[Pod 0] Ozuul (Eldrazi Ruiner) - Playtesting

[Astroking112]

I don't think that collapsing the two powers into one actually simplifies the card very much, since they're still two distinct effects in practice. This also makes it a bit easier to miss some of the important clauses like non-adjacency or taking falling damage, I think.

I do generally have a gripe with cards that try to fit too much into a single power to conserve space, though, to be fair. In my eyes, the segmentation of powers into well-defined units makes them easier to remember and get correct, especially for newer players who won't necessarily care about the number of powers per card.

[NecroBlade]

To be clear, having one power vs two or trying to save space are much less important to me than the fact that they're so heavily thematically linked that we're already using one to force the other.

[Astroking112]

I agree with flameslayer here. We have the space to keep the powers separate, and I think that it's more intuitive that way and a bit easier on the eyes than condensing everything into one power.

[Captain Stupendous]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

I agree with flameslayer here. We have the space to keep the powers separate, and I think that it's more intuitive that way and a bit easier on the eyes than condensing everything into one power.

At this point, I think this is the way I'm leaning as well.

[NecroBlade]

Keeping the options open is a good point. Continuing forward as-is!

[Just_a_Bill]

The following is a fairly minor point, but it's a topic I've always wondered about yet never brought up, so I guess today is the day.

Just now I noticed Ozuul's height of 10, compared to my physical Ruiner figure which is 11 elevations high. This dredges up my old internal question: what do we measure to? The crown of the head, the head's center of mass, the eyes, the physical top of the sculpt, the highest point that's part of the figure's body or falls in a hit zone, or something else?

It seems reasonable to call my Ruiner's head-crown a 10, and his shoulder an 11.

To choose between those numbers, I looked at the Dumutef Guard as a canon figure with comparable proportions. Like the Ruiner, it has a hunchback, its shoulder is raised above its head, and it's basically all "naked meat" with no external weapons, armor, etc. The top of the Guard's head rises 6 levels; its shoulders rise 7, which agrees with its army card. So I went with the Ruiner's 11-high shoulder.

Is there some other standard that I should use, or maybe some exceptions to apply to certain kinds of sculpts?

[Astroking112]

Thanks for the test! I was surprised to see that he still did so well despite missing many attacks. 8L/4D and 6 move go a long way.

I think that we're pretty much all in agreement about the bump from 5 to 6 move feeling better for the design, so I'm comfortable with adding that change to the OP. I also think that it should be accompanied by about a 20 point increase, so he's roughly 210. Thoughts?

[NecroBlade]

I agree. With 6M he's always been at least 200 in my mind. Where exactly he lands 200-210, I don't know.

[Captain Stupendous]

Somewhere between 200-210 seems right to me. Bear in mind that even before at 190 with 5M, you could always just draft Eldgrim for 30 pts, so I'd lean toward a 10-15 pt increase.

[NecroBlade]

Well, you have to draft Eldgrim and he has to die. Although now I'm finding the image of Ozuul dragging Eldgrim around for the inevitable speed boost amusing.

[caps]

I didn't keep close notes but I did get a game in with Ozuul. He wrecked a handful of Greenscales and Arrow Gruts and also killed Mimring, so in the right ballpark for his point value. He rolled below average on his first few defense rolls, racking up 4 wounds pretty quickly. He also whiffed on a vortex attack that might have helped him. I did play him pretty aggressively, taking leaving engagement attacks several times in order to land bigger vortex SAs.

I really liked the feel of him. I will try to playtest him some more when I can soon.

[NecroBlade]

Notes from a quick playtest after last month's local event: Ozuul was good with 6 Move to be able to rush opponent's side, but suffered from an otherwise relatively large map and low figure count game. The potential is there, but he's not going to wow 1v1 other Heroes. Not sure exactly how much damage he ended up doing.