Mage class and rituals

[native lance]

My idea goes along the lines of:

Mage cards have rituals, that are a combination of 0 cost spells that are cast when a few conditions are met

Firstly, a ritual draws a series of magic circles on the board tiles following a survivors pattern, they don't take board space and the circles are through lines like a constellation

The magic circles are various 0 cost spells that activate for the minion occupying the tile, when all the linked circles are occupied by a minion, the ritual will then activate all circles at once, they cast their respective spell on the minion on top of it

If there's multiple triggers on a ritual all must be activated for the ritual to start

If multiple rituals overlap the overlapping circles will merge and become a single bigger ritual

Once fully activated the circles will disappear and the ritual clears

The idea is that it takes in consideration board positioning, and intent, it can have spells that create rituals or summon minions for yourself or the enemy to help fulfill ritual conditions

Mage class and rituals

[native lance]

Also! A good thing is that you don't need a full mage themed deck to make it work, there can be different mage minions to support other archetypes, the mage cards exist to facilitate rituals but shouldn't be necessary

I'll try to get some example card concepts later

[versed bobcat]

Am I following this right, that there will be like leylines or whatever marking random tiles, and then once all the leylines are filled, each tile conveys a specific effect on the minion occupying it?

Pretty snazzy sounding

[native lance]

I'm also thinking of having the ritual card be in the context menu of the mage that casts it, and so it will have the pattern it draws, this is just using emojis so for example you can have a ritual that's like this
🟧⬜⬜🔲
⬜🔲🔲⬜

Meaning that when you play this unit it will draw on that pattern from the top left, which would be the ideal placement for the card, if not then the circles that end up out of bounds will be lost and the overall ritual will be weaker

[versed bobcat]

Oh so not random, prefab pattern per card?

Other than that though did I get the gist?

[native lance]

Yeah you pretty much got it

[versed bobcat]

Pretty neat, and has an interesting matchup knowledge check. Play against one, predict the ritual that will be most detrimental to you, and try to contest those spaces

Also really funny if you highroll on them with a card that summons on their side and blocks their wanted spot

[native lance]

There can also be patterns covering enemy tiles that give negative effects to minions on it

[native lance]

I'll add here a few magic circles I've already though of and a few minions that use them, but it's always open to add more and to balance these

Magic circle spells are 0 cost but they're only accessible through rituals, I don't think they should be in any redeem pool

-positives-

Drakeskull rune [spell] (0 cost)
Trigger this minion death effect

Wildhunter rune [spell] (0 cost)
Deal damage based on this minions power to a random enemy minion

Paradox rune [spell] (0 cost)
Trigger this minion played effect

Beastkin rune [spell](0 cost)
Give this minion +2/+2 and force it to attack

MushRune [spell](0 cost)
Evolve this minion twice, activate it's played effect

-negatives-

Misery rune [spell] (0 cost)
Deal 4 draconic damage to this minion
Plunder: summon a misery candle

Misery candle [minion] (4 cost/0 power/3 health)
Combatstart: deal 1 damage to self and 2 damage to a random friendly minion
Death: deal 3 damage to your hero

Scalehearth rune: lose -2 power

Gorgon rune: gain 'tough' 'inanimate' and 'fleeting' set health to 1

Betrayal rune: lose control of this minion to the enemy

[sinful kernel]

are the runes added to your hand, and you play them onto the tiles?

[native lance]

Afterlife Zealot<name can change> [minion/mage] (4 cost/3 power/ 3 health)
Played: ritual:
⬜🔶⬜
🟦⬜🟦
Death: gain +1/+1

Ritual spells: 3 dracoskull runes

[native lance]

They're cast automatically on the minion on top of the circle

[sinful kernel]

so when afterlife zealot rituals, it puts down the runes automatically on the board as that orientation?

[native lance]

Yeah, in this case, the 🔶 is the tile it is in and the 🟦 the tiles oriented to it's position where the other circles will be drawn

[sinful kernel]

ohh okay

and the runes themselves, are they random or based on the creature?

[native lance]

They're pre set based on the minion, in this case it places down a ritual of 3 drakeskull runes

[versed bobcat]

One thing that would probably help a lot would just be simple arrows on the card art to indicate the relative positions in which the rituals tiles will be placed

[native lance]

Yeah, it needs to convey quite a bit of info, what circles will be added and the relative position between them to the minion who cast them

[sinful kernel]

another thing could be like cards that add something to your hand, being able to right click to switch it around and have a look at what their ritual is like

[native lance]

My initial idea is that rituals are, in themselves, a spell card, so you could right click them to see what pattern they draw

The idea is relatively simple but executing it seems very convoluted

Ok... What about this, in the card art, on a corner there'll be a tiny grid, it'll be coded so you see the pattern it draws, then the right click on the minion is to show the spells on the ritual, like this

◻️🔶◻️
🟦◻️🟦

Where;
🔶 = This minion
🟦 = Ritual tile
◻️= Empty tile

[native lance]

Hex apprentice [minion/mage] (2 cost/2 power/2 health)
Played: ritual
🟦
🟦
🔶

Ritual spells:
Mysery rune
Mysery rune
WildHunter rune

[rose scroll]

So you summon this minion/mage and then it modifies the tiles in the pattern specified, that tile then has a buff on it when you play a minion on top of it?

