announcement: Energy System Revision

Article written by Nikkolas Baker

Hello everyone,

Before we begin, I’d like to thank all of you for participating in Frontline TCG’s first few months of nascence, and with the feedback provided and games played, a lot of valuable information has been gathered.

One primary issue that has been taken note of is the Energy system, as there’s growing concern over its simplicity. With Frontline’s current resource system, cards pull from the same Energy resource, and as a result, deck builders have noted that there’s no incentive beyond playing only the best cards. As such, if only the best cards are worth playing, it makes the design process err more on the side of power-creeping out the staples of the current game, such as Ogre.

One of the core design philosophies for Frontline is that we’d prefer cards to be fun to play with, rather than being finely balanced. While maintaining balance is important for any game, the simple fact is that putting too much priority into balancing has the effect of removing the fun out of a game. This philosophy was directly applied in mind to Frontline’s Energy system, so we could stress-test the concept of having a unified pool for cards to use Energy with, with the full expectation that it was going to be wildly unbalanced.

Our estimations were proved correct almost instantly.

Because of this, beginning with Frontline’s third expansion in June, Wild Frontier, we’re introducing a new 3-color based revision to the Energy system. These three different colors are focused on aggro, control, and midrange strategies, with the intention of encompassing Frontline’s core mechanics within easily identifiable definitions.

Before we get into explaining what this new system is, let’s address the largest concern, regarding the current Energy system:

“Will the current cards be irrelevant once this new change takes place?”

No. Cards that already exist within Frontline’s ecosystem will remain as they are, and will continue to be supported. Any new cards and expansions added to Frontline will have two different versions - one that implements the new 3-color system, and one that still works under the current Energy system.

To be clear, cards that exist within the current Energy system will NOT be abandoned, and will be actively supported throughout Frontline’s life cycle. So, if you have already purchased and/or printed cards for personal use, your cards will still be compatible with newer cards that are released in the future. 

This means that two different versions of Frontline will exist, once Wild Frontier is released. Both versions will receive equal amounts of support, however, cards that exist within the OG Energy system may have balancing issues that can’t be resolved, due to a lack of color identities for the cards. Regardless, all names, effects, and stats for cards will remain 1-1 with their counterpart, and will be functionally playable in their respective version.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at Frontline’s new 3-color Energy system:

RED

Red is the color for aggro (aggressive) strategies. Cards in this color are designed around closing games out as quickly as possible, and plays cards that are either undercosted, or have stats and effects that are above the curve of other colors. This means that even though that cards in this color have more explosive potential, they tend to fizzle out faster than cards in other colors. If you want to play with Red, you want to make sure the game ends quicker, before you run out of gas.

BLUE

Blue is the color for control (slower) strategies. Cards in this color are designed around dragging out the game, and plays cards that are intended to win with large, bombastic effects. Blue tends to fumble around in the earlier turns, but if a game goes on long enough, it will be able to play cards that outclass the other two colors. If you want to play with Blue, you want to keep the board clear of threats, to ensure your eventual victory.

PURPLE

Purple is the color for midrange (grindy) strategies. Cards in this color are designed with attrition in mind, and plays cards that out-value your opponents. Purple takes aspects from the other two colors, at the expense of not having explicitly game-determining strategies. Think of purple as the jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. If you want to play with Purple, you want to grind your opponents to dust with value-based creatures, and surgical effects.

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Card colors are NOT exclusive to each other, when it comes to deck building. You can mix and match any colors you want with each other, provided you have a Leader that can make all the colors needed to play your cards.

Along with the color system revision, this also gave us the opportunity to redesign the card’s borders. As you may notice, we’ve added more depth to the nodes along the top of each card, by increasing the amount of shadows along the nodes and the stats node on each creature. We’ve also increased the thickness of black borders dividing a card’s art from both its name and effects.

Again, we want to ensure with Frontline’s players that we’re not abandoning what we’ve been building, in favor for a revision. This is simply an extension of Frontline’s primary purpose - which is to serve as the play testing foundation for an in-development card game. We hope to see you out in the Frontier, Pilots. And as always, thank you for your continued support!