What is drawing a card worth in Malifaux?

Part 2 Giving Cards a cost

How much is drawing a single card worth in SoulStones?

Originally the fantastic Joel Henry posed a question on Twitter, along these lines; "how many soulstones would you pay to draw a card?" which is what actually lead to this article in the first place.
At the time, it made a nice short discussion that got me thinking, I came up with, what at least I thought was, a good answer.

Before I vomit out a number, let's see how I get there.

First off, I posed myself the question "what would I pay?".

The typical abilities

First I looked at the possibility of a single soulstone for a single card, is this worth it?
Not to me. 

Why?
Well if we look at what soulstones can do outside of hiring the crew, you get a nice variety of things, something for attacking, defending, adding suits, for prevention, card filtering and an initiative reflip.
It's an entire different post to say which I use out of these the most and why, but I'll order them real roughly here:
1- Defence/ Prevention/ Cards.

2- Initiative/ Suits.
3- Attack.

Now with my "top tier" we can break down what they do card wise.
Defending gives you an extra card plus the possibility of your opponents on a negative card flip for damage.
Prevention is a single flip for a better timed heal, this is harder to compare.
The last one gives you 0 extra cards, but allows you to see 2 deeper into your deck and ditch the 2 worst cards for you.

Mid-tier, these are the more situational.
Suits make cards worth more than usual, I remember having the discussion with Joe about how in a game with Ramos an 8 of Tomes is probably worth something like a 10 of any other suit, he being a Resser player completely got it.
Initiative is even more situational, less important than suits for certain masters, but can control a turn, however hard to compare to a card draw.

The last tier, positive attack flips, this is one extra card, not even as good as focusing as honestly, usually not the best.

Breaking this down even simpler. I love to stone for abilities that control multiple flips and give me more than "just a card" and when I only get an extra flip, I'm raising my nose.

Preparing Fate

The one I then had to break down the most, was the draw 2-discard 2 ability.

Further comparisons to Magic: The Gathering came to mind, the discussion of "looting" and whether or not it's as good as straight up just drawing a card.

This is a bad comparison, because Magic can have entire strategies that include "the Graveyard" or the discard pile to everyone else. Malifaux doesn't really do this.

Magic also has "Scrying" an ability to manipulate the top of the deck, but these cards don't go to hand.

Still the theory of "card advantage" came back to mind, I covered this briefly in the last part of this blog.

Drawing 2 and Discarding 2 gives you 0 extra cards.

Arguably then, it is worse right?

Well we have cards scaling from 1-13 (ignoring jokers) each card is not worth an equivalent value.

Even drawing say a weak, means that is one less weak you are going to flip in a game.

You can then discard it.

You draw a severe, well that is one less severe to flip, but you can now ditch that weak that is stinking up your hand.

I've heard people have hands that are like 1,1,1,2,4,5 then they draw 1,2 of the stone.

Well, that is 8/54 cards, all weak, but you will now not flip. You can now upgrade one of those 1's to a 2, plus keep the suits you may need.

It isn't ideal, but if you didn't spend that stone, your first 2 flips were roughly 12/54 then 11/54 to flip weaks (around 20% chance) as opposed to 10/54 and 9/54 (16% chance).

I digress.

See not only does the podcast go on tangents.

Anyway, I'm not disregarding the discard.

Is draw X cards discard X cards the same as just draw X cards?

Well if we go off the last part of this blog, we know what those weaks in hand can do.

So what is draw 1, discard 1 worth? 1/2 a card? 2/3 of a card?

This is going deep down the rabbit hole!

My Conclusion & Arcane Reservoir 

Now to skip ahead, I think I threw out (or vomited up) the number 0.5 soulstones for a card.

To me that sounded right.

I'd definitely pay 1 stone to draw 2, I pay 1 stone to do that and discard.

Maybe it should be more. 0.6? I'd pay 1 stone for 1 and half cards if that could work.

All this crazy maths leans me towards my favourite upgrade for Arcanists, Arcane Reservoir (and yes, I'd use Crystal Ball if I played Zoraida).

