Holotheatre/Season 4 Episode 22 transcript

Transcript of the design segment of a Holotheatre episode.

Holotheatre Season 4, Episode 22: "Attack of the Designers" (streamed June 2023; uploaded 19 June 2023) brought three members of the Players Committee design pod behind the Light Side Clone Wars objective Hunt For The Droid General onto the show: Rules Advocate Greg Zinn, Technology Advocate Adam Fletcher, and playtester Wayne Cullen. They discussed the pod's origins, the objective's Grievous-hunting mechanic, the choice of Geonosis and Christophsis, and the new clone cards. Participants in this segment: Dan Tartaglione (host), Greg Zinn, Adam Fletcher, Wayne Cullen.

Source: Star Wars CCG - Holotheatre S4 E22 - Attack of the Designers (full episode), Star Wars CCG (Players Committee), YouTube (uploaded 19 June 2023). The design segment runs from 15:44 to 1:04:10; the episode opens with event news (the June 2023 OCS, the Return of the Jedi league, the 2023 Retro final, the Grievous Gambit and the road to the 2023 World Championship) and closes with a lore challenge.

The text below is from the video's automatic captions, corrected for names and card titles; it has not yet been checked against the audio. Words that could not be made out are marked [unclear].

Transcript

[15:44] Dan Tartaglione: What everybody really came to hear about was this new Light Side Clone Army objective. This is the first Episode II objective that we've seen since the Legacy era, when we had a We Have A Plan virtual where I think you were trying to rescue Palpatine off the Invisible Hand, or the blockade flagship or something. But this is the first one, so let's go into a little bit of detail. Why Episode II? Why clones?

[16:30] Adam Fletcher: I think the pod started because Chris Kelly was talking to me, and he asked me, would you be interested in being more involved in some of the pods? I told him yes, I'd be interested in designing something from one of the cartoons, especially clones. This pod was created two weeks later, so I'm pretty sure it was based on that discussion. He asked people in the playtesting channel who was interested.

[17:10] Greg Zinn: This is something that people ask about all the time, like in the surveys. We don't always release all of the responses, but one of the questions the last couple of times at least has been what themes you would like to see back in the game, and clones is on there a lot, from a lot of different people. That's part of why Design was interested in having a pod work on that.

[17:30] Adam Fletcher: We were asked to design something from between when the Clone Wars started on Geonosis up until Grievous was eliminated on Utapau. Then we started brainstorming a bunch of stuff and figured out what we wanted to do. We had a lot of people that helped. It started so long ago; it started before I was an Advocate, a couple of weeks before, so it's been a long time that we've been working on this. Some people participated a little less or more throughout.

[18:30] Dan Tartaglione: Who all was involved in the pod? Are we able to announce who was in the pod?

[18:35] Greg Zinn: I don't want to break fight club or anything and get canceled again. You certainly have the three of us. I'm sure we can tell you that Steve Faulkner, Fungineer, was in the pod. I don't necessarily want to out anyone who didn't choose to, so maybe it's best to stop there, but if that's something people are interested in, check with those people. You're talking with the core of the pod towards the latter half; we were the most active, so we'll be able to give you a really good overview of everything that's gone on.

[19:42] Dan Tartaglione: First of all, I'm happy to see an Episode II clone objective. We've been teased clones for a while. Rex has been a staple since Set 0, we've had Cody around for a while, we've had Fives, we've had Cloning Cylinders, Kamino and everything, and now it seems like everything is finally coming together with this objective. Let me bring up the text. The objective is Hunt For The Droid General. Deploy Clone Army battleground, Clone Command Center to the same planet, Cloning Cylinders and Grievous Will Run And Hide. For remainder of game, you may not deploy non-Episode I cards with ability, Reflections and objective targets Anakin instead of Luke, your destiny is suspended, Jedi gain the pilot skill, and your Episode I sites are immune to No Escape. At the end of opponent's turn, if you occupy more battlegrounds than opponent, opponent loses 1 Force. Flip this card if Grievous Will Run And Hide is here, unless Grievous is alone at a battleground.

