Hello Condemned! It’s been a hot minute, but I have another card to spoil for you. I’ve been holding off on sharing it for about 2 weeks now, namely because I’ve been putting off writing up this guy’s back story. Yes, it’s a new Condemned. Yes, that post I made for The Hawk was great and all. But it took forever to write up and I’m kind of regretting that decision. So I’ll write the back story in another post, and show you what I’ve been working on. Let’s dive in, shall we?

So, funny thing about designing cards. Sometimes, you throw something together and then you realize that you don’t need that card exactly. That was the case with this card. Back before I launched The Condemned, I had finished a base set and two expansions. Then I realized I needed to make tweaks after Enter The Arena launched. During that development and initial launch, I also found my stride in card development. The first couple sets got thrown together kind of haphazardly, in all honesty. Not that I didn’t care about what I was making. It was more that fledgling games don’t have the structure to them that more established card games do. Look at early Magic cards versus modern ones. There is a design ethos that exists, tempered by 30+ years of card design.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying, I started this card with one ability, and realized I needed something different. Here’s the rules text this card originally used during testing:

“You deal +2 damage with Puncture Weapons.”

Now, who does that sound like? Yeah, I don’t need another Poke-Poke. He’s a handful as it is. But this card was one of the originals from when I first threw together the initial sets. I hadn’t found my stride, and there was some overlap in the cards I made. In thinking for a bit, I realized I needed a firebug. Someone to stop the show in a blaze of glory. Enter Jack O’Nimble:

While tinkering with Jack, I realized that just adding a damage buff wasn’t quite enough. I also decided to give him some damage mitigation, too. But, of course, only for one damage type. If I’m going to make things powerful, I’m going to make them situationally powerful or give them drawbacks. I felt comfortable enough with adding damage mitigation for one type and buffing another. There are enough ways around that. Plus, it helps rein in some of the more…obtuse…Condemned among us.

But I’m most excited about this damage buff for Fire Weapons. Fire Weapons are fun, and they definitely deserve more support. You can pair this with a Molotov Cocktail, for example, to great effect. There’s a couple Fire Weapons in Chaotic Assault that I haven’t spoiled yet, too. So you’ll have options!

You know, I didn’t really plan on spending too much time working on this guy’s backstory. He was one of the originals, back when I was looking to license The Condemned to a publisher and call it good. So most of the names and concepts were intentionally meant to be throwaways. So this Jack O’ Nimble name was just a silly pun to use and then not think too hard on it. But now that I’m self publishing The Condemned, I have to either use the same names or come up with something else. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. This was one of the latter. But regardless, the addition of Jack O’ Nimble brings us up to:

Part of what allowed me to commission this art is the addition of a new store selling The Condemned! You can now pick up packs at The Source Comics and Games. I’ll be there every other Wednesday for events, including booster drafts. Every time you buy a pack or two, that all adds up to more artwork for Chaotic Assault and even the next set. To say nothing about my donations to The Innocence Project. If you want to see The Condemned in your local store, have the store owner get in touch with the Contact form at the top of the page. We’ll get them set up to bring The Arena to your town.

But yeah, that’s gonna wrap things up here. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in The Arena!