What asks you to do is pretty straight forward. If you include a high minion count, ways to get on top of the enemy avatar, and ways to clear opposing minions or otherwise create strikes on opposing avatars, you will be rewarded with extra cards or fast kills.
A few rules to know first:
Players cannot pay life they don't have. If your opponent is at 2 or less life and you strike their avatar, you will draw a card. Yes, this means this Avatar is still quite good at Death's Door. See FAQ.
Strikes for zero damage are still considered strikes and will trigger the Interrogator ability. See FAQ.
I'd like to break down this list into a few different categories based on the various goals the deck has, and explain certain card choices.
Keeping within striking range of the opposing Avatar
- Is the most efficient way to make sure we can summon right on top of the opposing Avatar's starting square right off the bat. It's a sort of high-roller card with a powerful effect, but also is technically a minus one as it doesn't present any sort of resource trade by itself. However, when it is followed up with minions that are able to connect to the opposing Avatar, then it pays us back and increases the power level of each minion drawn from that point on. I opted for 2 here as you really don't want to draw multiples or draw it in a longer game, and we also have other ways to in range of the opposing Avatar.
- "Jevilhad" is the reason almost all the minions are evil. This one is pretty self explanatory - it allows us to summon right on top of opposing Avatars and increases our damage output when we do. One was always difficult to beat before, now we can play with two with some deck building concessions.
- Ditto on most of the notes for , but I will also point out that this is the reason I opted for all fire minions. With that said, I think you could get away with playing some of the air options if you wanted, but building this way ensures both & are live for (almost) all of our minions.
- This is a new one that I think might be busted. It traps the opposing Avatar in a 2x2 box, and makes sure that our opponents don't plan to chump block or heal their way out of danger. Based on conversations I've had with people in the Sorcery rules channel, my understanding is that Avatars cannot escape the sphere even with forced movement. Here was an explanation I received: "Forced movement typically only allows legal moves unless otherwise stated, which in the case of Sphere, any forced movement out of the area of the aura would be illegal, therefore unable to be done." Ultimately, it would be nice to have an official FAQ to clarify this at some point.
and were a match made in Hell. These cards were meant for each other. The fourth copy is in the collection for good reason.
is just what the torturer ordered here. Extra movement, striking, removing potential blockers, it does everything we want.
is some additional utility from our Atlas to drag the opposing Avatar closer to our starting square and make future strikes potentially easier. The card may seem a little 'win more' but there will be plenty of games where we don't have one of our auras and need to play on a bit of a different axis, and this card can totally flip the game state.
I think is one of the best cards printed in Gothic. on a site is extremely strong, and the extra movement it provides is exactly what we need for moving our minions into striking distance.
Finally, any of the minions with Airborne, Movement +X, or other movement abilities such as were selected for the goal of staying within striking distance (among other reasons).
Killing the opponent (winning the game, I mean...)
The more pressure we are able to apply to the opponent, the more damage we are able to output, the more likely they will be willing to let us draw cards from triggers. Conversely, if our opponent feels they are safe to use their life as a resource instead of giving us additional cards, we need to be able to punish them for that decision. This is the idea of maximizing - putting the opponent in a position where either choice is bad for them. To that end, there are a few cards I'd like to highlight:
is one of the other build-around Evil cards. Striking opposing sites with above rate minions like will make the opponent think twice about future triggers. Desecrate also has the potential to disrupt our opponents threshold, or remove problematic sites. The additional power bonus for Evil minions is really just the icing on top. Keep in mind that your opponent still controls the site once it transforms. This isn't necessarily a downside, though - I've personally been able to have double Desecrate turns with an dealing 13 damage in one turn. Lastly, there are enough Evil minions out there now, so be sure to check those opposing minion types and make sure you're not miscalculating.
is a card that I've not heard talked about much, but is performing way better than I expected. Clearly, it allows us to output more damage, which is why I'm including it in this category. What may be less obvious is allowing us to turn trades into card positive attacks, or allowing to kill a 3 power minion by subtracting a point of power from an opposing Evil minion.
