Not every card I designed for Crazier Eights: Avalon made the final cut. This type of thing is commonly due to cards being too complex or powerful, or because there are certain other abilities needed for a set as a whole. In this case the cards were mainly rejected because I already had so many Arthurian-inspired assets that I wanted to use and they were not inspired enough from the legends. Let’s take a closer look at three of these rejected cards.
Crystal Ball
I really like the idea of being able to play one card from the top of the draw pile during your turn. The easiest way to do this is to have a beginning of turn ability that does it. Doing it at the end of your turn can lead to confusion (such as when the card gives you additional discards — can you still discard them?).
It’s a powerful ability, so it requires some type of drawback. With Crystal Ball the drawback is drawing a card when you get it. I also decided you could use it only after you discard a card. That means you have to be able to discard a card to use it. This way you can use it the turn you play it.
There are two main reasons Crystal Ball didn’t make the final cut:
One, drawing a card slowed the game down a bit more than I would have liked. The set overall felt a bit too slow due to cards like this one.
Two, the theme of Crystal Ball is consistent with the King Arthur stories, but it was not particularly recognizable as an Arthurian asset (e.g. artifact, realm, or character).
Una, Faerie Queen
Una is a pure and innocent princess dedicated to Christianity in a story called the Faerie Queene (1596) by Edmund Spenser.
Una’s ability is powerful and balanced, but I think abilities like this are more fun when you can change the order of the top cards of the draw pile. Her ability basically represents her ability to cast spells.
One major problem with the card is that Una was not the Fairy Queen in the story. (Of course, that can be fixed.)
Again, it was difficult to fit Una in the set when there were already so many Arthurian assets I wanted in there.
She is not a particularly well known Arthurian character, but I would consider bringing her along the ride if I made an expansion inspired mainly by the Faerie Queene story.
Night Troll
The Night Troll is as powerful as I would want to make a card with this type of ability and I tend to shy away from using cards that are this powerful. If you can see the top two cards of the draw pile and change their order, I would usually only let you get assets or events of the right color by using the ability.
Of course, the Night Troll was also rejected mainly because it’s only on theme for being a medieval fantasy type of card, and there were more important Arthurian-themed cards that I wanted to use.
Related
Crazier Eights 