Post by kwunyinli on May 19, 2012 15:22:58 GMT -5
Introduction and Conception
Hello, this is a deck I came up with when I was doing the campaign and I had to deal with the condition: sites have 0 influence and agents have 0 power (you guys should know which one I'm talking about). This campaign was very annoying and I was stuck, so I went back to do the other campaigns. When I went back to redo some of the other campaigns I got my butt kicked again. I encountered random enemies with Amerigo Vespucci and Art Gallery. This is when I thought, "wow, Art Gallery is broken." So, I went back to the drawing boards with my goal set on defeating the former-conditioned campaign while learning from the strategy of the latter campaign.
During my construction, I felt like Art Gallery alone wasn't good enough and went to find other means of inflicting quick damage. I found my answer when I noticed Papal Influence. It gave me the extra reach that I needed to quickly overcome the annoying stipulations.
Current Deck list
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
3x San Gimignano [G]
Actions:
3x Divine Intervention [F]
4x Answered Prayers [F]
3x A Call to Action [M]
3x Clothes Makes the Man [M]
3x Tactless Theatre [M]
5x Papal Influence [F]
3x Bearer of Mixed Tidings [M]
3x Carnevale [M]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
Deck Deconstruction and Card Explanation
For those of you who don't really know what is going on, here is the plan for this sequence. The main win condition is still Art Gallery and Papal Influence, but after the market place came to be, I found more ways to inflict damage. Clothes Makes the Man and San Gimignano are two of these ways. Furthermore, you will notice no acceleration for the sake of acceleration, because this sequence needs bodies. The 0-drop agents provide these bodies without interrupting the speed.
What you typically want to do is drop 0-drop agents until you have enough for Art Gallery. You can then drop your agents onto the Art Gallery once it resolves. This should easily get you to 5 Influence. What you do after that is up to you and hand dependent. You can go all the way to 10 easily with good timing. Multiple Papal Influence can easily finish another region. Clothes Makes the Man are usually what makes more Papal Influence. The reason why there are only three is because drawing them with nothing to copy makes them really dead. I like three because they don't clog your opening hands. Keep in mind that you never want to use your Papal Influence until the winning turn. You don't want to reveal the ace up your sleeve (although after posting this, I think everyone will know about the ace).
Hands with San Gimignano generally require that you drop it first. It helps a lot in the race even though it slows down your Art Gallery, it doesn't matter too much since Art Gallery's damage is virtually instantaneous. It also helps with mirror Art Gallery decks. A cost conscious build (my earlier builds) played Lair of Romulus instead of San Gimignano. This is acceptable but not optimal as Lair of Romulus is both more resource intensive and less destructive. It also only costs 5 CR, so it's quite a bit cheaper than San Gimignano.
Answer Prayers is well named as it is your answer to those annoying counter-reliant sequences. Diving Intrvention is additional protection. If you see an opponent playing with Order cards, it is generally a lot safer if you throw out the Answered Prayer first. It's good at taking out their counter actions like Court Order or Preemptive Strike. Beware of Scientific Espionage as well, that stuff is annoying.
Carnevale offers card advantage as well as acts as an alternative win-condition. It has great synergy with Art Gallery. I used to play Cahin here but found that people kept countering him with Untimely End. With him gone, I retain (or improve) my card advantage as well as virtually blank all Untimely End, so I just cut him completely. Hold this card. It is very good to counteract the effects of sweepers and to change a losing board into a winning one. Use it to recover from sweepers. Don't be scared to copy it with Clothes Makes the Man. It's just as Good as Papal Influence, if not better in the late game.
Sacred Vision is usually a card I don't want to use as 1 resource is very expensive just to manipulate the top of my sequence. Along with Benevolent Midwife, it is used to sculpt my draws so that I can more consistently keep my opening hands. If I see better cards along with Sacred Vision in the carousel, I can easily dump the Sacred Vision. They also help me dig for answers which is nice. I try to hold off on using them for as long as possible so I can see more cards off the top of my sequence. It takes a bit of skill to play Sacred Vision and Benevolent Midwife (also, I hate the carousel). Magnetic Personality used to be removal, I realized this when people started blocking me and I rarely want to block them. Tactless Theatrics is also used as removal. They are a Surprises, which helps to avoid tricks. Magnetic Personality also has Fierce so it provides extra reach. If they don't block, then it helps a lot with the race. I'm currently using Tactless Theatrics because there are too many agents that have strong abilities that do not enter the battlefield. The only way to get rid of these guys is through spot-removal.
