When I won Nationals in 2015 (read about it here) I got a super cool prize, the ability to create a card! Now you may be thinking “But John, aren’t you a playtester, don’t you already create cards?” Yes, and no. A lot of the set-building happens before I come in. I do contribute from time to time on the creation side, but my focus is more on ability tweaking. Also, we tend to have strong themes in our sets – The Nationals Prize was outside of these lines.
After scraping an earlier concept that wasn’t going to test well I came up with Confusion.
It’s a concept that we’ve tossed around the Elder team from time to time, usually a little jokingly. However, I felt that now was the perfect time to shake things up, primarily in T2, but certainly in T1 as well. The biggest thing I see with the new version is the removal as opposed to discard. Recursion has become such a major focus of the game; I really wanted a way to punish it.
Confusion can do so many different things, here’s a list of 101 (or as many as I can think up) of the best:
- Remove your opponents Son of God from deck, neutralizing it and New Jerusalem.
- Remove your opponents The Second Coming limiting options.
- Remove 28 Panic Demons from your own deck, speeding you up 28 cards.
- Remove all of your opponents Samaria Sites.
- Copy it with Book of Jashar. Wait, sorry, we changed that.
- Remove your opponents Gideon no more Angel Under the Oak shenanigans.
- In Type 2 – Remove 4 copies of your opponents best battle winner.
- Play it off Hidden Treasures. Wait, sorry again, we changed that.
- Place it in Storehouse for psychological effect. (Even better, do it when you’re not playing brown or pale green)
- Name something random, like Healing of Naaman. When you don’t find it, say, Okay good, that was the only card that could stop me. Really confuse your opponent.
- Get around Foretelling Angel. Remember, it’s a remove, not a discard.
As you can see from a few of my fun examples up here, my card was significantly changed during the play test process. This is a good thing as it’s a very powerful card, especially in T2. It needed to be toned down in power, and that meant sacrificing aspects of the card. I liked to keep the core principle of what I wanted in play – Warping T2 into a more diverse environment. If you run 4 copies of a primary battle winner you’re liable to have difficulties. And stopping the crazy recursion potential of things like The Holy Spirit and Isaiah.
It also didn’t have the really cool naming aspect at the start, which potentially made for a really time consuming play as you decided what best to remove. It is a little ironic that I made a T2 card after winning T1, but sometimes that’s the way things shake out. I was only able to come up with 11 awesome plays. I’d love to hear about your plans to use and abuse Confusion in the comments below!
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Ironisaac
I think I like the psychological aspect of this more than the actual destructive power of this card. Super awesome!
Gabe
In T2 this card is like a tornado going through a deck!
Patrick Watertor
So you also get to see your opponent’s hand and deck each time you play it…
John
Absolutely. It’s even better when you can use a look first to have a better idea of what to name
Joey Shivers
Hahaha now the mere existence of Confusion will make me appear to be strategic in T2 with my “variety battle winners” when the reality is that I’m just poor. Thanks for the cover up RDT 😉
Gabe
You’re just a hipster, Joey. Strategically poor has a nice ring to it!
Jesse
I think that this card, Coliseum, and The Second Coming are really going to change the game, and for the better. Relying on CBN and running 4x of your best enhancements both on offense and defense – once a great strategy – has suddenly become risky in T2! Like with The Second Coming, it should make for more diversity of card usage and thus better strategizing and gameplay. Great for the game!
EmJayBee83
John, you say that Confusion was significantly changed along the way from concept to print. Would you be willing to write a follow-up article that goes through the various incarnations of this card and explain a bit why particular changes were made? I personally would find it interesting to get a glimpse behind the curtain into the process of card design and refinement.
John
Matt,
The biggest change is mentioned above, when I originally submitted the card it was good green and brown instead of pale green. This actually stayed for a while despite play first concerns, until we found the book of jashar interaction. Going from a DAE to split evil is a pretty big change.
Josh
When it was split Green/Brown, was Isaiah able to recur it? Or did it always remove itself from the game?
John
From the start it had the removal as the cost. Once is enough in t1, twice is certainly enough in T2
Rex Adams (Spacy32)
so can I have both versions of confusion in the same deck?
Gabe
Not in a T1 deck that uses 99 cards or less. In T2 you can use 2 copies of each version.