Psychics (Onassi)

## Overview

*The Psychics deck revolves around breaking their limits and cancelling negative abilities on its own minions, while providing benefits for doing so. Some of them have abilities that want to be cancelled to further incentivize using this mechanic. Once their abilities are cancelled, it triggers a special effect with payoff - whether that’s gaining power, moving your minions, or playing extra cards. Their secondary mechanic deals with reading minds and looking at the top cards of decks, whether that deck is yours or your opponent’s. In some cases, you may play those cards.*

### Details

* Name: Psychics
* Author: Onassi
* Complexity: 4/5
* Version: 1.1
* Last updated: April 21, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Cancellation
* Minion modifiers
* Playing cards off the top of your deck

#### Special details

* The Psychics were featured in Crank It Up's Custom Faction Month #2 as one of the winners.

### Cards

https://imgur.com/a/iVz0xVA

The Psychics have the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. The total minion base power is unusually high at 35 (not counting abilities) with an average of 3.5 power per minion. However, their abilities reduce their power once they're in play, which puts them much closer to the average. These abilities can be cancelled with their support cards to increase their power.

* 6 play-on-minion actions: 2x Limit Break, 2x Astral Projection, Focused Mind, Nigh Omnipotence
* 0 play-on-base actions.
* 4 standard actions (1 that affects one or more minions, in **bold**): Materialization, Premonition, Psystrike, **Psychokinesis**
* 3 actions that directly increase a minion's power: 2x Limit Break, Psychokinesis

#### Minions

* **1x The Ascended (7):** Ongoing: This minion has -2 power the turn it is played. After you play another card, discard a card. Special: Before this card’s ability is canceled, you may look at the top two cards of your deck and return them in any order. Play a card off the top of your deck as an extra card.
* **2x Mindfreak (4):** Talent: Give this minion +1 power until the end of the turn to look at the top two cards of a deck and place them on the top and/or bottom of that deck in any order. Special: Other players may use this minion’s talent on their turns. Before this card’s ability is cancelled, you may use its talent an extra time.
* **3x Angsty Protagonist (4):** Ongoing: This minion has -1 power for each other minion here. Special: Before this card’s ability is cancelled, move another one of your minions to or from this base, give that minion +1 power and cancel its ability until the end of the turn.
* **4x Spirit Guide (2):** You may cancel the abilities of another minion here until the start of your next turn to draw a card.

#### Actions

* **2x Limit Break:** Play on your minion. Ongoing: This minion has the ability “Ongoing: This minion has -2 power. Special: Before this card’s abilities are cancelled, it gains +2 power until the end of the turn.”
* **2x Astral Projection:** Play on a minion. Play an extra action if you played this on your minion. Ongoing: This minion's abilities are cancelled. Destroy this card at the start of your turn. You may place it on top of your deck if it was on one of your minions.
* **1x Focused Mind:** Play on your minion. Talent: Cancel this minion’s abilities until the start of your next turn to draw a card.
* **1x Materialization:** Play an extra minion and cancel its abilities until the end of the turn. Special: You may play this on a base where you have a minion before it scores.
* **1x Premonition:** Choose any player. Look at their hand, and then look at the top 2 cards of their deck. Return them in any order. Play an extra action.
* **1x Psystrike:** Reveal the top card of any player’s deck. If it is an action, you may play it as an extra action or return it. If it is a minion, draw cards equal to that minion's printed power.
* **1x Nigh Omnipotence:** Play on your minion. Special: Before this minion’s abilities are cancelled, search your deck and/or discard pile for an action and place it on top of your deck.
* **1x Psychokinesis:** Choose a base and up to three of your minions there. Cancel their abilities and give each of them +2 power until the end of the turn. Special: You may play this before a base scores and give your minions +1 power each there instead.

#### Bases

* Dreamscape - 311 ,16 VP - At the start of your turn if you have the most power here, you  may choose a base. Until the end of the turn, the abilities of minions there are cancelled.
* Dimly Lit Room 321, 19 VP - The winner here may play a card off the top of any player’s deck as an extra card.

## Clarifications

* **Materialization:** When a minion with a "before this card's ability is cancelled" ability is played with Materialization, its ability is not triggered thanks to the current rules surrounding "pre-triggering".
* **Angsty Protagonist:** The movement effect in Angsty Protagonist's ability is mandatory.

## Strategy

### General

The Psychics use self-cancellation to unlock their printed power, but they also possess abilities that activate just before a cancellation event occurs. This is a great power activation strategy, where minions, especially their 3 ofs, can be played on a base without worrying too much about opponents using that minion's power to their advantage. Their general gameplan involves keeping opponent abilities in check with antagonistic cancelling while using Spirit Guide to draw into your powerful effects, and then setting up chains of self-cancellation with cards like Angsty Protagonist to burst a base or two for the win.

