#pilot cards

[toothpicktiger]

The Alpha Strike Draft Cube

TL;DR: If you like drafting cards and playing Alpha Strike, this is the format for you! Click here for the full rules of the format.

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Inspiration

For my first non-introductory post on this blog, i want to share something i've been working on for a couple months. A marriage between my last hobby, Magic: the Gathering, and my current one, Battletech: Alpha Strike. Introducing the Alpha Strike Cube! Also known by its even clunkier name: Alpha Strike Booster Draft Cube. I really need a sexier name for this format...

When i played Magic more regularly, drafting, then cube, became my #1 favorite way to play. I now have an affinity toward deckbuilders, and card games with limited/draft play. So, when I got interested in Alpha Strike and noticed that their units are on cards, the very first thing I expected to see was a draft format using them. To my surprise, the only format I could find that was similar is Wolf Net's Drafted for War format which uses the salvage boxes or other boxed products as "boosters" in a draft-like format.

This is not the experience i was looking for. So, in the spirit of being a California Bay Area native, i decided to make a startup up my own format!

Overview

The defining feature of my format is the drafting portion of it. At a high level, players draft 2 packs of 10 unit cards, plus a pack 3 pilot cards. Afterwards they use those cards to create a 250PV list (12 units max), and play an objective focused game with the others at the table who did the same.

Taking inspiration from Wolf Net's AS350 format, the (currently in beta) matched play rules, and the Battletech video games, objectives are randomized and each table (which i set up ahead of time) has Terrain Rules which affect gameplay and list building.

Design Principles and Intent

Which brings me to the guiding principles of this format and the skills I think this format is designed to test: flexible list building and drafting. Everything about this format should point back to these principles. If a feature or optional rule doesn't connect back to these principles, it's not meant for this format. Keeping these in mind is how i settled on some of the unique features of the format.

Unique Features

This format has a few unique features that set it apart from other formats i've played so far:

Constrained Unit Cards

Pilot Cards

[optional] Terrain Rules

Below I'll describe each of these, and explain how I arrived at their inclusion.

Constrained Unit Cards

Normally in list building, players pick units then adjust pilot skills anywhere from 0-7 in order to help players dial in their point totals to be as close to a certain PV limit (250 in this case) as possible. However, this was slowing down list building, and it meant players could run really silly one-trick lists using only exactly the units they wanted. Part of my definition of being a flexible list builder, is going outside of your comfort zone and trying units you don't normally try. This exact kind of restraint is how I found some new favorite units!

A suggestion I got a few times was to constrain how much you can adjust a unit's skill. While I think this is correct, I didn't want to have players referencing the PV adjustment charts all the time, slowing down list building. Then, someone suggested writing the PVs on the cards. I almost dismissed this out of hand because it would make cards unreadable, but then I remembered that Jeff's Battletech Tools (RIP, Jeff) lists both the unit's current PV and the base PV of the unit (I hope you're listening MUL 2.0 developers!). This is a perfect solution because it gives me, the cube designer, the ability to balance the cube and a binary choice for players is easy to understand. You can take a unit as-printed or reset them to the default skill of 4.

Pilot Cards

I wanted to integrate some components that I think are cool but underutilized. So I looked at the Faction/Combat Command cards you get in the official CGL card packs for Succession Wars and Clan Invasion and the pilot cards you get in every force pack and boxed set.

In my testing, I found that using both of these was a bit too much for players to handle in a timely manner. So, I knew that one had to be cut (honestly one of my favorite parts of game design). In the end, pilot cards won because the nature of them ties more directly into your list since they can affect the PV of the unit they're assigned to. This extra "knob" lets players dial in their PV better so that they can hit on or close to 250PV much easier.

So, how do you use a pilot card? Well, I leaned on the information in the card and the AS PV system. In short, you may assign a pilot card to any unit that is exactly the same size as the pilot's listed unit. That unit must be set to the skill level (the large number in the top left or right corner of the card) of the pilot, paying for any PV adjustments. Then, you may turn on their Special Pilot Abilities (SPA) by adding the cost to the assigned unit's PV.

The above is an example of one of the pilot cards that I modify for use in the draft. This pilot card for Katherine is a Skill 2 pilot for Size 3 unit (the pictured Mad Cat is a Size 3 unit) with the Cluster Hitter SPA which costs 2 PV to activate.

It was this last bit that really made these pilot cards stand out. SPAs are cool features of AS and folks tend to not use them for balance concerns. In this format, I can curate which SPAs are allowed in a very invisible and organic way. No need to ban abilities when I can just not include them!

This relates to a fun fact about this format I discovered in playtesting and development: there's no reason to have a banlist of things like SPAs or Special Abilities. If I don't want people to, say, use artillery, I can just not include any artillery cards (I did include them because I want them in the format, but they're often banned in other formats). As a corollary, I can safely enable all abilities that are present on cards. This means we can get real weird with the card choice. But my method for building the card pool is for another post...

[optional] Terrain Rules

One thing I love about the Mechwarrior and Battletech PC games is the map variety. Part of that variety are terrain/weather conditions that affect play. These seem to be rarely used outside of campaign play, but when I have used them they greatly affected my unit choices. Sounds perfect for this format's guiding principles, no?

