[Pod 0] Ozuul (Eldrazi Ruiner) - Playtesting

[NecroBlade]

That's a lot of points! Thanks for the test. Of course some units will perform better than others at different player counts (and other formats/scenarios) so it's not too worrying. Especially because it wasn't just a free-for-all where he'd probably have a giant target on his back. I definitely agree 6 Move felt better, and have also been thinking 210-ish on the points. Hopefully it doesn't take too many more tests to build a consensus.

[Astroking112]

Yeah, I suspect that this format is really where Ozuul will shine. I'm okay with him being a heavy hitter there, but 190 feels low for that ceiling. Hopefully I'll be able to run some more 3+ player games with him in the near future so that we can more accurately pin down a good balance between each extreme.

[NecroBlade]

@Captain Stupendous actually suggested this a while back, with a more complex version of the card, but what does everyone think of combining the powers here into a single Special Attack?

• The powers are much simpler than they were
• Combined it's only a little longer than Kumiko's SA and nowhere near as long as TKN's single power
• Thematically, the powers are linked in such a way that we were already forcing Crush after Pull
• Mechanically, the only change is not being able to Crush without Pulling first

GRAVITY CRUSH SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 4.
Before attacking, one at a time, each non-adjacent small or medium figure within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul must be placed by its owner on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Crush Special Attack do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but non-flying figures will take any falling damage that may apply. All figures adjacent to Ozuul are affected by Gravity Crush Special Attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense dice separately.

[Skinderella]

Combining them makes sense, and if it fits on the card I don't see much reason not go this way. Brings a nice one power card to the set and makes it a bit cleaner. Don't think you'd need to adjust his point cost to incorporate this either.

[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.

[flameslayer93]

While I understand the idea behind condensing the powers, I personally feel we would be better off continuing as we were (partially so we don't have to go through a whole redesign here). Plus, choosing whether or not we want to use the pull effect is part of the joy of using this guy. "Do I want to risk absorbing one of my units into this mass of doom in exchange for hitting an extra enemy figure or do I simply want to smack a guy with 6 dice or two guys with 4?" By condensing the two powers we take that question away from the players, and maybe give folks unfamiliar with the card the opportunity to use him wrong as there are already a fair bit of qualifiers and rules-lawyering stuff in the Gravity Pull aspect already.


His testing is already going well from what I can tell, let's continue from there.

[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?

[NecroBlade]

In this case it was copied from the "official" AotP Eldrazi Ruiner card. Unfortunately, even human/humanoid figures weren't totally consistent officially, either. I guess tend to think of height as the physical "top" of the figure, which in this case I suppose would be the 11 you measured to. Of course, as noted, depending on a figure's pose and where is head is, that may seem somewhat arbitrary. I don't have strong feelings either way on this one, especially since it'll likely never matter in gameplay except in the most extreme of circumstances. (On a related note, it doesn't look like the AotP ruins even have official heights.)

Anyone else have an opinion?