Diabolists

## Overview

*Don't call up that which you can't put down! These scholars and warlocks have managed to summon all manner of fiends and pit beasts to do their bidding, but each demon enters play shackled. Use your cards wisely to break your demons' chains and unleash their potential.*

The Diabolists faction is a "power activation" faction which uses an inverted structure to most factions. You want to play your stronger minions (your demons) first, who enter play with limited power or with other restrictions on their use. Your 2-power minions (Warlocks) are your activation cards which provide the means of releasing the trapped power of the demons. Each demon uses a unique binding mechanism (power counters, actions, and Madness) which you need to strategically manage with your actions and Warlocks. They also have a subtheme of playing their demons from other locations than the hand - they have several cards that play demons straight from the discard pile, or summon from the deck via stasis, giving them a great deal of momentum as they can recur their powerful cards as needed. Some of their demons' limitations apply differently depending on how you play them, so you will need to carefully consider your options for these summoning cards.

Image Album: https://imgur.com/a/LAHOf0b

## Details

#### General

* Name: Diabolists
* Author: ludichrisness
* Complexity: 3.5/5
* Version: 2.0.1
* Last updated: July 4, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Madness
* Placing into play
* Stasis

## Cards

#### Breakdown

Diabolists have the normal 10 minions and 10 actions. They have an astonishing total minion power of 42, or an average of 4.2 per minion. Among their actions, there are:

* 2 play-on-base actions: Black Omen, Forbidden Lore
* 4 play-on-minion actions: Grimoire, Soul Stone, Summoning Circle (2x)
* 4 standard actions (1 of which affects one or more minions, **in bold**): Controlled Chaos (2x), **Equivalent Exchange**, Twisted Wish
* No actions that directly increase a minion's power

#### Minions (10)

* **1x Marid (7)**: Draw four Madness cards. Talent: Reveal your hand. If there are no Madness cards in it, reduce the starting breakpoint of this base to 0 while this minion is on it.
* **2x Afrit (6)**: If you play this minion from your hand, search your hand, deck, and/or discard pile for a Summoning Circle and play it on this minion as an extra action. Ongoing: When a Summoning Circle is removed from this minion, you may destroy a minion here of power 3 or less.
* **3x Djinn (5)**: Place three +1 power counters on this minion. Ongoing: This minion has -2 power for each +1 power counter on it.
* **4x Warlock (2)**: You may destroy one of your actions OR discard a card from your hand OR remove a +1 power counter from one of your minions. If you do any of these, play an extra action.

#### Actions (10)

* **2x Controlled Chaos**: Transfer up to two of your actions and/or counters of any kind among your minions.
* **2x Summoning Circle**: If this action was not played with Afrit's ability, play an extra minion from your hand or discard pile. Play this action on it. Ongoing: This minion has 0 power and cannot be destroyed by other players' actions.
* **1x Black Omen**: Play on a base. Discard a card to search your deck or hand for a minion and place two stasis counters on it. Ongoing: When you would play a minion from stasis, place it here instead, then destroy this card.
* **1x Equivalent Exchange**: Destroy a minion with 0 power to play an extra card from your discard pile.
* **1x Forbidden Lore**: Play on a base. Ongoing: Before the end of your turn, if you have a minion here, you may reveal cards from your deck until you find a minion of power 5 or more. You may discard it to draw one revealed action; shuffle the remaining cards back in.
* **1x Grimoire**: Play on your minion. Name a different minion. Ongoing: Minions here with that name have their abilities cancelled. When this action leaves play, you may place it in your hand.
* **1x Soul Stone**: Play on your minion. Ongoing: On your turn, instead of playing a minion you may place this minion in your discard pile and play another minion here from your discard pile with a different name; transfer all attachments between the two minions.
* **1x Twisted Wish**: Choose one of your minions. Remove all counters of any kind from it and destroy all of your actions on it. For each attachment removed, shuffle an action from your discard pile into your deck. Special: You may play this before a base scores.

#### Bases

* **(18) Summoning Lab (4 3 2):** On your turn you may play a minion here from your discard pile, then discard a card. It has 0 power until the end of the turn and does not count towards VP until the start of your turn.

* **(22) Solomon's Palace (4 2 1):** Minions here have the abilities: "Ongoing: This minion has +1 power. Talent: Cancel this minion's Ongoing abilities until the start of your turn."

