Enchanters

## Overview

*Enchanters bring opponents in their thrall with their spells, which are enhanced by magical curses they lay in advance. Weaken your foes’ wits and deaden their minds to secure your victory!*

Use antagonistic minion modifiers to slow down your opponents and stymie their options. Your cards' effects are greatly enhanced by the presence of Marks, which enable powerful abilities such as taking control and before-scoring removal.

### Details

#### General

* Name: Enchanters
* Author: Berryl
* Complexity: 2.5/5
* Version: 1.6
* Last updated: April 16, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Madness
* Monsters
* Energy
* Mark

#### Special details

This faction uses the Generic Tokens Energy and Mark, descriptions for which can be found by following the above links.

### Breakdown

Enchanters have the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. They have the standard 30 total minion power or an average minion power of 3. Among their actions, they have:

* 5 play-on-minion actions: 2x Hex, Confusion, Crown of Madness, Suggestion
* 0 play-on-base actions
* 5 standard actions, all of which directly affect one or minions (in **bold**): **2x Bane, Charm Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Psychic Scream**

### Minions

* **1x Psychonaut (5):** Ongoing: Other players’ minions with a Mark and one of your actions do not contribute power to their controller. Talent: Return one of your minion modifiers to your hand to play an extra action.
* **2x Mentallurgist (4):** Play an extra minion modifier OR transfer one of your modifiers to another minion OR shuffle one from your discard pile into your deck. Ongoing: This minion has +2 power for each of your actions on a minion you do not control here.
* **3x Mesmerizer (3):** Place a Mark on a minion you do not control with one of your actions on it OR reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal an action that can be played on a minion. Draw it and shuffle the rest into your deck.
* **4x Hypnotist (2):** Place an Energy on this minion. Talent: Remove an Energy from this minion to place a Mark on another player’s minion here. You may give that minion -1 power until the start of your turn for each Mark on it.

### Actions

* **2x Bane:** Place a Mark on up to two minions you do not control. Draw a card.
* **2x Hex:** Play on a minion. Talent: Give this minion -2 power until the start of your turn. Ongoing: If this minion has a Mark, its controller cannot place attachments on it.
* **1x Charm Person:** Choose a minion you do not control at a base where you have a minion. If it has at least two Marks, take control of it. You may move it to another base.
* **1x Suggestion:** Play on a minion. Talent: This minion’s controller may draw a Madness card. If they do not, place a Mark on this minion and/or transfer this action to another minion.
* **1x Confusion:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: At the start of your turn, you may move this minion to another base. Talent: Remove a Mark from this minion. Until the start of your turn, this card gains the ability “Ongoing: This minion is an uncontrolled Monster.”
* **1x Crown of Madness:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: This minion’s abilities are canceled. Talent: Transfer this action to a minion with a Mark.
* **1x Hypnotic Pattern:** Choose a base. For each minion there with a Mark, you may move a minion to or from that base. Special: Before a base scores, play this card to instead play an action on a minion there. Activate any number of Talents on your actions on minions immediately.
* **1x Psychic Scream:** Special: Before a base scores, destroy a minion there with a Mark.

### Bases

* **(17) Stone Circle (3 2 1):** Once per turn, after you play a minion here, you may move another player's minion from another base to here.
* **(18) Nashkel Mines (4 2 1):** After you play a minion here, you may place a Mark on that minion and another player's minion here. During your turn, your minions here with three or more Marks and other players' minions here with two or more Marks do not contribute power to their controllers.

## Clarifications

* **Mentallurgist:** If you use this with Spirit of the Forest, choose any two of the three abilities.
* **Hex:** "Attachments" include actions and counters of any kind, including Energy or Marks.
* **Confusion:** If this card is removed or transferred after using the talent, its effects immediately expire and the minion is returned to its owner. If the minion is destroyed while a monster, do not draw any Treasures.
* **Hypnotic Pattern:** You move a number of minions equal to the amount of minions there with Marks at the time the action is played, regardless of whether minions with Marks are added or removed during the resolution of the ability.

