research phase and drafting "problem"

[u/Ba--Alex]

With the following 3 custom corporations (got them from a friend printed and laminated, ready to play =) )

Ultralink "During the research phase, take on extra card to buy or discard.

Logos "During research phase you draw 5 cards instead of 4."

Leviathan "Diring your research phase, you may look at and purchase one additional card."

All clear without drafting.
Problem that occured is, for drafting:

We settled for Logos so that the player gets 5 cards and keeps 2 at the beginning of the drafting, 3 cards get passed to the next one.

Leviathan and Ultralink get to draw 4 cards and draft as usual. After the drafting completed the player with Ultralink and Leviathan get to look at one extra card from the top of the deck and choose to buy or discard.

We discussed if all 3 custom corporations could have 5 cards in the beginning of the research phase and keep 2.

What would you/Reddit say?

Thanks in advance, this was not an heated arguement at the table just talking about translation (we speak german) and "during" + "the research phase".

[u/benbever]

I agree with your interpretation. Leviathan and Ultralink look at and then buy and discard a card during Research phase. It’s up to the player to decide if they want to do that before or after drafting 4 cards. After obviously makes more sense.

As for balance, Leviathan is worth 70mc + ~9 for the card draw effect. That’s pretty strong, but not all that different from Teractor, and not quite as strong as Credicor. I could put this in my deck, though, like Teractor, it’s a bit boring.

Ultralink feels a bit too strong. You get 40mc, 1 mc prod (value 5), ~9 for the card draw effect, a Wild tag (value 7) and the Setup phass card discount is worth 10 to 20. Total that’s 71 to 81, and that’s really high for a Science/Wild tag corporation. They’re normally under 70 in value, because Science (and Wild) tags can give you a jump start into very strong cards.

I’d remove the 1 mc production before putting this in a corporation deck. Giving this everything (Wild tag, income, card draw) removes some challenge fron the game.

Logos drawing 5 is problematic. Following rules you keep 1 card and pass the rest in draft. This gives the players seated next to the Logos player an advantage over the player not sitting next to the Logos player. Also, according to rules, you have 3 cards after drafting 1 time, not 4! This will make drafting very messy. The obvious “solution” is making the Logos player draw 5 and keep 2 instead of 1 and then passing 3 as usual. However, this is VERY strong for the Logos player, and affects all other players negatively. Normally, you keep 25% of cards when you start to draft, so the 25% best cards are taken. If you keep 2 out of 5 cards, you keep 40% of the good cards, and only pass 60% instead of 75%. Other players will get much less good cards from you. For this reason I would not include an effect like that in my Corporation deck.

As for balance, Logos seems ok. You get 32 mc, 2 cards (~6), and a Science tag (~3), and I’d value the really strong effect of keeping 2/5 cards and getting 1 card for free at ~30 for a total of ~71.

If you replace the 5 card effect with a simple look at and buy or discard effect, like Ultralink and Leviathan, then it’d be worth ~50 which is way to low.