(Article written by Iantic)
Card costs can be tough to gage. As far as I can tell, the actual cost of a card is 2 higher than what’s stated due to the card itself (being played instead of discarded—1 magic you could have had) + bounty (1 magic opponent gains from killing your card). That means every card is actually +2 cost, so the likely formula for calculating a card’s cost is this:
- 1 point of magic = 2 points of stats, with av weighted higher than health because its value is repeatable (if the unit survives, it can attack again, so 1av could equal 2 damage while 1h should always equal 1 damage). “0c” units typically have 4 stats worth, because they are actually 2c. (2c = 4 stats, so 2av + 2h)
- Abilities that deal damage without an additional cost beyond movement or attacking = 1 magic per damage
- Other abilities = variable magic cost based on how the playtesting went and more intuitive measurements
The exact way av is weighted higher than hp is uncertain (at least one calculus has been proposed), but a good rule of thumb is that once you get below 2av, you are looking at a discount (av < 2 = cost discount/better ability, e.g. Horde Climber’s great ability)—and once you get above 3av, you’re looking at a cost hike (av > 3 = cost hike/worse ability, e.g. Elut-Baal). When in doubt, 3av is weighted higher than 2av (obviously). However, for the most part cards will conform to this structure of 1 magic = 2 stats, with abilities taking up the remaining value or mitigating it.
Let’s take some example cases:
Bear Cavalry
5c = 10 stats worth. But 3av + 5h = 8. The other 2 stat points, equivalent to 1 point of magic, go into Trample. Trample gives 1 damage (1 damage = 1 magic), but requires movement against an adjacent unit to activate. To compensate for how inaccessible this often is, the ability to move through cards buffs the ability and evens it out at 1 magic value. And there’s your 5c unit.
Ember Archer
3c = 6 stats worth. But 2av + 2h = 4, leaving 2 stat points (1 magic) unaccounted for. Since 1 magic = ability that reliably deals 1 damage, Quick Shot fills out the remaining magic and justifies the archer’s cost. Note that the ease of range in Quick Shot’s ability (3 clear straight spaces) is mitigated by requiring a move.
Tundra Fighter
3c = 6 stats worth. But 2av + 3h = 5, leaving 1 stat point (0.5 magic) unaccounted for. TF’s ability is a bit iffy but definitely fills in the remaining 0.5 magic. Now we know “Frenzy” is weighted at 0.5 magic. (Or 80,000 magic if you can’t stop rolling electrics lmao)
Smasher
5c = 10 stats worth. 4av + 6h = 10, but av is weighted higher, requiring a negative ability to justify this distribution. Sluggish fills that out nicely.
Now let’s check out some champions. Champions are harder to show this with because their abilities account for most of their cost (e.g. Nadiana, Fire Drake). (Also, the 0c CG champs ruin every calculation due to high variance and unstated expectations for how long the card is expected to stick around…) Let’s look at champs with no effective ability/easily quantifiable ability:
Shonk
7c = 14 stats worth. 3av + 11h = 14. Perfect.
Technically Shonks is melee with 2.66 successes every attack instead of the 2.5 successes a 3av melee unit would have. But it’s close enough to count as 3av melee. Note that his potential to reroll (from Grog) increases his value tremendously due to his high ceiling—but that’s synergy, which is weighting that occurs on a deck level rather than an individual card level.
Fanessa
7c = 14 stats worth. But 3av + 9h = 12, leaving 2 stat points (1 magic) unaccounted for. Since 1 magic = 1 damage, and since ranged attacks don’t activate her ability, it is reasonable to conclude phg assumed she would, on average, survive 1 melee attack and deal 1 damage in return for an ability that is then weighted at 1 magic. Of course, in practice the opponent can just pepper her with archery, so in practice she has a hidden cost of 1+ movements to be in the front lines. Then you have to flank her so she doesn’t get devoured, etc.—the 1 magic for riposte is justified on paper. In an actual game she is ridiculously good (high ceiling), but playtesting probably decided that wasn’t an issue because she only has 3av anyway.
Coleen Brighton
8c = 16 stats worth. But 3av + 8h = 11, leaving 5 stat points (2.5 magic) unaccounted for. That’s 2.5 damage she would have to prevent to justify her cost. Assuming the opponent attacks 3 citadel units in her range, that’s an average of 2 dice prevented, which averages out to about 1.5 damage between melee and ranged. Factoring in that the opponent won’t only be attacking citadel units in range, plus that her ability leaves a minimum of 1 dice (meaning if she gets 2 electrics v a 2av unit, only 1 electric is doing anything), and Colleen needs to survive for 2 or 3 turns of play with proper formation to justify her ability’s cost—which seems about right for a champ.
Boosts don’t seem to have a set value, btw. It depends largely on what the unit is using that boost for. I would average out the value of boosts as 1 boost = 1 magic (e.g. Miti Kyru)…but that is definitely not always the case. Other invisible values are your 3 moves and your 3 attacks. An especially sneaky value is magic denial; for instance, the Ice Smith’s ability denies the smith’s bounty when the smith is placed beneath a unit, effectively giving the smith the same cost as a 0c event + 2 moves. His effect gets better or worse depending on the av of the unit it’s attached to, so how do you even quantify that? You don’t. You playtest, then hope PHG never releases a 5av common. So it’s a bit tricky with more expansive abilities.
