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"Demon King 魔王 (mó wáng)"
Wikipedia link: Dong Zhuo Wiki
Who is he:
Despite the unpopularity of Cao Cao 曹操 or Si Ma Yi 司马懿, people give due credit to their accomplishments. Dong Zhuo, on the other hand, is unpopular to the point of hatred. He was a general with a bad name before he answered the call to rid the Emperor of the corrupt officials. In the ensuing chaos, the young Emperor and his half-brother was separated from their guards and loyalists. By a stroke of luck, Dong Zhuo found the Emperor and used the opportunity to seize power. He proclaimed himself Chancellor and brutally executed those who opposed him. Nobody, not even the Emperor, dared to speak out against him. From then on, the Imperial palace became Dong Zhuo's garden of sin. He ate and pampered himself as if he was Emperor, even slept on the Emperor's bed and raped the palace maids and concubines. His thirst for lust would become his downfall as a wedge was driven between him and his foster son (and his greatest military general) Lu Bu 吕布, thanks to the appearance of the beautiful Diao Chan 貂蝉.
Character ability 1: "Drown in Wine 酒池 (jiǔ chí)"
You can use any of your on-hand cards with a suit of "spades" as WINE 酒.
Character ability 2: [Enforced ability] "Garden of Lust 肉林 (ròu lín)"
When you use ATTACK 杀 on a female character and vice versa, the targeted character needs to use 2 DODGE 闪 cards to successfully evade the attack.
Character ability 3: [Enforced ability] "Disintegrate 崩坏 (bēng huài)"
At the end of every turn, if your health is not the least or amongst the least, you must lose 1 unit of health or reduce his maximum health by 1 unit.
Character ability 4: [Ruler ability] "The Tyrant 暴虐 (bào nüè)"
When other Heroes 群雄 characters cause any damage to other players, you can flip a judgement card. If the judgement card is the suit of "spades", Dong Zhuo will regain 1 unit of health.
Ability's relation to story:
"Drown in Wine" is based on him abusing his status and indulging in alcohol. It can be assumed that the palace is in large supply of wine and that Dong Zhuo will drink himself happily silly every night.
"Garden of Lust" is interesting. We know that Dong Zhuo is every woman's nightmare: burly, ugly, smelly, lusty, but powerful. Female characters would be at a disadvantage against a brute like him, thus the penalty of 2 DODGE cards. However Dong Zhuo's downfall was also due to a woman! The game makers penalized him by according him the same disadvantage. Very clever on their part!!
"Disintegrate" might be referring to his indulgent days ebbing away his ability to do anything else. The story never specifically pointed this out, but I suppose this is what the game-makers intended. Either that or they just needed a reason to justify giving him 8 units of health!
"The Tyrant" has little basis in the story and is probably created to counter the effects of "Disintegrate"
Additional info based on story:
1. Most famous achievement - Killing the "Emperor". Dong Zhuo replaced Emperor Shao 汉少帝 with Emperor Xian 汉献帝, then confined Emperor Shao and his mother. As the coalition led by Yuan Shao 袁绍 began stirring trouble for Dong Zhuo, he grew weary of keeping Emperor Shao alive. He forced the ex-Emperor, his mother and their servant to commit suicide by drinking poison.
2. Cause of death - Killed by his foster son, Lu Bu. After Diao Chan is betrothed to Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu becomes irrational with jealousy. It became easy for Wang Yun 王允, the mastermind, to convince Lu Bu to kill Dong Zhuo and take Diao Chan for himself. By tricking Dong Zhuo into thinking that the Emperor was going to abdicate the throne to him, they managed to lure Dong Zhuo into the palace unarmed. The troops were ordered to kill Dong Zhuo, and in a panic Dong Zhuo cried out to Lu Bu for help. The disloyal Lu Bu promptly impaled Dong Zhuo by the throat.
FAQ and Disambiguation
1. Can Dong Zhuo use his 4th ability if he is not the Ruler?
Ans: No he cannot.
2. When can wine be used?
Ans: Wine can only be used when his life reach ZERO. So when his health is 6, he cannot use Wine to increase his life. Only Peach can do that. On the other hand,Wine can be used at any time with Attack to increase damage.
3. Can a judgement card be drawn if Dong Zhuo is the ruler and a Hero character attacks him and caused a unit of damage?
Ans: Yes the Ruler ability disregards who the victim is . Therefore when any heroes character cause damage to anyone ,even to Dong Zhuo himself, he can flip a judgement card.
4. If a hero does more than one damage(ie wine attack or barbarian), does he get to draw judgemnet based on each individual damage dealt, or just once?
Ans: If Barbarians was used as " Heroes 群雄 '' player, every single player that gets damaged will result in Dong Zhuo drawing judgement. If there was 7 other players who are damaged by Barbarians , Dong Zhuo can flip judgement 7 times. Same apply to Raining Arrows and other multi-player damage cards.