They also use a variety of card-sifting abilities, like Premonition and Mindfreak, in order to mitigate the effects of draw order dependency. These cards can set up powerful plays with The Ascended or Psystrike, which play/reveal cards off the top of a deck - insight is a powerful psychic ability, after all. Nigh Omnipotence can also serve to place a powerful action on top of your deck when combined with those cards.

The Psychics have ways to come back and win a base from behind during the scoring phase. Both Materialization and Psychokinesis are potent Special abilities that, when the Psychics have presence on a base but are losing by a slim margin, can completely change the outcome of a score. Using Psychokinesis on an Angsty Protagonist can facilitate movement and convergence on the scoring base, and using Materialization is especially effective within a Psychics context as your minion printed power is higher than average.

While the main strength of Psychics comes from its ability to stall and play minions without adding to power creep, it certainly isn't without its weaknesses. Due to the lack of cancelling effects in the published game, Psychics heavily rely on their own cancellation cards for their gameplan. If those cards are stuck at the bottom of the deck, the Psychics could really struggle with executing their game plan. Additionally, while minions like Angsty Protagonist can be powerful due to not adding power to a base that opponents can manipulate, they also can be affected quite easily by other players' cards that target weak minions (as they'll often end up with 1 or less power until their abilities are cancelled).

### Partner Suggestions

Psychics are more a headliner deck than a support deck, that much is for sure. Their lack of power 3 or less minions excludes support decks like Killer Plants or Teens from being the absolute best partners for them, but they do have 5 minions of printed power 4 that may be useful for decks like Shapeshifters or Vigilantes. Psychics have a lot of play-on-minion actions which can slot well into other factions that seek to either search for or accumulate those actions on their minions. "Bad abilities" aren't very common in Smash Up so self-cancellation is hard to find synergy for, but it's important to remember that on-play abilities can be cancelled for benefit after they've already been used. A partner faction with lots of on-play minion abilities can be powerful with Spirit Guide or Focused Mind for the extra draw without worrying about your important abilities being cancelled.

###### Published

* **Ignobles:** Ignobles give away minions for extra plays and card draw, and giving away minions with abilities that can negatively impact your opponent is a great use for their usually gimmicky strategy. You won't aim to simply take back your minions immediately after giving it away in this combo. And, due to the lack of cancellation in the vast majority of other factions, opponents won't be able to trigger the Psychic minions' "hidden" abilities for themselves. If you give away The Ascended, the other player must discard a card each time they play one, which can be devastating. If the base is breaking and you're in danger of losing, you can always play Inevitable Betrayal to take back your 7 power minion.
* **Super Spies:** Spies offer insight into the top cards of your deck and other players' deck - perfect support to set up a Psystrike or The Ascended play. Mindfreak is another deck-sifting card very in line with the spy game plan, giving you full control over both your deck and others'. Mole has great targets for phase 3 actions, including the much more flexible phase 2 versions of Materialization and Psychokinesis (but 2x Limit Break and 2x Astral Projection are also both excellent targets).
* **Vikings:** The insight provided by Premonition and Mindfreak plays into the stealing the Vikings do perfectly. Berserk, Raiders, and Huscarls can put cards from your hand on top of your deck, allowing The Ascended to play it right off the top once its abilities are cancelled. Since all the Viking minions either have on-plays or terminal talents, they make excellent candidates for self-cancellation when targeted by Focused Mind or by the effect of Angsty Protagonist.

###### Custom

* **Enchanters (by Berryl):** Enchanters offer one more way for Psychics to cancel their own abilities in Crown of Madness, and Psychics offer good sifting to get to both factions' powerful Specials. Mesmerizers will go a long way in finding the powerful Psychic minion modifiers such as Nigh Omnipotence and Focus the Mind. Psychics provide good burst potential with the Angsty Protagonists, The Ascended, and Psystrike. Psychonaut will have plenty of bounce targets, as all six of Psychics' minion modifiers can be returned once they have served their purpose terminally.

## Author Notes

This faction was incredibly fun to make. This was my submission for Crank It Up's Custom Faction Month 2, and I was lucky enough for it to be selected as one of the 6 winners. Conceptually, it was inspired by the Enrage Warrior archetype in Hearthstone, which involves injuring your own minions for various degrees of payoff (and has since been compared to Absolute Zero from Sentinels of the Multiverse). As a relative newcomer to Custom Faction creation at the time of making it, the first version of Psychics was extremely antagonistic and not very fun to play against at all. But with some great advice from the Discord community, it become an extremely unique faction that plays in a top-down sort of way similar to Werewolves. I hope you enjoy playing it, and please leave a review if you do!