Neutral Creatures and Permanents

[OdinVanguard]

I had an idea for my next series: "Neutral" cards

I am borrowing / adapting this concept from strategy games like WarcraftIII where they put in neutral creatures to harrass and impede early rush tactics and also to provide mercenaries, etc.

Each would have the word "Neutral." At the start of the card text.

These cards would get played to one of 7 slots in region between the two fields (yes, I know there are none there at the moment but I would imagine it shouldn't be too hard to overlay them right?)

The cards would have costs of about one half what a creature or permanent of their power would normally have

Their skills / abilities would be useable by either player on their respective turns.

The main perogatives of neutral creatures would be to heckle both players and extort quanta from them in exchange for stopping / providing favors.

I would like to get some feedback and discussion from the community before starting. E.g.
-Does this seem like a good idea or waste of time
-What would be some good abilities
-Are there any pitfalls, etc. to look out for with this.

An example card:

Balrog  5
8|6 creature
Text:
"Neutral. Battles any attacker in column. Regenerates 50%
Pact: Sacrifice an ally to have Balrog attack opponent."
-Notes:
--Regenerate means it get back up to the listed percentage of hp each turn it takes damage. E.g. Balrog would heal up to 3 hp per turn.
--"Battle any attacker in column." means that it will strike the first creature in its column that tries to attack each turn. If the creature lives, its attack will then be directed at the Balrog.
--When the "Pact" ability is used, the Balrog will attack the opponent instead of picking a fight with one of your creatures. This only lasts 1 turn.

So the idea would be, you would put this into play and it would fight with any creatures that come into the middle of the field. Its regeneration, coupled with the fact that it gets the first strike would make it tough to kill, so players would be enticed to sacrifice allies to it in exchange for a potent attacker for 1 turn.

[epocnys]

Their skills / abilities would be useable by either player on their respective turns.

I really like where you are going with this and I would like to see you pursue it.  I initially thought of the effects from nightfall/eclipse benefiting either player depending on the circumstance so the mechanic idea is already there.  I think there is enough room to balance a card like this to make it so I would want to still include it in my deck knowing that my opponent may be able to also benefit from the same card. 

And you really have a wide open canvas of stuff you could do for this.  It could be a shared permanent or creature.  Have an effect like SoB where both get affected.  Maybe that wasn't exactly where you were going, but reading what you had posted certainly got me thinking about the possibilities. 

I assume there would still be ways to remove cards from these slots, as well as potential ways to "block" slots from being used effectively similar to what malignant cell does for creature slots, or flooding for that matter.

Pretty good idea and I think you should run with it.

[TheManuz]

Wonderful idea, it would add a lot to the theme of the game.
You could even implements "ambients" with this mechanic.

For example: a forest could have bunnies, wolves and plants as neutral cards.
A desert could have snakes and cactus and dunes.

Something like:
Booberry Bush 
permanent
1 : target creature is healed by 1.

Bunny 
0|1
50% targeting evasion
If devoured, gives +3|+3 and 50% target evasion.

Dune 
Permanent
Moves randomly every turn. Creatures in column with dunes cannot attack unless Airborne, Burrowed or

[OdinVanguard]

Wonderful idea, it would add a lot to the theme of the game.
You could even implements "ambients" with this mechanic.

For example: a forest could have bunnies, wolves and plants as neutral cards.
A desert could have snakes and cactus and dunes.

Something like:
Booberry Bush 
permanent
1 : target creature is healed by 1.

Bunny 
0|1
50% targeting evasion
If devoured, gives +3|+3 and 50% target evasion.

Dune 
Permanent
Moves randomly every turn. Creatures in column with dunes cannot attack unless Airborne, Burrowed or

Its funny you mention a forest, since a tree was the first neutral card I came up with.

Spoiler for Ancient Oak:

P.S. anyone who likes this idea can feel free to take it up and run with it. Just post a link to this topic in the notes / idea section so we can get a good discussion going. I have a few projects to finish before I begin making cards in earnest, but I wanted to get feedback started early.

[Zaealix]

hrrrm...An idea with much potential...I'd personally this as some sort of 'alternate' mode to standard games, and neutral cards not being usable in player decks (or if they are, modified versions for neutral use and player use)
Another thought, is perhaps some sort of 'based on player' type changes, think really early Yu-gi-oh, like Duelist Kingdom? I think that arc was called, with the field effects at the beginning of the match.
basically, say Player 1 has a  mark, and player 2 has a  mark- you might get obstacles such as-
  phasing wall- reduces melee damage by 1 every turn.
or maybe
  friction fields- damages creatures with 5 or more attack by 1 a turn.
The idea is that the elemental 'field' effects should be somewhat key'ed to that element's strengths and weaknesses- a  field might heal the player everytime a creature is summoned, while a  field could poison all creatures played.
 's field might generate  quanta and deal damage to non- creatures...
As for how many slots these effects should have...I'm not sure, anything beyond 2, 1 per player, that is, would need an RNG to work with, and would add an extra layer of luck to 'field' games.

[OdinVanguard]

hrrrm...An idea with much potential...I'd personally this as some sort of 'alternate' mode to standard games, and neutral cards not being usable in player decks (or if they are, modified versions for neutral use and player use)
Another thought, is perhaps some sort of 'based on player' type changes, think really early Yu-gi-oh, like Duelist Kingdom? I think that arc was called, with the field effects at the beginning of the match.
basically, say Player 1 has a  mark, and player 2 has a  mark- you might get obstacles such as-
  phasing wall- reduces melee damage by 1 every turn.
or maybe
  friction fields- damages creatures with 5 or more attack by 1 a turn.
The idea is that the elemental 'field' effects should be somewhat key'ed to that element's strengths and weaknesses- a  field might heal the player everytime a creature is summoned, while a  field could poison all creatures played.
 's field might generate  quanta and deal damage to non- creatures...
As for how many slots these effects should have...I'm not sure, anything beyond 2, 1 per player, that is, would need an RNG to work with, and would add an extra layer of luck to 'field' games.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to put in something like the "Arc" from Yu-Gi-Oh since it would probably require special coding to let it come into play at the start.
The "field" cards would make for good neutral permanent cards though.

One thing I just though about that complicates matters a little bit:
-Element specific skill costs and quanta production would be tricky to balance. There is no guarantee that the opponent will have that element available / make use of that element in their deck. So having an element specific skill cost or quanta generation would likely end up overly favoring the owner (since the card is supposed to be neutral, it should favor either side too much).

[shadow303]

I really like the idea of neutral creatures that can be used by both player!
Also the concept of "ambients" for those neutral cards (deserts, mountains, forest, ocean, ..) sounds very promising.

I was also thinking about the element specific cost issue with balancing.
Of course the neutral cards must be balanced and no player should have an element specific advantage from them.
There could be several mechanics to solve this issue:
- The element to what the neutral cards belong (and cost) could be not defined when they come in field, until a player pays some quanta and then it turns into that element
- They could belong to no element at all so basically and you can pay with any quanta of any element
- The element they belong could be rotating and change after every turn (randomly or in order, so that your element on a neutral card will come back after 12 turns)

Of course these are all new mechanics that would require some implementation in the game.

[SL234]

Yea this is a brilliant idea it would add many layers of complexity to the game