Jordon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QemmjRdQ3hI Just finished watching this video using new Kaeris. It was a good report and one that showed what happens when you go all in on Scorching Radiance. Some of my thoughts. Ignoring Scorching Radiance for a second, I do think Kaeris is mostly fine. She seems to work well with her crew and certainly has a different feel about her from her original form. She has lots of ping damage on top of the already plentiful ping damage from burning. Pyre markers themselves don't really seem as brutal and mainly serve to fuel her own models. Okay so let's talk about Scorching Radiance. On the one hand, if you watch this report, it takes the entire crew to put Kaeris onto burning 30+ turn one. This basically means she's one shoting most non masters in the game each turn. The drawbacks however are not inconsequential as it basically means your playing a turn down in a crew that's already not that great at scoring. The other drawbacks are with condition removal and repositioning. Now condition removal is a bit more difficult now that we have access to Deacon. That being said, it can be difficult to keep up with the mobility of Kaeris and his WP of 4 makes him pretty trivial to lure (or anything that causes movement through WP). If you do manage to remove burning from Kaeris, then you made that entire turn basically a write off and an absolutely massive setback for Kaeris. Kaeris herself is only WP5 and without access to Blaze of Glory, she's also pretty easy to push around. Alternatively you can always move your own models out of the way as well to ignore the nuke of damage. If you manage to reposition Kaeris or remove her targets, she's forced to bomb herself or a friendly model. Spending an entire turn in your deployment just to do 10 damage to yourself is basically game over. Even if you do manage to successfully pull off a big nuke, it potentially opens her up to some nasty retaliation on the following turn. Also there is the rare immolates that you need to be careful of as well. So I see movement tricks as the true kryptonite of this Kaeris. Condition removal is a big threat as well, but can be somewhat mitigated with Deacon. So this kind of Kaeris nuke assassination seems very much like a very high risk high reward. I'm not sure if it's necessarily a problem once you know what to expect, but it sure as hell might feel bad against the unexperienced. Again, I'm not sure it needs fixing right out of the gate. Maybe she needs some time in the open to see how if it's actually as bad as it first appears. Maybe it's more of a trap then it's worth. Either way, I don't really like the suggestion of capping it as I feel like it's boring and doesn't really give any incentive to keep the burning going. This is crazy Kaeris and I actually really like the whole risk/reward theme as it seems to fit the idea of getting carried away. If it were deemed a problem, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing something like the old "dumb luck" trigger from gremlins. Something where she takes half of the damage she deals. This would mean that you need to play a lot more calculated and not just immediately try and load her up as much as humanly possible. You probably would want to keep it contained and rely on fire branded to keep it in check. This to me feels like it finds a nice middle ground, while also incentivizing fire branded. Just my $0.02

I'd prefer her card get a looking into rather than "forcing" her to play with specific models in order to work. I also don't want the new title to just be the default Raspy. I hope it's good and I hope its different, but I also want OG to be just as playable. One of the big issues with the crew is how pillars actively work AGAINST them, providing cover for the enemy. However the other problem is just how penalized Raspy is by using her core mechanic. Look to new Colette and how easy she's able to use decoys compared to all the hoops Raspy needs to jump through to use Ice Pillars. Having to discard to use triggers is just painful. It makes her so resource demanding just to use her basic set of tools. I hope to see this change rather than using a bandaid model in order to work.

I guess the same could be said about Now You See Me. Fluff wise the attack is hitting an illusion but somehow Colette is still taking damage. This made more sense back in M2E when she placed in contact with a scheme marker and reduced the damage to 0. Right now it feels more of a retreat rather than hitting an illusion.

Is there a suggested way of re-wording this in a way that works within the supposed intent? The best way it makes sense in my mind is to imagine Colette teleporting herself onto a decoy and then teleporting back after resolving the action. With that in mind here is what I expect from a decoy. Decoys can use the interact general action Decoys cannot bypass the once per turn Close-Up Magic trigger Decoys cannot bypass the once per turn charge general action Decoys carry over any conditions such as focus or distracted Decoys are only engaged if the marker itself is within engagement range Decoys would suffer any affects during it's activation and pass those affects onto the real Colette after resolving Decoys only benefit/suffer from board states if the marker itself is within those states (hazardous, auras, etc) Shell game trigger is from the perspective of the Decoy marker declaring the trigger Decoy markers and/or Doves chosen by Routine Performance, cease to exist for the duration of that action This is how I'll be playing it until we get a more official clarification. It seems to make the most sense in my mind and seems the least abusive. I know it's not perfect but I don't think we can achieve a consensus until we get clarity. If this is indeed how the devs intended it to work, then it should be reworded to support more of a temporary replacement that ignores the position of the "real" Colette for the duration of that action.

I think I understand. So in the example of Colette being engaged, but a decoy not being engaged. She could still use her Phantasmal Prism because she is not considered in that original location (and would be subject to any auras and board effects of this new location and not benefit/suffer from ones where the "real" Colette are unless they happen to also tag the decoy marker). Just for the duration of that action. Any conditions and status effects would carry over to the decoy because it is in a new location, not a new model. She cannot charge if she has already done so. She cannot declare an additional "once per activation/turn" triggers if she has already done so earlier in the activation. Anything she gains while in her decoy (conditions or other effects) would be carried back to the "real" Colette after the decoy action resolves. Is that basically it?