For 2 Soulstones, I get an extra draw each turn.

If we look at the maths there, assuming only 5 turns in a game (you can flip more) then 2/5 is the Soulstone cost of a card. 0.4 for those of you using decimals.

Well the game is 5 turns, but the bearer of the upgrade is a hindrance to the upgrade, they need to be alive.

Let's trim a turn.

2/4. So 1/2, so that's... 0.5.

Well my conclusion comes out.

Or does it?

Well kind of.

Back down the Rabbit Hole we go...

Wait, stop.

So the answer is, I'm not certain.

However, if I'm right, that actually 0.6 stones for a draw is about right then this makes Arcane Reservoir "undercosted".

Maybe it is? However, then we think that it should be 2.4 stones?

However, this is why this card is so damn good, you should probably always take where you can and basically why I've rambled about drawing cards for two blog posts! 

Part 3, written by you?

Well I've said what I think drawing a card is worth in soulstone cost.

However this game has many resources and many more ways I could break down the simple task of taking a card from the top of your deck and sticking it in your hand.

How many AP is it worth? 0,1,2? What about discarding counters for cards?

Please, if you have any thoughts on this at all. Make them known in the comments.

Thank you again, I'm just going to get a mop to clean up the brains that split from my ears.

-Ben (@psientologist)

Bonus Blog: Gremlin Design Thoughts

After blogging about card drawing last night, mentioning Magic: The Gathering, this morning I woke up with a mind full of thoughts and questions.

It ended up leading to me thinking about a group of miniatures in Malifaux I refuse to call a faction.

Gremlins.

I started off, with a flurry of tweets about the concept of "Looting".
I will refer back to this in part 2 of the card draw blog, but I started thinking deeper into design comparisons, including thematics.

For the people that don't understand me:

To quote Magic: The Gathering R&D
"Looting": This is drawing some number of cards, although usually one, and then discarding a number of equal to what you drew. Looting almost always goes to the graveyard.

Looting can represent a whole host of things, filling a filtering magical powers, it this form at least, it is organised.

The purest form of "Looting" is "Rush of Magic" seen on Lilith, Primordial Magic and Shang.
Originally in "Surge" from my favourite the Arcanists was also "Looting", though we got an upgrade in m2e.
Also to me, Malifaux has "double looting" as 1 soulstone ability you can use at the beginning of the turn.

In Magic the other common variant of looting is:

"Looting": Red has its own form of looting, what R&D calls "red looting" and many players call "rummaging", where it discards before it draws. Every once in a while, these cards are templated such that you can draw cards, and gain card advantage, on an empty hand.

"Red Looting" or "Rummaging", this tends to show a lot more chaotic feel.

Imagine you are sorting through a shelf of books, you can only fit three in your backpack, you've already picked up three, they're in your arms and you pick up a new one, you look at your pile and decide if this new book is the one you want to keep, you then either put the worse of the three back, or put the new one back if it isn't better.
The Red version, as I said is Chaotic, you're packing these books into your bag as you're off to study somewhere, but you're going NOW. You don't have time to waste, you know there has got to be a couple of books that are better than pieces of crap in your arms, you fling that rubbish away, grab aimlessly at the shelf.
Maybe you did get something better, but you were hasty, did you just grab a pop-up book instead?

The last bit of "Rummaging", where is templated to take advantage of an empty hand, simply encourages the reckless style of flinging your cards away left, right and centre. As quick as possible.

Now Malifaux has some "Red Looting"

Lynch  has "Mulligan", you discard 3 cards, to draw 3 new ones, this however, thematically represents gambling. Lynch Personified. Like gambling, it can be a "safe bet" ditching those ones and twos, you know you can't do much worse.
Sometimes though, you'll ditch moderates, you need to dig to that Red Joker to finish the job.
Almost like frantically rummaging for it...

Perdita also has "Hero's Gamble" , a card with Gamble in the name, she takes the ultimate "risk", discarding all her cards to replace with new ones.