So, when planning for this format, I will print displays for special terrain rules for each table. What makes good terrain rules for this format is the same as everything else: the rules must have the potential to influence unit choice in a meaningful way without mandating it.

Good examples are the Snow Terrain rules shown earlier in this post and the Night Ops posted above. The former encourages the use of units with Overheat and units with Jump to get around the ice. The the latter encourages having one scary unit as an ambushing unit, drafting vehicles with SRCH and mechs to combat the night time modifier, and drafting scouts to help light up targets (literally!).

Conclusion

That's the overview of this fun and unique format. If you are interested in running it yourself, the rules are available at the top of this post. Additionally, I plan on doing some follow-up posts that detail what you need as an event host/T.O. in order to run this yourself. Plus, there will be advice on how to build an interesting cube pool for players to draft from.

Until then, If you're in the California Bay area and interested in trying this format out, keep an eye out at our many local gaming cons. I might just be running this there, or, at the very least, I'll have my cube on me if you want to play a pickup game with it. It's great for that!

[pilotdragonmiku]

kaijou in maid outfits playing one piece tcg???,,,,

if someone can guess the decks theyre playing ill draw ur fav kaijou idea... or zosan

[lilyrosegold]

I think all the pilot program should get matching tattoos but instead of it being a new tattoo they all share I think everyone should just also gets Sam’s name in a heart on their hip

[calicooken]

Ok so I saw there’s a lot of ppl talking about Caleb being a scary Yandere in the main story chapters but aren’t we gonna talk about these?

A bit spoilers of Caleb’s 4&5 stars card

MC is such a brat to him 😭😭😭😭 (I love it so much)

Also, He spoiled her ROTTEN 😩😩😩😩

The facts that they hide all of his sweet sides behind the pull is kinda annoying 🫵🏼🫵🏼🫵🏼🫵🏼

[just-barely-a-somebody]

Hazbin hotel stuff that I bought arrived!

Anyway here’s what I got from the 3 trading card packs:

(sorry if the image quality’s bad, feel free to ask any questions about any particular card I got in the comments)

Glad I got Husk and Sir Pentious since they’re my favs.

Quite a few characters we dunno yet, they look really interesting. New characters afaik: Emily, Lute, Susan. and Zestial

Also love that they have the opposite of sinners being called winners.

these two are rares, aaand

Alastor’s an ultra rare

apparently there’s 3 “secret rares”, Im guessing one might be Lucifer, but I dunno :p

[lorenzodalessandro]

XXI - The Pilots

http://instagram.com/lorenzodalessandro

[teeentyonepilots]

ichthus festival via reelbearmedia

[nyaskitten]

Frankly, I think we should get a trilogy of these Ninjago movies, the first one devoted to a retelling of the pilots, the second a condensation of s1, and the third a condensation of s2.

Idk how they'd go about it but yk... maybe remove like All the filler eps and make s2 Solely Dark Island arc ? Maybe for the s1 movie it would have to be BROAD strokes of the story... no clue. They'll figure it out.

I think it'd be perfect for the most iconic seasons of Ninjago in the public conscience to get a big screen retelling. Also I want the Overlord. Oh also they shouldn't sideline Nya! A trilogy would be the perfect opportunity to make three whole movies where Nya is the main character now

[cobaltfluff]

happy crossover christmas to me !!! left: crossover / right: AU :3c

[luck-of-the-drawings]

!!! FLASHING LIGHTS WARNING!!! [IM NOT FUCKIN AROUND!!]

REACHED THE CUSP OF 'THIS MAY NEVER BE ABSOLUTELY FINISHED N IF I DONT SHOW IT NOW, IT WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY.' SO HERE, A PROJECT IVE BEEN ORBITING AROUND UHH SINCE 2021 OR SO.

[russellius]

[lordofdestructionm]

Underestimating the enemy Wild Card

[yugiohcardsdaily]

Union Pilot

"Once per turn, you can either: Target 1 Effect Monster you control; equip this card to that target, OR: Unequip this card and Special Summon it. If the equipped monster would be destroyed by battle or card effect, destroy this card instead. You can return this card equipped to a monster to your hand; equip 1 appropriate banished Union monster to 1 monster you control as an Equip Spell, as if it were equipped by that Union monster's effect, and if you do, Special Summon this card from your and. You can only use this effect of 'Union Pilot' once per turn."

[arjitraj]

I compiled the fundamentals of the entire subject of Aircraft and the Science of flight in a deck of playing cards.

Sharing some more images below.

It took me ~6 months to study and design these. The idea is to give a physical product to anyone curious in the field of aviation that helps him/her to get the complete overview of the field in an organized, engaging and colorful manner.

Request for checking the complete project, joker cards and supporting it on Kickstarter here. Happy to have your feedback for improvement.

-Arjit

[urjustaguyonahorse]

the entire twenty one pilots discography: clancy x nico, slow burn enemies to lovers, hurt no comfort, 17,891 words, 5/6 chapters

[evilhorse]

The Phantom movie cards 29: Sala and her Pilots