confused me a bit the first time I read it, but ultimately this card is pro-Evil. The extra life drain this card provides, and how well it performs combined with our , and justify the inclusion. Be mindful, though - does drain us as well.
checks a few boxes: Evil, Fire, and can output a lot of damage. This card combines nicely with the Summoning Sphere type effects, or using to make sure we're on an opposing site and not our own.
is pretty straight forward. We need the anti-healing effect here so that our opponents cannot simply ignore the triggers throughout the game and climb back to safety.
I'll bundle a few cards together: , , and . These cards all truly live by the words "Greatness at any cost". Each is an above rate minion with a draw back of losing life. In general, this deck aims to kill faster than the opponent, so we are okay with that trade off. Also worth mentioning, since none of these cards instruct you to "pay" life like does, that cost is irrelevant once you're on Death's Door.
is a generally strong card that allows us to have a secondary source of card draw outside of , but is also a very solid way of killing the opponent once they are Death's Door. I think we are going to see this card is most fire lists for a long time.
provides quite a bit of different utility. Searching up a or is another game ending option that I think we'll be seeing for years to come.
Too good not to play
This category consists of , , and . Obviously two of these minions are not Evil, but are probably the most powerful fire minions in the game. Even if wasn't Evil, I'd still be considering playing it. You can also throw into this category.
Honorable Mentions / Other
There are a few cards that I have thoughts on I'd like to share but don't necessarily fit squarely into one of the other categories:
I am pretty sure is broken. A recurring Spellcaster that has the potential to come back stronger than before at only two mana...what's not to love?
Bundling together and . There are a lot of things these cards do that we want. They Evil / fire minions, and they provide additional mobility or above rate power. I am not yet completely sold on which requires us to sort of take a turn off in some ways to release it but I think it's worth testing. Obviously, because it's a Spellcaster this is one reason to include but I also think this card is just pretty solid on its own. I am still testing these two but I could see these being flex slots.
checks the Evil / fire boxes and provides sort of a unique surprise attack factor with the additional movement & Voidwalk. Overall, this card is just very solid and fits nicely.
is a nice emergency button if we really need to deal with something.
kind of fits into all of the categories. It's an Evil fire minion, and strikes. I didn't really feel much needed to be said on this one.
provides an additional way to release (so does !) but more importantly just draws extra cards every turn, so sign me up.
I am still testing, but does what we want on paper. Rewards us for striking the opposing Avatar by outputting extra life loss and stretching them, making it easier to connect with future strikes. The only issue is that if our bearer dies it can be picked up by the opponent, but such is Sorcery: Contested Realm.
and you might think belong in "Too good not to play" but there's a reason you don't see them in many decks outside of those playing - they are a effectively a minus one. However, with Avatars like and now you have the ability to regain that card disadvantage and still take advantage of the explosiveness these cards provide.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Finally, I wanted to talk about what I see to be the strengths and weaknesses of the deck. The strengths are pretty straight forward - it can put out a ton of damage while drawing extra cards. If you draw a Summoning Sphere / Jihad effect into some minions and maybe a , that's going to be very difficult for almost anything to beat. Conversely, one of the potential weaknesses here is that you need to draw a few of these different pieces and get that "nut draw". This deck certainly does not play from behind as well as others, and can certainly suffer greatly from a well timed . Also, due to the Evil theme, this list completely lacks charge minions which is obviously one of the more powerful mechanics in the game. This means that we are playing some cards like and which are very on theme and fit nicely with our plan, but may not be as individually powerful as cards such as , , or which are also clearly strong inclusions for any fire based deck. That's not to say there's not a happy place in between, but this list looks to max out on the Evil theme for cards like .
If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading! If you enjoyed this primer, I'd really appreciate a like on the deck, a follow, or a comment at the bottom to let me know what you think. Feel free to make suggestions!
