Let's Design The Dominion Set! My Contribution For Part 1

I've had a lot of fun with last weeks episode challenge, so I felt like giving it another shot this week. This time, @thepeoplesguild has been asking us to design 7 new abilities for a theoretical set called Dominion which is meant to replace Gladiators in Brawls for the future. Now I do like my Gladiators and I've spent a lot of time and Energy (well, Merits) to get them maxed out, so I'd be really sad if they rotated out of the Brawls, but the idea itself is pretty awesome of course.

So here are my ideas:

Fire: Burning Charge

After killing an opponent, all your monsters lose -1 health and gain +1 speed

I always regard fire as the fast striking, high stakes high rewards Element. Thanks to this ability, your whole team will be sped up permanently, but it will also lose some life. Take note that this is not damage dealt but health lost, so armor is not going to prevent the life loss. Worst case, this is going to kill one or even several of your monsters. Best case, though, this is going to make your whole team strike earlier and at the same time be harder to hit.

But that's not all, the -1 health is actually a great benefit for any card with enrage. If timed right, an early kill with this ability could increase the damage output for your whole team by a tremendous amount, especially if you happen to use the right Summoner for the job...

Water: Flow of Power

After killing an opponent, two random monsters on your team each get a random positive ability from a random opposing monster. This monster loses this ability.

I was always imagining Water as the element of trickery and deception. Also, I wanted to have at least one ability that's a bit more random than the rest. With this ability, you might very well steal two abilities that don't have any effect at all. Get Snare for a monster that's not even attacking, Repair when you don't even have armor, and so on. But on the other hand, if you steal that key ability from the opposing tank or steal Tank heal and thus make the enemy sustain collapse, this could be a lot of fun.

Of all abilities I designed, this probably is the one that has the potential to be the most powerful if it steals the right abilities, but it also could be completely worthless, fully depending on what the RNG has in store for you today. In terms of monsters you'd want to combine with this ability, you are also a lot more open since you don't know what RNG is going to give you. Still, monsters that have different attack types and/or that have a high sustainability themselves would probably be the best options for this ability.

Earth: Vitality of the Earth

*After killing an opponent, cleanse all monsters on your team. They get +2 maximum health"

Earth is all about sustain and staying alive longer than your opponent, often simply out healing any damage. This ability will allow your team to be healable again should they have been afflicted and will possibly also increase the amount they are healed for every round. Take note that this is only increasing the maximum health but not current health. So if you are unlucky, your team is still going to die before the heal comes in. But if the timing is right, your healers will start to do their work and your team is going to be even harder to kill.

This ability is a perfect match with any card that has 3*X+1 health as these cards will be pushed exactly to the point where they will receive one more healing. Together with any potent healer, this can increase the sustain of your team considerably:

Life: Spark of Life

After killing an opponent, trigger all Cleanse, Heal, Tank Heal, And Triage abilities on your team

Life is more of a defensive, heal focused Element. With Spark of Life, you can get a massive amount of heal if the kill occurs at the right time. As with all abilities, I've tried to make it so that it's not always and automatically helpful. If the kill comes too early, there might be nothing to heal on your team yet, if it comes too late, there won't be anything left to heal.

Still, this has the ability to turn things around big time. If your team is barely hanging on, slowly loosing the race, an extra heal from all healers often times will be all you need to completely turn the tide. Note that it doesn't specify that only Monsters will trigger these abilities. So with the right Summoner, you'll get some nice extra heal for your team, even if all your monsters with healing abilities are already gone.

!

Death: Final Sacrifice

After killing an opponent, all other monsters on your team get Redemption. If they already have Redemption, they deal 1 damage to all monsters.

Much like the fire Element, Death is not above sacrificing some of his own health in order to deal damage to the opponent. So giving Redemption on kill only felt like a natural ability to add. Depending on your team, the first kill isn't to do terribly much and on its own, it might not do too much when your monsters are killed off one by one and the opposing team has some heal itself to sustain the damage redemption does. If you get that second kill, though, things are going to get pretty crazy. All your monsters are then going to deal 1 damage to all monsters, including your own. But since all of your own monsters also have Redemption, this could very well deal a total of 4 damage to your and 8 damage to the opposing team.

Yet, this is pretty risky - all it takes on the opposing team is one shield or a highly armored card and you might very well kill your own team while some of the opposing monsters come out of this whole thing without taking any damage. I do feel this is fitting for Death, though, and combined with the right monsters, this could be really devastating for your opponent. You want to look at monsters that have a good shot at surviving themselves while also maximizing the potential benefit from a lot of deaths on the field:

Dragon: Call the Dragons

After killing an opponent, next round, your Dragons act before all other monsters, in order of their speed.

Triggered at the right time, Call The Dragons has the potential to turn the battle completely upside down. Imagine a kill late in the round. Best case your whole team is going to charge in right after the kill and will completely overwhelm the opposing team. If you struggle to get through that opposing tank up front, this could be your shot to take him down.

Still there are some downsides to this ability as well. Firstly, it only targets your Dragons, so if you want to make the most of it, you'd have to run as many Dragons as possible, severely reducing the cards you could choose from for your team. Also a lot of Dragons are comparably fast, so this ability might not do much if at all. If you are running Byzantine Kitty and fast Dragons, they likely would have acted first anyway. But if you go with the right cards, you are in for a really catastrophic burst of damage. Get the kill, have your slow Dragons do their regular attack and then have them attack again right away:

Neutral: Mercenaries Unite

After killing an opponent, all neutral cards on your team get +1 to all their attacks

The idea with this one is to encourage getting as many neutral cards as possible in your deck. Many card games have deck archetypes revolving around playing only with neutral/colorless cards. Here in Splinterlands we haven't seen much like this so far (expect the only neutrals ruleset that is), so I feel like this would be a fun addition.

As with the Dragon ability, this obviously limits the cards you can choose from quite a bit. Nevertheless, there are some pretty great cards to choose from in combination with this ability. Get some neutral cards that have several attacks and/or Double Strike and you are in for a good time:

Closing Remarks

I've tried to design all abilities in a way that they are individually powerful but are also a bit situational and require a team built around them. I'm obviously no callmetim, so I'm not sure how balanced they would be in the end, but I do believe that all of them are somewhat reasonable. They are rather powerful and game changing overall, but so is Bloodlust, and so I feel like these abilities need to be pretty strong if we want players to play them over a Gladiator.

Anyway, thanks a lot to @thepeoplesguild for hosting another fun community challenge and looking forward to part 2 and 3 of this thing!