Big Box Big Update - Market Deck

Wolf of Black Market is the final expansion added to Danmaku!! and is exclusive to Big Box. With it comes the market deck and spirits cards. These add a market row to the game, allowing players to purchase the cards they need instead of leaving their draws in the hands of randomness. Some of the cards players can exchange for lean into the exchange process itself, giving them more purchasing power over the long term – assuming they live long enough to capitalize on them.

The Market Deck

The market deck adds an additional element of strategy to your Danmaku!! games. This deck contains a wide selection of wares, from early-game ramp cards to game-ending finishers. The accumulation of resources allows you to build towards an ultimate goal over the course of many turns. We’ll look at example of these cards later.

Market Row

Throughout the game, there are five face-up cards from the market deck in the market row. Each market deck card has a cost that a player must pay (in points) to exchange for that card.

When playing with the market deck, add a new step to the beginning of each turn:

Beginning phase

• Start of turn
• Incident step
• Encounter step (if playing with MoBS)
• Market step
• Draw step

During the market step, the current player chooses up to one card in the market row and trashes it (they put it into the market discard pile). Then, restock the market row (put the top card of the market deck into the market row face-up until there are five cards in it).

Note that the market row does not get restocked automatically as cards are purchased. It only restocks during the market step or when the effect of a card causes it to be restocked.

At the start of the game, the market row is empty. Do not reveal the market row while players are looking at their role cards and choosing their character. The entire process of the game setup when playing with the Market deck is as follows:

Game setup

1. Shuffle decks
2. Determine roles
3. Choose characters
4. Reveal heroine
5. Reveal characters
6. Start of game effects
7. Draw starting hands
8. Restock the market row
9. Exchange step*
10. Discard step*

* Exchange step and discard step have been updated as of Big Box. Details below.

After the game setup, the Heroine takes her first turn.

Exchanging Cards

One big change coming with Big Box is that exchanging is now a core rule in the Danmaku!! base game, regardless of which expansions you are playing with. As such, the rules for exchanging have been unified. This includes “buying” cards from the market row, trading in for a lunatic card, and acquiring a card from a spirits pile.

As an additional core rule, whether you are playing with any expansions or not, players can exchange 3 points to draw a card from the main deck.

Regardless of the source, these all count as exchanges and follow the same rules.

• Players can only exchange cards at specific times:
  • On their own turn as an Action
  • On any player’s exchange step, when it is their turn to exchange
• Players can’t exchange if they have reached their exchange limit for this turn
  • Exchanges during the main step count toward the exchange limit during the exchange step

To exchange, you first choose the card or deck you are trying to exchange for, then discard one or more Main deck cards from your hand or Point cards you control with a total point value equal to or greater than the chosen card’s cost.

• You can spend more points than is required to exchange for the chosen card.
• You do not get change for overspending.
• You can't exchange for multiple cards during a single exchange (for instance, choosing multiple cards and paying the total cost), even if you have multiple exchanges.
• Cards discarded from exchanges can be collected by incidents.

When all of the expansions of Danmaku!! are included, these are the possible things you can exchange cards for:

While designing the Market deck, we were careful not to just make it a more complicated version of the Lunatic deck. We looked back at each of the exchangeable decks and ensured it had a specific role so players have a reason to exchange from one deck over another:

• The Main deck has mostly straightforward cards, but also more defenses than the other decks, as it’s one of the only sources of dodge cards.
• The Market deck rewards long investment and provides a predictable reward the player can choose from. It gives access to additional exchanges and exchange discounts, as well as high power assist characters and artifacts, if you can afford them.
• The Lunatic deck is in an unpredictable lottery where every prize is a winner. Some of the only counters to endgame market deck cards are here, as well as a bunch of strange youkai items.
• The Spirits cards provide fundamental Danmaku!! effects that also double as points you can spend on a future exchange.
• The Hanabi deck (from the Flowering Night micro-expansion) provides an escalating series of effects that must be purchased in order.

Exchange Limit

Because you can spend main deck cards when exchanging, there is a risk of players repeatedly exchanging the cards they drew to draw more cards, effectively cycling through the main deck. This was already an issue in Lunatic Extra that we wanted to fix in Big Box. This was solved by the exchange limit, a rule introduced in Wolf of Black Market that is now a core rule in Danmaku!!.

By default, each player can only make one exchange per turn. Some card effects can increase your exchange limit. Most of these new effects are in the market deck.

The exchange limit is per turn and not per round, so you can still exchange on other players’ turns. Having a limit ultimately makes individual turns more concise and the game flow better as a result.

