How about this tweak:

Replace 3x Delusions of Grandeur with:
3x IT’S STARSCREAM
A8*: *You may play this card face up to move Starscream up to 6 spaces before attacking. Otherwise, after attacking, you may move Starscream up to 6 spaces.

And then for good measure, Mecha Surge! Rockets is now: A3*: Add 1 to the attack value of this card for every empty space between Starscream and the defender.

I’ll admit my new card isn’t particularly inspiring (and may have too many effects), but one of the things that feels off about this deck is that a guy who transforms into a jet doesn’t have any movement cards. This way he has movement and big attacks; although the deck itself still isn’t great these tweaks should make him viable at least.

[…] to remake the world in his image. The hyper aggressive style reminded me of Geektopia’s Sora Bulq deck, which I’d always wanted to bring to the comics version of Duels in some […]

Do you think this tweak to CRANE SMASH would give him enough of a boost?
4x CRANE SMASH:
A2*: *Add 1 to the attack value of this card for every card the player controlling the attacked character currently has in his hand.

Right now, in Geektopia terms, I think Smokescreen is Tier 2C, whereas Red Alert, Demolisher, and Cyclonius, are all Tier 1B/Tier 2A, so it would be ideal to find some tweaks that would close that gap a bit.

A little out of the blue, but what do you think about this tweak?

Replace:
3x QUICK SHOT

With:
3x DEADLY AIM: A4: Draw 2 cards.

Then:
Tweak 4x QUICK SHOT: A5: [same effect]

That way Hot Shot has a reliable “bread-and-butter offense card” that helps him draw into his QUICK SHOTS, which now has a higher base value allowing him to get off big attacks at a more consistent rate. I’ve tried these tweaks a bit and they seem to make him stronger overall although still a bit weak compared to the other “tier 2” decks (Red Alert, Demolisher, and Cyclonius).

Just a heads-up, but the vassal download isn’t working.

Who’d have thought we’d get to a point this awesome when we were using lego Qui-Gon?

Beautiful figures!
You had me all over shapeways last week and i ordered almost $200 worth of stuff!
If you haven’t already, get over to MEL MINIATURES, not just SKULLFORGE
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/mel_miniatures?page%5Bnumber%5D=3&page%5Blimit%5D=48&page%5Border%5D=asc&s=0&section=1%2F47+Units
They have EVEN MORE stuff to choose from.
I made 12 more decks to my already HUGE mess of ED miniatures.
Once i’m done painting, i’ll share my stuff with you again!

For the figures, can I order them?

Do you play this as a Good or Evil Deck? Same question for Beckett. I always need more evil characters so I tend to lean that way.

The revised special ability language would be: “At the start of your turn, you may remove 1 Death Trooper from the board. If you do, any opponent Moff Gideon attacks this turn must play their defense cards (if any) face up before you choose and reveal your attack cards.”

Hey Roman – I saw your reply on BGG and have the deck some more thought. I’m good with removing the action manipulation effect from Gideon’s special ability, but I want the ability to have some element of 1) sacrificing his own men to achieve his ends, and 2) having more information about his opponent than the typical foe. Here are some ideas for revised language that still works with the updates deck I proposed: “At the start of your turn, you may remove 1 Death Trooper from the board. If you do…
Option 1: All of Moff Gideon’s attacks are +1 value this turn.
Option 2: Moff Gideon’s next attack is +2 value this turn.
Option 3: Choose an opponent. You may look at that opponent’s hand and the top card of that opponent’s deck.
Option 4: Moff Gideon recovers 2 health.

How are the heavyweights progressing? Let me know if you need playtesters.

From a design aspect – how did you balance each fighter? Did you have a vague formula or apply values to combos and moves? I am asking because I am really into boxing and would like to make some boxers that fit in Cage Match. Some single discipline fighters would be cool to emulate the OG UFC (ninja vs Capoeira… etc.). Kicking around some ideas for WCW and WWE professional wrestlers. If you plan to do any of these let me know and I’ll back-off and leave it to the professionals.

