[Pod 0] Ozuul (Eldrazi Ruiner) - Playtesting

[NecroBlade]

The Book of Ozuul

Arena of the Valkyrie Master Set



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VALKRILL
OZUUL
Species Voidspawn
Unique Hero
Class Marauder
Personality Nihilistic
SIZE HEIGHT Huge 10

LIFE 8
MOVE 6 / BASIC 6
RANGE 1 / BASIC 1
ATTACK 6 / BASIC 7
DEFENSE 4 / BASIC 8

210? POINTS

VORTEX PULL
After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Vortex Pull. 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 Vortex Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but non-flying figures will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Vortex Pull, Ozuul must use Gravity Crush Special Attack.

GRAVITY CRUSH SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 4.
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.

The figure used for this unit is Eldrazi Ruiner from Arena of the Planeswalkers Battle for Zendikar.

Character Bio:

Spoiler Alert!

YouTube

-Rulings and Clarifications-
Q: What happens if Ozuul Gravity Pulls a figure that is not owned by any player?
A: The player who controls Ozuul chooses an opponent who must place the Pulled figure.

Q: If both a Gladiatron and a figure affected by its Cyberclaw are two clear sight spaces away from Ozuul, what happens?
A: It depends on the order the two figures are chosen. If Ozuul's owner first chooses the Cyberclawed figure, it will not move. The Gladiatron can still be chosen and moved. After the Gladiatron moves, the Cyberclawed figure can not then be chosen again to be moved. If the Gladiatron is moved first, and is moved to a position where it no longer Cyberclaws the other figure, the other figure could then be moved by Gravity pull.

-Combinations and Synergies-

Synergy Benefits Received
TBA

Synergy Benefits Offered
TBA

-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-
TBA

Editing checklist

Playtest 1
Playtest 2
Playtest 3
Playtests 4-6
Playtests 7-9
Playtest 10

6M playtests 1-4
6M playtest 5
6M playtests 6-7
6M playtest 8
6M playtest 9
6M #10
6M #11-12
6M #13
6M #14

[Astroking112]

Personally, I like the idea of making the Eldrazi Ruiner some kind of eldritch horror the most. An alien from a black hole is a similar theme, but I find it to be a bit more of a stretch to explain why the creature is a shiny purple. That's largely just a thematic preference, though; I've always wanted to see gravity explored as a gameplay mechanic, and there's plenty of compelling space to explore there.

One idea that I had on the Discord server was this:

Gravity Crush Special Attack
Range 1. Attack Special.
When attacking with Gravity Crush Special Attack, roll X attack dice, where X is the height of the defending figure.

Preferably, this would be paired with a relatively low normal attack--say 4 or even 3--to make the effect more distinct on gameplay. Against most figures, Gravity Crush will be a strong but single hit, whereas against Jotun (or heaven forbid, the Marro Hive) and other large figures, the attack is extremely powerful. It's also just a fun twist on an existing stat that generally goes unused on most maps.

Since this guy is the biggest and most intimidating figure in AotV, I think that a high price point (probably in the 200 range) would be justified. We could certainly go lower, but one of the fantasies of HeroScape is often taking one large, super powerful figure (be it the dragons or other huge sculpts) and investing a ton of points into it. The Ruiner is the best fit for that role in my eyes, although I wouldn't be opposed to seeing something like Sgt. Drake Alexander (SotM) again, who basically falls into the same category despite being medium.

[flameslayer93]

IMO, an Eldritch horror would be ok but we have plenty of reasons to use the black hole angle for this guy.

1) Rule of Cool. Black holes are awesome!
2) Gravity Crush SA is both unique and simple at the same time, and I doubt we’d have another opportunity to use the mechanics.
3) We may have another Eldritch Horror opportunity with the Scions. Two themes with one paint-scheme will help with variety in the base set.
4) With Gravity Crush and Gravity Pull, we already have two solid powers for this guy, both being fun for friendly play (17 Attack vs the Hive!!!) and competitive play (Force those Krav into engagement with GravPull, while not punishing everything).

Here’s what I had in my head for this thing’s statline:

Utgar/Black Hole Monster Race/Devourer/Terrifying
5 Life 5 Move 1 Range 3 Attack 4 Defense

Gravity Crush SA
Range 1. Attack Special.
Roll attack dice equal to the size of the targetted figure.

Gravity Pull
After moving, you may choose any figure within 3 clear sight spaces of Blackhole Monster. It’s controller must place it adjacent to Blackhole Monter. Any figure moved by Gravity Pull will not receive leaving engagement attacks or falling damage.

210 points?

[Pumpkin_King]

Gravity Pull SA
Choose a figure. Up to 2 other figures within two clear sight spaces of the chosen figure are also affected. After rolling defense dice, move the two figures adjacent to the chosen figure.

Or this could be just a special power.

[flameslayer93]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

Gravity Pull SA
Choose a figure. Up to 2 other figures within two clear sight spaces of the chosen figure are also affected. After rolling defense dice, move the two figures adjacent to the chosen figure.

Or this could be just a special power.

Timing though! See my draft lol.

[Pumpkin_King]

Harbinger of the Void, The Singularion, Starborn Watcher, Relativistic Hunter, Gravitation Lord.

