Behind the Cards: Wristcuffs
by Trent McCrow

During my short stint in Card Development during the production of SAV I proposed a little card called Restraining Bolt. This Equipment was designed to have a negative effect on one of your opponent's units. Although it did not make its way into the Scum and Villainy expansion it resurfaced in the BOE card we have today; Wristcuffs.

It has been a long time since we had a “Behind the Card” article and I have been delving through some of the older work of the IDC and was inspired to take you behind the card as we look at the origins of Wristcuffs!

It started back during production of Scum and Villainy, what became our second expansion release. I was working in the Card Development sub-committee after moving from Graphic Design. After Fall of the Republic the IDC decided it’s focus on Equipment was lacking and decided that for Scum and Villainy we would make Equipment not only a cool feature of the game, but an integral part of winning decks and strategies. So as production moved forward we started to see the potential for some great Equipment with a range from offensive to defensive Equipment and even utility Equipment (Electrobinoculars).

The large variety of proposed Equipment cards got me thinking about ‘negative Equipment’ and that is when I remembered the good old restraining bolts that were on R2-D2 and C-3PO when Owen and Luke first bought the droids. I thought some more and came up with the following proposed card:

Restraining Bolt Neutral Equipment - Character
Build: 2
Pay 1 Build point --> Equip
Equipped Droid gets "As long as restraining bolt is attached to this unit it can't attack or use any abilities." and "Pay 4 Force --> Unequip Restraining Bolt from this unit."
You can equip this equipment to your opponent's units.

Unfortunately for me and all my proposed cards for the SAV expansion, I was making the move to the Public Affairs sub-committee just as the first draft list for SAV was being formed and was unable to push for Restraining Bolt to be in the expansion. But luckily my idea did not die as Pocketaces98 noticed Restraining Bolt and commented “I like the idea of equipping your opponents units.” But for the rest of the SAV expansion the idea of Restraining Bolt remained in the large pile of unused ideas, waiting for its time to be revisited, waiting for someone to access the archives and dig it up. For the IDC archives are large and vast filling up with every expansion.

Unlike a lot of the material sitting in the IDC archives, the idea of Restraining Bolt and equipping your opponents units had an ally in Pocketaces98. When it was decided that a card named Wristcuffs would be included in the Battle of Endor expansion, I secretly jumped for joy as I knew that my idea would have a good shot at becoming reality! As the Card Creation process had changed a little between SAV and BOE this meant that instead of members making their own cards and then selecting from all the cards made a list of cards would be drawn up with members creating their version of that card. For Wristcuffs three members submitted their ideas:

Version A
Wristcuffs - Neutral
Equipment - Character
Build: 1
Pay 2 build points --> Equip.
You may attach Wristcuffs to your opponent's Characters.
Equipped Character gets "Upkeep: Pay 1 Force or tap this unit" and "Pay 2 build points --> Unequip a Wristcuffs from this unit."
Flavor text...

Version B
Wristcuffs - Neutral
2 build
Pay 2 build points, 2 Force -> Equip
Equipped Character gets -20 speed, -2 power, and "Pay 2 build points -> Discard Wristcuffs from this unit."
You may equip Wristcuffs to one of your opponents units.
Flavor text...

Version C
Wristcuffs - Neutral
Equipment - Character
Build: 1
Pay X Force -> Equip to one of your opponent’s Characters with a build cost of X. Put that unit into your build zone. That unit gets "Upkeep: Put a Corruption counter on this unit or discard a card."
If your opponent removes a Corruption counter from the Equipped unit, remove Wristcuffs from that unit. Your opponent gains +6 Force.
Flavor text...

These three versions were then combined into the Wristcuffs that made it onto the first draft list:

Wristcuffs - Neutral
Equipment - Character
Build: 1
Pay 2 build points --> Equip.
You may attach Wristcuffs to your opponent's Characters.
Equipped Character gets "Upkeep: Pay 1 Force or tap this unit" and "Pay 2 build points --> Unequip a Wristcuffs from this unit."

The first draft list was then sent to the Rules sub-committee which said this about the Wristcuffs and made the following changes (in Red):

Wristcuffs - Neutral
Equipment - Character
Build: 1
You may attach Wristcuffs to one of your opponent's Characters.
Pay 2 build points -> Equip
Equipped Character unit gets "Upkeep: Pay 1 Force or tap this unit." and "You can't detach Wristcuffs from this unit." and "Pay 2 build points -> Your opponent detaches Wristcuffs from this unit. Play only during your build step."
"You no longer need those."—Emperor Palpatine
60/180
RARE
[picture of the wristcuffs attached to Luke Skywalker]

Reordered the game text to make it clear that the Equipment can be attached to a unit, before paying the Equip cost.

Used a singular instead of a plural in the "You may attach" text.

The Equip keyword doesn't end with a period.

For unit type assignment, "unit" follows the unit type.

Ambiguity may arise regarding the detachment of Equipment. This can be done for free, though since the Equipment is controlled by your opponent, this makes things fuzzy. Therefore, the Equipment specifies that the Equipment can't be removed by the owner of the Character, but that owner can pay 2 build points and make their opponent detach it. (This is kind of in the spirit of Palpatine removing Luke's cuffs.)

Finally, since the player must pay 2 build points to have the Equipment detached, it's a "Play only during your build step" ability.

RU would like to note that this card benefits the Light Side player better, in that the Dark Side player must pay the Upkeep, then pay to have Wristcuffs detached. The Light Side player only has to pay 2 build points to re-attach Wristcuffs to an opposing Character.

Card works as worded.

Wristcuffs then made its way through the play testing process and emerged unchanged from the vision Card Development and the refinement that Rules added. It might have been a long time coming but with the release of BOE finally got my ‘negative Equipment’! And although it is not as powerful as I had originally imagined when I created Restraining Bolt I’m very pleased to see yet another of my ideas become part of the great game we all love!

Play, Love, Live the SWTCG! I know I do!

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