Love the game, keep it up.

Beautiful! Looking forward to seeing finished products! Definitely going to look into this source!

[…] his four arms are an iconic piece of comics tech. I drew clear inspiration from Geektopia’s General Grievous deck, running with the four arms concept and expanding it into a complete […]

Hello !
I’m afraid that your link to the 10YA tournament set actually only points to Mace Windu’s altered 10 YA deck on the wikia. The full set of 10 YA tweaks can still be found, but requires a search on the wiki.
The three other links work like a charm.

My last of couple of duels with the new versions of these decks.

Team Left (Aragorn and Smaug) vs. Team Right (Sauron and Gandalf)

The luck of the draw seemed to pick favorites early with Sauron drawing INVINCIBLE on his second turn and Aragorn drawing SHARDS on his second turn. Gandalf was steady as always, which helped Sauron immensely.
Smaug’s MY BREATH IS DEATH and FIERY EXPLOSION combo went off pretty often, taking out the Orcs early and nearly killing Pippin. As I’ve seen before POWER OF THE RING laughed off BREATHE, but in an odd reversal DARK MACE was stopped by a DRAGONSCALES and THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE, which put Aragorn one draw away from an A9 ANDURIL.
It was at this critical juncture that Sauron had to make a choice to use INVINCIBLE or not and hope that Aragon didn’t have his last A1/D4 which would leave the king with 1 HP remaining and Sauron defenseless against the ANDURIL that Aragorn had been holding back while he bluffed out Sauron’s defense. Sauron took the chance and killed Aragon who only had a D3 and with Arwen already gone, Smaug wasn’t able to win the 2v1, although, he made Sauron pay by bringing him down to 2 HP, but Gandalf was still strong and in the end, the ignored nearly dead Pippin used his PALANTIR to find the STAFF OF LIGHT, which cleaned up what was left of Team Left.

Isildur and Treebeard vs. Sauron and Eye of Sauron

After seeing this match, I agree that Isildur might be too tough. Because of a daring and bold assault by The Mouth, Elendil did nothing except power up a COURAGE OF MEN (although Mouth didn’t last long after that.) Any decent Epic Duels player knows how to arrange their characters to avoid THERMAL DETENATOR like cards, but some will need to take a few lumps in order to do the same with RELEASE THE RIVER, which came up big, hitting Sauron, his Mouth, and an Orc. Sauron didn’t draw into his POWER OF THE RING until he had already been wailed on by Isildur’s A8s (all 3 of them!) and Treebeard managed to get an A8 NASTY LITTLE ORC through finishing the Dark Lord off although not before he knocked off quite a lot of bark off the Ent with twin DARK MACEs. The orcs of Mordor evidently built the Tower of Barad-Dur to last, as the Eye was able to survive the 2v1 for several turns in which he finished off Treebeard, but ultimately Isildur and the Ents won the day.

-Treebeard actually had a pretty great game even if he didn’t survive to the end.
-Sauron had a bad game with playing two DARK MACEs against Treebeard being his only contribution. He could have played INVINCIBLE, but since he had a POWER OF THE RING in hand it didn’t seem like the best move.
-The Eye is a deck I’ve actually come to like a lot. In this duel he had as good a duel as any.
-Isildur could stand to lose his BLADE OF THE HIGH KING although I’m at a loss right now as to what to replace it with.

So I took Elrond and Isildur against Sauron and Smaug. This is what happened:

Elrond and Isildur won, and I tried to help Sauron and Smaug as much as I could, letting Smaug’s big MY TEETH ARE SWORDS get through for A10 on Elrond. Sauron didn’t get a great draw. He got the new A12 early, but it’s not a good card in the thick of the game since you can’t defend. He got off a big DARK MACE and a pair of MALICE AND HATE but it wasn’t quite enough to counter Isildur’s A8 and A12. He and Isildur basically canceled each other out, leaving Elrond to face Smaug. Elrond is just so very tough and played a patient game waiting for WEAK SPOT so he could carve Smaug up with his A11. In the end it came down to Elrond’s Elf Archer facing Smaug with 1 HP and both Fire Pillars, but he took them all down without really breaking a sweat. Those strong minors make a big difference. The new Sauron isn’t too strong, I can tell you that. Isildur might need to be toned down a little. I don’t know if he needs BLADE OF THE HIGH KING, he already has STRENGTH OF MANY as a potential big attack plus his A12. Elrond is just so very tough.

