A Shift in Focus
By Evan Lorentz ("Heimlich"), Game Designer
There are plenty of new things coming out with the release of Travelers, and we've only scratched the surface so far. We recently talked about the new influence and conquest mechanics, and now you'll get to see another new piece of the set: shifting.
Many cards in Legends of Norrath are designed to "tell a story." From unit cards of important characters like Firiona Vie to telling "snapshots" like Subterfuge, you can say quite a lot with a little lore and great piece of art. And now, cards can use shifting to paint an even more complete tale:
A shifting card is two cards in one. The first card is what you'll find when you open booster packs, what you stock in your deck when you build it, and what you'll draw during the game. In this example, Young Trailblazer is a naïve adventurer that doesn't know nearly enough of the world around him.
Once you've played a shifting card, its game text explains how it can be shifted into something different – undergoing a promotion, a transformation… whatever fits its particular case. The trigger to shift such a card depends on the story being told. In this case, the Young Trailblazer needs some skill acquired through battle (and a working knowledge of the terrain, in the form of a level token at his quest) to grow into an experienced, Grizzled Mountaineer. All four of his attributes get a boost, reflecting his advanced skill.
There are some interesting interactions with shifting that clever players will find ways to use to their advantage. When a card shifts, it changes right there on the spot; you're not "playing" a new card, but rather the old card is changing forms. For example, if a unit shifts in the middle of combat, it continues fighting that combat in its new form. But the new version of the card does get a "fresh start." If the Young Trailblazer has taken a point of damage, then shifts into the Grizzled Mountaineer, that damage is immediately "healed"; he starts anew with 3 health.
Another important point to consider in planning your strategies: once a card has shifted, it remains in its shifted form until the end of the game. Imagine you follow all the steps needed to shift your Young Trailblazer into a Grizzled Mountaineer, but then the Mountaineer is destroyed by your opponent. If you look in your discard pile, you'll find the Mountaineer there, not the Trailblazer. And if you should play a card to retrieve him, you can play him again without having to "start over again" by playing the Young Trailblazer.
Most shifting cards provide more than a simple boost. Take a look at another example for the Fighter archetype:
This card is another tale of a person gaining experience, but with a military slant. When your Inexperienced Officer wins a combat against an opposing avatar, he shifts into an Exalted Captain. And the Captain not only picks up a few boosted attributes, but a new text that allows a second raid each turn. You only need to invest 2 power for the Inexperienced Officer, and a little effort getting him to shift.
You may also have noticed something else new and different about this card. It's a Fighter-specific unit that isn't a Legend. For seven sets now, units in Legends of Norrath have been almost exclusively generic – the only exceptions have been important Legend characters, Mage pets, and Scout warders. That's all changing in Travelers.
The four different archetypes in the game are all designed to feel differently when you play them. Even when you pursue the same victory condition, two different archetypes won't play exactly the same way; a Fighter avatar attack deck (or AvA deck) has a flavor different from a Scout AvA deck. If units as a card type can also be part of defining those differences, it will be more interesting for the players, more useful for the designers, and more authentic for the flavor of the game. There will still be plenty of generic units in the game. (In fact, Travelers has more than twice as many of them than units for any single archetype.) But now players who enjoy making units a key element in their decks will be able to better explore how the choice of archetype can impact their strategies.
Shifting, archetyped units, and more. Get ready for Travelers.