5. What happens if Zhou Tai is in play, and his health is at -1, and Dong Zhuo's health is at 1, would he have to kill himself?
Ans: Yes. Provided Dong Zhuo has been around so long that his health and health limit has been reduced to only 1 unit . If Zhou Tai is still around in his perpetual brink of death status , Dong Zhuo would have to kill himself !
6. If Dong Zhuo is the ruler then how much health he gets ?
Ans: He gets 9 units of health .
Just want to make sure, for Dong Zhuo's 3rd ability, it occurs at the end of a ROUND? Not the end of his turn? So that means before the emperor takes his next turn is when the ability activates?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Ahh! My bad! It should be at the end of his TURN and not ROUND. Which means that this "Disintegrate" ability happens immediately after he discards his cards for that turn.
ReplyDeleteEventually after 4 or more rounds, Dong Zhuo will remain at the same health level with other players with the least health unit. If the player choose Dong Zhuo but not as Ruler, he cant use the 4th ability?
ReplyDeleteIf he is not the ruler, he cannot use the 4th ability.
ReplyDeleteUsually by the 4th round, there would a player or two with only 1 health left. This would still make Dong Zhuo not the least number of health (unless himself only has 1 unit left!).
Here's an interesting question:
ReplyDeleteThe original instructions that came with the Expansion pack said "If Dong Zhuo reduces his MAX health to ZERO, he dies immediately and cannot be rescued with PEACH or WINE".
I spent some time thinking how in the world that scenario could be possible. After some time i found only one possible solution to this problem.
Can you find that scenario too?
Ma Dai can se his backstab and reduce a characters max health to 1, then they activate their awakening ability... except Liu Shan.
Deleteer is he look overpower than other ruler ?
ReplyDelete8 health ability to turn spade to wine?
i wonder about his 3rd ability
"he must lose 1 unit of health or reduce his maximum health by 1 unit."
so first turn if he choose to lose 1 health(7 left)
next turn he choose to lose another health(6 left)
Next turn he use 1 card as wine (to 8 health)
end of turn he lose 1 health (7 left)
so if no one damage him he health will be about
6-8 for all the game ?
Thank
ps. Ricky Chua anyway i can contact you ?
-jagon-
Hi Jagon,
ReplyDeleteWine can only be used when his life reach ZERO. So when his health is 6, he cannot use Wine to increase his life. Only Peach can do that.
PS: You can email me at sg.rockstar@gmail.com :)
Cheers!
Oh no
ReplyDeleteMy group play wine all wrong
we though it is same as peach but restore 2 health.
I just read basic card section
really thank
-Jagon-
Hey Ricky,
ReplyDeleteI just saw the comment about Dong Zhuo's ability. I can't think of a time when he would lower his max health to 0, because that would mean he can't lower his regular health, and in that case he would already be dead.
Unless you're talking about if he's against Zhou Tai, but even then, the top still holds. What's the answer? :)
Oh yeah that's true. My scenario was with Zhou Tai at negative life, but Dong Zhuo would surely rather reduce his health from 1 to 0 than reduce his MAX from 1 to 0. :/
ReplyDeleteGood point there!
What if Dong Zhuo is the ruler and a Hero character attacks him and causes a unit of damage. Can a judgement card be drawn?
ReplyDeleteYes. The Ruler ability disregards the who the victim is. Therefore when any Heroes character causes damage to anyone, even to Dong Zhuo himself, he can flip a judgement card.
ReplyDeletewhat if a hero does more than one damage (ie. wine attack, or stampede), does he get to draw judgement based on each individual damage dealt, or just once?
ReplyDeletesorry i meant barbarians*
ReplyDeletemy friends and i call that card stampede cause of the elephant picture
If Barbarians was used by a "Heroes 群雄" player, every single player that gets damaged will result in Dong Zhuo drawing judgement.
ReplyDeleteIf there was 7 other players who are damaged by barbarians, Dong Zhuo can flip judgement 7 times. Same applies to Raining Arrows and other multi-player damage cards.
LOL, this guy is way too cheap, it would take ATLEAST 14 kills to take out this guy! ROFL, Just wow... I honestly doubt this guy loses that much when he's ruler with heroes as loyalists.
ReplyDeleteActually it's quite the opposite! We have our own inside joke known as "Dong Zhuo's Curse", because whenever Dong Zhuo is ruler, there's a 90% chance that he dies! (So far only 1 player has been able to win as Ruler Dong Zhuo).
ReplyDeleteA few reasons for that:
1. There are much fewer Neutral Heroes characters that the other allegiances.
2. (IMO the bigger reason) Players get too complacent with his long life bar and tend not to conserve health.
