Narwhals

## Overview

*Narwhals live in the coldest depths of the Arctic, but they’re sure to warm your heart! At first, they might not appear very active, but when you let your guard down, they suddenly show you their playful sides, getting everyone in on their fun. Don’t enjoy them too much though, or else you might become the endangered one!*

Narwhals wait to play all of their standard actions at once, then can converge with movement and power boosts that scale to the number of actions played in a turn.

### Details

#### General

* **Name:** Narwhals
* **Authors:** Onassi and Berryl
* **Complexity:** 2.5/5
* **Version:** 1.6
* **Last Updated:** July 21, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Dueling
* Burying
* Storing
* Stasis
* Energy

### Breakdown

This faction has the standard 10 minions and 10 actions, the standard 30 total minion power, and an average minion power of 3 . Among their actions, they have:

* 0 play-on-minion actions
* 2 play-on-base actions: Nar-Wall, Frozen Over
* 1 self-stasising action: Chill Out
* 7 standard actions, 5 of which directly affect one or minions (in **bold**): **2x Swimming In the Ocean, 2x Causing a Commotion,** Seas in a Pod, **Equinautical,** Joust For Fun

### Minions (10)

* **1x Narwhallace (5):** Ongoing: At the end of your turn, if you did not play a standard action this turn, place an Energy on this minion. Talent: Remove any number of Energy from this minion to reduce the breakpoint of any base by 2 until the start of your turn for each removed. Special: Before this base scores, you may choose two minions here controlled by different players to duel. Return the losing minion to its owner’s hand.
* **2x Aquanoceros (4):** For each action played this turn beyond the first, either draw a card or place a +1 power counter on a minion.
* **3x Longtusk (3):** Special: Before this base scores, you may move a minion to or from here with power less than or equal to the number of actions played this turn.
* **4x Hornball (2):** Ongoing: At the end of your turn, if you did not play a standard action this turn, you may bury this card here and store the top card of your deck under it. Special: When this is uncovered, draw a stored card under it and give it +2 power until the end of the turn.

### Actions (10)

* **2x Swimming In the Ocean:** Move one of your minions to another base. Play an extra action.
* **2x Causing a Commotion:** For each action played this turn (including this one), place a +1 power counter on a minion.
* **1x Seas In a Pod:** Choose a base and a power less than or equal to the number of actions played this turn (including this one). Play an extra minion of that power off the top of your deck there. Special: Play before a base scores to instead play the extra minion from your hand and choose the scoring base.
* **1x Nar-Wall:** Play on a base. Ongoing: This base’s breakpoint is increased by 1 for each minion here. Talent: Bury this card on another base.
* **1x Joust For Fun:** One of your minions duels another player’s minion at its base. Move the losing minion to another base. Special: You may play this before a base scores. The other player’s minion must have more power than your minion.
* **1x Chill Out:** Place a stasis counter on this card. If this was not played from stasis, play an extra action. Special: After you play a standard action, you may store it under this card. When you play this from stasis, shuffle all stored cards under it into your deck.
* **1x Equinautical:** Minions gain +3 power total until the end of the turn, split any way you choose. If other players’ minions gain at least 2 power this way, play an extra action.
* **1x Frozen Over:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Minions here are not affected by actions. At the start of your turn, you may destroy this action to give one of your minions here “Talent: Play an extra action” until the end of the turn.

### Bases

* **(20) Preservation Point (4 2 1):** On your turn, you may use an action play to play an extra minion of power 2 or less here.
* **(15) Frosty Fjord (2 3 1):** Before this base scores, the player with the most power here may have one of their minions here duel another player’s minion here. The controller of the winning minion moves it to another base.

## Clarifications

* **Hornball:** The stored card does stay attached since it arrives after the minion is buried.
* **Joust For Fun:** Despite a minion always being moved if the duel fully resolves, this does not directly affect a minion until the move happens, so it does not qualify to be played with cards like Token of Affection. No matter who wins the duel, you choose where the losing minion moves.
* **Chill Out:** Actions can be stored under Chill Out even if it does not have stasis counters.
* **Narwhallace:** Narwhallace can target minions other than itself, and may also target two other players' minions if playing with 3 or more players.

## Strategy

### General

On a first read-through, Narwhals might appear to tell you conflicting messages: Hornball and Narwhallace tell you specifically not to play your standard actions, but Longtusk and Aquanoceros both say you need to play as many actions as possible; additionally, 7/10 of Narwhals' actions are standard actions! It's helpful to think about Narwhals from a flow perspective: You start by playing Hornball and Narwhallace, while not playing standard actions on those turns; you can instead set up with the base modifiers Nar-Wall or Frozen Over. Then, when you plan to break a base, you unload all of your standard actions at once, playing Longtusk or Aquanoceros on those turns (Longtusk can also be played non-terminally for flexibility). This rhythm of building up power and unloading is the heartbeat of a Narwhals game.

There are several different actions Narwhals use terminally, which are divided into two categories: chainers and finishers. The chainers are Swimming In the Ocean, Chill Out, Joust For Fun, and Equinautical, while the finishers are Causing a Commotion and Seas in a Pod. All of the finisher actions, as well as the finisher minion Aquanoceros, scale to the number of actions played in a turn, giving Narwhals a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy where each individual chaining action contributes very little (Swimming moves one minion, Equinautical gives your opponent more power than it gives you, and the others don't add power at all) but the sum of their parts becomes very powerful. In addition, you might notice that everything scales to the number of actions played, not necessarily just those you've played; thus, actions played by opponents contribute to the power of your chains, possibly putting pressure on them to bluff instead and let you have your way.