[Pumpkin_King]

I hit post and saw you posted before me! I like “sucking” figures together more than I like moving them adjacent to him though.

[flameslayer93]

For GravPull, I was thinking he would be using his own massive gravity to pull his victim(s) in, somewhat like a regular black hole does. “Sucking” other figures into each other would be cool too, since its almost as though he’s creating black hole. I think that would deny having a second power though, unless it was something very simple. And probably not GravCrush lol.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

IMO, an Eldritch horror would be ok but we have plenty of reasons to use the black hole angle for this guy.

1) Rule of Cool. Black holes are awesome!
2) Gravity Crush SA is both unique and simple at the same time, and I doubt we’d have another opportunity to use the mechanics.
3) We may have another Eldritch Horror opportunity with the Scions. Two themes with one paint-scheme will help with variety in the base set.
4) With Gravity Crush and Gravity Pull, we already have two solid powers for this guy, both being fun for friendly play (17 Attack vs the Hive!!!) and competitive play (Force those Krav into engagement with GravPull, while not punishing everything).

I agree that black holes are cool, but it still feels a little weird to say that coming from a black hole made this alien purple. I'm fine with being outvoted on this, though. Whatever we go with, I think that it should match the theme of the Eldrazi Scions (although I'd prefer for the two to remain mechanically separate).

Here’s what I had in my head for this thing’s statline:

Utgar/Black Hole Monster Race/Devourer/Terrifying
5 Life 5 Move 1 Range 3 Attack 4 Defense

Gravity Crush SA
Range 1. Attack Special.
Roll attack dice equal to the size of the targetted figure.

Gravity Pull
After moving, you may choose any figure within 3 clear sight spaces of Blackhole Monster. It’s controller must place it adjacent to Blackhole Monter. Any figure moved by Gravity Pull will not receive leaving engagement attacks or falling damage.

210 points?

I think that 5 Life/4 Defense is too squishy if we're going for the 200 point range. Jotun already simply dies too quickly, and he has bonding and 2 more life, along with a much better attack. Either the Ruiner needs to be faster so that it can get into engagement before dying, or it needs to be able to take a bit more punishment.

This is mainly a wording thing on the Gravity Crush Special Attack, but I think we need to use the word "height" instead of size here. Size makes me think more of small, medium, or large, whereas the height is a specific number on the card. I'm fine if we ditch the "X dice" wording in my quick proposal, although it is straightforward and has precedent with Sir Gilbert.

For Gravity Pull, I was originally envisioning something more along the lines of pulling multiple figures, albeit perhaps only across 2 spaces instead of 3. Moving one figure across a greater distance feels more powerful to me, especially with a heavy focus on single-target attacks. I haven't really sketched out what that would look like, though: everything that I quickly type up doesn't feel quite right just yet.

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

Gravity Pull SA
Choose a figure. Up to 2 other figures within two clear sight spaces of the chosen figure are also affected. After rolling defense dice, move the two figures adjacent to the chosen figure.

Or this could be just a special power.

This is a very interesting idea, but I'm more fond of the Gravity Crush as a Special Attack personally, and an ability to pull two figures together would feel out of place without some sort of a ranged attack.

Perhaps we could go with a route mixing the two directions a bit:

Gravitation Vortex
After taking a turn with UNIT NAME, choose a figure within X clear sight spaces. You may place that figure on any empty space within Y clear sight spaces of its original location.

This skirts the line of becoming a "toss" power, but it could be tweaked to spice things up by changing the number of figures affected or the initial range or movement amount.

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

Harbinger of the Void, The Singularion, Starborn Watcher, Relativistic Hunter, Gravitation Lord.

All great names or epithets. Once everyone weighs in on the theme (so far, I think that all of these powers can work pretty well with the two main themes we've proposed), we can narrow down our name for the unit.

[All Your Pie]

For an Eldritch Horror, we should definitely work on narrowing down exactly which thematic aspect of that trope we want to run with. Gravity works well as a cosmic/alien sort of power, but we could also run with a theme of madness or unknowability which would give us a wholly different power set.

For Gravity Crush, while referencing the size of the defending figure in some way is a good idea we should also keep in mind the other units in this set. Very few units from AotP will come in at any larger that height 5 or 6. As for size categories, the firecats will probably come in at large, but I don't know that anything else will. It's a cool idea more generally, but I don't know that it works in the context of the set.

Still, we could do something like

Gravity Bind
Opponent's figures that start their turn within 3 clear sight spaces of [figure name] subtract 2 from their move value and may not use the flying or stealth flying special powers.

This alone doesn't make an interesting card, but I'll mull it over. Beyond that, my only other comment is we should try to avoid forcing the figure into the 200+ point range if it doesn't naturally end up there.

[flameslayer93]

Yeah, most units being size 4-6 in the set does make GravCrush not nearly as exciting as attacking dragons or such unless the power worked well against the Crypoliths which do have a size themselves of like 9. I don’t know if the Castle Door or Destructible Wall Section would have sizes based upon their own height or the fixtures they are in.

[Pumpkin_King]

My Voidwalker custom reminds me of this, and I did a similar thing that disallowed flying, leaps, grapples, etc. I’m on mobile, look on my thread for it.