Olympians

## Overview

Olympians strive to achieve amazing things and work extremely hard to do it - in this case, they look to break bases with higher breakpoints. This often cannot be done alone, so they practice good sportsmanship by bolstering their opponents as well to help them reach that breakpoint. Having great competition makes it so much more satisfying when you score a big win, after all. Be careful that you're not giving your opponents too much time or opportunity to capitalize, otherwise you'll throw your lead and wind up with a silver medal.

### Details

#### General

* Name: Olympians
* Author: Onassi
* Complexity: 3/5
* Version: 2.0
* Last updated: April 19th, 2023

### Breakdown

Olympians have the typical 10 minions and 10 actions, with 30 total power for an average of 3.0 power per minion. Among their actions, they have:

* 1 play-on-minion actions: The Eternal Flame
* 4 play-on-base actions: 2x Up To The Challenge, Training Hard, Awards Ceremony
* 5 standard actions, 5 of which directly affect one or minions (in **bold**): **2x Flying High, Don't Call It A Comeback, Disqualified, High Jump**
* 6 actions directly increase a minion's power: 2x Up To The Challenge, 2x Flying High, Disqualified, High Jump

### Minions (10)

* **1x G.O.A.T (5):** Ongoing: If the breakpoint of this base is 23 or higher, this minion has +2 power. Before this base score if you are not winning here, you may choose a minion with less power here and destroy it.
* **1x Lightning Bolt (4):** Ongoing: When one or more minions gain power, you may move this minion to one of their bases and give it +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Kelps (4):** Look at the top three cards of the base deck and return them to the top and/or bottom of the deck in any order. Ongoing: Once per turn after this minion gains power, draw a card.
* **3x Gymnast(3):** Talent: Give another minion here +1 power until the start of your turn. If you choose another player's minion, you may give it +3 power instead and draw a card.
* **4x Athlete (2):** Ongoing: Once per turn, after this minion’s power increases, if the breakpoint of this base is 23 or higher, you may give this minion +2 power until the end of the turn.

### Actions (10)

* **2x Up To The Challenge:** Play on a base. Ongoing: This base’s breakpoint is increased by 3. Talent: Give all minions here +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **2x Flying High:** Give a minion +3 power until the end of the turn. If you chose another player’s minion, you may play an extra minion on its base.
* **1x The Eternal Flame:** Play on a minion. Talent: Move this minion to another base. Ongoing: This base’s breakpoint is increased by 3. After this base scores, transfer this action to one of your minions on another base.
* **1x Training Hard:** Play on a base. Place a +1 power counter on this action. Ongoing: This base’s breakpoint is increased by 3. Talent: Place a +1 power counter on this action. Give a minion here +1 power equal to the number of power counters on this action until the end of the turn.
* **1x Don't Call It A Comeback:** Special: Play before a base where you are not winning scores. Choose one of your minions there and another player’s minion there with more power. Give your minion power equal to the difference in powers between the minions.
* **1x Awards Ceremony:** Play on a base with no players' minions. Ongoing: The winner here gains 2 extra VP and the runner-up gains 1 extra VP. After this base scores, return this card to the box. Special: You may play this on a new base after it enters play.
* **1x Disqualified:** Special: Play before a base scores. Return the minion with the highest power there to its owner’s hand. If tied, choose one.
* **1x High Jump:** Move one of your minions. You may give it +1 power for every 3 power controlled by other players on the base it moves to.

### Bases

* **(28) Olympic Park Precinct (531):** On your turn, you may place a +1 power counter on one of your minions here. If you do, place a +1 power counter on another player’s minion here to place another +1 power counter on one of your minions here.

* **(26) Closing Ceremonies (421):** After this base scores, the winner chooses to either move one of their minions from here to another base or draw 3 cards. The runner-up may choose the other option.

## Clarifications

* **Lightning Bolt:** Lightning Bolt's timing is "when", so if he moves to the base he also receives the power boost.
* **Don't Call It A Comeback:** An example: If you target your 2-power minion and another player's 5-power minion, your 2-power minion receives +3 power. If this is Athlete, it also gets +2 if it's on a 23 or higher breakpoint base.

