Faction's Themes

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Well, my tourney favorite or not, I don't like the SE mechanics with theme.

Oh, ok, cool, my bad.

This almost seems to be a rating of favorite backstory.

Well, theme takes on a lot of things. For example, previous popular related stories like the Drow example. You can argue all you want that they are Shadow Elves but you have to admit that Dark Elves became popular with D&D (with Drizz't) and are a reference, as much as Tolkien is a reference to most current high fantasy.

As Sauam said, I like the take on Mercenaries. They look like a power hungry mages faction (similar to High Elves in WoW) and take it from the biggest power around.
I guess the JE make more sense as a brute power faction... but that just links it more to Green in Magic to me than any other theme.

[sitnam90]

Well, 3 of the 8 pre-Rallul champions are human, and 1 of the 4 commons. Adding in the most recent Reinforcement Packs, that's 4 out of 10 champions, and 2 out of 6 commons. So it's not all about minor races.

And don't you think some of Rallul's gang are generally useful and versatile? Mundol's ability is useless without the mages to help, and Stone Golems are most useful with Rallul's events, but several of the units can be very useful anywhere.

I like Ralull's abilities, but it doesn't scream "hey we're mercs" to me. As phoenixio said, seems more fitting for a Dwarf subrace or something. I'd like to seen their backstory however and that might change my mind.

And I think races may of been the wrong word. I think minor factions is a good way to portray mercs. Of the pre-Ralull champs, all the human champs were lone swords for hire who didn't seem to hold allegiance, which set them apart from being Vanguard or Benders. The sole common, Spear Grounders, are the humans from Heap. I like the Merc deck itself, but I feel they could of been their own faction just fine with their mageic themed units. I actually see many ways the DD could of used Merc deck mechanics just fine with their current mechanics. Their units do have a ton of uses as standalone mercs with other races, just as Stone Golems for VG, App Mages in a ton of factions, Mundol with AHiB factions, and Etch seems to go well in many faction decks too. I just think thematically they don't really seem like mercs as we have seen before.

As for the recent reinforcement packs, I feel they better represent what mercs should and have been in SW. Bounders represent that minor race that you see once or twice every new round of products, somewhat expensive but useful for slower factions (Bounders + heroic feat? Yes please). Demon Hands are those cheap but powerful units with a drawback (similar to Stonecloaks), who may or may not be minor faction humans. Rygos is that lone sword mercenary like Mal or Magos, and Hulgorad seems to be the first actual major faction member turned rogue.

This almost seems to be a rating of favorite backstory.

I think it's backstory and how it translates into game mechanics. For instance, Kaewon likes Shadow Elves for tourneys, but not their back story. That what theme really translates to, how well backstory combines with gameplay. Hence why I don't like the Merc deck because I just feel they aren't mercs thematically.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

well, we have no backstory so far for the mercs so...

btw, I do feel they are Mercs. In a world like that, I understand people will sell for power (and in case of money, for the power money could give). For Mages, a source is what they want. If a Mage gets a summoner stone, he can coerce many other of the likes to his ilk. And that's what they do, the interact with all the things related to the summoner stone power.

[Barliman]

I understand your point, Sitnam. It doesn't bother me, though, since I think it's almost inevitable that for Mercs to work together well as a faction in an interesting gameplay manner, the faction deck itself would have to abandon the "miscellaneous" feeling of the Mercs in general. And, we do and will have the resources to build all kinds of miscellaneous Merc decks on our own!

Rygos is that lone sword mercenary like Mal or Magos, and Hulgorad seems to be the first actual major faction member turned rogue.

I suspect that Rygos is a rogue Cloak. (The gun, you know.)

[sitnam90]

well, we have no backstory so far for the mercs so...

That's what I'm really waiting for. But the good thing is, as barli said, even if I dont like the mage force mercs I can always create new decks...tons of new decks actually.

I suspect that Rygos is a rogue Cloak. (The gun, you know.)

I thought the same thing. Oddly enough I am combining him Benders. Controller + Clean shot= awesome