What happens if Zhou Tai is in play, and his health is at -1, and Dong Zhuo's health is at 1, would he have to kill himself lol?
ReplyDeleteYup!
ReplyDeleteProvided Dong Zhuo has been around so long that his health and health limit has been reduced to only 1 unit. If Zhou Tai is still around in his perpetual brink of death status, Dong Zhuo would have to kill himself!
Hey Happy CNY! btw just wanna ask if dong zhuo is the ruler then how much health he gets?
ReplyDeleteHey Kelvin! he gets 9 units of health.
ReplyDelete@Ricky
ReplyDeleteno matter how i think about it, i cant see much value in "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓" ridiculous life/ability.
that type of health simply attracts too much attention if u are not the "RULER 主公" and other players would kill u asap as they are worried u are not on their side. even if u are, the "DEFECTOR 内奸" would not be motivated to help u because u can tank by yourself.
Character ability 1: "Drown in Wine 酒池 (jiǔ chí)"
Dong Zhuo can use any of his on-hand cards with a suit of "spades" as WINE 酒.
this ability only makes "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓" more arrogant and neglectful of his health. and "WINE 酒" can only be used when u are at ur last life, seriously what are the odds of ppl letting u keep ur last card when they know u have this ability?
Character ability 2: [Enforced ability] "Garden of Lust 肉林 (ròu lín)"
When Dong Zhuo uses ATTACK 杀 on a female character and vice versa, the target character needs to use 2 DODGE 闪 cards to successfully evade the attack.
this ability is only useful to a certain extent. chances are you wun choose "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓" if u are not "RULER 主公" as explain on top, but if u are "RULER 主公" and you choose this, u will deter other players from choosing females characters as female characters are normally low on health and fighting against "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓" would be tough coz he has tons of life and u need 2 “DODGE 闪” to evade his “ATTACK 杀”. Other than that, it hasten your death coz u also need 2 “DODGE 闪” to dodge their “ATTACK 杀”
Character ability 3: [Enforced ability] "Disintegrate 崩坏 (bēng huài)"
At the end of every turn (after discarding his excess on-hand cards), if Dong Zhuo's health is not the least or amongst the least, he must lose 1 unit of health or reduce his maximum health by 1 unit.
His most useless ability! Chances are, u need to reduce your current life/max life for at least 6 turns (what are the odds of u being the lowest in life points when most ppl’s max life is only 4). Your life points would end up fluctuating between 2 – 5 which doesn’t make u any safer coz u are simply wasting peaches by gaining life, but if u dun gain u will die.
Character ability 4: [Ruler ability] "The Tyrant 暴虐 (bào nüè)"
When other Heroes 群雄 characters cause any damage to other players, Dong Zhuo can flip a judgement card. If the judgement card is the suit of "spades", Dong Zhuo will regain 1 unit of health.
This ability emphasize why you should ONLY chose "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” when you are a "RULER 主公" (WARNING: YOU SHOULD NEVER CHOOSE "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” IF GIVEN A CHOICE!! HE SIMPLY HAS TOO MANY DISADVANTAGES) This ability is probably ur main source of life gain as they aren’t much “Peach 桃” to go around in the game. But once again, what are the odds of your allies getting a Heroes 群雄 out of the whole pile of characters (5/24 or 12/60 if u dump in all expansions) and what are the odds of you opening a “Spades”?
In conclusion, "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” has close to zero value (if not negative) thanks to his attract attention health and awesome abilities. I think the game maker simply want to show the players that since "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” is a useless guy in the story, he is a useless guy in the game.
Actually, he can be a pretty interesting character to have when he isn't the Ruler.
ReplyDeleteAll the points you stated is valid, of course. What i shall state below are his strengths.
- "Drown in wine" can be used for "Wine Attack 酒杀". That makes him a high-damage character.
- For the point mentioned above to work, he will need as many on-hand cards as possible. This he has as long as he keeps his health high.
- Wine Attack on female characters are very useful too. They need 2 dodges or suffer 2 damage.
- As for his "The Tyrant" ability, my own personal experience was i chose to use Yuan Shao when Ruler was Dong Zhuo. Raining arrows like mad is just an incredible source for Dong Zhuo to keep flipping cards.
All in all, i DO NOT find Dong Zhuo a balanced character. I feel he is disadvantaged. That being said, some players may have very creative ways of using him that we simply have not thought of.
Hmm, if "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” is not the "RULER 主公", he doesn’t have "The Tyrant 暴虐 (bào nüè)", which will hasten his death. So far I have not seen other roles other than "RULER 主公" use "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓”, but if anyone has any insight bout good combos for "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓”, do let me know.
