The Freshman Keyword Class
by Evan "Heimlich" Lorentz, Game Designer
In my last article on Against the Void, I wrote about a number of returning and expanding concepts from Ethernauts, including the Lookout keyword. But the newest expansion for Legends of Norrath also brings some new, "freshman" keywords into the mix.
The first is Attuned, and it's all about faction (as some of you might expect from a set that continues playing around with faction). Attuned simply means, "this card's faction is the same as your avatar's." Note that because the text on cards doesn't take effect until you actually play them, an Attuned card "defaults" to neutral when it's in your hand, discard pile, or deck. But once you play it, if you're shadow, so is it. If you're light, so is it.
How can a card that might be light, shadow, or neutral help your deck? Well, looking at the keyword all alone, you might well wonder. But Attuned doesn't ever appear on a card all by itself; it's always positioned with other game text that puts that shifting faction into context. For example:
Vivid Seal is a strong tactic to give your Mage deck extra attack. How strong it is depends entirely on you, because every item and ability you play is a potential +1 attack out of the tactic… assuming you unite your strategy under one particular faction.
And that is how Attuned is useful to you. If Vivid Seal were, let's say, a shadow card, it wouldn't be a reasonable option for a lot of Mage decks. Light or neutral Mages wouldn't want anything to do with it. But the Attuned keyword effectively triples the number of strategies in which the card might find a home. Whether your Mage deck is committed to light, neutral, or shadow, Vivid Seal can be your "attack tactic" of choice.
Because the keyword itself is relatively simple, it can be used easily on a wide variety of cards. Against the Void has Attuned tactics, abilities, items, and even units. For another example, let's turn to the Scout archetype:
A level 3 ability (with all the uses inherent in that), Frenzied Stabbing also lets you retrieve tactic cards from your discard pile for repeat use. Scouts offer lots of options for "tactic-centric" strategies, and thanks to the Attuned keyword, this new ability can be useful in any of them, whether they're light, neutral, or shadow in nature.
As I mentioned in my previous article, one of the themes at work in Against the Void is that "neutral is a faction, too." Where Ethernauts was all about building the importance of light and shadow, this newest expansion wants to put neutral in the mix as well. And since neutral is sort of playing "catch up" after last set, it's appropriate that Attuned actually benefits it a little more than light or shadow. Since your avatar begins at neutral without you having to work to get there, Attuned cards can start helping a neutral strategy immediately, where your light or shadow strategy might have to wait a few turns to change faction before they'll perform.
For most of the design and development of Against the Void, Attuned was the only "new keyword on the block." But quietly, waiting in the wings, one particular unit card had other plans.
Looking at the tournament scene over time, it was hard to miss the proliferation of cards used to move opposing units (perhaps the most popular of these being Decoy). Unit attack strategies seemed especially eager to relocate the opposition rather than meet it head on in combat. To throw a wrinkle into that very reliable approach, Against the Void included a unit with game text to prevent it from being moved – by any means, friend or foe.
It turned out that a few designers and testers had a bit of a soft spot for that unit. And meanwhile, relocation cards like Decoy continued to rise in popularity in the "live" environment. It was practically inevitable; that one lonely unit wanted some siblings, and thus a new keyword was born:
Of all the keywords in Legends of Norrath, Immobile is the simplest: "This unit can't be moved." Oblivious Golem, the card that started it all, is now a straightforward unit that just has the new keyword. And Against the Void now contains a variety of Immobile units, with many different costs and attributes. The old, reliable ways of clearing a path for a unit onslaught are now a bit less reliable.
Soon, these two freshman keywords will pass into the hands of the players, and we'll find out what sort of "grades" they get.
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