Now let's bring it back to Gremlins.
How do these psychopaths and, well simply morons, have such organisational skills or "cunning" to organise the top of your deck?
Why don't Gremlins like their Green skinned Magical equivalents have "Red Looting" instead?

Maybe that is the joke, some of these Gremlins are smarter than it first seems.

All I know is "looting" works, it is in several card based games and I enjoy seeing it in different forms in Malifaux.

**BONUS** If you play Magic, compare the card Brainstorm to Merris LaCroix current "Gremlin Cunning" and think about it. It makes me laugh. **BONUS**

What is drawing a card worth in Malifaux?

Part 1 Why I love Drawing Cards

The Origins of my Addiction

Hello, my name is Ben Alexander Sime and I have an addiction.

My addiction is drawing cards.

It's hard to say where I first got introduced to card draw and it's drug like qualities, maybe snap was the gateway.

I think the one, who really pushed it on me was this chap:

Now, before you walk away, yes, this is a Pokemon Card, don't worry this is still about Malifaux.

Bill was one card, but he would give himself up for two cards, I was good at Maths at school, but I didn't need to be, anyone can see that 2 is more than 1.

Bill taught me at a young age, a concept, which I then learnt more about in another game...

...Magic: The Gathering. Now please don't run away (that includes you Joel Henry), this is still about Malifaux, I promise.

The concept was of "Card Advantage".

Card Advantage

"What is Card Advantage Ben?" I hear you say, well thank you, I'll briefly explain.

Card Advantage simply is a term for what you could call a strategy, that having more cards than your opponent is an advantage.

To gain that advantage you need to end up having more cards than your opponent.

In card games like Magic: The Gathering, this means you'll hit your resources quicker and more consistently, you are more likely to hit that game breaking card and also the concept that if you're exchanging cards 1-for-1 with your opponent, you'll end up having more cards that they will not be able to answer.

So, wait a second.

Hitting resources on time.

Increasing the chance of having a game breaking card.

Having things your opponent cannot answer.

All these things sound good for Malifaux!

This is why I love drawing cards.

Each draw is a possibility, maybe an opportunity.

Magical Christmas Land

Every time I draw a card, it feels like opening a Christmas present.

Yes, just like a Christmas present, your Mum might've bought that DVD she assumed you'd like but is actually a horrific movie in your opinion (Elektra, noooooo!).

Maybe it's mediocre, like smellies or some warm winter clothes, you can use these, but they aren't exciting.

But, but, it could be like Christmas 1995 for me, it could be that Playstation.

Extreme excitement, dreams come true, happiness, like I said earlier opportunity!

So translation:

Let us look at the 3 "Christmas present" scenarios (though there is 54 possibilities).

The first scenario "the bad present" is the weak the 1-5.

These aren't great in a typical scenario, you do not really want to cheat these to beat someone's total, you can't be excited that your CA7 guy will be able to get too high too be stopped.

It's not all bad though.

This is Malifaux, you may have Flurry, Rapid fire or any other ability where you need to discard a card, and come on, you're not wanting to cheat high cards to it.

What about the suit, each card draw gives you another 1/4 chance (technically higher with the Red Joker), that suit may be needed for a trigger that doesn't even care about total.

Scenario two, the mediocre, the Moderate card.

Well, these have their uses, you can't rely on these cards to win you duels all the time, especially in the early turns, but they can do against a "top deck" later on.

Also, for casting spells, putting up auras and the like, these might be just the right amount.

Lastly, "when to cheat" is a whole other topic, but the moderate is a good card to cheat in to make your opponent think about using a better card.

Simply, you cheat to make them miss, they have to use a Severe to beat your total. Sweet exchange.

Third and final present. 

The Playstation, on release you could rock some Wipeout, this isn't the greatest thing ever, but it's up there.

A 13 is the highest card other than the Red Joker, but it can be beat, still, you feel good, happy, confident with your 13.

Later though, your Playstation could play Final Fantasy VII (my favourite game) and this is like that 13 of *insert specific suit here* to get that unbeatable *insert combat trigger here*, or just cast the best version of that spell.

