Two-Fisted Tales of the Secret War: Monarchs and Architects

Part 3 of a Shadowfist set review

Overall score:

This is the third review; you can find the first here. For copyright reasons I won’t be printing the text of the cards, just the titles--it may help to have a second browser/tab with the spoiler in it--there’s one on the official site, www.shadowfist.com, in the spoilers/card lists section.

Monarchs

Monarchs get two things, really--a couple of Undead cards that synergise off each other, and a bunch of sacrificial tools. These make a very viable deck option based around sacrificing your own cards and getting a lot more back than normal. A couple of hitters too.

Aztec Mummy – A basic midrange hitter that, with proper deck construction, can be really powerful. If you choose the right sites and characters to enable him to pump, you could have quite a powerhouse.

Curse of Itzcoliuhqui – An offensive state that is more annoying than really powerful. Worth the free playing cost, but maybe not worth the space in the deck.

Fire Martyr – He’s weaker than average on defence and stronger than average on attack. Depends on your playing style, I guess.

Itzcoliuhqui – A big hitter that syncs with the other undead types in the set to form the centre of a cookie cutter deck. Great in that deck, pretty good otherwise.

Khalid Al-Haddad – A powerful hitter that assassinates and gives nice bonuses when he destroys his target. Powerful and recommended.

Lord Wolfgang Thaler – A good hitter with event protection. I’d recommend at least considering him.

Obsidian Dagger – Some reasonably useful bonuses, but most useful for the effect it produces when sacrificing--use it liberally when building a sacrificial deck.

Plots and Intrigues – Gain power for revealing sites. Unless you’re really big on keeping secrets, I find it easy power, but you can only really use it once, and the amount of power you get is limited a bit. I’d use it, but I’d be careful when thinking of putting more than maybe three in a deck.

Priestess of Itzcoliuhqui – A utility character that allows for card recursion when you sacrifice. Given that sacrificing puts things in your smoked pile, this allows for a lot of cool tricks like sacrificing a character to save it from death with another card, and bringing it back to your hand next turn. Splash in Architects for Vivisector and have even more fun! Or Lotus, for the sheer amount of sacrificing going on. If you’re building a sacrificial deck, build it around her.

Ritual of Death – A moderately good use to give up a weenie for a good effect, but much more useful if you have a sacrificial deck with other cards to trigger off your sacrifice.

Rope Bridge – A defensive state for your sites. Most useful in Combination with Hidden Tomb, but perhaps worth using otherwise.

Teutonic Knights – A weenie that could be a midrange hitter depending on your deck. Unless you design a deck that they work well in, it’s probably best to avoid.

The Crystal Skull – A very powerful and useful card that becomes much stronger in a Sacrificial deck. Play it, a Darkness Priestess, an Obsidian Dagger, and a weenie. Sacrifice the weenie for the Crystal Skull bonus, earn the power back from the knife, and return the weenie to your hand for next turn with the Priestess.

Tomb of Itzcoliuhqui – A Monarchs Feng Shui Site that’s pretty good, and much better with edges. Of course, Monarchs tend to have a lot of edges. Just watch out for Thunder on Thunder.

Xitllali – A strong hitter with a built-n, single-turn, one cost Spear of Destiny. Nice.

Architects

The Architects are Nazis in the pulp juncture, and come out pretty well. The main theme is Soldiers, allowing for quite a powerful Soldier-based deck that will of course be hosed by the Ascended’s Bad Colonel. Some of the best art, as well. Enjoy it, since Architects are going down in Critical Shift.

Blitzkrieg – A very useful staple for a soldier deck. Very powerful if used this way, but limited if used in another deck archetype.

Colonel Wilhelm Reiger – A utility character that encourages a Soldier Deck using a bunch of Battleground sites. He’s rare, but if you get enough copies you could build quite an interesting and powerful deck, perhaps using weenies and Bandit Hideouts to make a lot of small attacks, pumping the weenies and earning power off them.

Dr. Klaus Herrbruck – An interesting utility character that allows for Tech card recursion back to the top of your deck. I can see a lot of uses for this guy, but be careful what deck you use him in.

Eisenriese – A great big mech that’s awesomely cool, but the abilities is grants are nothing new and probably not worth the cost. Use with caution.

Elsa Winterhagen – A huge hitter with something similar to the HeroClix Mastermind ability--she can take a little damage to shunt it all off onto a little guy. Or, for that matter, onto an opponents big guy. As I learnt to the winning of a draft game, she’s still vulnerable to Shadowy Mentor though.

Guard Tower – An interesting defensive battleground site, giving something like the Ambush ability but only while intercepting. Synergises well with Colonel Reiger.

Probability Manipulator – A very cool edge that has many uses. For a cost of two you can change one number every turn, just like HeroClix Perplex. [editor's note: I'm seeing a them here...] Pump a fighter, weaken an opponent, or screw around with any number of weird costs to achieve cool effects. It shouldn’t be hard to find a lot of uses for this card.

Rabenfels Castle – A very powerful front row site, well worth the cost of two. High Body and Toughness:1? Yes, please.

Repression – A two-cost edge that gives penalties to a designator. Great in a "Comrades in Arms," of course, and excellent if you have an opponent playing a lot of matching designators, but you can’t count on that so consider carefully before using it.

Rocket Team – A very useful character that lets you damage sites from a distance. Use it for a little punch-through, for pinging sites to see what they are, or to irritate an opponent.

Sinister Research – Event recursion at the cost of resources, and they have to be from Scientists. Could be good, but use carefully.

State of Emergency – A fun and simple effect, but I’m not sure if it’s really worth a card. Great if you’ve just had most of your hand forcibly discarded, but that rarely happens in Shadowfist.

Stormtroopers – A new one for one Foundation. Ok, nothing special. Use them for a soldier deck or because you like being a Nazi.

Supersoldier Serum – +2 Fighting for one power is a good deal in my book. Be careful of state removal though, since that’s what balances the card out.

Ubermensch – A hitter with a temporary toughness boost every time a 0 cost card is played. Handy, since opponents need to refrain playing them or risk pumping the ‘Mensch, and you can always play some yourself for a boost. Is it better than other Architect hitters? This is left as an exercise to the reader based on your playing style.

Zeppelin – A handy mobility state with offensive power, at the risk of making the subject more fragile. I like it, but not too much. The Architects have a lot to blow up a whole location besides this anyway.

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Written by JamPaladin on March 11th, 2005