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Infinite Crisis Preview: Ahmed Samsarra, White King
Infinite Crisis was the first full set I worked on as a part of R&D. It’s so fascinating to watch the progress of a set from design through development and to see all of the different designs turn into what our finished product looks like on the shelves. This brings me to my preview card:
Ahmed Samsarra, White King
Character
Cost:3
Team: Checkmate
ATK/DEF: 6/6
Range
Card Text: Loyalty-Reveal, Concealed-Optional.
When Ahmed Samsarra is put into a KO'd pile from play, you lose the game.
Activate-> KO a resource you control, if you do, search your deck for a location card, reveal it, put it face down into your resource row and shuffle your deck.
I remember being new to the process and hearing about terms such as “tension.” What is tension? Tension is what makes a card interesting to play. These are the questions we ask ourselves with each and every individual card we make. I never thought about such questions when I was a player. Being a player makes you think differently; you think about how to break a card or which card will be added to your arsenal of decks. But as a developer, the more important question is, “How interesting is this card?”
When lead designer Justin Gary submitted the Infinite Crisis file to the development team, Ahmed Samsarra was 5 ATK / 5 DEF and didn’t have loyalty—reveal or concealed—optional yet. He searched for a location but put it into your hand. He had the chess mechanic (as we call it in R&D) from the get-go.
Even with the plot twist to remove cards instead of KO'ing them... a bit of Hate is all it takes to make this card kill you fast. It is too easy to work KO and ressource hate effects into decks compared to building a deck around completely protecting yourself from both.
I will have to be pretty amazed by the level of protection you can generate to consider this one more than a novelty. Loading up on Swift Escapes and Insect Swarms to cover your own ass doesn't sound very enticing to me.
Personally I think this card is great. I do, however, agree with !3ullseye about wasting all your PTs to keep this foolio alive and kicking but on the other hand...not many decks run cards that can KO characters that easily. The only real problem I see with this card is characters like Lady Shiva~Master Assassin or cards along those lines, and like I said, you dont see those very often with the heavy hitting decks right now. I am wondering if the versatility of this card will be even further tested with the Vengence ability, though. If there are other cards like Deathstroke (but with lower costs) than this card really IS a novelty.