[21:05] Dan Tartaglione: And on the flip side, He's A Coward: while this side up, your Force drains are +1 where you have a clone with a Jedi or Padawan. X equals the number of battlegrounds your Clone Army cards occupy. If you just initiated a battle, peek at the top card of your Reserve Deck or Used Pile; may take it into hand or place it on the bottom of the Reserve Deck. Then if X > 1, retrieve a Clone Army card into hand. If X > 2, your clone may make a regular move using landspeed for free to a battle location. And you flip it back if Grievous Will Run And Hide is at a battleground, or Grievous is alone at a battleground. So why did you target Grievous in particular?

[22:00] Greg Zinn: I'd like to answer that one. There are a lot of objectives that have to do with control this many locations, occupy whatever, and that's fine; there's absolutely nothing wrong with those. But it would be fun to do something a little different. I love objectives where you actually do something, whether you blow something away or, in this case, something a little like Hunt Down: instead of Vader searching for Luke, this is the Republic army searching for Grievous. That card, Grievous Will Run And Hide, is basically a picture of Grievous; it's a stand-in. If your opponent doesn't have Grievous, that's okay, because you've got this Grievous Will Run And Hide effect that moves around on the table and represents where Grievous is currently hiding, so you're trying to hunt that down. If they have Grievous in their deck, now you've got another problem: you have to actually go take out Grievous, in addition to handling that effect. If you think about the Clone Wars, the Republic is not trying to take over systems and convert them the way the Separatists are. All the Republic wants to do is take out Grievous, take out the droid general, and end the war. That's what this objective is about.

[23:32] Dan Tartaglione: I think this is a good time to show off the effect. We've seen the images for the 0 side, and I believe we've seen the 7 side as well. [Chris] is doing a heck of a job; that's going to look really nice in foil. And on the 7 side, a lightsaber just staring down Grievous. I don't know when Jared and the marketing team are going to release these foils, but I want to win this foil. And there's another really nice image here for the effect. So it starts on a battleground. You're saying it's a stand-in for Grievous, and it gives you the option of fighting it. Why do you want Grievous to be alone?

[25:10] Greg Zinn: I think Wayne could probably answer, because he's done so much playtesting of this deck. The issue is that stacking Grievous up made it significantly harder on the objective.

[25:20] Wayne Cullen: So we said, all right, alone would be a little more fair for the deck. We tried to build it in as well with the 1 Force ping for having more battlegrounds, to avoid the stack. But that Grievous text specifically was pretty harsh, to have him with anybody.

[25:45] Dan Tartaglione: When you were designing this, did you specifically want to design a clone army, and what made you incorporate the Jedi? We've got a lot of decks that run just Jedi right now. Do you fear the players are going to be a little tired of Jedi?

[26:10] Greg Zinn: I remember early on in the playtesting, Wayne, I believe you said that you built the deck to be very thematic with lots of clones, and then as you played more and more games you'd say, let me just slot in more good Jedi, and before you knew it the whole deck looked like any other mains deck. It was just full of Jedi. Then we started tweaking cards to encourage a much bigger mix of clones.

[26:35] Wayne Cullen: Originally we didn't have it starting Cloning Cylinders. [unclear] For The Republic would always be grabbed; you'd barely get to use it again. Getting the clones decent enough that they'd actually see play was probably the trickiest part.

[27:00] Dan Tartaglione: And are you feeling pretty good with it now?

[27:05] Wayne Cullen: I would hope so, because we're releasing it. I think they're at a pretty fair margin. Hopefully somebody finds a tier-one version; that would be cool. But I think it's a pretty solid tier two right now, and people will have a lot of fun with it.

[27:20] Greg Zinn: I would also add that there are a bunch of different bonuses for having a clone with a Jedi or Padawan, so you're going to want to mix those clones in and have a good amount of them.

[27:45] Dan Tartaglione: We dropped the stream there for a second, and we're back now. Sorry about that, everybody. One of the things on there says your sites are immune to No Escape. Why did you decide on going with these diamond sites?

[28:35] Adam Fletcher: That was my idea. I watch the Clone Wars show with my kids all the time; we've watched every episode, my wife and kids, we all really like it. One of the things that happens is they go to a new planet all the time. So I didn't want the objective to be focused on just one location or one system. It was all over the galaxy, and I put this in one of the early posts: the same battle is going on throughout the galaxy, but the circumstances are a little different on each system. The idea was that you would choose which system you were going to focus on, and there would be a card like Battle Of Geonosis or Battle Of Christophsis that would change the deck slightly, so things would play out a little differently. But then we needed diamond sites, because we're not going to create five locations for each system you could play.