First, I’m glad to hear that someone got what I was going for with SEARING TOUCH. On the subject of that card, something I’ve been mulling over is changing it to a special card. I mean, it’s basically a direct damage card anyway, so if include your changes then it would be something like:

1x SEARING TOUCH (Special Card)
Place this card face up on the table as one action. On any subsequent turn you may use an action to play this card. Destroy an opponent’s character adjacent to Sauron with 10 hit points or fewer remaining.

Lots of directions we could go with this deck, but I think I like your final suggestion the most: modified red deck, 3 LOTR, and the new SEARING TOUCH.

So I ran another game, this time was Elrond and Isildur vs. Sauron and the Balrog. It was a heavyweight match it played out really well, with the dark side triumphing on the last turn by drawing his final DARK MACE, and it was just enough to power past Elrond’s D2 and eliminate his final 6 HP. Elrond would have won on the next turn with WATER HORSES which would have eliminated Sauron’s 3 HP.

– Sauron had a pretty lousy draw but he still had enough to ultimately kill Isildur and Elrond. I was thinking he wasn’t tough enough during earlier parts of the game but he shone in the end. DARK MACE is so tough and MALICE AND HATE works well enough. Sauron was down to 7 HP when Elrond and Isildur had 13 and 14, respectively, but the power of the ring would not be undone.

– Isildur had a pretty good game, getting his A8 and some A5s. Elendil got off his A6, then got killed, then Isildur used LAST HOPE to get it back and used it as an A12 on the Balrog, which took away Balrog’s last 8 HP. He didn’t get much defense and Sauron killed him.

– The Balrog probably looked like the weakest of the 4 but these are the toughest of the tough and he didn’t look out of place. He dished out a good amount of damage but drew FLAME SWORD early before he really wanted it, so it took up space in his hand. Again, the lack of minors is a big deficiency in LOTRED, so I upped FIRE WHIP to A7 and I think he’s good to go.

– Elrond is really good and steady. He was able to do some damage this game with HADAFANG and one WATER HORSES and he used MITHRIL to completely stop a DARK MACE. However, his IMMORTAL BLADE was completely countered by Sauron’s POWER OF THE RING.

I might want to tinker with Treebeard but otherwise I think this set is really good, really fun, and about done.

I wish I had a good excuse as to why it’s taken so for me long to write this, but I’ve just been lazy. 😛 Anyway, after about a month-and-half of playing, here are my thoughts on the game.

What I like:

-Simply put, it’s fun! It’s a well done, fast, light strategy game, which can have some truly epic moments (especially in the ground fights). For being a little strategy game it’s very enjoyable and I’m usually up for playing several fights in a row.

-Great component quality. Everything looks and feels great from the art, to the stands, to the action pads everything is top notch, which is especially amazing considering the price point. I honestly, only have one real negative about the components that I’ll get into below.

-It’s easy to introduce to others. I can go through the rules in about 5 or so minutes and after just a couple of plays most people “get it”. Unless the person is turned off by the theme I can easily see this becoming a great introductory game to the wider gaming community (like Epic Duels was for me).

What I Don’t Like:

-The score pad. Eh, I guess it works and is fine, but I’d like something both more visually interesting and reusable. Like maybe instead you have an actual board, that has an aerial view of a cage with the health still on the bottom and top, but the game comes with more blood cubes so you can track the health with those instead of using the pencil (honestly, I sometimes use LEGO pieces for this). Again, not a deal breaker, but could’ve been better IMO.