Back into the 'faux

We can see how each card in your hand is an opportunity, cheating as opposed to just flipping is great as you can plan ahead, plus as I've also mentioned, sometimes cards need to be discarded for certain actions.

The more cards, the more of these opportunities we get.

Malifaux gives you plenty of opportunities for you to have the most cards; you can spend your stones on upgrades that give you extra draws from killing, more cards in your starting hand.

You can have abilities that make your opponent discard or you draw.

Also everyone always has the ability to draw 2 then discard 2 for a single stone at the beginning of the turn.

This leads to the final part of this post for now.

I love Arcane Reservoir

We can see I'm all addicted to drawing cards, for 2ss any of my Arcanist masters can be upgraded with this to give me an extra card every turn.

It makes every turn amazing, like every day is Christmas, but where only I get presents (actually that's not my ideal Christmas, but you get the simile).

2 soulstones for all of this joy, I think it's a bargain, but is it?

Well, come back for part 2, where I discuss more about "What is drawing a card worth in Malifaux?" in a literal sense, when we get maybe a little bit mathsy.

Some limited experience: Ben's views on Victor Ramos

So I thought I would finally get around to writing up a proper first post on here.

This post is inspired by a few people, as with the entire blog Joel Henry (@joel__henry), but more specifically James Doxey's (@mythicFOX83) brilliant blog post over at http://blog.mythicfox.com/ and also Conrad Gonsalves (@nepalese_ninja).

If you want to hear a much more intelligent and experienced view on Ramos, go see James' blog.

That piece of inspiration is that simple.

Conrad's inspiration, came to me a while ago when the epic clash of #allbranjam happened.

Previously I had played a few games of Ramos, could see the power he now had versus his 1.5 days but had mostly kept to (and I still am) playing Mei Feng.

Conrad was taking on Jan (@clankers86) in the Vassal leagues, Jan wanted some practice, so I obliged.

Knowing that Conrad was playing Ramos I decided that Jan should get some experience playing against him.

Now I will not go on about the game, if you'd like to hear a report that's on Malibros episode 11.

Suffice to say *spoilers* I beat Jan, but it was an eye opener and a good chance for me to test out things that on paper, I knew would work.

Jan went on to successfully defeat Conrad in the league (that's in episode 11.5) but I had the pleasure of watching the entire game (it was very long).

Conrad seemed to play Ramos quite differently to me, I will elaborate on that further on, but he also got me thinking.

Conrad and I had a few exchanges over twitter about the game, it was awesome to see him so pumped about it and I was very happy to see him feel so inspired and excited about the Arcanists.

My Typical 50ss Ramos List

Now while reading this, there is all the crazy wave 2 stuff to look forward to, this will change the landscape of the game and probably change the core of most lists.

For this part, let's ignore wave 2, I can get to chatting about that later.

Ramos

Upgrades:

Electric Summoning - 1ss

Electric Summoning is an upgrade I always like to take, for the most part I can't give up on that 1.5 feeling but the simple fact is that a 1ss upgrade that can summon a 4ss model every turn is pretty good value.

Now there are a couple of drawbacks, first of all, needing that extra Tome of 7 or higher to cast can prove to be difficult, having a 7 or 8 of Tomes in your hand may seem perfect, but the 8 is fighting for position with making 2 Steam Arachnids.

Using a stone to get the Tome is viable, but for me, these are a valuable resource for the way I play Ramos.

The second drawback is that it's a (0) action, luckily Ramos doesn't have a plethora of these, but Ramos (sexual) Magnetism is quite powerful.

Arcane Reservoir - 2ss

Now I could write (and may do) an entire blogpost about how much I love Arcane Reservoir.

Cards in hand are very powerful in Malifaux, especially in M2E, with Ramos wanting specific suits, loving having those high cards, every extra one you can have is a whole new possibility.

These cards can help Victor himself with summoning, there are also other members of his crew who appreciate it.

Quite simply, I rarely leave this upgrade at home.