[29:55] Dan Tartaglione: I noticed that the objective itself doesn't pull a lot of locations. How do you get your locations?

[30:00] Greg Zinn: Just check the Clone Command Center. If you scroll down on the spoiler list, that's your key right there. You do start with that on the table.

[30:15] Dan Tartaglione: What made you decide to go with the Kamino site? Was that just because it was thematic?

[30:20] Greg Zinn: I believe we needed activation, and we asked what's a good way of doing that. With the Kamino site you can get the [unclear], and if you're into it you can pull other Kamino sites too, but I don't think that's competitive. I can't remember the reason we didn't want to allow the Kamino system; I bet Wayne or Adam remembers.

[30:45] Wayne Cullen: That would become pretty much standard. Pretty much every deck would likely turn into turn-one Kamino into the [unclear], just because it's so efficient: you're running clones anyway, for the drain -1. We didn't want every deck to have it, so we just didn't add it.

[31:05] Greg Zinn: I would also add, if you really do love the Kamino system start, it's never been a great deck, but if you really want to play it, there's some help in here. This set will make your Kamino system start a little better, with some of the cards like Security Control and probably a few others, the Clone Pilot, etc.

[31:25] Dan Tartaglione: Speaking of Security Control, I believe I was sent over the image for that. It doesn't look like it's going to be a new image. Just looking at it, this could be a helper for a deck that Adam, Wayne and I like. You're making clone and Episode I cards; we already have a kind of good deck in WAP. Any thought given to boosting WAP with some of the new cards?

[31:55] Greg Zinn: I'll just chime in that it's Security Control (V) on purpose, so that you can't stack it with the original Security Control. You have to pick one. I don't know if Wayne or Adam can comment more on its usefulness in WAP.

[32:36] Wayne Cullen: I'm also a WAP fan. As we talked about earlier, sorry to bring up bad memories. I did consider that with a lot of the cards, and one of the things we wanted is the open-endedness of it. It's a solid card, obviously, but to give up [unclear], the fully immune Mace, the Qui-Gon deploy -1: you give up a lot by not using that. For a blaster version you could already use [unclear] to get the blasters for Amidala and Panaka, so it's not doing too much more. The non-cancelling clone game text is nice, but again, a fully immune Mace and a cheaper Qui-Gon are also really solid.

[33:30] Dan Tartaglione: What about playing it over Wokling? I know playing a Light Side deck without Wokling is kind of a forbidden thing at this point. Why not get rid of Wokling? Let's get some new blood out there.

[34:05] Wayne Cullen: I think that's going to require a Wokling errata, to be honest.

[34:20] Dan Tartaglione: I'm not going to get into the whole Wokling thing. Let's get back to discussing the objective. You went with Geonosis and Christophsis. Why those two systems in particular?

[34:40] Adam Fletcher: If you look on Wikipedia, there's an article for the Clone Wars, and on the right-hand side there's a list of all the major battles. The first one is the Battle of Geonosis and the second one is the Battle of Christophsis, and those are also the only two systems that have a Second Battle of Geonosis and a Second Battle of Christophsis on the list. So that was part of why.

[35:20] Greg Zinn: I would add that at least one member of the design team said something like, try to focus on things from the movies, just because they're well known to everyone. So Geonosis is going to be a go-to if we're keeping the movies in mind. And Christophsis is the Clone Wars movie battle, so it's kind of where it all started, which makes it a big focus.

[35:45] Dan Tartaglione: What about Utapau?

[35:47] Greg Zinn: That was probably next in line, but this pod's already huge, so we didn't get to do three systems, at least not yet. Maybe someday in the future. It would definitely be next up, in my opinion.

[36:05] Adam Fletcher: Ryloth was another one in there when we first started. I had ideas for a few others. I really wanted one from the movies, and Geonosis just makes sense, and then I wanted one that was more from the Clone Wars show, so Christophsis made sense.

[36:30] Dan Tartaglione: What other sites and systems would you really want to see?

