How to beat Pan/RI decks

[Tuism]

Everyone here has faced a Pantheon/Royal Intervention deck. It's a combo that can win from zero influence in a little over half a day on the board.

I don't like it for a few reasons:
1) It's one win condition, a single-minded combo
2) It scares beginners off the game
3) It's relatively expensive to build up so not everyone can run it (not that I want to, really). The cards in it are quite rare.

I like it for one reason:
1) It's like a puzzle to play against - your game changes from "get the win" to "beat the puzzle".

Each time I lose to a Pan/RI deck, and had a rematch immediately afterwards, I almost always am able to beat it if I knew he was running it. Like G.I. Joe said - "Knowing is half the battle"



Let's look at the combo:

- Pantheon: 3 cost Assassin Site, 1 influence.
Your Score in this Region becomes 0I. If a player controls this Region, he wins the game.

- Royal Intervention: 2 cost Assassin Action.
When you launch this Memory, lose all your Gold. Score 1 Influence in target Region for each Gold lost this way.

Basically the combo is to drop a Pantheon one after another as soon as possible, and counter anything that will threaten the combo. So, first, it's crucial to know:



What will break the combo, and including some (not all! And it should definitely compliment your deck too) of these in your deck as Pan/RI is currently very heavy in the metagame.

1) Counters - Order and Scholar counters are obvious Pan/RI breakers. Don't counter the Pantheon. Even if you counter Pantheon he can drop 2 RIs to win in any case.
- Court Order
- Pre-Emptive Strike
- Radical Demotion (cos Pan/RI are both Assassin cards)
- Marco Barbarigo
- Scientific Espionage
all fall into this category.

2) Site destruction - If you destroy the Pantheon between it being played and the RI, you can significantly delay the combo as the player's now got zero gold. Cards in this category:
- Mob Justice
- Venezia San Polo District (gets around Scientific Espionage)
- Antonio Magians (hold on attacking until he drops pantheon)
- Ezio, Assassin
- Giovanni Auditore
- Even Animus Reboot, Royal Decree and many more.
- Note that Secret Catacombs won't help.
To play this most effectively though, when you suspect a Pan/RI deck about to drop Pantheon (any time they're around 12 gold and above), you must hold the site destruction card, ready to deploy. Most of the time you'll be able to drop it before he is able to drop RI. If a player drops RI at 12 income, you'll have a bit more time to react and kill the Pantheon (or waste his counter and gain yourself time)

3) Discards - if you're able to discard their key cards or counters before the combo is complete you'll be at a huge advantage. Discards are less reliable as Pan and RI are both low cost cards and not often targeted by the highest costing cost thing - but if you time it right (after he drops all his resource boosters), you can most likely get a meaningful discard - if not, then usually a counter. He'll have to spend a counter on the card, anyway.
- Divine Intervention
- Answered Prayer (great, fast, can pick key card)
- Ritual Sacrifice (as above)
- Mysterious Stranger
- Devout Citizen
- Pious Warden
- Let He Who is without Sin (a bit slow)
If you're lucky in discarding him, and maybe packing counters (so Faith/Scholar or Faith/Order), it's actually damn easy to get a discard lock on a Pan/RI deck

4) Deck Manipulation - less useful but effective in theory. If you can manipulate his deck for him to not get his key cards, then he's done for. Pick your Poison is especially good for this. Sacred Vision could turn a next-day death to him drawing resources for the next 2 turns.
- Pick your Poison
- Sacred Vision



How to play against Pan/RI:
After packing cards to break the combo, you need to know how to play against them.

- They'll almost always drop in the right most region - so anticipate that spot to drop your site destruction. It's not a golden rule, it's just psychological.

- Watch his gold - the earliest the Pan/RI can launch is when he's at 12 gold. He could drop a Pantheon earlier but that's not nearly as big a worry as the RI, if he drops Pantheon first it's actually great for you, so...

- Don't unnecessarily drop key cards that can kill the combo - don't drop an Ezio without a Pantheon target, or counter a Quick Study. Keep them for what you need them for.

- Attack the Pantheon - if there's ever a situation of a Pantheon on the table without an RI in play, attack it. With sites, with agents, whatever. Especially if you have counter/s in hand. Remember attacks resolve at the same speed as RI, so if you attacked first and can win the 10 influence with the attack, you'll most likely win even if he drops the RI.

- Hold back big attackers until Pantheon drops - there's nothing worse than having my two Cesares attacking another region while he drops a Pantheon elsewhere.

- While he's rushing and giving you cards with Knowledge has a Price and Nothing Ventured, remember to go for your big cards. If you get 2 x 5 power attackers out ASAP when his Pantheon is out, so much the better. However...

- Prioritise your counters if you have them. Don't get caught without gold to play counters. If your income is over 9/10, you can afford to go to 0 and still have enough time to recover to play a 4 gold counter. Prioritise your site destruction (in hand) if you have it. Break the combo FIRST.

- Remember counters are not counterable in return because surprises cannot outpace another surprise. I've played against people who've tried it. I think they're Magic players.

- Clothes Make The Man I've beaten Pan/RI MANY times by copying the RI and then countering it, and tossing it back. Works wonders Same principle as Scientific Espionage.



There are many lessons to be learnt in playing against Pan/RI - lessons that will better your game against every other deck.