Combat Mechanic - 2ss

As I type this up, I realise that Combat Mechanic is the one I'm not so sure about, I feel in certain match ups you are better taking other upgrades such as Field Generator vs shooty crews (Guild, Gremlins) or even Under Pressure in killy schemes.

Combat Mechanic though, is a nice catch all.

The spell itself, Combat Mechanic, is quite resource intensive, needing the Ram is part of that, but luckily as low as 3 can do, the slightly more difficult resource comes in the form of a scrap counter.

Now, my Ramos Crew is always built with intention of getting a load of these lying about, so hopefully it is not a problem.

Also the decision to heal a higher cost model like Big H Langston or Joss, or make more Arachnids isn't an obvious one at all times, but usually in game you can figure out what is best.

The fact that in M2E healing flips can be cheated makes the 1/3/4 huge!

Lastly, Accomplice. This gives the obvious set up of, heal and guy then let him go, also, activation manipulation is a powerful thing. I have had winning initiative and using Accomplice or Companion turn around so many games for me.

Electric Creation - 4ss

So it's a model, it does a lot of things, the simple fact it helps with activation control, can cause a fair bit of damage in the right position and now (something it didn't do in 1.5) makes that all important scrap.

That last bit is the sole reason I hire one, as with James Doxey's blog, the classic trick is to deploy the creation right near Ramos, move twice and then let Ramos use Magnetism killing the Creation.

From the ashes of the Electric Creation, 2 4ss cost miniatures appear, further up the table than a single move could take them and they are also 2 new activations. 

Joss - 10ss

Imbued Energies - 1ss

Now I've only included Imbued Energies here, for the most part it's because however good Open Current looks, giving Joss a (0) and all that, I haven't used it much and the point of this blog is my personal experiences.

Also, if Bodyguard is in the scheme pool, then Imbued Protection may be something to take on Joss.

He's defence 5 basic (so 6 if you like) with Armour +2, Hard to Kill and a decent amount of wounds at 9.

He's a fairly hard nut to crack. If you want to keep him alive, we've already spoke about Combat Mechanic and the possibility of Field Generator, making Joss almost an immovable object if wanted.

However I'm not putting Joss in my crew just to stand around.

He has a disgusting Melee weapon form of his Arc Axe, I love this weapon as it's "no nonsense", ignoring most protection an opposing model can have, while also having a nice sleek 3/4/4 damage track.

That high end isn't particularly huge, but like I say it's "no nonsense" and very efficient with 3 as a minimum.

Still, anyone reading this who's played Ramos knows that I'm skipping around the major reason I hire Joss: Creative Salvage.

Creative Salvage means that if Joss kills a model, they'll drop scrap, great, Ramos is pleased.

This combines perfectly with...

Steam Arachnid - 4ss

Now much like the poor creation, this little fellow is hired to die, all for the greater good.

Usually the set up is for Joss to charge the poor little bugger, giving Joss some movement and with the Arc Axe ignoring armour and doing a minimum of 6 damage between 2 hits killing the Arachnid to make 2 scrap, which Ramos can potentially make into 6 Arachnids, but usually around 4.

Now I have played games where I hire more, but if we look back, I'm getting 6 of these guys on the table for a little play around and 8ss of hiring.

I find the original Soulstones for hiring are best spent elsewhere.

Brass Arachnid - 4ss

Now I didn't forget Ramos totem, but the earlier mentions are all about how I really get the bulk of my models out.

The Brass Arachnid, well he's all about what Conrad would call the "wind up and go" power he uses.

Stoke is a great ability, Ramos has 3 huge Construct friends this can work wonders with, Joss, Big H and the Rail Golem.

The fact Rewire also can mean that all you are really desperately looking for is a 10 of any suit, means that also, these Reactivate tricks are actually pretty reliable.

Also as "gravy" he has companion and that is nice.

Big H Langston - 12ss

Imbued Energies - 1ss

Recently on Twitter I spoke about how I take Joss and Langston.

With upgrades this combination can equate to half of my original soulstones.