Strategies
Here are some general strategies to keep in mind:
- Opening hands should consist of 1-2 win conditions (Carnevale/Art Gallery/Papal Influence/San Gimignano), 1-2 0-drop agents; opening hands with Sacred Vision or Benevolent Midwife will help you find your win conditions, so don't worry about it.
- Decide your route of winning based on your opening hand because you'll need to know what cards to dig for when sculpting with Sacred Vision or Benevolent Midwife
- Always put Art Gallery in regions that Rush decks are trying to attack.
- Use Answered Prayer as protection against counters
- Use Magnetic Personality as removal when they block you. Do not block them unless you are really desperate to buy time.
- Put San Gimignano on regions where Site Rush decks are putting their resources. Use San Gimignano to counter enemy San Gimignanos. You have more reliable ways to do damage.
- DO NOT put Art Gallery against San Gimignano, you will lose unless you already control another region.
- Hold your Carnevale, they are your last line of offense/defense
Thieves Rush (favoured):
Lanz means nothing, block him if you are bored. Watch out for Antonio De Magianis, always block. Put your Art Gallery where they are trying to build up influence. That is all.
Noble Rush (even):
This deck is far too slow too weak to beat you. Put your Art Gallery where they are attack. Your irrelevant 0-drops will crush them forcing them to move to a different zone. Watch out for Court Order. Borgia Tower is no match for Art Gallery.
Order/Scholar Control (unfavoured):
You only have 5 Answered Prayers versus their roughtly 10 to 15 cards that will counter you. You have to use your Clothes Makes the Man aggressively on big bomb spells like Carnevale or their In-depth Analysis instead of Papal Influence or else they will just counter the second Papal Influence. If it grinds out to the late game, their card advantage is generally better than yours and their Cesare Borgia becomes too annoying to handle. You can arguably grind it out as Art Influence has the tools to grind the late game, but maybe I'm just too impatient for that type of style. I see this as unfavoured, but I think someone with more skill than I will be able to win this.
Butcher ESR (even):
You have far more win conditions (granted Canevale is not really a wincon in this match up). You are more consistent. They have a 10/10 that's unblockable.
Site Control (unfavoured):
They have both good intel and a lot of utility sites that you cannot interact with. This is a tough match up.
Big sites (unflavoured):
Their sites are bigger and don't need agents to help. They also play a lot of cards to stall you like Tactical Upheaval and Amerigo Vespucci. You need an aggressive hand so build on Art Gallery and Papal Influence. You may also try to get San Gimignano in an empty region, but look out for Venzia, San Polo District. You want to use your Answered Prayers to get rid of those.
Other Versions
-Current Budget Version
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
2x Cahin [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
4x Lair of Romulus [G]
Actions:
3x Sacred Vision [F]
5x Answered Prayers [F]
5x A Call to Action [M]
3x Clothes Makes the Man [M]
3x Mob Justice [G] or Tactless Theatrics [M] (threat dependent)
5x Papal Influence [F]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
ROUGH COST: 2300 CR
note: The Budget list is more reliant on sites to do damage, so you want to put Lair of Romulus on empty regions as opposed to contested regions You need every influence you can get!
-Earlier Version
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
4x Cahin [M]
2x Legionnaire Thespian
2x Silvestro Sabbatini [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
4x Basilica Di San Marco [F]
Actions:
3x Sacred Vision [F]
5x A Call to Action [M]
5x Tactless Theatrics [M]
5x Papal Influence [F]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
Failure and the Future
So as you can see, the earlier version of Art Influence was very focused on the name-sake, but now I have tried to move a bit further from that by adding diversity and multiple win-conditions such as Magnetic Personality, San Gimignano and Carnevale.
I think this deck still has room for improvement even though I feel that it is very powerful. It basically plays like a rush deck, but has little to no emphasis on its agents. It also plays like a site rush deck, but does not rely on the slow change of day to impact the game. I'm not sure what category of deck you can place it under. I'll let you guys decide. In the discussion, I'd like to get some feedback and talk about improving the weak match ups.
If you have any suggestions or comments or questions, please leave a message in the comments below. I'd love to read what others think. Try out the Budget Version. It's really powerful for the amount you invest. Enjoy and comment below!
