Tricksters

Illustrated by: REPLACE NAME

Purchase the Tricksters Faction on Forgefire! (link coming soon)

Stealing things, stopping things, starting things, hiding your keys in the morning, collecting underpants for profit… for years, you've thought of these little people as pests. Now they've turned up as pesticide.

Tricksters are from the Core (base game) set and have a Titan card - Big Funny Giant.

Mechanics

• Creating Hazards
• Punishing Opponents

Hopefully you might have guessed that Tricksters are full of tricks. These include punishing opponents for affecting your minions, making bases difficult, deadly, or even impossible to play on, straight up disallowing a player from playing their cards, undoing an action attached to a minion or base, and forcing your opponents to discard cards. It is no mere exaggeration to call these guys full-scale full-time nuisances. Fortunately for their opponents, all the restrictions Tricksters place on them have some condition that makes them temporary or partially ineffective.

Strategy

Tormenting your friends might be fun and all for you, but does that win you the game? Frankly, there's no guarantee that it will. There's a coin here with two sides to it:

•     What should you do if your opponents ignore you, deciding you aren't worth the effort to deal with?
•     What should you do if you manage to piss off your opponents and they decide to attack your minions?

Turning the game in your favor requires smart navigation between these two states of affairs. You need to hobble your opponents enough so that you win and they don't.

Punishing Passivity

If your opponent won't or can't resist your incursions, then go on the offensive. Claim any particularly advantageous bases for yourself, then when it appears your opponent won't play there, follow where they went with your Gremlins, Brownies, and Leprechaun. You want to invade bases where your opponent is and try to stop them from playing any more power there than you, so you won't have to play as much there yourself to break the base and win it. Gnomes can be used here to keep the balance of power on the base under control. Once you've got Enshrouding Mist ready, drop two minions and win the base.

Sounds like walking a fine line, right? Well, we are talking about winning the game, after all. Tricksters have no power boosts and their minions average 3 power. Tricksters play dirty and you've got to use everything they've got. This is not a simple or easy faction to win with.

In special cases where you get rewarded for destroying your own minions, such as at Cave of Shinies, put your Gremlins on the chopping block, since your opponent isn't. You still draw a card and they discard one. If you have to play Gnome for this, you need one other minion on the base with the Gremlin to fulfill Gnome's requirement.

Punishing Aggression

First of all, when it's against your Gremlins and Brownies, you might try to act distraught, but of course you're laughing inside. You should put them in the most obnoxious and dangerous places, rather than your Gnomes and Leprechaun.

A much bigger problem for you is if your opponent can get rid of your minions by out-powering you and winning first place on bases. You always have to be on the lookout for this. Tricksters aren't good at destroying cards already in play. You have to anticipate your opponents and carefully control how many of their minions finally end up on the bases and where.

Synergy

Tricksters are good at stalling out games, so factions that benefit from that help. If your goal really is inflicting pain and suffering, there are some other factions good at that, too.

• Elder Things - Pain, punishment, terror, and madness.
• Vampires - These guys have an unfortunate habit of lunching on their allies. You might as well feed them your Gremlins. Vampires are good at pulling close leads from up behind their opponents. They have a few ways to add +1 power counters on your Leprechaun, making him much better at his job.
• Aliens - Send your opponents' minions back to their hand, then block them. Also appreciates a good stall.

Cards - Minions

1x Leprechaun

Power 5 - Ongoing: After another player plays a minion here with less power than this minion's power, destroy it (resolve its ability first).

Errata? Yes/No

Clarifications:

Q: A low-power minion is moved to its base, does Leprechaun destroy it?

A: No. Leprechaun only destroys minions after they are played, not after they are moved.

Q: I play a Weed Eater on a base with an enemy Leprechaun. Weed Eater starts at power 5, so is it destroyed or not?

A: Yes. You resolve the minion's ability first, so its power drops to 3. And unless something can boost your Weed Eater's power or lower the Leprechaun's power, Weed Eater's (modified) power is less the Leprechaun's.

Q: I play a War Raptor on a base with two War Raptors and an enemy Leprechaun. Is it destroyed or not?

A: No. You resolve the minion's ability first, so its power is increased to 5.

Q: I play a power-5 minion on a base where another player has a power-5 Leprechaun and Sleep Spores. Is my minion destroyed?

A: Yes. Sleep Spores's ability applies immediately to your minion, so your minion has a power of 4 and is destroyed.

Q: I play a power-5 minion on a base where another player has a power-5 Leprechaun and Hatchling. Is my minion destroyed?

A: It depends. Unlike Sleep Spores, which is applied immediately, Hatchling's ability is a mandatory ability that's activated after you're done playing your minion and resolving its ability. But, Leprechaun's ability is also a mandatory ability that's activated after you're done playing your minion. According to the rules, it's the current player who decides the order in which these two mandatory abilities are activated. If Hatchling is activated before Leprechaun, your minion's power will be lowered to 4 and it becomes vulnerable to Leprechaun. However, if Leprechaun is activated before Hatchling, the minion survives Leprechaun's destruction and has its power lowered by 1.

Q: If a player plays a minion (such as a Microbot Guard) to destroy the Leprechaun minion, will the Microbot Guard be destroyed after it destroys the Leprechaun?

A: Based on the wording, yes, but it's actually no: The Bigger Geekier Box ruled that Leprechaun and the minion must be on the same base after resolving the played minion's ability for the played minion to be destroyed.

