Energy

## Overview

Energy is a new community mechanic which was developed to solve rules gaps for several conceptually simple abilities that can't be expressed in the current game. Smash Up doesn't have a way to represent an ability which can only be used X number of times, that is not strictly tied to an On-play ability or to a trigger. Here are a few such obvious abilities:

* A one-time talent, that you don't want to use on the turn you first play a minion
* An ability that has limited uses, but which can be recharged to use again
* An ability that scales based on the number of charges it has
* An timer ability that counts up or down until it can be activated

Previously for custom factions, and in published factions, such abilities have had to use power counters to solve these use cases. However, power counters come with a lot of baggage - most obviously, they add power, which often warps or distorts the pure form of the ability. A good example which has benefits and drawbacks with this are the Kung Fu Fighters, who use power counters to tag whether their abilities can be used or not. Unfortunately, that means that the entire faction needs to be built to enable pulling those counters off so that the talents can be used again, and using their abilities adds unavoidably to the power on a base, making it easier for rivals to overtake you. A much cleaner and easier way to solve these ability types is to use a different kind of counter which does not inherently add power.

## Mechanics

**Energy** is a counter that is added to a minion via an ability, but it does not add power - in fact, Energy doesn't do *anything* unless another ability specifically uses it to do something. Energy is not interchangeable or synonymous with +1 power counters for the purposes of abilities. However, abilities which refer to generic "counters" such as Purge The Demon *do* allow you to interact with them, because they do not specifically refer to +1 power counters.

Aside from the name, Energy works exactly like other attachments like power counters or play-on-minion actions. If a minion leaves play for any reason, all Energy on it is discarded.

## Examples

**Example #1: Hypnotist** - The Hypnotist has a one-time talent. This is a talent which you might not want to use the first time that the Hypnotist enters play, but it is too strong to use every turn - a perfect candidate for an Energy solution. Using Energy for this means that you can play Hypnotist whenever you draw it, instead of needing to save it for the perfect time, thus reducing the draw order dependency of Enchanters.

**Example #2: Pickman** - Pickman comes into play with three Energy, which means he can use his ability three times. His ability lets you flood a player with Madness cards any number of times per turn, limited only by the number of triggering events and by the Energy on him. If he was limited to one Madness per turn, this would be very easy to play around, since someone could wait until they were ready to break his base and then rush it all at once. On the other hand, this would be extremely oppressive without the Energy limit, because it could make a base virtually unplayable for swarm factions like Teddy Bears or Rock Stars. By using Energy as the limiting factor, it allows you to have a powerful ability which still can't be used an unlimited number of times, and forces questions of conserving resources and otherwise saving the uses for the right time.