## Clarifications

* **Afrit**: The play of the Summoning Circle is mandatory. If you cannot find one, you can still play Afrit, but you have to search all possible locations for it.
* **Controlled Chaos, Twisted Wish**: "Counters of any kind" include stasis counters, and these cards can target minions in stasis. If you remove all of the stasis counters in Phase 3 from one of your minions in Stasis, you cannot play it since it is not your Play Cards phase (just don't do that).
* **Forbidden Lore**: If you do not discard the minion you find or if you don't find a minion, you cannot draw an action. The action drawn must be from the cards set aside from your deck while looking for a minion. If you do not discard the minion you find, it gets shuffled back in with the rest of the revealed cards. The action is drawn "before the end of your turn" which is in your Phase 4. If using this ability leaves you with more than 10 cards in hand, you must discard down to 10. You draw your 2 cards for Phase 4 before using this ability, because that is a mandatory event which precedes optional events in the same phase.
* **Soul Stone**: This ability can only replace a non-specific minion play which the minion you are playing qualifies for (e.g. it cannot replace a specific card, and you cannot play a 5 power minion if the play is limited to power 3 or less). The new minion's on-play abilities and any reactions to its play are not activated until Soul Stone finishes resolving.
* **Soul Stone, Twisted Wish**: Attachments include counters on the minion, cards on the minion, and cards stored under the minion.
* **Warlock**: If you use this with Spirit of the Forest, use two of the three abilities in either order. Even if you perform more than one of the abilities, you still only get one extra action.

## Strategy

### General

Diabolists are all about power activation. They have a very low power footprint on a base with their Djinn (entering at 2 power), their Afrits (entering at 0 power), and their actions like Summoning Circle and Black Omen (both leading with 0 power). These cards all have the possibility to explode in power when their conditions are met, like removing power counters from a Djinn or destroying a Summoning Circle to release the minion inside. This low power footprint is both a benefit and a drawback, as there is significant potential to get caught with a base scoring before you have a chance to engineer your payoff. This faction rewards planning and foresight to make the most of your access cards, and if you are careful then you can have some spectacular results.

Knowing and understanding all three of your demon types is crucial to Diabolist success.

Djinn offer the most granularity of activation; each power counter removed from them is +1 power, up to +3 total. That can happen either as fuel for a Warlock's action play, as a transfer from Controlled Chaos (netting you +2 power for each counter), by removing all of the counters with Twisted Wish (potentially up to +3 power), or by cancelling their ability entirely with Grimoire or Black Omen, with Grimoire offering the best possible payoff at +6 power per Djinn on the base. Truthfully, Grimoire is the best possible option for Djinn as long as you don't need those power counters for anything else, as a single action play can trigger between 6 and 18 power depending on your setup. Grimoire is also excellent staged in advance to suppress a key rival minion, because a Warlock played terminally can destroy the Grimoire and return it to your hand, then use its extra action play to replay the Grimoire and activate all Djinn on the base. Black Omen is an easy 5 power drop for a Djinn as long as the Omen survives, but there are probably better options unless you are really desperate.

Afrits are the big bruisers of the faction, typically able to go from 0 to 6 power in an instant - there is no granularity here. They have a bidirectional synergy with Summoning Circle, as they enter play from your hand with a Summoning Circle intact, and they are also excellent candidates for a Summoning Circle from your hand. When an Afrit is released from a Summoning Circle, it can destroy something, which can be a great chance to overtake someone during your activation stage - especially if that is happening in Phase 3 with Twisted Wish. Note that this destruction can also occur if the Circle is merely transferred away with Controlled Chaos, which is more efficient as it allows you to set up on another base at the same time or prepare for an Equivalent Exchange. Although Equivalent Exchange can technically target 0 power rivals, it is more likely barring partner depowering synergies that you would sacrifice one of your own minions instead after they receive a Summoning Circle.

The Marid is an awe-inspiring leader at 7 power with the ability to instantly break its own base. Unlocking it is not trivial however, and before you play Marid you should absolutely have a plan in mind for how you will dispose of the Madness debt. Winning a base solo is basically always a net positive compared to taking on 4 Madness, so discarding the Madness is ok as long as it clears it out of your hand and allows you to solo the base. Diabolists do not have the tools internally to be able to dispose of 4 Madness in one turn, but they can do it in two, especially if they overdraw at the end of their turn. Some partner tools can really speed up unlocking Marid, such as movement to obscure Marid's final target base, extra actions to quickly dispose of Madness, or even direct discard abilities to throw the Madness away for a benefit. Internally you can also summon Marid with Black Omen, which gives two turns of a heads up for rivals, but allows you to avoid the Madness cost entirely.