Exchange Step

The rules for when a player can exchange have been clarified with the addition of the exchange step. No longer a part of the discard step, it is its own distinct step in the ending phase that happens whenever a player passes their turn:

Ending phase

• Mob step (if playing with MoBS)
• Exchange step
• Discard step
• End of turn

During the exchange step, starting with the current player and going in turn order, players may exchange cards until they have reached their exchange limit. Because the market row is available for all players to see, it is important that turn order is maintained.

Players are not required to exchange. However, each player only gets one opportunity to exchange during each exchange step. (It doesn’t loop back around.)

Discard Step

In addition to the updates to rules concerning exchanging, Big Box brings major new rules regarding the discard step:

• During the discard step, starting from the Heroine and going in turn order, each player may play any number of Item cards from their hand and then that player discards to max hand size.
  • Any triggered effects from playing an Item happen during this process. For instance, if a player draws a card by playing an Item, they may continue to play Item cards, including the card they just drew.
  • Players discard to max hand size after all effects have triggered. Thus, if a player draws as a result of playing an item and ends up above max hand size, they will then need to discard down to max hand size.

This allows players to put Items into play even when it’s not their turn. Originally this was only a part of “turn zero” introduced in Lunatic Extra. However, with more ways for players to get cards during others’ turns, there needed to be a way to get those Items into play. It felt bad buying a cool defensive item from the market row only to have it rot in your hand, effectively useless until your turn came around. This was especially bad if a player played a Tempest and forced you to shuffle away your hand before you had a chance to play all the cool cards you just bought.

Market Deck Contents

Enough about the rules changes introduced in Wolf of Black Market and Big Box. Let’s look at the individual cards added with the market deck.

Villagers

For the market deck, we knew we wanted to introduce the human village residents. These characters didn't have combat capabilities or spell cards so they were not appropriate as character cards, but we still wanted them to have some nice representation.

They ended up fitting nicely using the Assist Character mechanic introduced in MoBS. With the Market deck, we could make them highly desirable cards with powerful, repeatable effects that you would always be happy to see. Cost-wise, they ended up near the top of the curve as the penultimate cards in the deck to justify their incredible value. Rinnosuke and Akyuu generate a ton of card advantage, while Kosuzu and Miyoi have powerful, yet random abilities.

Dolls’ War

For the market deck we also wanted to include Alice’s dolls. Particularly in the fandom, each of them is a tiny character unto themselves, and it’s a convenient fiction for purchasing assist characters via the market deck. While they aren’t as splashy as the human villagers, each of the dolls provides a repeatable, predictable benefit.

Cheap Artifacts

It’s nice to have an artifact. They give you rare or unique abilities and feel good to play. For the market deck, we wanted to include some discount artifacts. These aren’t as powerful as the named artifacts, but they’re more accessible in case you’ve been unlucky and haven’t drawn an artifact elsewhere. Unlike named artifacts, there are duplicates of these floating around.

Market Cards

In order to make money, you must be prepared to spend money! The market deck includes cards that make you better at doing trades. Go figure. Each of these cards increases your buying power in a different way and gives you a unique effect to boot. Blank Card and Purchasing Power work directly with the market deck itself. Maneki Neko lets you exchange with both the lunatic deck and the market deck on the same turn. Fish Spirit gives you a bunch of offense right now and the ability to purchase game winning eight point cards next turn. You could even pick up all four of these on your turn if you’re lucky enough.

Six & Seven Point Cards

In our plans for Wolf of Black Market, we knew it was finally time to break the five point cap on cards. Beyond the new assist characters we planned a few other types; better versions of existing cards, powerful actions, and top-end artifacts.

Last Word deserves special mention. As the ultimate Invocation card it needed to activate your Spell Card in some special way. It also needed to work for every character and their wildly varied Spell Cards. So its effects are Always Good, except for the last part about no more Action cards. You can’t say “this is my last word,” then keep going, can you?

Octo Point Cards

The eight point cards are the top tier cards in the market deck. They provide huge benefits and are very difficult to deal with. You should do your best to prevent opponents from obtaining one, as these cards are designed to be a Problem.

The only non-artifact, Phoenix Tail, is hard to deal with. Certain characters can deal with it individually, but after it’s purchased most need an Interrupt from the lunatic deck to stop you from getting that full heal.

The three eight point Artifacts are great in that they’re all immune to “Borrow” and Sealing Shot. You paid the price, you should get to use your shiny new Artifact. For your opponents, the only ways to deal with these Artifacts are to prevent you from getting them, manifest a Worldly Desires, or get Scorched Earth out of the lunatic deck and destroy them that way. Once you have them, you can just unload on your opponents in style.

As we finish up the art for Big Box we will keep you up to date on development. We’re excited to bring to fruition the biggest Danmaku!! release ever!!

Edit: I've added the gray card back for the market deck.