Duel Decks Starcraft: Remastered: FAQ

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Mechanics | FAQ

MECHANIC FAQs

[STA] introduces three new mechanics: Spawn (Zerg) , Switch (Terran), and Shield.

SPAWN

• Spawn X (Create X 1/1 green Zerg creature token/s with haste that attack each turn)
• When playing Zerg, it's good sportsmanship to be explicit whether something is played pre- or post-combat main phase, as that would determine whether the tokens attack this turn or not.

SWITCH

• Switch X (You may play this creature face down as a 2/2 creature for . Turn it face up or face down any time for its switch cost.)
• Switch is very similar to the MTG Ability “Morph”, and most of morph’s rules apply. If you’ve never played with morph before, it’s recommended to look at MTG FAQs as to how it’s played.

• Switch has two differences from morph:

  • It costs to play a switch creature face down, not . There won’t be any confusion as this set is self-contained - everything played face down costs .
  • You may pay the Switch cost if a creature to turn it face down. The creature need not have been face-down earlier for you to do this.

SHIELD

Shield X (This enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters. Damage is dealt to this creature by removing that many +1/+1 counters first if able, with any excess damage dealt normally.)

Here’s how Shield works in practice:

• Example 1: An Immortal (2/2, shield 2 = 4/4) is targeted by a Spider Mine explosion (3 damage). The first 2 damage removes the 2 +1/+1 counters, and the last damage is marked normally. You’re left with a 2/2 Immortal with 1 damage marked on it.
• Example 2: A Dragoon (2/2, shield 1 = 3/3) gets into combat with a Marauder (2/2). The dragoon deals 3 damage to the Marauder, killing it. Simultaneously, the Marauder deals 2 damage to the Dragoon – the first damage removes the shield, and the Dragoon is now a 2/2 creature with 1 damage marked on it.
• Example 3: An Archon (1/1, shield 6 = 7/7) gets into combat with a Guardian (3/3, first strike). The Guardian deals 3 damage to the Archon, shrinking it to a 4/4. The Archon then deals four damage to the guardian.

Shield is not a damage prevention ability. Rather, it’s an alternate way of receiving damage, like poisonous or wither (Damage is dealt in the form of…) Cards like Corruptor work against Protoss that have their shields chipped away.

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Individual card FAQs

Zerg

Ravager

• You must choose two permanents, even if one of them is your own.
• If this is the only nonland permanent on the battlefield as you cast it,

Terran

EMP Round

• When used against an opponent’s permanent, it generally won’t be able to turn back face up.

Engineering Bay

• If you put a +1/+1 counter on a face-down creature, the +1/+1 counter remains even after you turn the creature face up.

Enhanced Munitions

• The source must deal at least one damage (not zero) for it to get +1 damage.
• This works from any source to any target – For example, an Explosive Payload scattered to four different targets deals 8 damage total (1+1 to each target).

Siege Tank

• Turning the tank face down removes its other abilities, so it’s one of the only ways it can untap (i.e, You have to go to ‘tank mode’)

Tech Lab

• 'Switch costs’ here refer to the cost of flipping up and down, not the you spend to cast the creature face down.

Protoss

Archon

• If this enters without being cast (such as via Vortex or Hallucination), you don’t have to return a creature to your hand.

Chrono Boost

• Note the wording. You can Vortex this to draw cards, and it returns to the battlefield.

Envision

• This can target either player.

Hallucination

• This card copies enter-the-battlefield abilities and +1/+1 counters from shields. This means the Hallucination can end up more powerful than the thing it’s copying, like an Archon.

Warp In

• Note the wording. You can Vortex this to create the token, and it returns to the battlefield.

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GAMEPLAY FAQs

1. Can I play anything other than 1v1?

   • 1v1v1 FFA and mirror matches should work but have not yet been tested. Please shoot me a line on your experience with this!
   • The set is not meant to be drafted or cubed, as the colors are unbalanced and the decks not meant to work with each other.

2. Can I play this with / against MTG decks?

   • Yes you can. Even though they're balanced against each other.
   • The cards have been made to be at realistic MTG power levels, varying from the average in power (Marine, Dragoon, Consume) to the extremely pushed for constructed (Gauss Shot, Spawn Broodling, Disruption Blast).

3. Do I have to play with the implement cards?

   • No, but they're pretty fun, and reduce feel-bad moments in the game.

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DESIGN FAQS

1. Why doesn't ___ correctly represent the Starcraft unit/ability?

   • Gameplay purposes, mostly. It's easy to make a card that literally copies a Starcraft unit; less so to make it fun to play, simple, and work within the deck.
   • We've tried to strike a balance between playability, flavor, and available art, but playability goes over all.
   • There are also some mechanics which were scrapped:
     • Cloaking and detection. MTG doesn't have a direct analogue, ended up represented in different ways: Dark Templar, Wraith.
     • Restricting which units can hit air or ground only (Terran Banshee, Guardian, etc) caused complex board states with not much benefit.
     • Some spellcaster units like Infestor had to be given nonzero power to be more relevant in-game.

2. Why are the deck colors the way they are?

   • Limiting to only two colors for this duel deck allows the player to focus on casting cards instead of being color-screwed or designing cards specifically to balance mana.
   • We wanted all five colors to be represented, and found that / / to be the best split.
   • Despite the strain on design, [STA] still tries to follow proper 2018 MTG 'color pie', except a couple of Zerg cards like Viper. I hope the benefit in gameplay makes up for this small rule-bending.

3. Why are the names inconsistent?

   • Names were provided to avoid duplicating with real MTG names as of 2018, for online play purposes.
   • Specifically the cards are Lurker, Spawning Pool, Feedback, Probe(!), and Banshee.

4. Why are there hardly any duplicates?

   • Similar to the commander format, having many different cards make the game more variable and fun.

5. Are there plans to expand this deck? / I want to expand this deck. Can I have the design files?

   • Sorry, no plans at the moment to expand the deck.
   • I used a combination of a personalized Magic Set Editor file and Photoshop to make these and I can't share the set file. The art credits are all on the cards though, and can be found online.

6. Why are there so many extra tokens? Printing costs will increase so much.

   • Printer studio only accepts cards within certain numeric multiples; it would cost the without the tokens and the sideboard cards.