Circus Performers

## Overview

*Step right up, step right, and witness the finest performers this side of Ice Castle! Amaze your opponents with the high flying action of Circus Performers, as their amazing abilities are put in display! They may be low in power, but they're ready to give you the greatest show on Earth!*

The Circus Performers faction plays low power minions who boost each other in power to activate their abilities. By combining their different reactions together, you can swing minions into and out of bases, tame minions, perform feats of strength, and more. Their titan, Jumbo, is hard to bring into play, but will bring everyone to see the show. Circus Performers provide a fun and explosive chain reaction style of play while having low power minions on the field during your rivals' turns.

Image Album: https://imgur.com/a/4grN2Ka

## Details

#### General

* Name: Circus Performers
* Author: Snakevin and ludichrisness
* Complexity: 3/5
* Version: 1.0
* Last updated: April 18, 2022

#### Special Details

Featured in the Downtown Smashopolis expansion.

## Cards

#### Breakdown

Circus Performers have the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. They have a total minion power of only 20, or an average of 2 per minion. Among their actions, there are:

* 1 play-on-base action: Ticket Booth
* 4 play-on-minion actions: Clown Solo, Fire Eating, Knife Juggling (2x),
* 5 standard actions (4 that affect one or more minions, **in bold**): **Circus Runaway (2x)**, **Haunted Circus**, Let's Get Ready For... Jumbo!, **Showstopper**
* 5 actions that directly increase a minion's power: Circus Runaway (2x), Clown Solo, Haunted Circus, Showstopper

#### Minions (10)

* **1x Ringleader (4)**: Talent: Give another minion here +1 power until the end of the turn. Ongoing: Give all your minions here +1 power until the end of the turn after the first time this minion gains power each turn.
* **1x Lion Tamer (3)**: Give this minion +1 power until the end of the turn and another minion here -1 power until the end of the turn. Ongoing: You may take control of a minion here of power 3 or less until the end of the turn after this minion gains power for the first time each turn.
* **1x Strongman (3)**: Give this minion +1 power until the end of the turn. Ongoing: This minion gains +2 power until the end of the turn after it gains power for the first time each turn.
* **3x Acrobat (2)**: Choose a minion here to gain +1 power until the end of the turn. Ongoing: You may move this minion after the first time it gains power in a turn. You may move another minion of power 3 or less from the previous base to the new base and give it +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **4x Clown (1)**: After the first time each turn this minion is directly affected by a card, you may give another minion +1 power until the end of the turn.

#### Actions (10)

* **2x Circus Runaway:** Move a minion to another base to give a minion there +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **2x Knife Juggling:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: Draw a card after this minion gains power for the first time each turn. Use only one Knife Juggling ability each turn.
* **1x Fire Eating**: Play on a minion. Ongoing: Destroy a minion here of power 2 or less after the first time this minion gains power each turn.
* **1x Intermission**: Shuffle up to three minions from your discard pile into your deck. You may give one of your minions +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Clown Solo**: Play on a minion. Talent: Give another minion here +2 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Ticket Booth**: Play on a base. Ongoing: After a minion moves here, give another minion here +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Showstopper**: Choose a base and give each of your minions there +1 power until the end of the turn. Special: You may play this card before a base scores.
* **1x Let’s Get Ready For…JUMBO!**: Play Jumbo at a base OR draw a card for each of your minions whose power is greater than their printed power.

#### **Titan: Jumbo**

* Special: If you have a minion on each base, you may play this card at the base where you have the most minions.
* Talent: Move this card and one of your minions here to another base to give your minions there +1 power until the end of the turn.
* Ongoing: After you move this card, if you have at least four minions here, move all minions in play to this base.

#### Bases

* **(16) Boxcar (3 2 1):** After a minion moves from here to another base, it gains +2 power until the end of the turn.

* **(21) Big Top (4 3 3):** After you play a minion here, give a minion here +1 power until the end of the turn.

## Clarifications

* **Acrobat, Fire Eating, Knife Juggling, Lion Tamer, Ringleader, Strongman**: These activate after the first time the minion gains power each turn, regardless of who the current player is or what phase of the turn it is. If you choose not to use the ability after it gains power for the first time in a turn (e.g. Lion Tamer) then you cannot activate it after it gains power again later in the turn. Any kind of power increase triggers these abilities, including temporary power, +1 power counters, or having a negative power effect expire.
* **Jumbo**: Jumbo can only be played with his Special ability on a base where you have more minions than any other base (e.g. 2 minions at the target base, with 1 minion everywhere else).

