What is a Card Worth?

     This is an article that contains my initial thoughts on card values in Altered. In a traditional TCG a card has value depending on a) when it can be played and b) the releative strength of the stats that it provides and c) the special abilities that it contains. In Altered there is another dimension that needs to be assessed and that is how many times can a card be used before it goes to the discard pile.

When can it be Played?

     In most trading card games only very low cost cards can be played early, but since in Altered we are starting the game with 3 mana orbs anything costing 1-3 can be played on turn 1. This means that on turn 1 we can either play three one costing cards, a one and a two cost or a single three cost card.

      Playing three one cost cards has the disadvantage that if all three are spells or creatures then when they go to the reserve you can only keep two of them. Of course if one or two of these are permanent cards then this would be a viable opening play.

      Playing a one cost and a two cost card would seem to be the ideal opening play, but that will of course depend on what else you have in hand, whether you are going first or second and what the reserve mana cost is. You really want to use up some of your reserve each turn if possible so as to make space for more cards to be able to be saved in the reserve per turn. One of my early games I made mistakes at going for mana efficiency over card efficiency which I think can be a mistake. Losing cards from the reserve without your opponent playing something to do it is wasteful in this game where card economy is very important.

     So why might you want to play a single 3 mana cost card on turn 1 then? Firstly if you are a Kojo player and going first you will have Booda (2/2/2) already on the companion side of the expedition. Whilst you can't guarantee the little firecat will win, it will force your opponent to have to chose which side of the expedition to attack. Your 3 mana cost card will likely be better than most 1 or 2 cost plays and Booda may well hold up enough value to at least draw the companion side or even win it. 

      Another possibility is that you're going second and you have a good 3 cost card in hand that is likely to win one side. Then you might accept losing one side to win the other and you may have a strong 2nd turn play to then get ahead. Or you have another bonus token (from Winspan) in which case you will at least be present in both sides of the battle. 

     Obviously later on you will want to be playing higher cost cards, but you always want to have two or three plays if possible so you are at least competing on both sides. The exception to this is cards with the Giant keyword which applies to both sides of the expedition, but then you need to be extra careful that your opponent doesn't have a removal spell to make your life sad.

Relative Strength of Biome Stats

     The biome stats are important as you want to be stronger in everything that is important on the biomes that matter. That means the biomes that your character is on and the biomes that your opponent is on also. A character with a 7 on mountain, 2 on forest and 0 on water is pretty useless on water only fights and not very effective for the cost on a forest battle. So although you can add up the efficiency of the three biome stats for the mana cost (which I have averaged to be around 3 for most cards, there are lots of other things that may affect it in particular situations.

Special Abilities

     This is the area that has the most variance is the amount that a card is worth and the perception of players. For now I think the strongest ability I've seen in game is Sakarabru's ability to move back the expedition facing it one step back. This has two consequences - firstly it makes the expedition -1 on where they were. In a game where you need to do 7 advances to win, it means that you will need an additional advance win to win the whole game. Plus Sakarabru is a strong card in itself and will liekly win the side it is on, so you are likely facing down a -2 expedition penalty on that side.

     The other abilities are usually easier to evaluate. Boost, and Giant are just additions to stats and can be counted that way. Anchored allows for additional turns (see section below) and Fleeting is a negative keyword that gives something less tie in play (see below). Sabotage does a similar thing but as a negative to the opponent. Delay is a tempo advantage and Sleep effectively nullifies an opponents card for the expedition it is in. Resupply is a kind of half card advantage, but its a little less relaiable and I'm not altogether sure that its not a negative thing for you if you already have a lot in the resrverve or out in your expeditions.

Card Economy

     This is the interesting part of the discussion. Altered is a game where card draw is very important, but its not just draw .... its also other factors. Its how many times you get use from the card. So a permanent for instance you will get use out of forever until it is removed by the opponent or you go over your limit of permanents and have to discard it (depending on what turn you play it, you will have a card economy rating of 4-8 on this scale.

     A card with Anchored from both hand and reserve will give you four turns worth of use from it. So that gives you a card economy rating o4. With only anchored on one of the play effects it will only last 3 turns and thus a card economy of 3. A creature with fleeting will only last 1 turn and thus would have a card economy of 1. A normal creature a card econmy of 2. A normal creature with a card draw on it would give you an additional economy of between 1 and 4 depending on the average economy of the rest of deck. 

     Card economy is one of the things that I really look at for cards in Altered when combined with mana efficiency and biome stats. 

     I am looking to use these ideas to evaluate all the commons once we have more cards to look at and then use that basis to look at the bonuses for the different rares and the same principles to evaluate Unique bonuses.