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We played Seasons for the first time and a player got the Die of Malice:

instead of performing the action(s) of your season die, reroll it; perform the new action(s) of the die roll and gain 2 crystals

The card does not seem to have any activation cost (it is written: 0 crystal).

Does this mean this card can be activated every turn, making sure the player will gain 2 crystals each time?

This seems too powerful for such a cheap card, especially when combined to the Dragon soul (-1 crystal and you can reuse the Die of Malice, giving 2 more crystals).

Thanks for your answers, cheers!

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The "0 crystal" you see is the summoning cost, not the activation cost, though since it's 0 it makes no difference: you can summon this card for free and also use it for free. Yes this means you can get 2 crystals for "free" every turn, though there is a cost: you have to work with totally random die rolls instead of the ones you chose. Unless you really think all 6 sides have the same net value to you (or you think the dice you were forced to choose from were on the low end of the value scale), this is a real cost.

I'm not a great Seasons player myself but note that this kind of cost/benefit tradeoff may affect new players and experienced ones differently. While you are less familiar with the strategy and hence which side of the die you should be picking anyway, you'll take the 2 free crystals every time and it will seem very powerful. An experienced player however may be more likely to have good reasons for needing a particular side of the die right now and so will not want to take those "free" crystals as often.

(There is also the same "opportunity cost" as with any power card: If you kept this card then in many cases you didn't keep some other card, and if you played this card then you have to increase your summoning gauge again to play some other card.)

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  • Yes, if the dice you get is already fine, it can be quite risky to re-roll it. But this player did not really have the dice he wanted, so he rerolled. To me the power of the card does not come from the 2 crystals (in fact that's not much). BUT reroll + 2 crystals EVERY TURN for free, is very very very nice. Thanks for your answer!
    – Nicolas Cailloux
    Dec 20, 2017 at 15:36
  • That's true: the reroll 'cost' I've been talking about can actually be a benefit instead if you don't like your options, and in that case free 2 crystals plus free reroll is very nice. By the way, here's some other discussion of overpowered cards - the game might well have some, though Die of Malice doesn't seem to make most people's list.
    – Benjamin Cosman
    Dec 20, 2017 at 21:36

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