Hello, this is a deck I came up with when I was doing the campaign and I had to deal with the condition: sites have 0 influence and agents have 0 power (you guys should know which one I'm talking about). This campaign was very annoying and I was stuck, so I went back to do the other campaigns. When I went back to redo some of the other campaigns I got my butt kicked again. I encountered random enemies with Amerigo Vespucci and Art Gallery. This is when I thought, "wow, Art Gallery is broken." So, I went back to the drawing boards with my goal set on defeating the former-conditioned campaign while learning from the strategy of the latter campaign.
During my construction, I felt like Art Gallery alone wasn't good enough and went to find other means of inflicting quick damage. I found my answer when I noticed Papal Influence. It gave me the extra reach that I needed to quickly overcome the annoying stipulations.
Current Deck list
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
3x San Gimignano [G]
Actions:
3x Divine Intervention [F]
4x Answered Prayers [F]
3x A Call to Action [M]
3x Clothes Makes the Man [M]
3x Tactless Theatre [M]
5x Papal Influence [F]
3x Bearer of Mixed Tidings [M]
3x Carnevale [M]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
Deck Deconstruction and Card Explanation
For those of you who don't really know what is going on, here is the plan for this sequence. The main win condition is still Art Gallery and Papal Influence, but after the market place came to be, I found more ways to inflict damage. Clothes Makes the Man and San Gimignano are two of these ways. Furthermore, you will notice no acceleration for the sake of acceleration, because this sequence needs bodies. The 0-drop agents provide these bodies without interrupting the speed.
What you typically want to do is drop 0-drop agents until you have enough for Art Gallery. You can then drop your agents onto the Art Gallery once it resolves. This should easily get you to 5 Influence. What you do after that is up to you and hand dependent. You can go all the way to 10 easily with good timing. Multiple Papal Influence can easily finish another region. Clothes Makes the Man are usually what makes more Papal Influence. The reason why there are only three is because drawing them with nothing to copy makes them really dead. I like three because they don't clog your opening hands. Keep in mind that you never want to use your Papal Influence until the winning turn. You don't want to reveal the ace up your sleeve (although after posting this, I think everyone will know about the ace).
Hands with San Gimignano generally require that you drop it first. It helps a lot in the race even though it slows down your Art Gallery, it doesn't matter too much since Art Gallery's damage is virtually instantaneous. It also helps with mirror Art Gallery decks. A cost conscious build (my earlier builds) played Lair of Romulus instead of San Gimignano. This is acceptable but not optimal as Lair of Romulus is both more resource intensive and less destructive. It also only costs 5 CR, so it's quite a bit cheaper than San Gimignano.
Answer Prayers is well named as it is your answer to those annoying counter-reliant sequences. Diving Intrvention is additional protection. If you see an opponent playing with Order cards, it is generally a lot safer if you throw out the Answered Prayer first. It's good at taking out their counter actions like Court Order or Preemptive Strike. Beware of Scientific Espionage as well, that stuff is annoying.
Carnevale offers card advantage as well as acts as an alternative win-condition. It has great synergy with Art Gallery. I used to play Cahin here but found that people kept countering him with Untimely End. With him gone, I retain (or improve) my card advantage as well as virtually blank all Untimely End, so I just cut him completely. Hold this card. It is very good to counteract the effects of sweepers and to change a losing board into a winning one. Use it to recover from sweepers. Don't be scared to copy it with Clothes Makes the Man. It's just as Good as Papal Influence, if not better in the late game.
Sacred Vision is usually a card I don't want to use as 1 resource is very expensive just to manipulate the top of my sequence. Along with Benevolent Midwife, it is used to sculpt my draws so that I can more consistently keep my opening hands. If I see better cards along with Sacred Vision in the carousel, I can easily dump the Sacred Vision. They also help me dig for answers which is nice. I try to hold off on using them for as long as possible so I can see more cards off the top of my sequence. It takes a bit of skill to play Sacred Vision and Benevolent Midwife (also, I hate the carousel). Magnetic Personality used to be removal, I realized this when people started blocking me and I rarely want to block them. Tactless Theatrics is also used as removal. They are a Surprises, which helps to avoid tricks. Magnetic Personality also has Fierce so it provides extra reach. If they don't block, then it helps a lot with the race. I'm currently using Tactless Theatrics because there are too many agents that have strong abilities that do not enter the battlefield. The only way to get rid of these guys is through spot-removal.
