherwise unexciting card. However, if the main ability of a card is the ability to draw additional cards, you have to be able to draw at least three for the card to be worth it.

The 2 action structure of each turn means that to draw a card and play that card counts as two separate actions. Hence, drawing a card that says "draw two cards" and then playing it means that, in two actions, you've drawn two cards...which is exactly the same as having spent two actions drawing cards. Meanwhile, playing a card that says "draw one card" is no different, in effect, from discarding a card to draw a card once you hit the hand limit.

A single card draw can be tacked on as a secondary effect to make an unexciting card better. However, drawing 2 cards as a secondary effect is pretty damn powerful, and should really only be paired with a low-value action or be conditional, if used at all.

PRECEPT #6: JEDI SHOULD NOT ATTACK AT RANGE WITH A SINGLE CARD

(NOTE: Since the vast majority of melee fighters in the game (both basic and custom) are Jedi, I use the term interchangeably with "melee fighter" as a form of shorthand.)

The main strategic element of Epic Duels comes from not knowing what card your opponent is attacking with. This seems obvious, but a few custom decks contain Jedi that have a single ranged attack (Asajj 1.0 was a perfect example). This makes perfect sense in terms of game mechanics; you simply say "I'm attacking at range" when playing the card and it's understood that, even though Jedi don't typically do this, you have a card that allows for it to happen.

The problem arises when you only have one card that allows it. Asajj 1.0 had a power attack called Force Blast that was an A4 that could be played at range. So whenever Asajj announced an attack at range, it was immediately obvious that it was an A4 and the target knew exactly how to defend.

This leads to a pair of subprecepts:

PRECEPT 6.1: THE BEST SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM IS TO GIVE THE JEDI A SPECIAL CARD THAT ALLOWS FOR RANGED DAMAGE

Jedi, in the vast majority of cases, are not snipers; they are up close and personal fighters who use only limited range attacks via the Force. It's unlikely that a Jedi will ever attack at range in more than one manner, so it's just as easy to create a Special card with conditional effects that allow for the target to mitigate the damage.

PRECEPT 6.2: IF YOU GIVE A JEDI DECK RANGED ATTACK CAPABILITY, ENSURE THAT IT IS REPRESENTED BY MORE THAN ONE KIND OF CARD

There are a couple of ways to do this. Early drafts of my Mara Jade deck allowed her to play any Basic attack at range with a -1 penalty to attack value; there were also Power Attacks that could be played at range. While this works, in practice it was somewhat clumsy and it was rare for Mara to attack at range with a basic card. The better approach is to have 2 or 3 kinds of ranged attack cards, but even then it's not especially difficult to count cards in a 31 card deck, so if your opponent lasts to midgame they should be able to predict with reasonable certainty the odds of a given ranged attack card coming up.

It is, in short, best to leave ranged attacks to ranged attackers, and give Jedi ranged capabilities via Special cards.