If your treating the decoys as if they were an exact copy of Colette herself then it has to be a two way street. The decoys are not engaged -> the decoys ARE Colette -> They are not considered engaged. However the opposite still also applies. Colette is engaged -> The decoys ARE Colette -> the decoys are considered engaged. Its a paradox

If this was indeed the case, then what about the non-decoy Colette? I assume the "real" Colette exists at the exact same time as the decoy. So how do you resolve things if "this model"/Colette are in fact two models. If your saying that "real" Colette is engaged, then how does that work if the decoy is not engaged? If both are in fact Colette, then it doesn't really make sense. You can't be both engaged and not engaged. If you take the stance where you ignore the "real" Colette while resolving the action, then your sort of creating a unique Colette and getting away from this interpretation.

I'm pretty sure when Cassandra copies Routine Performance, the decoys would use Cassandra's abilities and not Colette. So they wouldn't have access to Phantasmal Prism, but they could use breath of fire.

Still holding out hope for the horseman list but it seems unlikely at this point. As you said, no other masters have expanded their keywords so giving Levi the ability to hire horseman would be quite unique. While I absolutely love the idea, I do think it would need to be carefully considered. Giving Outcasts access to all four riders could open up a lot of potential problems. The only way I could see it is if it forced Levi to hire all four horseman and nothing else (except upgrades). Limiting the potential cross contamination to only this list.

I sort of feel like the intent was to only allow one summon per turn, regardless of decoy activation. Otherwise what would even be the point of the clause to begin with? However I do agree that it's a bit confusing and could use some further clarification.

The emissary sounds like good times. Give it fast, let it walk and charge up to three times a turn. Potentially even a rampage or two. A well placed negation aura and a 2” engagement could be a massive disruption.

So the shell game trigger. If it gets triggered from a decoy, can it use a decoy within range of Colette (the master) or does “this model” mean it only works on a decoy within range of the decoy who triggered it. Hope that made sense

I guess the Mannequins can target decoy markers with Mechanical Assistant as well then. Although I can't really see you taking many walk actions via decoys, but interesting none the less.

I can't really see any particular reason to play her in theme. She really only cares about Decoys, Doves and the occasional scheme marker. She doesn't really do anything with the performer keyword at all. Cassandra is about the only model you'd really want to piggyback off of Colette's shenanigans. Maybe Harata? Not sure how his aura's act with decoys. Other than that, I don't see a reason to stay in theme here.

So with Cassandra, you are able to generate two decoys a turn. Is there any other method of getting more decoys?

So what about something like Cage Fighter? Or anything that is "after resolving"? Does a decoy revert back to a marker before taking those kind of damages?

Seems like new Colettes true power lies in confusing the players rather than the models.

Or terrifying? Does the dove use it's WP? However that doesnt make sense when you use a decoy marker

So I can "concentrate" with my dove and then make use of that focus via Routine? That actually sounds better

Yeah this is a tough pill to swallow for an already struggling keyword. I guess in Raspy's defense, she does have an easier time creating pillars compared to decoys. She can also do more damage if you obliterate your hand/stones triggering onslaught, or just get lucky with blast flips. However the point remains that this really seems to step on her toes. I think it'd be a bit easier to understand if it were coming from a different faction. However having arguably the strongest master stealing the one iconic mechanic from the weakest master (and doing it much better) is a bit frustrating.

Agreed. Doesn't really seem to match all the magical shenanigans that her abilities suggest. I'll likely be sticking to Cooper

I really like the nod to her old M1E avatar. Seems like I'll be dusting those off to be used as decoys, which is really awesome. In terms of theme, I'm not really getting the sense of "smuggling" however. Smuggling initially had me thinking of soul stone or card manipulation but neither seem to be the case here. I agree with @dancater in that she doesn't really seem to switch it up as much as the other alternate titles. She seems to be a bit less distracted oriented and more of an opportunist now. I really like that doves can be treated as decoys as traditional marker removal won't affect them. No one thing really blows my mind here. It's cool that she can project her actions through decoys, but we already have two other masters who can do similar things. That and I find both of her attack actions just "okay". Overall I think she's interesting but doesn't really change up much for Colette.

I don’t mind saboteurs but you need to have a plan for them. There’s no real guarantee you’ll have enemy scheme markers to burn so you should make sure to provide your own. DMM is reason enough to warrant hiring in many crews. All depends on the scheme pool and opponent crew. They do better against melee crews and in heavy scheme marker scenarios. I don’t think they are a good recipient of AR, however as they tend to go down pretty easily from ranged attacks. As for Kaeris. I don’t typically run them due to how much of the board gets clogged up with pyre markers. The firestarter at 2 more stones is a fantastic scheme runner and works better within the crew. Carlos also had DMM and works much better. AR on fire branded works well for me. That bit of shielded really helps offset the damage they often take from burning. They don’t need to play up front and the super armour + healing keeps them around longer than you’d think

What are peoples thoughts on crew composition for this version of Mei? Any significant shifts from OG Mei? Seems like there is a bigger focus on scrap markers and potentially more of a draw for constructs. Metal gamin seem are less incentivized only because of her ability to summon them. I don't really see as big of a draw for Kang. He's certainly not bad, but I think he's more replaceable in a Foreman list. Likewise both Willie and Neil are probably not as good of a fit (Willie is always a great counter pick if marker crews are a possibility). Porkchop and Metal Golems seem like auto includes. Rock Hopper seems like a pretty obvious include, especially for this version of Mei. I actually think the Mech Rider is another very solid consideration with Foreman. Not sure on where I stand with Rail Workers versus Survivors. I'd probably lean more on Rail Workers due to their ability to generate scrap. Also work mentioning Mecharachnids for their nice synergy with scrap and ability to eat scheme markers. Verdict is still out on Sparks but I do think he's at least better with Foreman

Confirmed: Life is better down where it's wetter