[36:40] Adam Fletcher: There are a lot. Malastare, I think, would be interesting; they have the Zillo Beast, the huge creatures.

[37:05] Wayne Cullen: I think Ryloth or Umbara would also be two solid choices. Umbara is the dark planet in the Clone Wars episodes with Pong Krell and the 501st.

[37:30] Greg Zinn: I would stick with Utapau as being the next, but Pong Krell is definitely a fan-favorite character, so Umbara is a nice idea too. And we definitely left things open, so it's not that hard to add a couple of new locations, and then you can play the deck on whatever other system. If Design wants to do that, it won't be that hard, or feel free to bring us back to do it. I'd be thrilled.

[38:00] Dan Tartaglione: We've got some more images. Greg was kind enough to send them over before the show. The first one is Generation One Armor Always Holds Up [unclear], a destiny 4 Used Interrupt: your clones get armor +2, or cancel You Are Beaten; or, if a clone is in battle, cancel an attempt by opponent to target your character to be lost. And if you just drew a clone for destiny, add 1 to it. I like that it doesn't just say cancel and redraw.

[39:20] Adam Fletcher: At one point Security Control (V) had text that it added 1 to the destiny of your non-unique clones, but we took that off because it was a little too good. But the average destiny: you're drawing a bunch of threes, because that's usually the destiny of clones, so being able to add one seemed useful. That's why I wanted that on here.

[39:45] Greg Zinn: And if you're playing Fives, you make him a six. I remember, Wayne, you had some opinions on this card, and then you playtested with it a bunch and your opinion started to shift.

[40:10] Wayne Cullen: This was actually one of the later cards we added, after most of the latest changes. One of the biggest weaknesses of the deck is removal. I don't know how deep I can go into it, but there was a card that got pushed to the next set, and between things like Lord Sidious, clones going to the Used Pile and Force Lightning, it was bad for the clones. We wanted to make the clones playable, not something you're just going to skip over. When Adam first put the idea up for the card, I figured there really wouldn't be much use for the +2 armor, because you'd want to just hold it and make sure they don't go lost. But the first three times I used it, it was for the extra armor. It's a well-rounded card now.

[41:50] Dan Tartaglione: We have our Rules Advocate here, so this is the perfect time to ask: can you play that in response once your opponent draws the destiny?

[41:58] Greg Zinn: No, that's too late. If you want to add armor, you're going to have to do that in advance.

[42:05] Dan Tartaglione: Sorry, I've been playing a bit too much Magic. The next card we're going to show is one I like because it's a good image, and more Episode I starships is a good thing: the Resolute, a Venator-class attack cruiser. Power 7, armor 6, hyperspeed 4, deploy 6, forfeit 7. May add 5 pilots, 5 passengers, 5 vehicles and 5 starfighters. Permanent pilot provides ability of 2. While Anakin or Yularen piloting, immune to attrition < 5, and your Clone Army cards at related sites are power +1.

[43:00] Adam Fletcher: I don't remember why I made all of the capacity numbers five, but that's how it ended up. I like this one because it supports all of your cards: it's in space, but it's helping you on the ground, because it makes your clones and your Jedi and Padawans at related sites power +1.

[43:30] Greg Zinn: I remember the power stat was influenced because we needed it to be stronger than an Acclamator. Is that right?

[43:35] Adam Fletcher: Yes, correct. We talked about making it deploy less and have less power, but it's way bigger than an Acclamator, so it has to have more power.

[43:50] Dan Tartaglione: Next, the Endurance, another destiny 2 ship: power 7, armor 6, hyperspeed 4, deploy 6, forfeit 7, the same capacity. Permanent pilot provides ability of 2. Kilian, Mace and clones deploy -1 and shuttle for free here or from here, and it's immune to attrition < 3. Right off the bat I've got to ask: why is this one only immune to attrition < 3?

[44:35] Greg Zinn: I don't know why it's less than the Resolute, but we haven't talked about Galactic Republic Navy yet, which adds +1 immunity if you need a boost, and we haven't talked about the Clone Pilot, which forfeits for a nice amount depending on how you're playing the deck: if you're playing Security Control he's going to forfeit for four or five, so that covers you unless your opponent draws a six. But the Endurance is one of my favorite cards, not because of that, but because of this deploy -1 and shuttle down for free. It feels awesome, like you're deploying your army and dispatching them, because you deploy them to the ship at -1 and then in your move phase you shuttle them down to their sites wherever they're going to fight. You can hum some Star Wars music while you do that.

