[UEP, Accepted] Wizard's Laughter Playability

[Bandobras Took]

Name: Wizard's Laughter Playability

Status: Proposed

Proposal maintainer: Bandobras Took

Categories: Balance

Errata:  Current CRF Errata: Card Erratum: Change "Wizard only." to "Wizard only during opponent's site phase."

Replace during opponent's site phase with during any player's turn if an influence attempt is made against one of your resources or characters.

Problem: With the current Errata, the card doesn't do a single thing against agent influence attempts, which occur during your turn, not your opponent's.

Solution: Make the card more like Poisonous Despair, which allows play during the opponent's site phase but is not restricted to it.

Pros: The card will work as it most likely should.

Cons: None that I can tell; people have most likely been playing it this way anyway.

Rationale: The card's meant to be an influence canceler, but I have more to fear from an agent than from my opponent in most cases.

Discussion:

Voting started at: May 3rd, 2007

Voting ends at: June 3rd, 2007

[Leon]

This sounds like a good errata to me and they certainly did not have agents in mind already when creating Wizard's Laughter. Though I do not know if the card will see much play either way.

[Ringbearer]

I disagree. Influencing with agents is hard enough as it is, and it rarely sees play. So why stump it even more in the ground?

[Bandobras Took]

Playable on an untapped agent. Tap the agent who may then make an influence attempt against an ally or character. +6 to influence attempt (+10 if the agent is a diplomat). An additional +7 to the attempt if target character has the same home site as the agent or if target ally is playable at the agent's home site.

+17 to a roll is pretty good.

Playable on an untapped diplomat agent. Tap the agent who may then make an influence attempt against a faction playable at the agent's site. +6 to influence attempt. Attempt is automatically successful if target faction is playable at the agent's home site.

Not even muster makes an influence attempt automatically successful.

Playable on an untapped agent. Tap the agent who may then make an influence attempt against an ally, faction, or character. Unused general influence modification does not apply. If successful, the target is not discarded, but rather it is returned to its owner's hand.

Many people would pay blood not to have the GI modification not apply.

Not to mention Good Sense revolts providing a further +4 to what you're doing, and having the same home site as the Character/Ally/Faction reduces the number required to 0 all by itself.

I'm not sure agent influencing is as hard as you make it out to be.

[Sly Southerner]

I have always found the original erratum very annoying in that it restricted use to opponent's site phase. My feeling is that they may have got it wrong and meant to add the possibility of using it in an opponent's site phase without preventing using in during a player's own turn. I've been burnt by this before and it was very frustrating.

Yes for me.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

voted yes, it's more thematic, and it creates flexibility of the card and provides a way of dealing with influence attempts by agents.

There is one peculiarity however, and that is that for thematic reasons I always though it rediculous -speaking of laughter- that a wizard laughing at one site can cancel an influence attempt against a faction/company at another part of ME.  (Likewise others like Marvels of course, but that is a more necessary staple hazard remover, and in casual play we always use the houserule that hazards played on a company can only be Marvelled by sages in that company).
This could be included in the UEP, saying: "wizard only if an influence attempt is made against any of his X by a character or agents at his site." But, that would diminish the power of the card, and it's not in line of the original either...just a thought.

I always liked this card alot, because of the passage in the book, where Gandalf breaks the power of Saruman's voice by his laughter, but also because opponent never expects this card. When you see an influencing opponent coming, sideboard this one in!

[Bandobras Took]

Looks like this one made it with a margin of three percent.  Hooray!