The day was Wednesday, May 12th, 2010. I remember it like it was yesterday. We Monpoc players were sitting at our computers, happily chatting away about the new movie info (more on that later), preparing for the Masters Tournament coming up, and generally having a good old day. My Mega Mucustos had come in the mail, so it was especially a pro-Monsterpocalypse afternoon for yours truly. Then, that evening, tragedy struck.

The new errata document was released.

The changes made in the newest errata have caused a significant amount of heated discussion in the community, and with good reason: these are some of the biggest tweaks since Explosion and Multi-Shot got nerfed. Let’s go over some of the major ones:


Morpher Changes

The first big change is how morphers hyper up. Under the old rulings, when a morpher hypered up, each building underneath the freshly created hyper form was destroyed and each unit was crushed. Because those buildings were destroyed, reactions went off, and hazard tiles were placed accordingly; however, a point was made that the hyper form did not take damage from the hazard. This is in line with the hyper effects of a normal monster, since the reasoning is in essence the monster was always there, just a different figure is being used to represent. Unfortunately, this caused some complications with Live Wire. Live Wire is a building reaction that causes damage to adjacent monsters when it activates; under the old rules, a morpher hypering up would take damage from it. This obviously makes zero flavor sense. Why does my monster take damage from loose electrical cables when it doesn’t take damage from a chemical spill or building fire in the exact same circumstances? Because of this, the following erratum has been made:

“If bringing a metamorph into play would place it on spaces occupied by other figures, crush all units and destroy all buildings in those spaces. No one gains power dice from buildings destroyed or units crushed to make way for the metamorph. Any buildings destroyed resolve their Reactions after the Metamorph has been placed, and those Reactions can damage the newly placed metamorph. Metamorphs cannot come into play on a space occupied by a monster or an Indestructible structure.”

This, I think, is a wholly reasonable change. The only difference being that now, when a morpher hypering up destroys a building that lays a hazard, that hyper form takes hazard damage. It makes sense from a flavor standpoint, and while it is a very minor hit to the power level of morphers, it isn’t something that totally nerfs them.

On the subject of total nerfs, though…

The Ignite Errata


Hooooo, boy. This one caused a lot of shake up over on the official boards. Tempers flared, chairs were thrown and tables flipped, and I’m pretty sure at least one person cried. What’s the big deal? Take a look at Ignite, then and now.

The old Ignite:

IGNITE—Flip an adjacent rubble tile to its hazard side. Figures occupying the same space(s) as that hazard suffer its effects as if they had collided with it.

The new Ignite:

IGNITE—Flip an adjacent rubble tile to its hazard side. Units on the tile suffer the effects of the hazard as if the unit had ended an advance on the hazard. Monsters do not suffer the effects of this hazard being brought into play.

There are multiple parts to this, but here are the major ones: Under the new Ignite rules, flying units and monsters are immune to fires sprouting under their feet. It also adds evidence to the age-old question of “Can units collide?” that, in fact, they can not. But more important is that monsters aren’t affected anymore.

This goes against everything that Ignite was used for in the current meta. Ignite was used as a monster damaging tool. The reasoning behind the errata, coming from various sources in Privateer’s development and rules team, is that:

-It goes against the original intention of the ability; rather than being a mirror of Extinguish like they wanted, players were using it like a shotgun.

-It allowed a player to deal damage to an opponent without rolling. One staffer even went as far as to say “Unavoidable auto-damage is bad for a game, whatever it is”.


Now, I think it’s one of the smaller hyperboles I’ve made in my life when I say that this is one of the most ridiculous lines of thinking I’ve ever heard. The first reason translates to me as “players weren’t playing the way we want them to”. I resent that business policy. Quite a lot. Changing the rules of a game to prevent your player base from doing anything you didn’t plan for them to do is really bad form. Imagine if Capcom had updated Street Fighter II to remove the ability to do combos. They were originally against the developers intentions, right? Can you imagine Street Fighter, heck, fighting games as a genre, without combos?


The second one is even more over the top. Unavoidable damage IS in almost every collectable game. The Magic card Flames of the Blood Hand deals four damage to target player, costs three mana, and can’t be prevented. It costs three a-dice to spawn a Fire Kami, move it, and Ignite. Both take away at most 1/5 of the enemy’s starting health. Flames of the Blood Hand quite obviously never ruined Magic.

Luckily, things have calmed down over the past two weeks, and the general consensus, while negative, is that this weakened Ignite is here to stay.
Now we can move on to curbstomping Radial Attack.

P.S. One last bit of news: the Monsterpocalypse movie. It’s been all over the internet, but in case you haven’t heard, Dreamworks recently acquired film rights to the Monsterpocalypse intellectual property and Tim Burton has expressed interest as a “creative consultant”. Immediately comments about Johnny Depp playing Gorghadra started to trickle in, but I’d like to realistically rewind a bit before we get to jabbing at Mr. Burton’s limited casting variety. No movie has been confirmed, only that the IP has been secured. Movie studios do this all the time to avoid lawsuits; it’s entirely possible that Dreamworks is planning a wholly unrelated kaiju feature. Even if nothing comes out of it, though, the exposure the game is getting from the news is certainly a plus!

---

What are your thoughts about the recent errata? Check out the forums and talk it up!

---

Don't forget to check out our Quest: Enter the Vortex contest. You have a chance to win free Wizards of the Coast products! Stop in and check it out.

Also, don't forget to take a look at our new EoV Marketplace. We are still looking for vendors who who are interested in participating and want get closer to the readers. Our Vendors are required to provide $25 a month in store credit that our readers can buy with Vortex Bucks earned in the forums by participation. Its a win-win for everyone involved. So check it out.

---