Massively

Temperence

Temperance By Chuck "Shocho" Kallenbach, Game Designer at SOE-Denver Previous sneak peeks on Massively.com showed you Geotic Rune and Vicious Assault, cards with effects that count the cards in your hand and use that resource in a powerful way. "Card counting" is a strong new mechanic that you'll find in all four archetypes. Here's one of the ways that Priest players can use the cards in their hands: The best thing about these card counters is that you begin the game with lots of cards in your hand. Other resources such as power or cards on the playmat must be built up turn by turn to gain an advantage. However, you have six cards in your hand before the game even begins. Blunting an early rush or AvA (avatar vs. avatar) strategy is easy with Temperance. If your opponent goes first, you've got the power to play this valuable tactic and shut down any first turn attack she might be able to muster. (We'll take a moment to clarify that when you play a tactic that counts the cards in your hand, that card itself is not counted. In other words, if you play Temperance with six cards in your hand, you get +5 total defense.) This card is a great fit for Priest decks since they have many different ways to draw extra cards, including Enduring Breath, Forging Stormhealer Armor, and even that nasty Chilling Inquest. You'll find that Temperance is more than just an early game tactic when you combine it with other ways to get cards into your hand in the middle and late game. In the first four Legends of Norrath sets, there are already a dozen units that can draw cards for you in various ways. Five new unit cards in Ethernauts will help you draw cards as well, making all the card-counting strategies stronger. We're anxious to see what the players can do to maximize this new "card counting" resource using the tools we've provided in Ethernauts.

07/10/08