The above certainly doesn't make the Pan/RI deck obsolete - they still are too fast and secure against most decks, but I've been able to win about 6 out of 10 games against Pan/RI now, even decks that weren't built FOR anti-Pan/RI can be played to beat them.

If you have any suggestions and experience to add to the above, it'll be much appreciated!

Happy Pan/RI hunting

[drazel]

Great Article !
My favorite part is the G.I. Joe Reference

Here is a list of the best strategies in my opinion to beat Pan/RI

Order :
every counter including radical demotion

Media:
a bit harder, alone it does not have a real solution but media helps you in both control/aggressive decks
If you play an aggressive deck you can play political patronage and niccolo macchiaveli and beat him to death before he even thinks of playing the combo
If you play control : clothes make the man is great, copy cat is good too but a bit expensive since it does not allow to copy an in-game agent (so, you'll never copy cesare with copy-cat)

Faith
divine intervention + answered prayers.
those 2 early drops can ruin your opponent hand. If you really want your opponent's hand empty, just add mysterious stranger, more is too much.

Scholar
Scientific espionage. PERIOD.

Crime
Brilliant burglary to slow him down
Giovanni Auditore if he drops the Pantheon a little too early and you profit from a bug. Which is not cool, but against Pan/RI it kind of is ;-)

[The Rancord]

Why you want him to resolve in depth analysis? This is a huge mistake. The last thing I want is that he has a hand full of options. I want him to bleed out, so he just uses the combo, as a last effort , and then counter his RI.

But LET him resolve his quick study

[Tuism]

Jan 12, 2012 5:24:52 GMT -5 The Rancord said:

Why you want him to resolve in depth analysis? This is a huge mistake. The last thing I want is that he has a hand full of options. I want him to bleed out, so he just uses the combo, as a last effort , and then counter his RI.

But LET him resolve his quick study

I thought about it and yes, I agree 1 for 3 means even if 1 of the 3 is resource boost that's still a possible 2 other threats. Good point, edited

[Tuism]

drazel you got some great solutions there Burglary is great point

[drazel]

it's not rancord's list, but no problem

I have been surprised how good brilliant burglary could be in a tempo fight.
Once you know the meta you know exactly when to play it efficiently.
It just too bad you can use it efficiently to avoid being countered in late game. (toe gold being regained too fast)

[Tuism]

Jan 12, 2012 6:14:11 GMT -5 drazel said:

it's not rancord's list, but no problem

I have been surprised how good brilliant burglary could be in a tempo fight.
Once you know the meta you know exactly when to play it efficiently.
It just too bad you can use it efficiently to avoid being countered in late game. (toe gold being regained too fast)

Oops my bad, edited

Burglary is a very interesting card, but I'm very reluctant to play it myself. Pure tempo control... I guess it's what a rush deck is!

[Brontobeuf]

Political Patronage + Brilliant Burglary is an insane start.

[Tuism]

You're joking right? It's 2 cards to give someone -1 income and and opponent can probably drop a 2 cost before it resolves

But it does give you an overall +2 income compared to the opponent...

So 2 cards for +2 income boost...?? Am I missing something?

[Brontobeuf]

Nope nope, I was just thinking about it. It's bad unless you know exactly what they want to play. If they have a hand with no 0/1 cost, they are done for one or two days. ^^

[rav950]

Jan 12, 2012 7:08:13 GMT -5 Tuism said:

You're joking right? It's 2 cards to give someone -1 income and and opponent can probably drop a 2 cost before it resolves

But it does give you an overall +2 income compared to the opponent...

So 2 cards for +2 income boost...?? Am I missing something?

Political Patronage and Brilliant Burglary is potentially crippling, and its not uncommon for the blue player to take a hand with just Forced Inheritance for acceleration.

Its probably the one combo that made them keep economic destruction as nerfed as it is, but its nothing you can't recover from (unless its followed by a chain of collateral damages, which is also unlikely).

[rav950]

2) Site destruction -
- Mob Justice
- Venezia San Polo District (gets around Scientific Espionage)
- Maria Auditore
- Ezio, Assassin
- Giovanni Auditore
- Even Animus Reboot, Royal Decree and many more.

- Mob justice could work.
- Ezio Assasssin doesn't; he can't target a launching memory.
- Giovanni is unlikely to help, as he has the extra tap step of going into your HQ first before he can target, and that extra tap can cost you time (or screw up from network delay).
-Maria Auditore fetches agents, how is she on this list?!

Site destruction is only going to fly if you get the timing perfect, they don't, and they don't have a counter in their hand (since a Court Order can easily tag any of these countermeasures). Since the Pantheon player is running blue already, the only way they won't have a counter is if you've managed to completely exhaust their cards and they're feeling impatient.

Discards and counters are your most effective responses to a Pantheon deck; site destruction is your last ditch effort, and highly timing-dependent.

[Tuism]

I've won 3-4 games when pan/ri was popular with site destruction. Pan/ri decks don't always have a counter, especially after they've spammed them all on your threats already not saying its easy, just possible

And yeah Maria doesn't work, oops. Edited to Antonio Magians

[wampyrs]

Jan 24, 2012 16:02:58 GMT -5 rav950 said:

-Maria Auditore fetches agents, how is she on this list?!

It is Mario Auditore.