In this scene, they changed FedEx to ConEx, because it looks similar but is completely different. Why am I bringing this up here? Well, because reasons. Not really, though! I actually did something similar with this card, the MB-599 Nailgun.

The MB stands for Mitsubashori. I started with a real Japanese company, I’ll give you a moment to guess which one. You figure it out yet? Good! Now, it’s time for a fun little Japanese lesson. The word Mitsubashori is a real word in Japanese. It means “third place” or “third location”. Which, in my case, is really accurate! I had a very hard time coming up with a name that wasn’t actually taken. I tried Mitsuiba, but it turns out they’re an automotive parts manufacturer. Then I tried Mitsubashi. I felt really clever with this one. It means “third bridge”, but it turns out that Mitsubashi is a subsidiary of Highbridge Corporation, and thus I can’t use that one either.

So finally, I settled upon Mitsubashori. It’s not an easy thing to say for most people, so I shortened it to MB. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I’m sticking with it.

Up next, we have a rare Event. This one has been on the Chaotic Assault page for some time, so it’s not exactly a surprise to most of you. But I wanted to take some time to discuss the design of this card.

One of the greatest challenges in designing new cards is making sure that I make cards feel powerful without feeling overpowered. When something happens, your opponent needs a way to deal with it. Everything needs to be kept in check. During early testing, Kris Evangel proved to be very powerful with a full complement of Bio weapons. Between him and Dr. Mrtav, I have my work cut out for me!

That’s where Anti-Bacterial Cloud comes into play. It’s an Event that will break all Bio Weapons in play. This is very, very powerful. In early testing, there were concerns that it was too powerful as it was. Whenever I make something super powerful, I give it hefty restrictions. Alpha Strike is a great example of this. It’s super powerful, but also comes with great drawbacks. I am comfortable with giving powerful cards drawbacks to keep them in check. In addition, I will also give extremely powerful cards limited scope to make them useful in specific scenarios. In the case of Anti-Bacterial Cloud, I think I struck a balance that works. This is extremely useful when your opponent uses Bio Weapons, but useless if they don’t. Because it has no other uses, it limits the scope of its effectiveness. I hemmed and hawed about adding other drawbacks, but I decided that the current scope of the card was narrow enough to keep it from becoming too degenerate.

And that’s really what a lot of my designs boil down to: interesting cards that get your attention without causing problems to the state of the game. If Bio Weapons take off in your local metagame, this weapon will help slow them down and give you a little bit of space.

Finally, we have Arc Points. This is a fun little card for electric weapons that’ll give you a little bit more reach! It’s especially handy if your opponent likes to play keep away, and you’re stuck with a bunch of melee weapons. Just take the fight to them!

Here’s an important thing to note, however. When a Weapon says it costs 2 Durability to attack, you must have 2 Durability available on the Weapon. If a Weapon only has 1 Durability left, you cannot use it to attack! So plan your attacks wisely, you just might need it!

With these three cards added to the mix, we are now up to:

5/128 cards completed

If you followed my kickstarter, you might remember this little progress at the end of each post. It was something I did when designing the first set, where I would spoil a card or two and provide updates as to the overall progress. I’m bringing it back again because it just felt right the first time. I like seeing that progress build and grow. I have more cards that are finished, I just can’t spoil them quite yet…

But that’s going to wrap up this update. I’m making lots of progress on Chaotic Assault, and bringing in lots of really neat ideas. I can’t wait to show you everything I’ve made so far, but these things take time. Stay tuned, keep fighting, and I’ll see you in The Arena!