## Strategy

### General

Olympians are a fairly straightforward faction. They aim to be on high breakpoint bases, which are typically harder to score. They have a variety of abilities to help them do this, including a couple stronger-than-average base modifiers that also increase the breakpoint to compensate for their strength. Their Athletes make up the core of this strategy, able to gain tremendous amounts of power if positioned well. Two Athletes on a base with Up To The Challenge can result in going from 4 power to 10 power just using Up To The Challenge's talent. Gymnasts can enable your Athletes, but they can also bolster rival minions by quite a lot in order to draw a card. This can be a risky maneuver, but there are some cards in your deck that help mitigate that risk. Both Don't Call It a Comeback and Disqualified are playable in phase 3, and G.O.A.T can provide a huge swing if the right conditions are met.

Kelps, one of the dueling elites, provides you with some small base deck manipulation/foresight to plan on when you're able to have bases with 23 or higher breakpoint available to you. He also provides some card draw that activates when he gains power, making him a valuable engine minion to stick around on a base with Gymnast or Up To The Challenge. Lightning Bolt acts as a way to spread out your minions and converge when ready, to avoid power creep.

Not only do higher breakpoints tend to benefit the Olympians, but they also tend to be efficient at stalling other players from scoring and making them pay a higher cost for the score. Raising a breakpoint by a flat +3 can be a game changer, and The Eternal Flame allows them to be constantly changing the breakpoint between bases. Even if their stall tactics fail, it's important to remember that getting to 15 VP is a test of endurance, and if other players are pouring more resources than they can afford to into a base, there's a good chance they'll run out of steam before the finish line (and their phase 3 abilities don't hurt when they're losing, either).

### Partner Suggestions

Partners that enjoy either stalling, raising breakpoints, or taking advantage of giving other players power will love working alongside Olympians. You may notice that this faction has a similar game plan, in some ways, to both Elves and Rockstars. This does feel like a combination of both, to a degree.

#### Published

* **Elves** - If you know me from the Discord there's a chance you know Elves are my favourite faction. It's no surprise that these two play nicely - Elves focus on giving benefits to other players, usually to a selfish end with Run Away, Run Away More, or Helping Hands. Olympians allow them to do even more of that. Between the two, there are five phase 3 actions and one phase 3 minion ability that can totally change the game. Be careful that you're not giving your opponents too much to work with, though, as you *want* them to waste resources on higher breakpoint bases.
* **Warriors** - Another Munchkin faction (much to the delight of Ludichrisness), but Warriors excel at raising breakpoints via Monsters. The really nice thing about this pairing is that once Athletes receive their bonus power, the Warriors can step in and destroy Monsters to lower the breakpoint back down again. Warriors also have plenty of power boosts to enable Lightning Bolt movement, and some additional actions to boost the power of your Olympian minions. Treasures being available is also nice, especially since so many also boost power.
* **Ignobles** - You can boost another player's minion with Gymnast, giving it +3 power and drawing a card, and then take it back if it originally belonged to you. High Jump can also be used this way - give away power, get a big High Jump boost, and then take back your minion. Inevitable Betrayal is a fantastic phase 3 action that goes alongside the Olympians' two phase 3 actions, making them a deadly come-from-behind combo that you'll need to keep an eye out for.
* **Kree** - Kree is a good partner for a lot of factions (Wizards with power), but in this context they provide not just small amounts of power to activate Athletes, but a plethora of sifting, recursion, and extra actions that Olympians will really enjoy.

#### Custom

* **Bards** (by ludichrisness) - Bards actually provide a great support role. Their Minstrels can play into the plan of making one huge minion for the opponent to either match with Don't Call It a Comeback, or bounce back to hand with Disqualified. Earworm can turn the positive power boost for the opponent into a -3 power and draw a card for you. Another Round is basically an Olympians card, and when combined with Up To The Challenge it can become a TDAC (Talent: Draw a card). Heroic Ballad triggers Athletes, Kelps, and Lightning Bolt an additional time. There's a lot of exciting interactions with this pairing.

## Author Notes

This faction took over a year to flesh out (with other projects getting in the way). It's a bit of a love letter to decks that have an Elves-style approach, and it was extremely fun to make. It had to go back to the drawing board a few times due to unforeseen circumstances, but I'm very happy with how it turned out.

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