I guess the iffy word in the title is "novel" since new mechanics are often very intertwined with ones already built it. Regardless, the game is about to change substantially and I'm just wondering what types of mechanics you guys would like to see built into this game. Not so much from a balance perspective (like give this race THIS so they're good at THIS!), but more from a game richness perspective.

I’ll start it off! Here's some mechanics that I think would work really well in this game: (please keep in mind that the power of certain mechanics can always be controlled with appropriate costs):

1) A mechanic that allows a specific faction to play developments as if they were in their own hand. This could be extended to allow a different faction to develop cards in play in their respective zones.
I think the first mechanic would be a nice addition to the High Elves, as destro seem to be all about destroying devs, and dwarves and emp. have too much dev power already. The other might be appropriate for any of the destro factions.

2) A mechanic that allows a specific faction to heal damage on his capital (something more substantial than keystone forge), and/or transfer damage on his capital from 1 zone to another. Alternatively a mechanic that allows one to purchase cards by damaging one’s own capital.

3) A mechanic that allows one to attain cards from his deck by means other than the power of one’s quest zone. For example a tactic, that then allows you to spend resources to pick up a certain amount of cards. An obvious choice for this would the Dark elves, those deck manipulating devils!

4) MANY more trait specific mechanics. A person I play with feels very strongly about this and I have to agree. Trait specific bonuses would go a long way in enriching the game and give an increased level of culture to certain decks that are built even within a faction.

Now here are a few more "out there" ideas that would need a significant amount of development and testing before even being considered

5) A mechanic that allows one to "siege" a particular zone of a players capital. where by a player would somehow send forces out "in front" of a particular zone of one’s capital. They would then cause this zone a scaled power loss of some sort (say you have 4 power worth of units siegeing an opponent’s kingdom, the opponent would then attain 4 less resources during his turn). I imagine the opponent could also attack these units from both his battlefield and the zone affected in a manner that doesn’t waste his battlefield phase. the purpose of sieging would not so much be to destroy a zone but lower the benefit the opponent attains from power in that zone. Very sketchy I know, but if finely crafted it could lead to a richer confrontational experience in general.

6) The introduction of some sort of capital customization mechanic. Perhaps a type of card that could be played under your capitol board that allows you to customize how your turn progresses, and the constraints that the turn process enforces upon you. Customizable options wouldn’t even have to be faction specific (perhaps alliance specific???), since they would be very general adaptations in nature. For example if a player pays the cost of a customization he could then be allowed to accumulate resources through all his kingdom phases, or split the power between his quest and kingdom zones however he sees fit each turn. Who knows' these specific examples might be completely off the wall, but I think some sort of turn customization would also add a rich element to how games progress.

There's my 2 cents! Let's hear yours!

I'd like to see introduced one of the best mechanic from magic:

"After the Battlefield Phase there is another Capital Phase" I'm sure the game gonna gain a deeper strategy.

I agree that traits should be more important. However, in my view this wouldn't be a new mechanic, we already have a few cards based on traits, there just need to be more of them.

As for really new mechanics - at this point, I don't want them. I don't want the complexity of the game to increase before what's currently there works smoothly. And that's not the case as long as there isn't clear, concise, consistent wording of the cards, and as long timing/stacking is a science. It should be possible to have a complex, challenging game without things being vague and one often having to rely on guesswork during actual play and going with what seems somewhat right, and then having to have a discussion here and/or requiring a direct answer from the devs to find out if one handled the situation correctly. So while I'm excited about Legends, I'm not at all looking forward to any further uncertainty it might introduce, and I'm currently not in favor of more new mechanics beyond that. I get the impression Lukas is doing a good job though, and I'm optimistic that for now the quality of the FAQ will improve and later on the actual rules and card texts too.

Kragg said:

Wow that would be pretty intense, I cant imagine how your opponent could deal with this unless he had some crazy bonus as well. But if he had the same sorts of opportunities to juice up his turn cycle, I can see that being really cool to play through.