-The fighters are kind of “eh”. Maybe, it’s because I’m not the biggest MMA fan, but I haven’t found myself inputting any character or history into any of the fighters. Usually the fighters are just a different bonus or maybe they have a special move that I really like (Suzuki’s Whirlwind Kick is a favorite of mine), but it feels less like I’m picking a character and more like I’m just picking a bonus or move set. In one session, me and the person I was playing against had a lot more fun imaging that we were the fighters. And not really a pro or con, but on a related note, I’ve found it more fun to mix-and-match the fighters regardless of gender, which occasionally runs into the problem of two people wanting to play the fighters on the back and front of the same card, although I guess the easy fix to that is just to buy another copy of the game, so maybe this isn’t a problem. 😛

-I could also add that I ran into some rulesy questions early on, but your FAQ cleared those up nicely.

All in all, great job Roman! This is a really good game and one that’s really growing on me. I can see this hitting my table more often then a lot of big title games.

And if you know me, you know I was going to bring this up. Fan made content! I remember seeing you and Obi-Wan John talking on the wiki and you mentioned something about how Mortal Kombat characters would be a good fit for this game. So sitting here thinking about it, I’d have a lot more fun shouting before a match either “I’M PLAYING SCORPION! GET OVER HERE!” Than, “I’m playing Bruan Ferreira!” Of course, I need some more experience with the game and all the different fighters before I’d take on a project like that, but it is on my radar.

[…] charm, stage magician pomp and extremely powerful magic helps out too. Geektopia’s innovative Bultar Swan deck makes up the core of this deck, which is stylized in Zatanna’s signature Backwards Magic […]

[…] into the game was always going to be fun, and I based most of her deck off of Geektopia’s Shaak-Ti deck, which has always been one of my favorite […]

Works for me, although I don’t think DB needs an asterisk on the card (since the effect resolves after the attack is resolved and not before).

For that matter, FLAME SWORD should probably have an asterisk instead of a star, but hey it’s not a huge deal. 😛

Love this deck, but I tried to print it out at a print shop and got an error. Has anyone else experienced this and found a workaround? I would print the 10YA version but I prefer the stronger version of cowardly defense.

I ran a play test of Smaug and Balrog vs. Treebeard and Elron. Smaug went first, Elrond last.

All of the characters lacked movement. Some damage was exchanged with many minors plus Treebeard taking some damage, but Treebaird laid into Balrog, and Balrog ran away. Treebeard stepped deep into enemy territory and hit Balrog a couple more times, taking him down to 5 HP. The Balrog played A8 + A8 and had just enough to kill off Treebeard. It took Elrond a bit, and Balrog did additional damage, but Elrond finished off Balrog and had an injured Ent on his side to take on Smaug. Elrond played defensively until WEAK SPOT came out, then used his A11. Smaug battled, made it close, but lost.

Balrog has some major weaknesses that rob from his overall strength. He has to discard a lot. FIRE WHIP is weak. I found myself discarding it for DURIN’S BANE, which you really need to save for defense, because he doesn’t have any big defense at all. Add to that, you kill him, and he’s got nothing left, no minors to bother you. It’s such a huge difference in this game. I’m trying another draft, with max HP. This version of DB would actually have failed to kill Treebeard last game so I don’t know, but it would be better in a lot of games.

Smaug had a bad draw, but I was really disappointed in him, to the point of wanting to adjust him. Displaying his A8s, Elrond just used his MITHRIL for 2 of them, defended with D4 on the third, and kind of shrugged it off. Smaug doesn’t have a lot else for offense. He really needs FIERY EXPLOSION. I might make BREATH into an A9 because it should probably be better than Cave Troll and just as good as powered up Aragorn.

Elrond is a hard ass. He’s as tough as anyone. Great offense, great defense, great movement, some game-changers — you name it, he’s got it. He got a really good draw and crushed the game.

Treebeard doesn’t have to be as strong as the others, but he has a lot of offense to bring to the party and a lot of defense and staying power to carve through. I kind of think he should have a card that activates the Ents and has them do some damage, but I don’t know what card it would be. FURIOUS KICK is fun and cool though it actually doesn’t fit the deck very well.