A Godly General
Introducing Kam-Sala General
aka God of Goblins!
The idea for the Kam-Sala General came from an issue with early game play. Low drops just weren't as good as more expensive cards. There were a variety of reasons for that. A single 3-cost card tended to be more powerful in battle than any 1- and 2-cost cards combined. Once each player had a certain number of 3-4 cost cards, the 1-2 cost cards often started to feel nigh-irrelevant. It was hard to win a game quickly, since early attacks for a couple points of damage give the opponent the comeback advantage of more reagents in their scrap heap, and the pace of the game just wasn't *that* fast.
For these and more reasons, we started to look at ways to increase the value of low drops, by increasing their late-game relevance. Servants that got better as the game progressed, or were immune to stronger servants, or had interactions where your servant count was really important. And at some point the idea came up for:
A Combustion Lord:
Eager, and sac at eot. All other Combustion servants you control gain +1c+1v when Combustion Lord is in play.
cost 3, stats smth like 3 3 0 2.
You can see how this guy came from our "problem:" by boosting every servant you have, he encourages you to have a lot of servants in play, which can most easily be accomplished by having lots of cheap servants. His own low cost makes it possible to play him in a deck that will not play more than 2-3 rooms. Also by boosting V he gives more chances to end the game earlier. Eager and Sac at EOT is classic Combustion. All-in, high volatility, getting right into the battle, and burning out quickly. The card was code-named God of Goblins for a while, in homage to the swarming Goblin strategies of Magic the Gathering, and the fact that the card was so good that he was more of a God than a King.
He did not change much over the course of our playtesting, as you can see. We originally tested him with the disadvantage that he sacrificed himself at the end of the turn, and his boost to other servants was +3V +3C. However, we quickly decided that this was too swingy. Of course Combustion is generally a high-risk high-reward situation; mixing a bunch of explosives is going to be risky, even if you add a certain amount of science. But the original God of Goblins with +2V could end the game way too fast if the opponent stumbled for a moment. And if the opponent got established, the fact that he died at eot meant he could not provide any lasting benefit to your early drops as they started to get outclassed. I think we found the sweet spot when we cut the boost in half, allowed him to stick around for further turns, but required him to attack for his boost to come into effect. Requiring him to be on the attack also makes sense: you have to lead by example if you want to inspire your troops.
With eager and a team boost, he can still pack quite the punch if you're looking to end the game in a hurry. But being able to stick around also allows you to build up a board with multiple Generals, stacking buffs on all your guys before you swing in for a massive annihilation. Note that you can hide one General in your Familiar zone to dodge removal, as eager allows him to come out of the familiar zone swinging.
(here's what the "god of goblins" used to look like :-) )
Since the Kam-Sala General came along, every deck we ever built in constructed had to pass his test, facing off against a simple Combustion aggro deck with 4 of him. And I expect that will be the case in constructed tournaments as well. If you aren't enticed to run wild with this guy, be prepared to deal with him!