Plague Doctors

## Overview

*Plague Doctors claim to staunch the spread of disease, although in reality this group poisons their foes with concoctions most foul. They can best “take care” of their patients when they’re at their weakest, gaining advantages when other players’ minions are at 0 power. Their remedies will curb the spread of pestilence their enemies are spreading around by winning the bases!*

Plague Doctors stall the game by spreading -1 power counters to others' minions, then convert those -1 power counters into positive power when the time is right.

### Details

#### General

* Name: Plague Doctors
* Author: Berryl
* Complexity: 2/5
* Version: 1.4
* Last updated: September 18, 2022

### Breakdown

This faction has the standard 10 minions and 10 actions and the standard 30 total minion power or an average minion power of 3. Among their actions, they have:

* 3 play-on-minion actions: 2x Deadly Poison, Corpse Explosion
* 3 play-on-base actions: Noxious Fumes, Deadly Poison, Envenom
* 4 standard actions, all of which directly affect one or minions (in **bold**): **2x Catalyst, Crippling Cloud, Bane**

### Minions (10)

* 1**x Nightshade (5):** Talent: Place a -1 power counter on this minion OR remove a -1 power counter from this minion to take control of a minion with 0 power. Talent: Transfer a -1 power counter between two minions.
* **2x Apothecary (4):** Ongoing: After other players’ minions gain one or more -1 power counters, place a +1 power counter on one of your minions here.
* **3x Wolfsbane (3):** Special: After another player’s minion’s power is reduced to 0, you may play this minion there as an extra minion. Use only one Wolfsbane’s ability per trigger.
* **4x Hemlock (2):** Place a -1 power counter on up to two other minions.

### Actions (10)

* **2x Deadly Poison:** Play on another player’s minion. Talent: Place a -1 power counter on this minion. Then, if this minion has 0 power, place a +1 power counter on one of your minions here.
* **2x Catalyst:** Remove any number of -1 power counters from a minion. Place an equal number of +1 power counters on one of your minions there.
* **1x Crippling Cloud:** Place three -1 power counters on a minion. Special: You may play this before a base scores.
* **1x Noxious Fumes:** Play on a base. Ongoing: After another player plays or moves a minion to here, you may place a -1 power counter on it.
* **1x Envenom:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Once per turn, after another player’s minion here gains a -1 power counter, draw a card.
* **1x Bouncing Flask:** Play on a base. Ongoing: After a minion’s power is reduced to 0 here, you may move one of your minions to or from here, then transfer this action to another base.
* **1x Bane:** Choose one of your minions. Place a +1 power counter on it for each minion there with a -1 power counter on it. Place a +1 power counter on it for each minion there with 0 power. Special: At the end of your turn, you may place this card into its owner’s hand from the discard pile.
* **1x Corpse Explosion:** Play on another player’s minion. Talent: If this minion has 0 power, place -1 power counters on other players’ minions here equal to this minion’s printed power, split any way you choose, then destroy this action.

### Bases

* **(23) Medieval Street (4 1 1):** After a minion is played here, place a -1 power counter on it.
* **(18) Festering Clinic (3 2 1):** After this base scores, the winner may move one of their minions here to another base, then place -1 power counters on it equal to its printed power.

## Clarifications

* **Nightshade:** This card has two talents which can be used independently.
* **Wolfsbane, Bouncing Flask:** If a minion already has 0 power and an effect is applied to it which reduces its power, nothing happens since power cannot go below 0. If a minion's power is reduced to 0, gains enough power to have at least 1 power, and then is reduced to 0 power again, those are discrete triggers which these cards can react to independently.

## Strategy

### General

Plague Doctors are a control faction designed to make opponents overpay for their investments and buy time for you to set up your plans. There are a few talent-based means to add -1 power counters (Deadly Poison and Nightshade), but very few ways to reduce a lot of power at once; the biggest one is Crippling Cloud but using that in phase 2 means not using it in phase 3. The stalling isn't permanent, fortunately; there are quite a few ways to refund the reduced power and turn it into net gains, such as Wolfsbane, Catalyst, and Bane. This means that, while Plague Doctors will stall the game temporarily, they will still keep the game moving along.

By far the biggest payoff for the power reductions is Nightshade, who has the ability to permanently steal minions whose power has been reduced to 0 at the cost of removing a -1 power counter from him. In the meantime, Nightshade can be an engine to get -1 power counters where you need them and set up for eventual steals. Outside of Nightshade, cards like Catalyst and Bane can convert the -1 counters into +1 power counters to help you break bases.

### Partner Suggestions

Plague Doctors function best as stalling support, buying time for your partner to set up and providing the occasional big burst of power. They are heavily enabled by extra actions since it allows them to chain cards like Catalyst and Bane together, though, so a partner who can bring some of those will work well with them.

#### Published

* **Fairies:** Glymmer + Nightshade is the name of the game here. Spirit of the Forest allows you to somewhat sidestep the -1 counter cost to Nightshade's stealing, Glymmer greatly enables it, and the combo has the added bonus of the reduced power coming back on your turn. Fairies also give Plague Doctors their coveted extra actions.
* **Disco Dancers:** Catalyst is an opportunity for a tremendous burst of power. If you can place four or more +1 counters at once, Divas can copy the whole stack, and Dancing King can copy the -1 removal and the +1 additions separately. Disco Lou and Celebration are sources of extra actions.
* **Musketeers:** Muskies greatly appreciate the breathing room Plague Doctors provide, and Plague Doctors also provide actions to cap off Musketeers' action chains in the form of Catalyst. Plague Doctors' actions are mostly easy-to-play modifiers which helps prevent hand clog in the midgame.

## Author Notes

This faction stemmed from a desire to keep working with some of the design space I didn't explore in the Slay the Spire expansion. At the time, I had plans to make four factions expounding on unused aspects of the four protagonists' card pools, and Plague Doctors were that for The Silent, exploring the concept of poison (all of their actions are named after The Silent's poison cards in the game). Unfortunately, as of yet (6/24/2023) none of the other three characters have received the same treatment, but they may eventually.