Soul Sanctum

## Overview

*The horrid experimenters of Hollow Knight’s Soul Sanctum are coming to Smash Up! Drain and manipulate the soul of yours and others’ minions to empower your own, and use that soul as fuel for powerful effects.*

Soul Sanctum destroys minions, both yours and others', and converts their power into breakpoint reduction and power counters.

### Details

#### General

* Name: Soul Sanctum
* Author: Berryl
* Complexity: 2/5
* Version: 2.3
* Last updated: May 18, 2023

#### Mechanics

* +1 Power Counters
* +1 Power Counters on actions

#### Special details

Featured in the Hollow Knight custom expansion

### Breakdown

Soul Sanctum has the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. They have the standard total minion power of 30, or an average of 30 per minion. Among their actions, there are:

* 2 play-on-minion actions: Soul Catcher, Spell Twister.
* 2 play-on-base action: 2x Soul Totem
* 6 standard actions, 4 of which directly affect one or more minions (in **bold**): **2x** **Shade Soul, Soul Eater, Scholar's Record,** Pure Focus, **Desolate Dive**

### Minions

* **1x Soul Master (5):** Ongoing: Once per turn, after another minion is destroyed, you may play an extra minion. Once per turn per minion, after one of your minions gains a +1 power counter, you may place an additional +1 power counter on that minion.
* **2x Soul Warrior (4):** Talent: Destroy one of your minions. Ongoing: After one or more minions are destroyed, you may place a +1 power counter on each of your minions here.
* **3x Soul Twister (3):** Talent: Remove a +1 power counter from one of your minions to draw a minion of power 3 or less from your discard pile.

* **4x Mistake (2):** Ongoing: After this minion leaves play, reduce the breakpoint of any base by this minion’s power until the end of your turn.

### Actions

* **2x Soul Totem:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Once per turn, after a minion is destroyed, place +1 power counters on this card equal to its power. Talent: Transfer a +1 power counter from this card to each of your minions here.
* **2x Shade Soul:** Destroy a minion of power 3 or less. Place +1 power counters equal to its power on one of your minions there.
* **1x Soul Catcher:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: After this minion goes to the discard pile, draw three cards.
* **1x Desolate Dive:** Choose a base. Destroy any number of minions of printed power 2 or less there. Reduce the breakpoint there by their combined power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Scholar’s Record:** For each minion of power 2 or less in your discard pile, place a +1 power counter on one of your minions. Afterward, reveal any number of minions of power 2 or less in your hand and draw a card for each.
* **1x Pure Focus:** Play an extra minion of power 3 or less. If you have destroyed a minion this turn, return this card to your hand.
* **1x Soul Eater:** Destroy one of your minions to destroy another player’s minion at the same base. Special: Before a base scores, play this card to instead destroy a minion of printed power 2 or less.
* **1x Spell Twister:** Play on a minion. Talent: Either place two +1 power counters on this minion OR play an extra action. Destroy one of your minions.

## Clarifications

* **Soul Master:** "Once per turn per minion" means that it can trigger any number of times as long as each of them reacts to a different minion.

## Strategy

### General

This is a destruction faction, meaning it needs ways to recoup power after destroying things. The faction provides minions you can easily destroy in the Mistakes, which can refund their power or send the reduction elsewhere, and other cards in the faction can turn things around into net positive effects. In order to be successful, you have to plan well in advance and maximize benefits for destruction. Soul Master and Pure Focus can refund the lost minion, while Soul Warrior and Soul Totem turn it into pure power.

Mistakes can afford to be played defensively. Even if they don't end up being destroyed, going to the discard as a result of their bases scoring on others' turns still gives you a window to counterpunch on your next turn, and they're easily recurred with Soul Twisters.

#### Published

* **Hydra:** Obviously Hydra makes it much easier to create net gains from self-destruction, and they pair well with Soul Warriors and Soul Totems to generate mass power counters.
* **Polynesian Voyagers:** Destroying Mistakes helps make way for Wayfinders to move while still retaining the breakpoint reduction. Soul Master can help Wayfinders and Shark/Ocean Tattoo minions grow very large very quickly.
* **Warriors:** Stacking Monsters is a good way to make power counter investments safer, and then this can be turned around for even bigger benefits from Shade Soul or Desolate Dive. Treasures are always a good wild card as well.
* **Musketeers:** The ability to grow singularly large Mistakes increases the probability of cascading multiple bases with the breakpoint reduction. Pure Focus can help get Young Musketeers out more quickly, allowing your regular minion plays to be saved for more valuable minions.

#### Custom

* **Vessels:** Although any of the other three factions from the Hollow Knight expansion will go well with Vessels, Soul Sanctum offers the most of what Vessels augment - some self-destruction to get Siblings out, modifiers to persist, and plenty of power counters.
* **Mantis Tribe:** Soul Sanctum has a couple abilities that play well with swarm, lots of persistent power, and lots of recursion to make Mantis Warrior stacking easy. Mistakes can still be powered up with Warriors because their breakpoint reductions cue off of the Mistakes' actual power rather than being a flat reduction.

## Author Notes

This faction has been the hardest to get right of the four Hollow Knight factions, as destruction is prone to being. They've gone through one entire facelift and several major tweaks afterward, and they may still require additional edits as time goes on.