ReplyDeleteBut I think u made a point, “Wine Attack 酒杀" combo, can be deadly, especially towards female, but then again, it will deter other players from choosing female characters. But this combo requires him to have a lot of cards of hand, which means he have to use it early in the game before his "Disintegrate 崩坏 (bēng huài)" reduce his current/max life till he cannot keep many cards on hand.
for the “Yuán Shào 袁绍” combo, I personally think its very good. Except that you gotta hope that your team mate gets “Yuán Shào 袁绍” and choose it, your enemies dun have “DODGE 闪”, and you will open a spade. Tough luck huh?
I guess that’s why u have the "Dǒng Zhuó 董卓” ‘s curse, cause his abilities aren’t that good and he is very dependent on teammates to keep him alive.
Thanks for the response and insight anything. If anyone knows any other ways of playing “Dǒng Zhuó 董卓”, do share with me.
Hi Ricky
ReplyDeleteHave you heard about "Double Generals" mode? This auxiliary mode is quite popular among experienced players in China, so you could add it on your website as well)
The idea is that each player chooses 2 generals. In this case they can use all their skills, while health gauge is set according to the largest one between the two characters.
So, concerning Dong Zhuo: in "Double Generals" mode he works INSANE with Huang Gai. He has a lot of health at the beginning, can use Trojan Flesh 7 times (8 for Ruler but he is unlikely to choose this kamikaze duet) without any peaches, and also can use spades in case he is unlucky to draw peaches....well, a player should have been cursed by heavens, if he cannot draw crossbow and loads of ATTACKS with this arsenal. A Rebel or Defector with this pair of generals can just "clear his way" to the final goal :D
I've heard of the Double Generals mode (双将) and have even played it using our own rules. I'll do a write up on that!
ReplyDeleteWow pairing Dong Zhuo and Huang Gai together would be just insane!! That sounds pretty unbalanced if you ask me.
Double Generals sounds like a lot of fun! I don’t see a post for it yet, but I cannot resist posting this team that I just thought of, so I will do it here.
ReplyDeleteI think the ultimate team would be Zhēn Jī and Zhāng Jiǎo. Because Zhāng Jiǎo can switch out judgment cards with his black cards, the merged character can draw an infinite number of cards. According to online rules, Zhēn Jī gets the black-suited judgment cards immediately, so these cards can be switched with red-suited ones, effectively allowing the pair to keep all red and black cards and continue to draw until the deck has no more cards.
I am sorry that this has nothing to do with Dǒng Zhuó, but I couldn’t resist sharing this duo after I saw the comments about the Double General mode above!
With regards to the post above, this wouldn't work because Zhang Jiao would never have enough cards to keep switching out for Zhen Ji.
ReplyDeleteAbout above:
ReplyDeleteAll he would need is a single black card. If her first judgement came up red, he would use that to switch the judgement. The pair then keeps both (the red and the black) then does another judgement. Well they still have that same black card. No matter what they will have a black card since they immediately collect the judgement card. This would be a combo that would break the deck.
Another combo that breaks the game, though less deadly is a Liu Bei and Lu Xun combo. They could keep giving cards away forever.
Another interesting pair would be a Dong Zhou and Meng Huo combo. Dong Zhou would disentigrate sure enough but even if they got down to 2 health, Meng Huo could rise again. Even if they failed to get many hearts, they would draw quite a few cards.
That`s why there is a list of prohibited combos, which either breaks the game mechanics or can lead to infinite card-drawing.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, Zhen Ji + Zhang Jiao and Liu Bei + Lu Xun are combos that break the game mechanics: they can draw all the cards from the deck without any output. In the end there will be no cards, but technically they are supposed to go on drawing cards.
Young Zhuge Liang + Huang Yueying and Young ZGL + Lu Xun are the examples of the infinite card-drawing. They can use "Blaze" and "Negate" endlessly, but, since the used cards enter the discard pile, which will be shuffled to form a new deck, the process can be continued.
Sometimes players also prohibit combos of Huang Yueying with characters like Gan Ning and Yan Liang&Wen Chou, but these combos depend on luck - they are either a real disaster or just unlucky to get the cards of the required suit.
There is a list of quite interesting combinations. I could introduce it sometime in future :)
^ Above for the Double Generals mode (双将), we played it 4vs4 but with 3 generals and I was lucky: I have dong zhuo, guo jia and huang gai hehe . I won in 1 turn lol
ReplyDeleteHonestly for Zhen Ji and Zhang Jiao, you can draw the entire deck only if Sima Yi is not around or he is your best friend, if not you might not even draw one card, must less the entire deck.
ReplyDeleteTo the anonymous above, if you were drawing four cards every time you cut your health as Huang Gai because of Guo Jia, you were doing it wrong. Huang Gai's loss of health is not the same as damage, and loss of health does not trigger Guo Jia's ability.
ReplyDeleteimagine lui bei and lu xun
ReplyDelete