[45:50] Wayne Cullen: It's also good to mention that Admiral Kilian, who's already out, makes it immune to attrition < 4, and with Galactic Republic Navy that's 5.

[46:30] Dan Tartaglione: The chat says that canonically that's the ship that got blown up by Boba Fett. Then there's the Clone Pilot: power 1, ability 2, armor 3, forfeit 2, deploy 2. Adds 2 to power and 1 to defense value of anything he pilots. While piloting a Clone Army starship or vehicle, forfeit +1 and draws one battle destiny if unable to otherwise. If stacked face up on Cloning Cylinders, may turn face down to cancel Lateral Damage.

[47:20] Adam Fletcher: We talked early on in the pod about what we wanted to do, and we threw out a bunch of ideas. We used some of them, and one of the main things is that we wanted to use Cloning Cylinders in a more interesting way. We talked about, if they're stacked face up, you can turn them face down, because they're going to turn back up on the next turn. This is the only card that made it all the way through, and it cancels Lateral Damage because that fit on the card. There were other ideas, like a Kamino scientist, or Kamino mad scientist, side theme. It'd be cool to do someday if you want to play around more with Cloning Cylinders, but this is the only one right now. He also has a little hint: he mentions Clone Army vehicles. We didn't get to do that, but that would be an awesome thing to add. I've seen at least one player say, bring on those clone tanks.

[48:45] Dan Tartaglione: We have the Legacy cards, the AT-RTs. I want to see them back just because of the images. I have a foil one. But those things were way too strong.

[49:00] Greg Zinn: For anyone who doesn't remember, the AT-RT [unclear] pulled a cannon that hit everything at destiny +2 greater than ability, and the AT-TE drew two if unable to otherwise; it just needed a clone to do that. That one I don't think was too bad, because "draws two if unable" was becoming standard in Legacy; it was on every other card. The AT-RT is what everyone hated at the end of Legacy, partly because it's power 3 and you could add anyone as a pilot, and it didn't make them power 0 like speeder bikes, so they got to add their power bonus on top of their power.

[50:30] Dan Tartaglione: And the Republic Gunship wing: permanent pilot provides ability 6 and immune to attrition < 5. That's the one I specifically remembered, because I have a foil one. The next image is Admiral Yularen: power 3, ability 3. While piloting a Clone Army capital starship, adds one battle destiny and its power may not be reduced by opponent. While with Anakin or piloting the Resolute, opponent may not cancel or substitute battle destiny draws here. I definitely like getting more admirals into Light Side, especially with this Clone Army objective.

[51:40] Adam Fletcher: My favorite thing about this card is that it uses text from later in his life, when he's Colonel Wullf Yularen: the part about not being able to reduce the power of the starship he's piloting. That's there because his Dark Side virtual card does that, so I thought it was really fun that it's on both versions of him.

[52:20] Dan Tartaglione: I like him because we've seen him progress through the years from an admiral down to a colonel, and his ability gets lower.

[53:00] Dan Tartaglione: I think this might be the last image for tonight: Battle Of Christophsis. If a Christophsis location is on table, deploy on table. Once per turn, if you deployed a clone to Christophsis, may draw the top card of your Used Pile. Once per turn, if your clone is in battle with a Jedi or Padawan, may lose 1 Force to add one destiny to total power. I like the image: the clones walking around the debris. We have the two different ways to go, essentially, Geonosis and Christophsis. Which do you lean towards?

[53:55] Wayne Cullen: I like both. Christophsis is where I lean more, as I've played it more, but there have been games where I wished I was playing the other one, depending on how the game went. They feel at a good spot, but Christophsis is usually where I lean.

[54:20] Greg Zinn: If you're expecting a really tough fight on the ground, I think Geonosis probably helps you more. That text where you subtract two with Yoda is probably going to help you hold out on the ground. Christophsis is a bit more well-rounded; it's going to help you more in space. The Christophsis system text helps you hold that system, because the opponent deploys +1 there or moves +1, so it's a little harder for them to come in and kick you off. If I were picking, I'd ask myself: do I think my opponent is going to give me a harder time on the ground or in space?

