This week, I plan to tackle one of the more controversial elements of Infinite Crisis: the Fate Artifacts. This article will take a look at the origin of those mighty trinkets and at what we did right (and wrong) with their design. I had originally planned to include some back-story on Fate and his artifacts, but Rian Fike already covered that admirably in his article from last week. I highly recommend checking that article out if you are interested in comic lore.

In the Beginning

The Fate Artifacts probably underwent more changes than any other cards in Infinite Crisis. We knew that the Artifacts had to be powerful. No other equipment represented in Vs. has anywhere near the combined power of the Helm, Amulet, and Cloak of Nabu.* We also knew from the beginning that we wanted it to be possible to equip all of the Artifacts to one character. The idea of building your own Dr. Fate seemed really cool and fit well thematically with the nature of the Artifacts.

Our first attempt at the Artifacts was the following:

Helm of Nabu

Recruit Cost 1

Concealed—Optional. Equipped character gains flight, range, +2 ATK / +2 DEF, and the identity Dr. Fate. This character may be equipped by other Fate Artifacts.

Amulet of Nabu

Recruit Cost 2

Concealed—Optional. You may play this on a character with two other Fate Artifacts on it without paying its cost. Equipped character gets +3 / +3. This character may be equipped by other Fate Artifacts.

Cloak of Nabu

Recruit Cost 0

Concealed—Optional. Exhaust two resources >>> Move equipped character to the hidden or visible area. This character may be equipped by other Fate Artifacts.

The first thing to notice about these original versions of the Fate Artifacts is that they have a variety of recruit costs. The Amulet already had the seeds of its eventual final version, since it interacted with the other Fate Artifacts to give a hefty +3 ATK / +3 DEF bonus. The other peculiar aspect of these designs is the Cloak of Nabu. It utilized the “exhaust resources” mechanic that we were testing as our original Magic theme (for more about the development of this theme, see my previous article on Making Magic). The identity theme of the Helm and the Magic theme of the Cloak were intended to link Fate’s two team affiliations in this set (JSA and Shadowpact), though this obviously had to change once the Magic theme changed.

We tried many similar incarnations of the Fate Artifacts at various recruit costs, but we found that it was very difficult to make an interesting and versatile piece of equipment that costs resource points. This was most evident in Draft testing. We wanted the Fate Artifacts to be viable as a drafting strategy and eventually came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was to make the Artifacts balanced around having a 0 recruit cost. This made the Artifacts much easier to play and comfortably allowed us to make them commons for drafting purposes.

Fate Artifacts, Phase 2

Helm of Nabu

Recruit Cost 0

Amulet of Nabu

Recruit Cost 0

Cloak of Nabu

Recruit Cost 0

Unique, Concealed—Optional <p> Equipped character can be equipped by other Fate Artifacts. <p> Whenever equipped character attacks or defends, you may replace a resource you control for each Fate Artifact you control.

 

This incarnation was much closer to the final version. All of the Artifacts referenced the others such that they became more powerful the more Artifacts you had. This incarnation had two problems, however. The first was that this combination allowed for too much card filtering. The powerful card draw of the Helm and the replacement of the Cloak let players see way too many cards each turn. Also, in case you didn’t catch it, this version of the Helm actually allows you to net cards because you only have to discard one card regardless of how many you draw. Needless to say, this was deemed to be too good by the development team.

The second issue was an aesthetic one, as the combined might of the Fate Artifacts gave the equipped character +4 ATK / +3 DEF. This bonus, combined with other pumps and effects, had a tendency to make combat math more difficult than we wanted. In addition, it just seemed cleaner to have a more balanced stat bonus from the set of Artifacts. In the end, we also felt that having all three Artifacts reference each other was a bit excessive, so we made the Cloak into a much more simplified (yet still powerful) ability that protects the wearer and balances out the stat bonuses.

Team Fate

Getting the powers and costs for the Fate Artifacts in line was only the beginning of the problem. The Helm turned its wearer into Dr. Fate, but it quickly became apparent that nobody cared about being Dr. Fate. In order to make Fate’s identity significant, we wanted to create a splashy card that worked only with Dr. Fate. Thus, Fate Has Spoken was born. Readying a character is one of the most powerful effects we can generate, and readying a character without restricting its ability to do breakthrough is even more exciting. Fate Has Spoken combined with Dr. Fate’s Tower rounded out a suite of cards that could be combined with any team or set of characters to create a very open-ended deckbuilding experience. This created a sort of sub-team within Infinite Crisis that highlighted not only the power of Fate’s Artifacts, but also the themes of identity and Magic featured prominently in the set.

Power Corrupts

I am very excited with how the Fate Artifacts turned out. They accomplish the primary design goal of Infinite Crisis, which was to create open-ended, non-linear deck design and gameplay.** There is a dark side to the power of Fate, however. The Fate package is very powerful. That power, combined with the versatility of being able to include it in any deck, has made Fate a dominant force in the metagame.

In my opinion, the most important factor contributing to the power of the Fate Artifacts is Dr. Fate’s Tower. This card was added to make it easier to accumulate the Fate Artifacts in Sealed Pack formats and to help keep the value of your investment over several turns. Using three cards to give one character +4 ATK / +4 DEF, flight, and range is a reasonable deal that allows players to dominate one or two turns with an overstat’ed character. Soon after this, however, the pumped-up character becomes outclassed by higher drops. The Tower was designed to help keep the Fate Artifacts relevant in later turns. Originally, the Tower was even more powerful; it allowed you to transfer equipment during the combat phase! It took very few games of someone attacking with Dr. Fate and then transferring the Amulet to another character for another giant attack before we restricted the effect to the build phase. To make up for the Tower being usable only in the build phase, we allowed it to transfer all of the Fate Artifacts instead of just one at a time. This change made it relatively easy to keep the Artifacts around throughout the game, thus making the initial investment of three cards a much better deal.

Fate is in Your Hands

So, where do we go from here? The Fate Artifacts have created an interesting new play experience, and I think they do a pretty good job of representing the power of Dr. Fate. Many players believe that these Artifacts, combined with the power of Fate Has Spoken and the versatility provided by Dr. Fate’s Tower, will have a disproportionate impact on the metagame. We are keeping a close eye on these cards and are eagerly awaiting the results of the upcoming Pro Circuit and PCQ season to see how the power of Fate stacks up against the many other exciting strategies available to players.

What do you think? Are the Fate Artifacts fun and interesting? Are they broken? Do you think they will dominate DC Modern Age? As always, I am happy to hear your thoughts and comments at Justin_Gary@upperdeck.com.

* At least until the release of Heralds of Galactus.

** I discuss this issue in my first article in this series here.