[native lance]

Pretty much, they're like spells
There needs to be enemies covering the entire pattern then then each effect will apply to the minion on top of it

I'm not on my computer right now but if anyone could give me a screenshot of a blank board I could do a drawing

This could be way easier to understand if I just did a drawing of it from the very beginning

[native lance]

Say this minion, you place it on the top, it draws the 3 circles on the board, then after all 3 circles have a minion on it, all three circles activate and play their spell on the minion on top of them, the circles disappear after triggering once

[native lance]

This one plays like this for example

||I fear for my capacity of communication ||

Is the idea too complicated?

[rose scroll]

no it's very cool, we actually have something like this, weill sorta, they are tile modifiers where minions can be summoned on top of them to get bonuses. Though the pattern thing is cool, it forces alot of strategy in placement.

[native lance]

[native lance]

Catalyst cauldron [minion/mage] (4 cost/ 0 power/6 health)
Tough, inanimate
Once, after being targeted by a spell gain
"Combatstart: cast this spell on a random enemy minion".

[versed bobcat]

Does this stack

[native lance]

No, it's just on the first spell cast

In my head good uses would be:
Virus curse,
Mysery rune,
Hot shot
That one dagger with plunder

[versed bobcat]

This is pretty cool

[native lance]

I wonder how it would react to lightshow

I know some cards count lightshow as a single spell and others count each light as it's individual spell cast

[native lance]

Fae Queen Veronica[minion/mage/legendary] (5 cost/1 power/4 health)
Played: Ritual
⬜🟦🟦⬜
🟦⬜⬜🟦
🟦⬜⬜🟦
⬜🟦🔶⬜

Ritual spells
8 x MushRune

A ritual to cover the whooole board

[native lance]

Arcane spy [minion/mage] (4 cost/ 1 power/2 health)
Played: move to the enemy side of the board
Death: ritual
🟦🔶🟦

Ritual runes
2x betrayal rune

This is an example of a minion that can cast rituals on death and that's why all my cards so far had "played: ritual" instead of just the ritual keyword

[rose scroll]

How would this look on the card in game?

[native lance]

The pattern would be in the card art, the spells involved cycle with right click just like traps

I will draw a card for it as soon as I have time

[native lance]

And I think you'd only get to know which rune goes where is when the ritual gets placed, adding even more information in the card could be too much

[versed bobcat]

I always pictured it in my head as a sort of tooltip, something like this

As for explaining what the circles would be, I figured it could be a list fanning out from behind the card as is usual when displaying generated cards. Beyond that, they could be numbered or color coded in the tooltip (ie purple could be one circle, red could be another)

Another option I imagined would be something like Yugioh's link arrows. This has the weakness of being unable to span beyond adjacent squares

Or it could have the config in the rules text for the card, and the tooltips could just go over the generic rules for Ritual

[native lance]

I know cards also have a tooltip to show what effects they have and from where, I've also seen it having more than 1 page and you could navigate them with [A][D]

[native lance]

This one also seems good

[sinful kernel]

What happens if there's multiple rituals on the board?
If thry overlap, would the new one destiry the old one?

[versed bobcat]

Probably stack right? Since they're basically just enchantments but on tiles

[native lance]

They stack and the ritual merges

Usually if you play a ritual that's 3 tiles and another that is also 3 tiles somewhere else they trigger separately

If they overlap then it becomes a 5 tile ritual

[sinful kernel]

And the merged tile would have the effect of both?

Would they disappear off the board when thdy're used

[native lance]

Yes, the overlapping with have both effects and they all disappear once triggered

[sinful kernel]

Ah okay

[native lance]

It should make it harder to proc but still worth the time

For simplicity sake I would also have them not interact at all and trigger separately

[sinful kernel]

Like, playing a minion there will only trigger one of them?
Then you'd have to play another minion there after its gone to get the second?

[native lance]

In this case one minion on the overlapping runes should be able to trigger for both rituals they just wouldn't have the feature of becoming a bigger ritual

[sinful kernel]

Ok okay

[native lance]

I've been wanting to draw an example mage card for the longest time... Unfortunately drawing any kind of living creature is my worst weakness...

here you go, the Afterlife Zealot

I also made a Drakeskull Rune, when flipping through the ritual cards they'll be all like this, but the symbol in the middle changes with the rune

[rose scroll]

Love

[native lance]

One day later and I already hate it

[thorny willow]

This is sick

Looks amazing

[thorny willow]

Its greatttt, come on

[native lance]

HONESTLY!!!

thinking back on this one

since towers is no more

Rituals could be a set of conditions that activates a one time effect, and then the effect would be planting runes, or the runes themselves can be part of the ritual

and runes were already tile modifiers!!!

[native lance]

could change afterlife Zealot to:
Ritual(control a death minion): plant two Drakeskull runes on your back row

so it happens on play if you have a death minion or as soon as you summon one