However I feel that because you are getting so much "chaff" for "free" I can afford to hire a crew of only 7 models to start with.

Langston ends up being the guy I choose over the Rail Golem a lot of the time, for the most part this is because I like my Locomotion with the Golem but requiring Tomes means he is fighting over cards with Ramos too much.

Arguably, Langston is also just better, Ml 7 is fantastic, this combined with either some Nimble and Flurry tricks or some Rams for that Decapitate trigger means he will cause quite a dent in any crew.

4 minimum on a Ml7 is also no joke, even with your back against the wall, no where to go and no cards to waste, he has a great chance of fighting out of it.

Big H's Steam Cloud is fantastic in the early game, giving the crew a nice bit of protection at range while all these early summoning shenanigans are going down.

Lastly, he is my favourite thing to "wind up and go", he can end up flinging himself right across the board.

Activating with Nimble he can get up to 15" of movement and then, having gaining Fast with from his upgrade during his Reactivation, he can move another 10" then flurry or just throw out a lot of attacks.

Metal Gamin - 4ss

My last minion tends to be the metal gamin, I've also played with Molemen too.
This slot is usually scheme counter based. Your ton of Arachnids can do this too, but the metal gamin is a cheap resilient little miniature that can gain some extra movement when needed and is around from the get go.
I've taken them over Molemen in the past with the thinking that, they can do the Magnetism trick and let Ramos summon a new Electric Creation, they're constructs and also, I love the miniatures.

Full Cache.

This last bit is important to how I play.
This leads into where I will finish this post off.

Brief Conclusion/ How I play

First of "How I Play" is Badly, now that is out of the way, let's hear how I do it.

Starting where I just left off, the cache.

To go all the way back to the beginning of I mentioned Conrad and how he played.

The thing I noticed, at least with his game compared to mine against Jan was how Soulstones were used.

There is one word I would use to describe my use of Soulstones with Ramos, and it's "Aggressive".

Usually I like to have a large cache, use a few for cards, keep some for prevention later etc.

With Ramos, I want cards, I need Tomes!

Almost without even checking I will use a stone to draw 2 discard 2, I also will be using stones for suits too.

I want to make those Steam Arachnids, really badly.

To me, it's worth it, even if I go "extreme" and use 3-4 soulstones in the first few turns, it means I've made 7-9 Steam Arachnids. That's 28 stones of extra miniatures, 20 after we consider I lost a Steam Arachnid and Electric Creation.

This sets the tone for the entire game, I've always looked at this as "old school Resser tech" and it almost works as well as that did.

My favourite part is it's not as "mastubatory" as it first seems.

Both Joss and Ramos have moved up the table while doing this, the summoned Arachnids are also far up too.

Turn 2 I can rinse and repeat if needed, but there is so much scrap that it is not usually necessary.

Now even writing this, I realise that Bleeding Edge Tech may be something that's a must.

Making up for the fact that Arachnids will be summoned a little battered.

In conclusion, Ramos is a powerful summoner, he has the tools to get a lot of miniatures for little effort and he has great things in his crew to back him up.

Now the list I've given here isn't the only list, but one I have played with a few times.

Wave 2 opens up some nice options, my favourite which ties in with this blog post is the Large Arachnid.

It basically is a 6ss Joss when it comes to "preparation" meaning you have stones to get that extra moleman, metal gamin or my favourite Rail Worker.

Now this blog post has gone on far enough, is probably trash and includes too many thoughts for my liking.

Hopefully you enjoy, as now I've already got a fair few ideas for other posts.

Thanks - Ben (@psientologist)

1,2... 1,2... Mic check

Well I've dived in to this blogging nonsense.

To steal another man's catchphrase;

"It's me..." Ben.

Of the Malibros podcast.

I hope "The" Joe will be joining in on this adventure of putting things into writing and having some different style thoughts down for the Internet world to read rather than just listen to.

Don't forget to make sure you're caught up, we're on iTunes, http://malibros.podbean.com and also frequently use twitter from @malibrospodcast