Hmm. It turns out it's quite hard to design decadence cards that work for slowing down the enemy, control and bleeding. The effects that are common-suitable mostly want to be things that happen in your turn.
Of my designs so far, the ones that are useful in control:
So either I just accept that my current decadence design is looking more aggressive than controlling, or I look for ways to make this more of a controlling archetype.
One big idea would be to shift decadence to "At the beginning of each player's upkeep". That lets you get the pump, lifelink and taps from Smug Cavalier, Supercilious Trooper, Imperious Guardians during opponents' turns. But it also lets you double the amount of life you can gain from Benevolent Landowner, the amount of counters you get from Britannian Arms Dealer, and so on, which is not how those cards were intended.
I don't think I want to go as far as "At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep" because it's best if the card designs do at least allow you to use the pumps and suchlike aggressively.
It'd be nice if each card could allow you to use it once per turn cycle but either on your turn or on the opponent's turn. The problem is that mechanic is called "" but that doesn't work with the pumps.
One of the ten colour-pair archetypes.
The two colours of the Britannian Faction. Full-on emphasis on decadence, slowing down the enemy, control and bleeding.
Other possibilities: Could go for a lifegain theme here, or a Britannian mech focus.
Hmm. It turns out it's quite hard to design decadence cards that work for slowing down the enemy, control and bleeding. The effects that are common-suitable mostly want to be things that happen in your turn.
Of my designs so far, the ones that are useful in control:
Common: Benevolent Landowner, Unethical Researchers (not
), Agent of Decay
Uncommon: Britannian Torturer (which might need to move to rare anyway)
Rare: Britannian Arms Dealer, Expansionist Princess, Technophile Duke, Credit Squanderer, Cruel Princess, Ostentatious Prince (makes the others useful too)
Not useful in control:
C: Smug Cavalier, Egotistical Captain, Supercilious Trooper
U: Imperious Guardians, Resources Misdirector
So either I just accept that my current decadence design is looking more aggressive than controlling, or I look for ways to make this more of a controlling archetype.
One big idea would be to shift decadence to "At the beginning of each player's upkeep". That lets you get the pump, lifelink and taps from Smug Cavalier, Supercilious Trooper, Imperious Guardians during opponents' turns. But it also lets you double the amount of life you can gain from Benevolent Landowner, the amount of counters you get from Britannian Arms Dealer, and so on, which is not how those cards were intended.
I don't think I want to go as far as "At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep" because it's best if the card designs do at least allow you to use the pumps and suchlike aggressively.
It'd be nice if each card could allow you to use it once per turn cycle but either on your turn or on the opponent's turn. The problem is that mechanic is called "
" but that doesn't work with the pumps.
Those alternatives sound interesting fwiw, although I can't imagine it will enough to guess how they'd play
Supercilious Trooper is not necessarily bad in control since it enables counter-attacks to gain life.
Imperious Guardians easily could changed to "up to that many target creatures don't untap during their controller's next untap step".