[Design Journal: Mega Man TCG - Classic Set 5] Call Me Joe

I’ve all ready posted quite a bit on this blog about the Mega Man Trading Card Game created by my brother. I posted a Design Review and several Stacking the Deck articles focused on the game. Recently, I had the privilege of taking the lead in designing the newest set of cards for this game. The set is called Classic Set 5, and it is based on the fifth game in the classic Mega Man video game series. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting some Design Journal articles that will discuss some of my process in creating these new cards for the game, and offer previews of some of the new cards. This is the first of those articles.

Building Synergies among Minions

 

One of the things I wanted to do with this new set of cards is make sure that a good portion of the cards would have useful synergies with cards from previous sets. There are a number of ways this is done. One way is the introduction of new cards with familiar keywords. As most fans would suspect, there will be new minions with the Met and Joe keywords. These represent a particular type, or “family”, of minions. I didn’t want to just add more minions with these keywords, though. I also wanted to create new opportunities for minions with these keywords to interact with each other. Two new cards are great examples of how this was done.

Apache Joe (Classic Set 5, #13) is a powerful new Joe minion. With a cost of 4, he’s expensive, but for that price you get 3 Hit Points, a Power of 7 and a Speed of 2. Also, Apache Joe has the Marksman keyword and every time he attacks he puts a Marked Token on the target of his attack. Each Marked Token on a unit grants +1 Power to an attacker with the Marksman keyword, so as Apache Joe keeps attacking the same unit his attacks become more and more powerful against that unit. Most importantly, while Apache Joe is in play, all allied minions with the Joe keyword gain the Marksman keyword. Suddenly, all of your Joe minions gain a boost to their attacks if they gang up on the enemy Apache Joe is attacking, or on another enemy with Marked Tokens on it.

Lyric (Classic Set 5, #31) is another minion that can aid the Joes, but in an indirect way. With a cost of 1, its stats are nothing impressive. It does have the Durable keyword, which will help it stay around a little bit longer. Its most important feature is its ability, which allows it to redirect a basic attack made against an allied minion to another allied minion that has a keyword in common. That means while Lyric is in play, you can redirect a basic attack against any of your minions with the Joe keyword to any other of your minions with the Joe keyword. Since nearly all of the Joe minions have 2 or 3 Hit Points, this allows you to spread damage around and keep all of your Joe minions in play longer.

This is just a small glimpse of what’s coming up with the new set. Check back next week for another preview and more insight into the design process.