[55:20] Dan Tartaglione: Adam, going forward, what existing cards do you think fit into this objective?

[55:35] Adam Fletcher: The budget version of Mace, the new Mace: he's a Clone Army general and he helps out your clones, so he's probably actually better than the other version of Mace in this deck. Then there are a few other Jedi. General Kenobi is obvious; he pulls clones. Aayla Secura is a big one: she adds a battle destiny with clones, and she's going to be really good in the deck, I think.

[56:15] Greg Zinn: As I mentioned, For The Republic was mentioned earlier. And Rebel Leadership: I only play the original. Being able to add a battle destiny is more important than any of the other text on the other version. You'll definitely use that in this deck to get General Kenobi and then either of the admirals.

[56:50] Dan Tartaglione: Wayne, did you use Ahsoka with Lightsabers? She has a Clone Army icon. Or does that not really provide much benefit?

[57:00] Wayne Cullen: That was another thing that we changed. Originally we didn't have "Padawan" in the game text of the cards, but it just felt wrong playing it without Anakin and Ahsoka, unless you used Jedi Anakin, who's pretty expensive to deploy with other cards. It just didn't feel right not including them, so we adjusted the text to fit Padawan in there, and Ahsoka with Sabers is definitely a decent include.

[57:35] Dan Tartaglione: Jedi Anakin costs a lot. Are you thinking about helper cards to put him in over the Padawan?

[57:45] Wayne Cullen: The Grievous Will Run And Hide effect does make him deploy -1, but you're generally hoping that you get that onto your objective quickly, so you're not always using that text for long. When I was playing it, he was always just too expensive; it rarely worked out, and Padawan Anakin is such a solid character anyway. Maybe Design can get a clone-specific one for us in a future set.

[58:45] Greg Zinn: Agreed. The Jedi Anakin is maybe not the right fit for the deck, but a third Anakin persona that does fit, I could see that.

[59:00] Dan Tartaglione: Would you like to see a Commander Ahsoka?

[59:05] Greg Zinn: We looked at that. We kind of wanted to do it, but the pod was getting gigantic. I don't remember exactly what made us back off, but we were just in too deep. Maybe in the future that can be done.

[59:30] Wayne Cullen: Actually, I posted one. It didn't get very far, not even really talked about. I did an Ahsoka Tano, either Citizen or Commander: adds one battle destiny with Maul, a Mandalorian or a clone; once per battle here may place a just-forfeited unique clone face down on Cloning Cylinders; immune to attrition < 5. That was when we were trying to increase the clone utility more. Other cards went in instead. Even reading it now, I'm like, wow, that was pretty strong.

[1:01:20] Dan Tartaglione: Are you afraid of seeing a lot of Admiral's Orders in this type of deck? A lot of the decks out there restrict them: OA has some you can't play, Imperial Entanglements can't play them at all. Are you worried about anybody breaking the objective with one?

[1:01:45] Greg Zinn: I don't think so. Capital Support pinging for generals: you only have General Kenobi, so that's not doing that much. The one that decreases deploy and increases the defense value of your non-pilot warriors doesn't help any of your Jedi in this deck, because the objective makes all of your Jedi into pilots. We did talk about making a General Windu at one point. One thing we asked was, could we just errata some of these Jedi, put a Clone Army icon on, say, Plo Koon? But there's so much errata floating around, it wasn't justifiable.

[1:02:40] Wayne Cullen: When we proposed that, it was right after that OCS AI came out, so we'd have had to switch out all the foils. It was also right around Set 20, with all the errata.

[1:03:20] Greg Zinn: I think we asked if we could make certain clones stronger too, but that led to Security Control making them stronger instead. Design wanted us to see what we could do with the current clones. We had some restricted clone ideas, and B2 battle droids for Dark Side.

[1:03:45] Dan Tartaglione: I'm excited to see things like the Bad Batch, Echo, arc troopers, other clones that we see in the cartoons. I love this theme. I cannot wait to play it. Gentlemen, thank you, and thank you to your team.

See also

• Players Committee · Design Advocate · Greg Zinn · Wayne Cullen · Dan Tartaglione
• Star Wars CCG Design Q&A (transcript) (2015 design team)