But that’s the general idea.
So what’s the real use of this information? Other than the rare instance in which you are making your own faction, this data is useful because it helps you properly gauge value when attacking and positioning your units during a game. It will make you a better player. It also assists playtesters in safeguarding the game against power creep, as they can give better feedback to PHG.
But what really makes this metric special is not so much, “Aha! I figured out what PHG is doing!” as it is that the metric is practical. What that means is that regardless of whether this was PHG’s original intention for weighting cards, it’s how the weighting ended up working out. After all the playtest modifications to cards, the end balance conforms to this metric.
Moreover, as you’d expect if the metric has practical value, the few cards that are underpriced or overpriced according to this metric are generally regarded by the community as some of the best or worst cards, respectively. To show this, let’s look at some examples of underpriced cards:
Jarmund
7c = 14 stats worth. But 3av + 7h = 10, leaving 4 stat points (2 magic) unaccounted for. Since 1 magic = 1 point of damage, you would expect Jarmund’s ability to deal 2 direct damage per turn. And if that’s all it did, he would be fine. But in practice, his ability can easily deal 3-4 damage in a turn—without even attacking. Combine this with his ability to turtle and attack from a distance, and he’ll last longer than the projected 2-3 turns a champion is expected to live. Though he might seem balanced on paper, due to deck synergy and the way Polar Dwarves actually work, Jarmund is a serious bargain.
Holleas
7c = 14 stats worth. But 3av + 7h = 10, leaving 4 stat points (2 magic) unaccounted for. Since 1 magic = 2 stat points, her ability to boost the av of adjacent units by 1 is worth 1 point of magic as long as 2 units are adjacent to her. The game seems to weight summoning flexibility at 1 magic, so the fact that she’s a mobile gate accounts for her other magic. Like Jarmund, she’s basically balanced on paper. But here’s the thing. In practice, that +1av could take a unit over 3av (e.g. ember beasts), and the difference between 2 and 3av in archery usually translates to the difference between 1 and 2 damage. That is really a much stronger advantage than 1 magic can account for. Furthermore, because Holleas can continually shield herself with the units she is summoning, she may outlast the 2-3 turns champs are expected to live, and being a mobile gate is arguably worth more than 1 magic because of its flexibility. Deck synergy also plays a role, but if she were in another deck where 3 of the 4 commons were qualifying units (in this case, ember units), the result would be similar. In practice, Holleas is a bargain.
These are regarded as two of the best-value champions in the game by the community as a whole. This is exactly what you would expect if these units are underpriced.
Now let’s look at some examples of overpriced cards:
Fire Drake
10c = 20 stats worth. But 4av + 10h = 14, leaving a whopping 6 stat points (3 magic) unaccounted for. Even accounting for 4av being weighted higher and summoning flexibility taking up 1 magic, this is simply overpriced. So it’s all up to his ability to justify the rest. Since 1 magic = 1 damage, if the Fire Drake is firing through two units and rolls an electric as his odds suggest, that will account for 2 damage—that is, 2 magic. But as with attacks, this damage really needs to be repeatable in order to justify its cost. How often does your opponent line up three units when you have a Fire Drake on the field? Never, unless they like losing or in (very) niche circumstances, have a play that requires it. And as soon as you have 8 magic, they will avoid that sort of formation anyway. In practice, you will never redeem that damage. So Fire Drake is overpriced.
Jacob Eldwyn
7c = 14 stats worth. But 2av + 6h = 8, leaving 6 stat points (3 magic) unaccounted for. And you need 2 magic for each additional av according to his only ability, though that magic is redeemable upon Jacob’s demise. I think the idea was that av is weighted higher than hp, so Jacob’s high ceiling eventually justifies his cost. But unlike with Nadiana, that “eventually” is simply impractical to reach. I have been able to summon Nadiana and roll 8 dice with her on the same turn without disrupting my formation. Since she was behind a parapet, I could attack again the next turn and redeem her total cost value immediately. So why doesn’t that work with Jacob? The major difference is that the factor which boosts Nadiana’s av has value itself, apart from Nadiana (structures are always useful to PD). Jacob’s boosting factor only has value apart from Jacob after Jacob dies. This creates an anti-synergy that detracts from his value significantly in practice. As a result, Jacob is generally a bad value.
These are regarded as two of the worst-value champions in the game by the community as a whole. This is exactly what you would expect if this metric is correct and these units are overpriced.
What this means is that whether this was the intended metric or not, it is the most practical metric for evaluating a card’s actual value. That compels playtesters, players and designers alike to consider card design in terms of this metric.
Of course, more complicated factors like card and deck synergy can also play a role in value, and the position of a card on the battlefield may force you to target it instead of a better value target at times. Ultimately, raw calculation is no substitute for actual strategy.
But it sure helps.