General:Tales of Tribute Devs Talk Necrom's All-New Almalexia Patron & Deck
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Originally published June 8, 2023. The original article can be found here.
[[(?)|thumb|500px|centre|Get the inside scoop on the design and mechanics of Tales of Tribute's all-new patron and deck with this developer Q&A!]]
With the launch of the Necrom Chapter (now live on PC/Mac and arriving June 20 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles), Tales of Tribute is getting an all-new patron and deck, Almalexia. We reached out to two of the Senior Systems Designers behind this addition to Tamriel's favorite card game, Irenio Calmon-Huang and John Carlson, to ask them some questions about its design and mechanics.
Thank you both for sitting down with us to discuss Tales of Tribute. Firstly, can you tell us about the new features and mechanics being introduced in this new patron and deck?
John: So, we have three (and a half) new mechanics that we're introducing with Necrom. The first and flashiest is confine. This is found on Almalexia's agents and allows you to take any card in your opponent's cooldown and hold it hostage until that agent is removed from play.
Irenio: The second mechanic is donate. This allows you to discard less useful cards from your hand in exchange for potentially drawing a better one.
John: The third mechanic is Almalexia herself. Her patron ability, reprieve, allows you to look at the top few cards of your opponent's deck and place up to one in their cooldown. The more this patron favors you, the deeper into the deck you get to look, but the ability cost rises as well.
Irenio: This pairs nicely with confine agents, and we're looking forward to the ways players use this to their advantage.
John: Our final new mechanic being introduced in this update is actually a modification to one we started with back in High Isle. Hand refresh allows players to pick up any card from their cooldown pile and place it into their hand.
What were your goals when designing this new deck and patron?
John: The original goal was to come up with a deck for players frustrated with their opponent getting a really good card in the first few turns and feeling like they could never catch back up.
Irenio: It can feel pretty rotten when your opponent suddenly picks up a powerful card, and there seems like there is little counterplay. We wanted to offer fresh new ways to get back into a game.
What sort of experience should a player expect while playing cards from this deck?
John: I would say Almalexia is much more in the "control" space. Compared to how the Rajhin deck chips away at an opponent to buy time, Almalexia is much more surgical in delaying specific cards or combos.
Irenio: Her gameplay is laden with the potential to pull off amazing combos, but also has the potential to fail if you make the wrong call at the wrong time. Her abilities help slow down your enemy while speeding up your play.
What would you say are Almalexia's strongest and most difficult matchups?
Irenio: Amusingly, Rahjin both pairs well with and helps counter Almalexia's power by breaking up the combos needed to trigger her donate and confine mechanics.
John: Yes! On the other end, the Red Eagle power cards consistently KO your agents, and destroy means there will be fewer opportunities to confine cards to begin with.
Aside from Rahjin, are there any other synergies that you expect to see when players start playing Almalexia cards?
Irenio: Honestly, I'm looking forward to players discovering synergies we didn't anticipate. Almalexia is very flexible and able to enhance numerous other decks. For example, donate can play nice with the Duke of Crows for an even more accelerated playstyle.
John: Players can lean into confine by protecting their agents with Taunt from the Pelin deck or drawing the perfect top deck with draw refresh in the Ansei Hunding deck. Almalexia can pair into all but the most aggressive of strategies.
What lessons did you take from previous patrons that you've applied during the development of Almalexia?
John: Ultimately, each deck players pick for a game of Tribute only contributes 1/5th of the total cards seen in game. Previously with the Druid King, we wanted to give players a consistent way to see more cards in the Tavern during a game. With Almalexia, we felt players needed more interaction with the cards their opponent purchased so they can tip the scales of randomness in their favor.
Irenio: When making a new deck we aim to add new opportunities for play and counterplay with your opponent. Between the patron power and her confine mechanics, Almalexia has the most direct way of mucking with your opponent since the base mechanics introduced with the launch of Tribute.
Thank you to both John and Irenio for taking the time to discuss the newest Tales of Tribute update! You can gather pieces of the all-new Almalexia set by playing through the latest content introduced in the Necrom Chapter, so if you want to make sure you have access to the latest cards and patron, it's time to head into the Telvanni Peninsula! Are you excited to try out Almalexia in your Tales of Tribute matches? Let us know via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!