## Strategy

### General

Circus Performers play multiple minions out who activate their abilities after they gain power. Your minions have a low footprint of power on their base, allowing you to easily play them without making it easy for your rivals to exploit. Circus Performers need strength in numbers to break bases, but also want to stage multiple minions in advance of their burst, so your 3-power Acrobats are crucial to consolidate your minions when you want to score a base. If the Acrobat gives power to itself when it is played, then it can move itself and another minion there to your final destination base, and also activate one of your other minions on the new base for a chain reaction.

The 1-power Clowns are crucial to the CP strategy as they function as both defense and activated power. Although they are only 1 power, notice that their power boost is global. Unlike other CP minions, they trigger after being directly affected, regardless of whether that effect was increasing their power. This lets them respond to antagonism by opponents by hijacking their turns - even if the Clown is removed from play! If a Clown is destroyed by a Saucy Wench for example, its reaction lets you give +1 power to another minion, which could be an Acrobat on another base - the Acrobat could swing over and bring a Lion Tamer there with it, activating Lion Tamer to take control of the Saucy Wench, all on your rival's turn; this would be a net addition of +6 power to the base on your rival's turn, and a total swing of 12 power between players there when factoring in the steal. This can make Clowns a little like traps that people need to play around as they can set off explosive chains of reactions.

The alternative to destroying Clowns is to leave them be, and this is scary as well - a single power boost on your turn can activate any number of clowns in a cascade, with extra power left over to start off your other minions. The best case scenario is using a mass power activation card like Ringleader or Showstopper to trigger multiple Clowns, bring over Acrobats and triggering other tricks to make a big power swing or surge on a base. Circus Performers also have a couple modifiers which let your partner minions get in on the same dynamic with Knife Juggling and Fire Eating, letting you give the same kind of activated ability to any minion. Stage your minions strategically to create big explosive swings in power.

The last important trick to cover is the titan Jumbo, who is a little like a more fair version of Felicia Day. It's hard to bring him into play and you need lots of minions to activate his effect, but he can result in a complete board wipe, and is a fantasic payoff to having lots of smaller minions grouped together. He can be used for the pure waste potential of removing all of your opponents' minions from the board, or a big steal to overcome their power with your abilities afterwards. He's also another source of power activation and movement for one of your other minions, letting you quickly power up and converge to trigger your abilities.

### Partner Suggestions

Circus Performers, while having a high power ceiling, struggles with a lower power floor. Due to their lower power, one should look into ways to protect your minions from destruction, so they can set up their combos. While they also excel at card draw as well, they have issues with extra minion plays, which can also be bolstered by their lower minion power count. Try to find ways to activate your abilities during different phases of turns, to pull off some fun effects!

#### Published

* **Sheep:** Pairing well with the Acrobat's ability to move after gaining power, you will be rearranging the field with to help get Jumbo out that much quicker. This movement will also help activate his ability that much quicker, helping create a clean slate on the bases. Movement cards will also help activate Ticket Booth multiples times. Actions like Counting Sheep, and Shears also help them with activating their ongoing abilities, even being able to use some of your own minion abilities to give other player's minions power, to grant yourself the +1 power burst from Counting Sheep on your terms. Focus on movement, and proper minion placement.

## Author Notes

This was a really fun collaboration with Snakevin, as he came up with a great basic concept for a faction. We had a lot of fun developing and refining the concept, and I think the final version is a really cool take on reactive abilities. Instead of power activated by abilities, we have abilities activated by power, leading to some fascinating chain reactions. Early versions were very antagonistic with a lot of cancellation and oppression, but in development it became more of a self-synergistic and fast-paced burst faction, instead of focusing on counters.

Snakevin here, just offering some more insight into the deck creation, since this was my first, working with the Discord. I originally envisioned this, when I challenged a friend to come up with a random faction subtype, which I would then work backwards off of. It was originally an antagonistic deck, like previously stated, such as Fire Eating originally being a minion, and allowing higher power destruction, but with the help of the discord community, I was able to figure out their theme and identity, and am really proud of the work I did with others creating it.