Tuesday 6 August 2013

Featured Card: Shaman


Shaman is my latest card. I wanted to add a few more potion cards, as they work best when there are several available, so increasing the number of them seems like a good idea. It is essentially a very unique peddler variant.

It works best in engine decks, allowing you essentially a wild card of whatever you need. Its other main strength is chaining. What makes it really unique however, is how it interacts with triggering reshuffles. It makes it advantageous to leave an engine payload card in your discard after each shuffle.

I think it has significant opportunity cost, and may still be too weak, but it is a really cool card with a lot of unique interactions.

Works With:

  • Most +coin cards, in particular:
    • Militia, Goons - great as payload cards; they turn every shaman into terminal gold + attack
    • Harvest, Navigator - discards cards for it to retrieve
    • Councillor and Scavenger - give you your pick of cards to retrieve; lets you use your entire shaman stack
  • Conspirator
  • Scheme - Shaman's best friend. Top deck a Shaman, grab a chain of Shamans, then Scheme. Repeat.
  • Golem - play a golem to grab your shamans, use your shamans to play the golems it passes over. Also great for having something else to spend your potions on.
  • Cycling:  Cellar, Warehouse - Allows you to better control your reshuffle, and gives more cards in the discard for Shaman to claim.
  • Catacombs, Oracle - They becomes a lot stronger by allowing you to keep a card from the first set of  cards and still getting the second. Everything for Cycling applies as well
  • Advisor and Envoy - So long as they aren't discarding treasures, these becomes a lot more reliable with Shaman.
Has Cool Interactions With:

  • Gravedigger - gain back actions for you to use.
  • Treasure Map
  • Inn - Cycling, as well as potentially delaying a shuffle, keeping your payload cards available to your shaman.
  • Fortune Teller - I can't even wrap my head around their interactions. Do they synergize with each other, or counter each other? 

    Conflicts With:
    • Faster games - probably the only reason Rebuild it doesn't work with it. Shaman decks take a while to get going. Like most Alchemy cards, it can be very strong in the right circumstances, or ignorable in others.

    1 comment:

    1. Works with: Mountebank.

      Because of its junking, it keeps reshuffles far apart. This provides a powerful payload for your shaman chains, and helps win the junking war.

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