I am experimenting with a new overlord deck strategy. It's quite simple and I don't think it tips the balance much, and if so in the heroes favor, but it does make for a surprising and fun game.

First of all I have each and every overlord card I own shuffled into one big pile, excluding the reward cards, and I draw cards as normal.

To keep it fair, I award the overlord, at the start of each encounter, tokens equal to his current experience to spend on cards when he want to play them. I actually use the hero tokens for this purpose. If the overlord wants to play a level (cost) 2 card he must spend two tokens

At the start of each overlord turn I can discard any number of cards in my hand, up to the amount of heroes, and draw new cards plus my new card. So in a 3 hero game an overlord could get 4 new card at the start of one of his turns.

It makes for some pretty interesting twists. Feel free to give it a try, and offer any suggestions.

I´m confused here. You are saying that the Overlord needs to pay hero tokens to play cards in his/her hand, but you didn't say how you gain these tokens during the encounter, besides the initial n=number of heroes at the start of the encounter? Otherwise you play a couple of cards and then you´re completely done for the whole encounter? I don't think this is what you meant?

I think you should ditch the card replacement mechanism, for the reason that I would more than GLADLY ditch my whole hand to dig for top tier cards, which your engine allows me to do quite easily.

Then while it's fun on paper to hold a hand with Web Traps x 2, Treacherous Shadows, Uthuk Demon Trap, 2x Dashes and a few more, I think certain combinations would imbalance many quests, race ones especially, or even "kill all" quests if you manage to hoard Blood Rages and high damage cards. Many utility cards from Universal become quite redundant as well since your card replacement engine is much more powerful.

Then many cards out there don't function at all if you don't have the prerequesites, like cards from Infector, Soulbinder, Unkindness. You draw Envelop but can't do anything with it on its own. Speaking of which, do you allow the Overlord to put Ties that Bind and Call of the Ravens in the OL play area at start or do you put them in the deck as well?

With all that being said, I can see where you´re coming from, but you should definitely test this more to get a feel. I can't say that you´re wrong doing this if you´re having fun with it.

Allow me to rephrase this.

Each quest(2 encounters) awards the overlord at least one exp, sometimes 2 if he wins.

This total is tracked, and at the start of each encounter the tracked number is referenced and then the overlord picks up tokens equal to that number. I only use the hero tokens because they go unused for the most part in my games, but any tokens or marker pieces would do; poker chips would work just fine. These tokens he can used to play cards that would otherwise need to be bought to build a deck. 1 token to play a 1 exp overlord card. This mechanism ensure that a overlord can't play a handful level 3 cards that he would otherwise not have earned.

At the start of the encounter, as usual, he picks up cards equal to the hero number. and each turn he also draws a card as normal, and if a hero is knocked down yet again.

The discard mechanism is for when the overlord spends all his exp in an encounter, but keeps drawing leveled cards. but i see your point about just using it to dump "useless" cards to seek out the high tier cards. Perhaps, there could be a rule change saying " only cards that can no longer be played, due to lack of exp, can be discarded." As this is the mindset I have already been using.

I don't have the Infector series cards, but i haven't found any issue with the unkindness cards, which cards in specific were you thinking of?

Another benefit is that the deck doesn't take time to build, and most of my game mates are young children, and i need to spend time helping them setup.

OK so if I understood you correctly, the Overlord always gets to play Basic cards (since they cost 0), and then needs to spend hero tokens equivalent to the XP cost of a card to play said card. So basically, he cannot play any non-basic card during the Introduction quest, and may play exactly one level 1 card in the first Act I quest if he lost, or if he won the Introduction either two level 1s or one level 2. Is that correct?

Interesting.

I can see the potential in card variation, and that could work very well for your group. However I think it dumbs down the role of the Overlord by a fair bit, as you suppress the character building of the role. Which can be fine for you and your friends and I would even understand if that's something you´re looking for, as not everybody likes the Overlord role and how it is managed in-game. However most fans of the game will likely have a problem with that, but I´m sure you can understand where I´m coming at and I don't have to elaborate on this. It's probably a matter of taste in the end.

Now technically speaking, you have to realize (or you have already done that and accepted the consequences), that your rule automatically leads to very bad Overlord deck quality early in the campaign, forcing him to ditch a lot of cards as he cannot play the vast majority of the cards he is drawing. 105 cards total minus 18 for the rewards makes it 87 cards in your deck, then you can only play 15x2 Basic cards, which means that the Overlord can only play 1/3 of the cards in this big deck. It's extremely low. Statistically speaking only 1 card is useable in your drawing hand (2 at max).

Then projecting this to the end game, the risk is that since you can basically play what you want (XP/tokens allows), you´re still forced to play very conservatively for fear of running out of tokens when you actually need them. This is a big red flag for me personally (but again, it could be fine for others) as I strongly dislike in-game mechanisms that restrict me from playing my cards. Basically you are handed a set of cards, but you cannot play them by fear of something bad happening. Because in your case, I would be very enticed to building the ultimate hand and not spend anything until I make my big move in the encounter I´m playing. Everything else would be vastly sub-optimal play: a web trap here, explosive runes there... Cards played individually rarely have a large impact on your game position. So that's also a form of dumbing down the role of the Overlord, since you basically restrict his strategical choices to the very end game of the encounter. I don't know how much experience you have with the game, but maybe you have noticed that an Overlord unable to play cards is generally a very bad omen for him, as monsters alone seldom can quite cope with the objectives on their own. You need your cards.

Regarding Unkindness, well, all cards referring to a servant are not useable unless you have a servant out.

Sorry, not trying to discourage you or anything, I think your idea is interesting but it may in the end appeal to a small subset of this community. Still, I encourage you to persist in your testing, who knows maybe it's me who is missing something real fun out of what you suggested. Maybe others can comment? Cheers.

Your words ring loud and clear.

The handful of useless card early in the campaign is truly a hassle. I have played only once with the system, but what your saying, i did not consider.

In all honestly, my experience, in proper play is not a lot, and this deck idea might have come out of a lack of desire to learn the Overlord card systems and pros and cons. I think i might want to take a serious look at being a proper OV before I go and modify the game.

Thanks for the time and suggestions.

Cheer.