So as mentioned in blue is the new red, the new direction I've gone with blue is prompting a change in how I go about red, and as of writing I've been fooling around with possibilities and ideas and what it is I really want red to be mechanically.

The things I know I want to keep are as follows:

• reds emphasis on dodging
• reds emphasis on manipulating the stamina line to put in stamina triggers
• reds framing as the more fair and fundamental color
• reds emphasis on action cards

So in some ways I'm wondering if this means I may have to embrace some ideas that I didn't want at first but might be the answer to what I'm trying to achieve in the best way possible

1. Should red be a blocker color?

In the beginning I've established that red doesn't care for blockers as much as it wants to go on the offensive. Now though I'm realizing that strong blockers are actually pretty good for offense because it lets you attack with your stuff and then have things on the ready to keep them safe.

If I decide to make red more blocker focused this would mean that three of the four colors would be blocker centric while one isn't. While the initial idea of having two colors that cared for blockers and two colors that didn't feels satisfying from someone that likes patterns and balance, this likely makes more sense from mechanical necessity. And plus if we're being real here, purple cares about blockers as well even if it's running a hyper aggressive spellBeast deck.

Right now though, each color is defined more by how it handles blockers. Green likes them big and likes to pump them up super big so that it can be safe under them. Purple likes cheap disposable blockers to provide an extra hit and buy time. Blue likes both for defensive flexibility.

Red would likely to be a color that favors sturdy blockers, ones with strength so that they can stop bigger stuff.

2. Red should be the card draw color

I've had it set early on that I didn't want one color to have the Monopoly on card draw and that's still the case but it's kind of already been a thing that red tends to draw cards more and maintain its hand size simply because a lot of it's cards replace themselves.

Purple currently has card selection, I think red should be the one that does straight draws, although both can share in card selection really.

But I think red should major in being able to sculpt its hand and do hand resets when needed

3. Red should be the color of small balloons

So this one I've definitely pushed against for a while, I've always figured that small balloons would be more purple's thing, and it kind of is with the bolt spells.

However, red wants to play a balloon and then be able to have breath left over to dodge. Emphasizing size 1-2 balloons helps with that more than size three balloons. I think red also wants to go wide as well, and when I just having more balloons to throw at people.

4. Should Red to be more like the light civilization from Kaijudo/duel Masters

By this of course I mean where the light civilization is heavily built around creatures that are powerful blockers but aren't able to attack the player, and where the player builds a steady wall of strong defenders to then play a card that lets them all go on offense.

It's been a desire to have something that plays Into The "diamond cutter" strategy, I would just have to be careful not to let red be horribly overpowered like the light civilization tends to be. Although what makes it the lights civilization strong is in part thanks to the design of the game at large, where it's much harder to swing over a big wall of skirmishers. Here we've got tools like evasive, intimidate, in the fact that balloons can be inflated to hit over stuff.

with everything above, what would red look like?

So my feelings in total would be as follows:

• red has a lot of action cards of the maneuver category, and support for maneuvers
• red has the largest supply of stamina triggers and the ability to set them into the stamina line
• red cards often replace themselves, and red tends to have a lot of mechanics that involve drawing cards and altering their hand to move through their deck.
• Red balloons tend to favor being well-statted, having balanced limit values and favoring abilities that make them strong board pieces
  • strength+x is common
  • Red has a lot of blockers, including strong ones that have sentry as a downside, which means they can only attack other balloons
  • red likes abilities such as intimidate and evasive, and abilities that limit what can interact with them.
• red primarily likes its balloons to be attackers or blockers, and prefers to let objects be passive granting cards on the field.
• red is likely to heavily favor balloons and action cards, so it may prefer putting down one cost balloons rather than objects.
• I want red's little narrative to be strong but fair, where it doesn't rely on cheaty or tricky mechanics, just strong fundamentals
  • red is likely to favor having a lot of innate double strike balloons.

So this is coming after having done some experimentations and tests to put some of these ideas in practice. So far while I think red should have some blockers, going the route of century blockers along with a lot of avoid stamina effects makes for a deck that is defensive but not in an interesting way. However I do like the gameplay of having battle actions that shift the results of a fight or let you do tricky things like how feint left you provoke a block and then pull back on the attack.

So far I feel like I want red decks to be heavily built around balloons and action cards. And something I think I'm going to need are cards that allow you to move around your deck so that when you have action cards you don't need you can shift them for action cards you do need.

It's possible that action cards will also need to be more versatile so that they're not just stuck in your hand.

This may also be a time to rethink the mechanical functions of the giant bat and Bigfoot balloon classes. Other core they represent speed and power respectively and I kind of already had giant bats to be focused on action support but didn't really zero in on how that is.

In order to play a lot of actions we need draw support, there's also the question of cost as well. If playing actions is red's specialty then it needs some kind of support that allows it to do it more regularly.

I think sometimes I get too hung up on red being the fair and baseline color that I don't ever want to give it anything but vanilla beaters and basic stuff. But like with the other colors, I need to make cards with the goal of supporting a specific play pattern.

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