Soul Train

## Overview

Papa's got a brand new deck. These ghostlike beings wander that mysterious place between the hand and the discard pile, capturing the soul of all things passing through. They possess their familiar-looking avatars and use the power of music to manifestate into the real world, even if it's just for a few seconds. We know they exist, we saw them through the grapevine.

Soul Train transforms the discarded cards from hand into opportunities to advance and break bases. It can also set up future plays by distinct methods, including the ethereal plane of Stasis.

### Details

* Name: Soul Train
* Author: CaptainCosmic
* Complexity: 4/5
* Version: 1.3
* Last Updated: August 16th, 2023

### Mechanics

* Burying
* Stasis
* Storing
* Energy

### Special Details

This faction contains cards that have a different ability when they are discarded from hand, rather than played from hand.

## Cards

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The Soul Train faction has the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. It has a total minion power of 30, or an average of 3 per minion. Among their actions, there are:

* 1 Play-on-minion action: Ensorcelled Garment.
* 5 Play-on-base actions: 2x "Lucille", Stand By Me, 2x The Soul Train.
* 4 Standard actions (0 that affect one or more minions when played): Ethereal Boo-galoo, Go-spell Of Eternity, Rhythm & Bruise, Soulmate.
* 0 Actions that directly increase a minion's power.

### Minions (10)

* **1x Frankie (5):** Place an Energy on one of your minions. Talent: Remove an Energy from this minion to place two stasis counters on a card from your discard pile.
* **2x Jay (4):** Talent: Transfer one of your actions from one base to another, if that base has another of your actions, draw a card.
* **3x Steve (3):** You may discard a card from your hand. If it is a minion, place two +1 power counters among minions here; otherwise, draw two cards.
* **4x Richy (2):** If this minion is played from outside your hand, place two +1 power counters on it.

### Actions (10)

* **2x "Lucille":** Play on a base. Talent: Remove any number of Energy from your minions here to give those minions +2 power for each Energy removed until the end of the turn.
* **2x** **The** **Soul** **Train:** Play on a base. Ongoing: After you discard one or more cards from your hand, you may place an Energy on one of your minions here.
* **1x Ensorcelled Garment:** Play on your minion. Store a card from your hand under this action. Special: When this card leaves play, you may play a minion of power 3 or less stored under this card, then you may remove an Energy from this minion to place two stasis counters on this minion.
* **1x Ethereal Boo-galoo:** Play an action that can be played on a base off the top of your deck. Special: After you discard this card from your hand, you may place two stasis counters on a card from your hand.
* **1x Go-spell of Eternity:** Play an extra minion of power 3 or less from your discard pile. Special: After you discard this card from your hand, you may search your deck for a minion and place it on the top of your deck.
* **1x Rhythm & Bruise:** Reduce the breakpoint of a base with one of your minions by 1 for every four cards in your discard pile. Special: After you discard this card from your hand, you may draw four cards, minus one for every four cards in your discard pile (to a minimum of one card drawn).
* **1x Soulmate:** Search your deck for a copy of a minion in your discard pile and draw it. If it has 2 or less power, you may play it as an extra minion instead. Special: After you discard this card from your hand, place an Energy on one of your minions.
* **1x Stand By Me:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Once per turn, after you discard a minion of power 3 or less from your hand, you may bury it here.

### Bases

* **(20) Gloomy Underground Stage (4 2 2):** Before this base scores, reduce the maximum handsize of each player by 1 for each minion they control here until the end of their turn.
* **(16) Phantasmic Drumkit (3 1 1):** After this base scores, each player with a minion here gains 1VP if their discard pile has at least twice as many cards as their total VP.

## Clarifications

* **Jay:** This card can only transfer play-on-base actions.
* **Richy:** "From outside your hand" means anywhere except your hand. This faction has Burying, Storing and playing from Stasis/discard pile/directly from the deck as means to activate its ability; if there is any other method of playing from outside your hand (e.g. off the top of the deck), it also activates Richy's ability.
* **Ethereal** **Boo-galoo, Go-spell Of Eternity, Rhythm & Bruise, Soulmate, Stand By Me, The Soul Train:** Discard reactions are also triggered if you discard the cards on your "Draw 2 cards" phase and on other players' turns.

## Strategy

### General

Soul Train has two main gameplans: To get Energy on your minions for their burst turns, and to get extra plays of your lower-powered minions.

The way they achieve their main goal is with The Soul Train itself, which converts discards into Energy; this works in conjunction with "Lucille" to transform that Energy into raw power at will. They can repurpose the Energy gained into putting cards in Stasis (saving their extra plays for later turns) with Frankie and Ensorcelled Garment if needed.

Their power 2 minion, Richy, permanently gains extra power if played unconventionally, and their power 3 minion, Steve, can serve either as a terminal or advance card. Soul Train (the faction) has a bunch of ways of playing them in a deferred way, which is suitable for big turns with them, putting a lot of power on a base from seemingly out of nowhere.

They're equipped with four general purpose dynamic actions, which have a different effect when discarded, giving the player meaningful choices to make throughout the game, as well as providing the faction with an extra boost for discarding their cards.

### Partner suggestions

As a discard-heavy deck, Soul Train benefits from partners with a lot of card draw. And doubling down on discard with partners like Ghosts, Mages, Sumos or Beauty & The Beast could also work well for this faction, as it opens more windows on the ideal timing for your plays. They also like factions with strong lower-powered minions, as they can play and replay them in many ways.

## Author Notes

* The art for this faction was made using Dream AI.
* The font used for faction cards is Cooper Black Regular.
* This faction's art depicts people similar to famous Soul, Jazz and R&B artists: Aretha Franklin (Frankie, Go-spell of Eternity), James Brown (Jay, Ensorcelled Garment), Ray Charles (Stand By Me), Marvin Gaye (Stand By Me), Tina Turner (Soulmate), Ella Fitzgerald (Soulmate), Stevie Wonder (Steve, Ethereal Boo-galoo); and Lionel Richie (Richy, Rhythm & Bruise).
* Feedback and ideas provided by ludichrisness, Berryl and Onassi; many thanks!
* The working name of the faction was "Soulcerors", but I didn't like it a lot. SDNuKe suggested I call them just "Soul Train" and it immediately stuck with me; thank you!

This faction was originally conceived with a very different approach, though the pun was always there. It really started developing when ludichrisness suggested the faction should take the discard route, I fell in love with that idea immediately, with Ghosts as my all-time favorite published faction and the faction already having a ghost/spirit theme, it was a must-do for me.

The thematic aspect of the Energy counters and Richy representing the lost souls of unplayed cards, as well as Stasis representing the ethereal plane of the unknown was kept intact. I really like the flavor of this faction, as I'm fascinated by how the intangible things can be represented in a tangible game. I hope you enjoy playing Soul Train!