Both of Narwhals' duels offer specific penalties to the loser instead of boons for the winner, and that is intentional. In either case, it could be profitable to intentionally lose the duel in order to either move one of your minions or return one to your hand, both of which can be done in phase 3. If winning the base afterward isn't a concern, both Causing a Commotion and Equinautical, the main action-based sources of power, can power up opponents in order to accomplish this. In either case, both cards can still be used as last-second removal to make solos more potent, something Longtusk already does a good job of and which Narwhallace and Joust For Fun augment. Similar to the duels, Longtusk can also flexibly be used to swing a base by bringing one of your minions over, waste a rival minion by dragging them over when the power doesn't matter, preserving one of your minions to avoid overpayment (for either first or not-first), or just to remove a rival minion for a solo.

Both of Narwhals' base modifiers are designed to be temporary stall tactics, Nar-Wall actively makes its base harder to break, and when you're ready to do so yourself it gets itself out of the way. Similarly, Frozen Over can make some attacks very hard to pull off, as it even stops opponents from affecting their own minions with their own actions. In turn, when you destroy Frozen Over, the restriction is lifted and you have an opportunity to play an extra action, either to use two of Narwhals' finishers at once or to incorporate a partner action into your chain. Chill Out is very nice for this sort of play, as it allows you to recover all of the standard actions you use in that chain and use them again later.

### Partner Suggestions

Base modifiers don't block Narwhallace or Hornball from building up, so a partner with those will avoid stepping on Narwhals' toes. Additionally, partners who can extend an action chain will also be appreciated. Try to avoid partners with too many standard actions designed to be played non-terminally (like Tribute or Pot of Beans types), as you simultaneously won't want to play those actions and won't have time to play them when you do want to.

#### Published

* **Musketeers:** Similar to Narwhals, Musketeers are built around chaining lots of low-impact actions together. The two factions augment each other well though, as Narwhals provide good finishers and even a couple non-terminal options. In turn, Musketeers give Narwhals some prime targets to receive effects, namely D'artagnan.
* **Kaiju:** This faction's base modifiers will help Narwhals keep tempo on their setup turns, and Kaiju also provide good terminal options to augment Narwhals' chains. The opportunity to play There Goes Tokyo in phase 3 with a duel is also quite enticing, forcing opponents to think carefully about rushing Gorgodzolla's base.
* **Dragons:** Dragons' punishing area control will help Narwhals more effectively get solos or waste plays, as well as do more turn-to-turn with base modifiers.
* **Penguins:** In addition to being a theme win, this deck can also be blisteringly fast. Penguins allow Narwhals to accelerate the pace at which Longtusks come into play, leading to a state where even laying down two or even three minions might not be safe from solos for the opponent. This combo also has the potential for huge Ice Slide draws under the right circumstances.

#### Custom

* **Catastrophes**, by Lonan: This at first glance may seem like a strange pairing, but upon further scrutiny this combo seems quite powerful. Catastrophes tend to bide their time and slow opponents down by destroying bases they don't like, as well as playing modifiers that can avoid negating Hornball or Narwhallace abilities. They have several actions/abilities that boost power after a base is replaced, which is perfect to combo with Hornball drawing its stored card for a big spike in power across the board. Pandemic even offers an extra action play, which Narwhals definitely appreciate most of all. Unpredictable and The End are both very powerful standard actions that can either be used as finishers, or be played for a huge surprise in phase 3 with Narwhals' dueling.
* **Hades**, by AndIQuote: Hades is a very interesting faction, with only 1 minion and a whopping 13 modifiers. For this reason, it's entirely possible that Narwhals could continue to avoid playing standard actions all game until it was time to burst and many of the Hades modifiers complement their strategy very well. One of the double features is Daedalus Hammer, which can destroy one of your actions on a minion to play two extra actions. This is perfect for Narwhals, as they can tap the talent of one of the minion modifiers, destroy it, and start a huge chain of actions leading to a big score. It's worth noting that many of the Hades modifiers also have an on-play ability, which still allows you to gain immediate value from modifiers in lieu of playing standard actions when Hornballs/Narwhallace are/is out.

## Author Notes

**Berryl -** When Onassi and I made independent drafts of Narwhals before comparing notes, we ended up having pretty different ideas. I made a draft that was focused almost entirely on movement, while he had the idea of only playing actions terminally. Ultimately, the two ideas ended up blending seamlessly! In addition, it was interesting to arrive at version 1.6 and realize that over the versions more and more mechanics found their way in without being forced at all. The first versions had dueling (Joust For Fun and Narwhallace), Energy (Narwhallace) and stasis (Chill Out) from the start, but Burying and Storing ended up finding natural places in the deck. We unexpectedly found ourselves staring at a masterclass in how to use mechanics in a deck not singularly focused on them! For reference, dueling has 2 cards, burying and storing have 5 apiece, stasis and energy just have 1 apiece, and 11 of the cards don't use any of those mechanics at all.

**Onassi -** Berryl basically covered the design process, but we did toy around with self-dueling in this faction (which we established \*is\* possible). It ended up being sort of gimmicky and divisive, and not a great direction for the faction so we scrapped it early. However, it is interesting to note that a self-dueling action in theory could exist (although it'd have to be carefully crafted to avoid being a gimmick).

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