[Buff] Crusader

[serprex]

Buff: Remove summoning sickness after endow

Currently the best uses of saders tend to be with weapons which have on hit effects, like vagger or oceanus or jade staff. Repeatable CC is pretty useful tho, so Eternity & OE are still good. Pulvysaders is a rough trio

Early on there'll still be pressure to actually have the quanta to use abilities at that speed

Argument against: how big of a deal is it if I get to play 3 RTs immediately when I play Eternity? Costs ~15 & I have to dig through half my deck & my saders have to wait on their endow. So it's a pretty janky scenario

Makes infinite damage Boomstick-endow-shardgolem combo smoother, but that wants SoR still to cast indefinitely

[Chapuz]

Not much of a change, not game-breaking in any sense and more importantly makes crusaders a bit more fun.

When playing the crusader before the weapon, you will cast the weapon effect only once (from the sader), and when playing the crusader after weapon too (from the weapon, because sader has summoning sickness).

[Denver]

I like the idea of Crusaders, but they still feel a bit outdated. A lot of other old cards as well as newer cards seem to have great interactions and targeting options, but Crusaders still feel a tiny bit wonky. Some possible (individual) changes:

• [buff] Crusader Endow could allow targeting of your own immaterial weapons. They currently can't be endowed with Morning Star, the OG Light weapon!
• [nerf] Crusader Endow could only allow targeting your own weapon rather than getting the opponent's for free, in exchange for having an additional buff. It seems a bit wonky to just be able to PU your opponent's weapon for very cheap (1 ply of summoning sickness + 2 Quanta).
• [buff] Crusader Endow could target weapons in hand, but like Dispersion, requires the base cost of the target card to be paid too.
• [change] Upped Crusader Endow could destroy the target weapon (as if physically being given it), in exchange for a substantial buff, such as additional minimum strength buff upon Endow, like the base +0|3 Health.
• [buff] Crusader could also gain any passive effects of the targets shield, in addition to weapon effects. This would be more for flavor if anything, because most creatures are probably far less targeted compared to the amount of targets and attacks players receive. Therefore damage reduction and the like on a single creature wouldn't provide much mechanically. _{And probably require a lot of programming work. In addition to other considerations: should shield effect block instant kills (Devour) or reduce their damage to maxHP-damageReudction? An alternative would be to increase health by 2*Damage Reduction of the shield, or other similar formula. Perhaps too much time, thought, and work would have to go into this one.}
• [change] Crusader could enter the battle at a measly 1|X, but get instant Endow with 0 cost. (Your troops can't fight if you don't supply them with weapons!) However would definitely require target card cost to be paid and then destroyed to be balanced. However Crusader strategy would change drastically from "double up on your equipped weapon" -> "arm your soldiers to make them useful".

Some of these suggestions work better as a lone change, some might work better when combined.

I'll admit these suggestions are not coming from a mechanically sound place, but more of a "I just think Crusader is a funny li'l guy and I want to play fight with my own personal army of funny li'l guys" kind of place :3

[serprex]

saders are way stronger than in original

1. accelerated when endowing
2. cheaper
3. more weapons to choose from
4. being able to buff weapons means saders get to duplicate buffs, making tempervadersader quad a tier 1 deck vs arena
5. living weapon

Most likely direction I'd go is allowing endowing on morning star, doesn't impact existing decks while opening up a slow durability option, would have to make sure it isn't too strong with SoW

Not going to remove being able to target opponent's weapon. That takes away from design trying to create novel decision making scenarios rather than having cards force decks to play out in specific ways

[Denver]

Thanks for the response

Yeah I agree Crusaders are a lot better than originally, it's just they feel a bit weird is all I'm saying. For instance, I feel like so many cards were given more freedom (not necessarily in a buff sort of way) in their targeting choices in ways that make sense. Endow definitely follows conventions in that it restricts targeting cards in hand, but given that it can only target weapons, which are perhaps one of the smallest subsets in the game, it feels incredibly restrictive to have a choice in hand that would have to delete your current weapon just to give to your creature. Of course it's with good reason if they would be too powerful otherwise though; my own knowledge of what is and what isn't is limited I think so I appreciate the insight

I think you bring up a good point with the duplication of buffs, which can be a powerful strategy. My ideas however were not to buff an already strong strategies, but merely open more options for alternative strategies that make multiple weapon choices more flexible and easier to use rather the better single weapon focus. But then of course creating flexibility usually makes the already strong choices even better in some ways