Q: If a player plays Dusty Henry to shuffle the Leprechaun minion into its owner's deck, will Dusty Henry be destroyed after Leprechaun leaves play?

A: No, the Leprechaun and the minion must be on the same base after resolving the played minion's ability for the played minion to be destroyed.

Q: If a player plays a minion on Leprechaun's base and moves Leprechaun (e.g. Bear Cavalry) to another base, will the minion be destroyed?

A: No, the Leprechaun and the minion must be on the same base after resolving the played minion's ability for the played minion to be destroyed.

Q: If a player plays a minion on Leprechaun's base and moves itself (e.g. Twister) to another base, will the minion be destroyed?

A: No, the Leprechaun and the minion must be on the same base after resolving the played minion's ability for the played minion to be destroyed.

Q: If a player plays Felicia Day on a different base than Leprechaun's base and therefore moves Leprechaun to its base, will Felicia Day be destroyed?

A: No. For Leprechaun's ability to activate (or any "After X, do Y" abilities for that matter), Leprechaun must "witness" the minion being played on its base when it is played even if the destruction would only happen way after that, so it must already be on Felicia Day's base right when it's played and before Felicia Day's ability is resolved. This is clearly not the case here.

Q: On my turn, a base with an enemy Leprechaun is 1 power away from breaking. I play a power-1 minion there. Does the base break before my minion is destroyed?

A: No. You only check if a base scores during phase 3 of a player's turn.

Q: I play a low-power minion with a talent on a base with an enemy Leprechaun. Can I use its talent before it's destroyed?

A: Sadly no. While you do have to resolve your minion's immediate abilities before it's destroyed, a talent is not among the things that are resolved when the minion enters play.

Q: Can it destroy monsters?

A: If the monster is played by another player's card, yes because it's a minion and it's played by a player. If the monster is played by The Gauntlet's ability, no because the rulebook says so.

Q: I play a Mimic on an enemy its base. Is my Mimic destroyed?

A: Supposing Leprechaun is still at power 5, then no. When you play Mimic, its ability is resolved before Leprechaun's ability, so Mimic becomes power 5 (or more, if there's a higher printed power in play!) and so the Leprechaun can't destroy it.

Q: If I play an Argonaut instead of an action on Leprechaun's base, is it still destroyed?

A: Yes. Playing an Argonaut, whether as a minion or instead of an action, still counts as playing a minion. It IS a minion after all.

2x Brownie

Power 4 - Ongoing: After another player plays a card that affects this minion, that player discards two random cards.

Errata? Yes/No

Clarifications:

Q: I play a card with a talent that can affect Brownie (e.g. Snow White, Monkey on Your Back). If I use the talent on Brownie, do I discard cards?

A: Since a Talent is not activated when you play a card and since Brownie only activates from the card being played, the answer is no, you don't discard any card.

Q: I play Assassination on a Brownie. Since Assassination only affects Brownie at the end of the turn and not after it is played, I don't have to discard any cards, right?

A: Wrong. Playing an action on a minion already counts as affecting it, so Assassination actually affects the Brownie when it is played.

Q: I play We are Family on a Brownie. So from now on, if any other player plays a standard action that directly affects another minion on its base, I can copy it onto Brownie and force that player to discard two random cards, right? Mwahahahahahaha!!!

A: Sorry no, despite its wording, the Brownie only triggers from being "directly" affected and We are Family copying an effect onto it only counts as "indirectly" affecting it.

Q: What if Brownie is affected by a base's ability that triggers when a player plays a card? (e.g. The Deep)

A: The card that affects Brownie is the base, not the card that was played by the player, so Brownie's ability doesn't trigger.

Q: I play a card that destroys or returns Brownie. Because Brownie is not in play anymore, I don't have to discard any cards, right?

A: Yes, you do. Brownie was triggered the moment you destroyed or returned it, and that same effect caused it to be removed from play, so its ability will be resolved even though it's no longer in play at that time.

Q: I play a card that takes control of Brownie. I'm no longer "another player to him", so I don't discard cards, right?

A: No, you do discard. Brownie was triggered the moment you took control of it (you were in fact another player playing a card to affect it), and that same effect is obviously what caused it to no longer be your minion, so its ability will be resolved.

Q: Player B plays a minion to break a base. It affects player A's card because the minion is destroyed (once the base is scored). So player B has to discard cards, right?

A: Not at all. You're confusing several things. First of all, if a player plays a minion, we don't check if the base scores until they are done playing their Play Cards phase (phase 2). Secondly, after a base scores, the minions on the base are not destroyed, they are discarded or it is also said that they "go to the discard pile", neither one is synonymous of being affected.

3x Gnome

Power 3 - You may destroy a minion on this base with power less than the number of minions you have here.

Errata? Yes/No

Clarifications:

Q: Can I destroy one of my own minions with a Gnome?

A: Absolutely!

Q: I have to count the number of minions "I have there". Do minions there that I own but don't control also count? I don't control them but I "own" them, so I "have" them, right?

A: No. "A minion you have" means "a minion you control (whether or not you own it)". Minions you just own but don't control don't count.

#x Minion Card Name

Power X - Game text

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Cards - Actions

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Cards - Bases

#x Base Card Name

Breakpoint ## - VPs: # # # - Replace with base card text.

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#x Base Card Name

​Breakpoint ## - VPs: # # # - Replace with base card text.

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Card - Titan

#x Titan Card Name

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