There are several exciting opportunities offered by Diabolists in general - a strong access and recursion package for large minions, including Summoning Circle which can protect a valuable engine minion while keeping zero power creep on its base. They have an interesting mix of actions which can be used in creative ways to access your strongest minions in different stages of the game. One action not to sleep on is Forbidden Lore, which can set up a demon in the discard pile for something like Summoning Circle, while also getting you the exact action that you need in the meantime. It can feel strange to purposefully mill a powerful minion, but many of the demons are stronger in this context where you can immediately access them, like Djinn being able to switch in and out with the Soul Stone card, or Afrits who do not get a Summoning Circle when played from the discard pile with something like Equivalent Exchange.

### Partner Suggestions

Diabolists have three specific gameplans between their three demon types, and a partner will often be able to highlight or heighten at least one of them. This means that Diabolists can do well with almost anyone, as long as they are very intentional about what aspect of their strategy that they intend their partner to focus on. Abilities which Diabolists appreciate in general are going to be extra actions, extra plays of weak minions, power counter and action manipulation, milling and discard abilities, and self-cancellation. Diabolists themselves bring a lot of power potential, so they don't need as much from a partner in that respect - they need help to access the power that they do have.

#### Published

* **Fairies**: Fairies are an excellent partner for multiple reasons. Tinx can pull Summoning Circles off of minions to become a target for Equivalent Exchange, or to transfer that Summoning Circle away later. Speaking of Equivalent Exchange, Glymmer can depower rivals to make it a viable choice for antagonism. The Spirit of the Forest does a great job with Warlock, being able to unlock additional abilities on your demons. Diabolists really like the extra actions from Puck, the power boosts from cards like Enchantment, and Summoning Circle for Glymmer. Titania is an extremely scary minion to stage in stasis with Black Omen as long as you have a plan in mind to get rid of Black Omen before she lands (e.g. with a Warlock).
* **Mad Scientists**: Mad Scientists provide a lot of connective glue which is perfect for Diabolists. The Monster is a great source of extra plays which is ideal for Summoning Circle, and the Bride provides extra actions as well to unlock Marid while simultaneously unlocking a Djinn. Igor has a good combination with Soul Stone, netting an extra power counter every time he is sent to the discard pile. The searching and recursion of Diabolists fits well with the top heavy nature of the Mad Scientists, and the extreme card draw of Marid can really prepare you for a huge Angry Mob / Body Shop play if you don't mind giving up on those 2 VP to Madness.
* **Miskatonic University**: The obvious advantage here is being able to quickly and effectively remove Madness from your hand for Marid, but Miskatonic also offers a lot more. The ability to draw 4 Madness in an instant can really alleviate their draw order problems where they may run out of Madness to use and can free up your minion plays from having to play Researchers. The Professor has one of the best talents in the game, but he often isn't able to stay out for very long because of his power footprint and the aggro he draws. Summoning Circle is the solution to this, allowing you to easily keep him in play all game long.
* **Star Roamers**: Star Roamers bring a lot of valuable pieces for the Diabolist puzzle - an absurdly strong engine ability with Science Officer, a lot of protection while you set up your key pieces, some decent movement options, but most importantly Port Me Up. With a rare "after a base scores" movement ability, Star Roamers are able to leverage Ship's Engineer to move Marid to another base after it fires, with no additional Madness debt for the following turn. This play has shades of Killer Plant Truckers for abusing Overgrowth, as Marid can move from base to base breaking a new one each turn, and giving rivals only a single turn to try to catch up to or break up that 7 power body.

## Author Notes

Diabolists are one of my favourite factions. They have an incredibly simple elevator pitch (play very strong minions with restraints on them that you need to remove) and I think the thematic fit is extremely strong. Although I originally envisioned this faction as trying to remove restraints as quickly as possible, in playtesting I realized that the real strength of the faction is the power activation aspect where you can have a lot of potential power sitting on the board while adding very little to any single base. This makes for a very scary situation for your rivals where they need to try to defuse a base before you get the opportunity to unleash your demons, which makes for a very engaging play experience. I think that this faction does a very good job of showing how esoteric mechanics like Madness and stasis can be used in relative isolation (only one card each) while still adding a lot of intrigue and depth to a faction. Stasis in particular is nearly perfect for a "summoning ritual" style of card, and I like that there are pros and cons to having the Black Omen card remain in play before completing the ritual (e.g. cancelling the Madness draw from Marid, vs telegraphing where it will hit). I found that Diabolists have a very fun concept of managing the demons in different locations so that you can access them as needed with their various summoning cards, and each demon has a different purpose. All of the art for this faction was made with Midjourney v5.

Trivia:

* Diabolists are a revamp of a previous custom faction called Demonologists.
* The names for the different demon classes are drawn from the Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud.