Upgrade

## Upgrades

**Upgrades** are tech cards that each have the ability “Upgrade [Object]”. Upgrade cards can be attached to anything, but usually Upgrades will attach to units. The first time an Upgrade enters the field, it will attach for free. After that, you can pay that Upgrade's upgrade cost in order to move it around.

**Upgrade** is a **keyword ability** and a **class** that appears on tech cards.

**Upgrade** represents a **passive ability**, a **spark ability**, and an **active ability** all at once.

1. The Passive Ability - Is whatever stat bonuses or effects that the Upgrade grants while attached.
2. The Spark Ability - Whenever an Upgrade enters the field, its controller may attach it to something it could upgrade.
3. The Active Ability - Is always listed as "Upgrade [COST]". Its controller can use this ability during their turn to attach the Upgrade to something it could upgrade.

## History

### Design

**Upgrade** cards are **Key of Ijzeria**'s answer to the gear, armour, weapon, equipment, tool, and aura cards that appear in other games. These cards are commonly referred to as "attachments".

Attachment cards are a natural progression of the card battler genre; players fall in love with particular unit/monster/creature cards and they want those cards to be strong enough to win, so upgrading that card can sometimes become mandatory.

Upgrade cards were designed before the game was made public, but were not made available in Hello, World! due to the complexity of their rules.

### Development

Attachment cards are an essential component of card battlers; players love them in all the games they appear in.

Unfortunately, most attachment cards are inherently weaker than normal permanent cards. This is because cards which "attach" to another card require that another card already exist. This means that if you have zero units and one attachment, then in reality, you have NO ATTACHMENT! If you do not control a unit then your attachment does nothing! Even worse, when you finally do have both a unit and an attachment, what if your opponent casts Expunge on it? Then you will lose TWO cards(the attachment and the unit it was attached to), while your opponent will lose only ONE card(the Expunge).

**Key of Ijzeria** has two possible remedies for this problem, in that Upgrades, which are **KOI**'s version of attachment cards, have two very important qualities.

1. **The First Hit is Free.** When an **Upgrade** enters the field, you may attach it to up to one target. After that, you can pay to move it around.
2. **Upgrades Stick Around.** If an **Upgrade** becomes unattached(usually because the unit they were attached to left the field), that **Upgrade** will remain on the field, and can later be attached to something else. You do not discard it or sacrifice it. This allows players to build up their own little armoury, and makes future unit cards they play more and more threatening.

The above qualities reduce the negative impact of card disadvantage, while also providing more knobs for the developers to turn when trying to adjust an **Upgrade**'s power level.

## **Rules**

**Upgrade [OBJECT]** is a spark ability which means “When this enters the field, attach it to up to one target [OBJECT].”

**Upgrade [OBJECT] — [COST]** is an active ability which means “**Pay [COST]:** Attach this to **target** [OBJECT]. Use this ability only during your action phase while the stack is empty.”

**Upgrade** cards also have passive abilities. Most typically, they are an ATK and DEF bonus to the attached unit, but in some cases **Upgrade** cards grant abilities to whatever they're attached to.

## **Rulings**

You may attach your upgrades to permanents your neither own nor control, and you can even upgrade opposing cards! Although it's not *usually* a good idea to do so...

You don't need to announce what you will be targeting until the upgrade enters the field.

You don't need to have an allied unit in order to play an upgrade. They'll simply enter, and their spark ability which attaches them for free will fail to find a target.

If for some reason you don't want to attach an upgrade to anything at all when the upgrade enters the field, you don't have to.

If you upgrade something you do not control, you are still the controller of the upgrade itself. If you upgrade an opposing unit for example, you will still control the upgrade, NOT that unit's controller. Similarly, just because you're the one upgrading someone else's unit, does not automatically give you control over that unit.

There is no limit to the number of Upgrades which can be attached to something. Load up!

## Trivia

* Strategies which involve putting a lot of Upgrades on a small number of units are called "Go Tall" strategies. This is in contrast to strategies which rely on a large number of smaller units; those strategies are called "Go Wide" strategies.
* Upgrades went through many, many, MANY iterations. This is because of the variety of "attachment" cards they must represent.
* Upgrades are meant to represent weapons, armour, relics, blessings, curses, equipment, tools, etc. Anything which has to be "attached" to something.
* Some examples of attachment cards in other games include: Yu-Gi-Oh! - Equip Spell Cards, Magic: the Gathering - Aura Cards, Pokemon Trading Card Game - Tool Cards, Flesh and Blood - Equipment, and Legend of the Five Rings LCG - Which just calls them Attachments!