Strategies
Here are some general strategies to keep in mind:
- Opening hands should consist of 1-2 win conditions (Carnevale/Art Gallery/Papal Influence/San Gimignano), 1-2 0-drop agents; opening hands with Sacred Vision or Benevolent Midwife will help you find your win conditions, so don't worry about it.
- Decide your route of winning based on your opening hand because you'll need to know what cards to dig for when sculpting with Sacred Vision or Benevolent Midwife
- Always put Art Gallery in regions that Rush decks are trying to attack.
- Use Answered Prayer as protection against counters
- Use Magnetic Personality as removal when they block you. Do not block them unless you are really desperate to buy time.
- Put San Gimignano on regions where Site Rush decks are putting their resources. Use San Gimignano to counter enemy San Gimignanos. You have more reliable ways to do damage.
- DO NOT put Art Gallery against San Gimignano, you will lose unless you already control another region.
- Hold your Carnevale, they are your last line of offense/defense
Thieves Rush (favoured):
Lanz means nothing, block him if you are bored. Watch out for Antonio De Magianis, always block. Put your Art Gallery where they are trying to build up influence. That is all.
Noble Rush (even):
This deck is far too slow too weak to beat you. Put your Art Gallery where they are attack. Your irrelevant 0-drops will crush them forcing them to move to a different zone. Watch out for Court Order. Borgia Tower is no match for Art Gallery.
Order/Scholar Control (unfavoured):
You only have 5 Answered Prayers versus their roughtly 10 to 15 cards that will counter you. You have to use your Clothes Makes the Man aggressively on big bomb spells like Carnevale or their In-depth Analysis instead of Papal Influence or else they will just counter the second Papal Influence. If it grinds out to the late game, their card advantage is generally better than yours and their Cesare Borgia becomes too annoying to handle. You can arguably grind it out as Art Influence has the tools to grind the late game, but maybe I'm just too impatient for that type of style. I see this as unfavoured, but I think someone with more skill than I will be able to win this.
Butcher ESR (even):
You have far more win conditions (granted Canevale is not really a wincon in this match up). You are more consistent. They have a 10/10 that's unblockable.
Site Control (unfavoured):
They have both good intel and a lot of utility sites that you cannot interact with. This is a tough match up.
Big sites (unflavoured):
Their sites are bigger and don't need agents to help. They also play a lot of cards to stall you like Tactical Upheaval and Amerigo Vespucci. You need an aggressive hand so build on Art Gallery and Papal Influence. You may also try to get San Gimignano in an empty region, but look out for Venzia, San Polo District. You want to use your Answered Prayers to get rid of those.
Other Versions
-Current Budget Version
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
2x Cahin [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
4x Lair of Romulus [G]
Actions:
3x Sacred Vision [F]
5x Answered Prayers [F]
5x A Call to Action [M]
3x Clothes Makes the Man [M]
3x Mob Justice [G] or Tactless Theatrics [M] (threat dependent)
5x Papal Influence [F]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
ROUGH COST: 2300 CR
note: The Budget list is more reliant on sites to do damage, so you want to put Lair of Romulus on empty regions as opposed to contested regions You need every influence you can get!
-Earlier Version
Agents:
5x Young Farmer [G]
5x Benevolent Midwife [F]
5x Dama Rossa [M]
4x Cahin [M]
2x Legionnaire Thespian
2x Silvestro Sabbatini [M]
Sites:
5x Art Gallery [M]
4x Basilica Di San Marco [F]
Actions:
3x Sacred Vision [F]
5x A Call to Action [M]
5x Tactless Theatrics [M]
5x Papal Influence [F]
[M] = Media
[F] = Faith
[G] = Golden
CARDS: 50
Failure and the Future
So as you can see, the earlier version of Art Influence was very focused on the name-sake, but now I have tried to move a bit further from that by adding diversity and multiple win-conditions such as Magnetic Personality, San Gimignano and Carnevale.
I think this deck still has room for improvement even though I feel that it is very powerful. It basically plays like a rush deck, but has little to no emphasis on its agents. It also plays like a site rush deck, but does not rely on the slow change of day to impact the game. I'm not sure what category of deck you can place it under. I'll let you guys decide. In the discussion, I'd like to get some feedback and talk about improving the weak match ups.
If you have any suggestions or comments or questions, please leave a message in the comments below. I'd love to read what others think. Try out the Budget Version. It's really powerful for the amount you invest. Enjoy and comment below!