Thanks to feedback from players collected over the course of Beta Edition’s playtesting period, including the valuable and unique insights from players at PAX Unplugged, new cards have been added to the cardpool for Delta Edition! With these changes, Doom Pile is considered to be in a finalized state as we continue to pitch to publishers, though playtesting will be ongoing in order to best improve the experience when the game is picked up.
Starting off, we have two new cards for the Beast faction, and one for the Undead faction. These are the two decks most often used to teach new players, and so are many people’s first experience with the game. As such, it was important to fill out their ranks to give them a more consistent mechanical identity.
Carnivore’s Quarry will be replacing Inviting Mausoleum in the Become the Apex! deck, serving as the new intended sac outlet, while Battlescar Rhino acts as a backup plan for the mid-to-late game should your other minions be killed before you can go for the win!
While the Empty the Graveyards! deck only got the one new card in Vengeful Wraith, it represents a significant shift in the deck’s construction–it no longer includes or is reliant on Grim Spellbook, instead using Vengeful Wraiths to discard early resources. This also means a reoganizing of the deck’s other minions, and puts Grave Lich on the board one turn earlier in the default order!
Next up, we have four new cards for the Ancient/Monument faction! These cards greatly streamline the Ignite the Guidestones! structure deck’s gameplan, and provide in-faction ways to trigger their effects.
Archaeological Find’s utility is twofold: It’s draw power to trigger Scolding Stone, and it’s cost helps set up a bait-and-switch with Tablet Sculptor! This is a great time to mention one of the bigger changes to existing cards in Doom Pile: The “When Played” indicator has been changed to “Cost” instead. It works the same way as before, but now better reflects that the action is an additional cost to put the card into the countdown zone. This change is applied to cards like Study the Timelines and Expensive Knowledge, as well.
Moving on, Tablet of Fury is a great card to Thwart for Archaeological Find’s cost, and explores some new and interesting design space with the countdown zone, applying a weaker effect while it’s waiting to resolve/ This lets you get some benefit out of it before intentionally Thwarting it, only to bring back later with other effects.
Masonic Devotee serves as a new and effective defensive Minion while you wait to set up more aggressive strategies with Herald of the Guidestones. It’s right at home in a Monument-centirc deck, but can still be used in other decks that need to ensure an early Artifice or two is kept safe. Lastly, Sandstone Monument is another interesting card to play with the countdown zone, effectively acting as a mini Exchange of Time + Doctor Stein, Dark Architect, slowing down your less important cards to accelerate faster ones. Decks like Cast the Doomspell! may find interest in utilizing this, as it doesn’t have a restriction on the count remaining on its target.
And here are the last 5 cards in the new Delta set! These help round out the Experiment and Infernal factions, allowing them to be less reliant on other factions to achieve their own Master Plans!
The Detonate the Reality Bomb! structure deck was perhaps the one most in need of a revamp. Where previously it was fairly difficulty — both in practice and in complexity — to trigger the Master Plan, the new Dark Magical Reactor and Scrounging Mastermind work well in tandem to set off that final chain reaction while also counting towards it. Dark Magical Reactor also has the added bonus of providing further interaction to the game, while Scrounging Mastermind serves as a reactive recovery tool in a pinch.
Beyond that, the new Plot Overclock can help make it even easier to reach the required 7 On Field effects, enabling one of your Experiment or Apparatus cards to trigger an additional time.
Like the Undead, the Infernal deck The Sacrifice Must be Paid! received only a few cards. Besides just being another Infernal to try and count towards the win condition, Fickle Fiend in theory allows decks to have an alternative to Grim Spellbook for getting things into discard. Char Machinery is another card that tries something new with the Countdown Zone, providing an altered ability if it gets Thwarted–something to consider whether you’re playing Dark Magical Reactor or just need to be able to take out tough Artifices.
There may not be any more new cards, but there’s still some changes in the Delta set in the form of clarity rules changes and erratum.
Devil’s Pitchfork’s Starting Countdown has been increased from 0 to 1, and it now sacrifices itself as a cost. Especially at PAXU, players were finding this card to be very strong, turning the tides of games that it had no business doing. With these changes, it still serves as a useful and powerful card to help eliminate larger threats, but can’t fully swing a game in an instant.
Faustus, the Bargainer has also been nerfed, with his Health now reduced from 4 to 2. This was mentioned previously, and is why some decks now have Masonic Devotee to take advantage of–Faustus just did too much when he could also serve as a cheap wall that also fights back against smaller Minions.
Employ Contingencies has received a nerf, preventing its count remaining from being able to be reduced by effects such as that of Doomspell Procedure. It’s still a powerful staple card, but should no longer be a cheap and repeatable way to stall someone out of the game without additional investment.
That’s it for major card power adjustments, but like was mentioned earlier, “When Played” has been replaced with “Cost” for clarity on cards such as Expensive Knowledge–it still works the same way, but should be far more intuitive. Furthermore, you may have noticed on cards like Faustus and Devil’s Pitchfork that possess On Command effects, as well as cards with On Field effects like Scrounging Mastermind, that they now have reminder text beside their effect indicators, informing you that they are once per turn, and in the case of On Command effects, can be activated during your Plot Phase. This will hopefully simplify both the rules explanation when introducing new players, and mitigate some of the mental load of remembering such rules in gameplay.
