Quantum Physicists

## Overview

*The world of quantum is super-duper weird, but Smash Up is no stranger to that. The brilliant minds who cracked the quantum code are eager to share it, bringing with them their vastly different interpretations of their discoveries. Some think everything that could happen does happen, and others think they're crazy, but there's one thing they can all agree on: Smashing some bases!*

The Quantum Physicists use OR abilities and movement to keep their options open and their turns flexible.

* **Author:** Berryl
* **Complexity:** 2/5
* **Version:** 1.1
* **Last Updated:** July 25th, 2023

### Breakdown

This faction has 12 minions and 8 actions, more minions than normal. They have a total of 26 printed power, or 2.17 per minion. Among their actions, they have:

* 1 play-on-minion action: Entanglement
* 1 play-on-base actions: Double Slits
* 6 standard actions, 5 of which directly affect one or more minions (in **bold**): **2x Uncertainty Principle, Many Worlds, Quantum Leap, Tunneling,** Superposition

### Minions (12)

* **1x Bohr (5):** Ongoing: Before you resolve an OR ability, look at the top two cards of any deck and return them to the top of that deck in any order. Talent: Move one of your other minions to another base.
* **2x Pauli (4):** Ongoing: At the start of your turn, either shuffle a card from your discard pile into your deck OR place a +1 power counter on this minion.
* **3x Planck (3):** Draw a card OR place two +1 power counters on this minion.
* **4x Dirac (1):** Place two +1 power counters on this minion. Special: After you use an OR ability, you may place this card from your hand onto a base where you have a minion to use a part of that OR ability you have not used yet this turn.
* **2x Schrödinger’s Cat (0):** Destroy this minion to either draw two cards OR place a copy of it here from your discard pile. Ongoing: Your other minions here have +2 power.

### Actions (8)

* **2x Uncertainty Principle:** Place two +1 power counters on one of your minions OR move one of your minions to another base.
* **1x Entanglement:** Play on one of your minions. Ongoing: After this minion moves, you may move another of your minions to the same base.
* **1x Tunneling:** Special: After a base scores, move one of your minions there to the base that replaces it.
* **1x Quantum Leap:** Special: Before a base where you have a minion scores, move one of your minions to there OR give one of your minions there +2 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Superposition:** Choose two cards in your hand and/or discard pile with the same name. Play one, then shuffle the other into your deck if it is not in play.
* **1x Double-Slits:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Once per turn, after you play a minion here, either draw a card OR move one of your minions to or from here.
* **1x Many Worlds:** Return one of your minions to your hand. For each base in play, you may play an extra minion with equal or less power there.

### Bases

* **(20) Copenhagen (4 2 1):** The winner here either draws a card for each of their minions here OR shuffles one of their minions here into their deck.
* **(16) Large Hadron Collider (3 2 1):** After you play a minion here, move it to another base and move another of your minions to here.

## Clarifications

**Bohr:** Resolve his reaction before choosing which part of the OR ability to use.

## Strategy

### General

Despite the complexity of their source material, this faction is actually quite straightforward to play. They have a lot of movement between Bohr and Uncertainty Principle, meaning you can afford to spread out your minions and reposition them later as needed. Additionally, all of their minions are quite easy to play, although saving Diracs for their Special ability can also be valuable. Be careful about not playing your first Schrodinger's Cat at a time when you really need the board presence more than the immediate draw, and if you have a Cat in your discard pile, it's almost always better to use the second one for power instead of draw (although Dirac can buy you the draw if you have one available, making for a nice combo). Quantum Leap can be a very impactful special if you have a large minion to move over (such as a passively growing Pauli) and a Dirac in hand to also give that minion +2 power.

### Partner Suggestions

Quantum Physicists play well with swarm factions due to the mass power boost of the Cat and the extra bodies provided by Dirac. They generally don't require extra ORs or movement from their partner, as they have enough ORs to support Bohr and Dirac internally and the movement is more a means to an end than something they need en-masse. A partner that lacks movement of their own will appreciate Bohr making everybody else mobile, and factions that have singularly important engine minions will appreciate Tunneling to save them and position them on fresh bases, ready to stick around for even longer.

#### Published

* **Mythic Horses:** Starlyte and Encouragement Power make Diracs more valuable, and the Cat is another way to cap off a Horse swarm. Teaching Power and Quantum Leap are specials which combine very well as long as you have minimal starting presence on the base.
* **Knights of the Round Table:** Knights make extra use out of all the Quantum movement by using it to score their quests. Double Slits will often be able to be used for its draw since so many of your minions can move off (or move somebody else off) immediately, keeping that base far from breaking.
* **Teddy Bears:** Sir Squeezes has ideal targets to play with the Cat, Dirac, and Planck, all of whom can gain more power than printed.

#### Custom

* **Mantis Tribe (me):** All of the power Quantum Physicists add is persistent, which combos very well with the Tribe's need to score bases on opponents' turns. This is also classic swarm + swarm support. You'll be playing with a total of 24 minions and 16 actions, so all of the extra plays both factions have will have plenty of fuel to burn.
* **Space Commandos (Onassi):** The extra movement Quantum Physicists provide help Space Commandos stay off their target bases until the last second, and provide them with some much-needed card draw.

## Author Notes

This faction gelled together surprisingly quickly, as may be apparent by their version number. The two core mechanics, OR abilities and movement, arose naturally from the faction's theme. Due to Dirac, it could be fair to call this faction "is-ORs," but only in the barest sense of the term; there's a lot more going on here than that, despite it being a very simple faction. That simplicity happened almost by accident; I needed abilities that wouldn't be too powerful to double dip with Dirac, but could also stand on their own without him. As a result, many of their cards were stripped of long verbiage, especially Entanglement, which used to be in excess of 50 words before version 1.0. I really like Quantum Physicists as a foil to my Astronomers faction, inarguably my most complex work and probably my magnum opus thus far; while Astronomers source the oldest and simplest field of science and make it extremely complex and interconnected, QP takes one of the newest, most confusing fields of science and turns it into something very simple and elegant. I really hope you enjoy them, because there's a lot of depth to their strategy that might not be apparent from their ease of play.

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