## Strategy

### General

Enchanters are a control faction who focus on stalling during your turn and gaining the upper hand before bases score. There are multiple levels of resource management occurring, with limited supplies of both modifiers and Marks that need to be used wisely. Their only reliable big drop is the Mentallurgist, who requires significant input in order to grow large, so they may struggle to break bases without partner help. Stalling tactics such as Hypnotist, Hex, and Confusion will greatly help with forcing opponents to overspend, and cards such as Hypnotic Pattern and Psychic Scream give the opportunity to swing bases in your favor if you set up properly, allowing for more persistent power to be left out.

All of Enchanters' modifiers can be staged on your own minions if you find yourself in a state where there are no good opponents' minions to play them on. Mentallurgist and Psychonaut can reclaim or transfer the modifiers away when the time is right, and Crown of Madness is capable of propelling itself. In the meantime, the modifiers can still be used as effective stalling: Hex can be direct stall if you're not afraid of power-capped removal, Crown of Madness can suppress certain constant-power abilities like that of Mentallurgist, and Confusion in combination with Suggestion can temporarily turn one of your minions into a Monster if you really need to. Almost all of the modifiers have enhanced or additional effects that cue of the presence of Marks: Hex becomes even more brutal by preventing attachments from being added to the Marked minion, Crown of Madness becomes mobile, and Confusion becomes extremely good stalling.

For how powerful Marks are, they are necessarily an extremely limited resource. Hypnotists and Mesmerizers can place one each (although Mesmerizer's comes at the opportunity cost of grabbing a precious modifier from your deck), and the two copies of Bane can each place two. Suggestion is the only repeatable way to place Marks, and ultimately the decision about whether they're placed is out of your hands. On the other hand, denying you Marks means taking Madness, which may be less desirable for the opponent. If you need card draw and have action plays to spare, don't be afraid to take a Madness yourself before transferring it to a rival. The payoff for placing Marks is extremely high: They can block attachments with Hex, negate a minion's controlled power with Psychonaut, cancel abilities with Crown of Madness, turn the minion into a Monster with Confusion, enable waste movement with Hypnotic Pattern, or even open the door for destruction or control change with Psychic Scream or Charm Person. Place your Marks smartly, because opponents will know to fear them and likely try to get rid of them before the Marks do too much damage.

### Partner Suggestions

Partners that offer more minion modifier consistency and/or can reliably pull off bursts will really appreciate Enchanters' stalling and support package. Try to avoid other support factions, because the deck will likely do nothing but stall and not be able to win anything.

#### Published

* **Musketeers:** Muskies appreciate Enchanters' easy-to-play actions to avoid hand clog in the midgame, and they provide the burst that Enchanters are looking for.
* **The Nightmare Before Christmas:** Obviously Nightmare will offer plenty of modifiers, including ones that go on rivals. They also have a decent amount of burst. The Enchanters' traps are made even more mobile with the help of Dr. Finklestein.
* **Polynesian Voyagers:** Voyagers benefit greatly from Enchanters' ability to stall, and Psychonaut can clear off Sun Tattoos for indefinite persistence of large Wayfinders. Enchanters' specials package also helps when Wayfinders start growing large enough to be a large chunk of a base's breakpoint.
* **Itty Critters:** Critter Champ gains the ability to place Marks by slinging Hypnotists, giving Enchanters guaranteed talent-based Mark placement.
* **Fairies:** Fairies offer quite a few more modifiers for Mentallurgist to work with, and Spirit of the Forest greatly increases Mentallurgist's potency. Besides that, Fairies offer strong draw to get to the Enchanter threats and good burst potential with Titania and Daisy Chain.

#### Custom

* **Psychics (Onassi):** Enchanters offer one more way for Psychics to cancel their own abilities in Crown of Madness, and Psychics offer good sifting to get to both factions' powerful Specials. Mesmerizers will go a long way in finding the powerful Psychic minion modifiers such as Nigh Omnipotence and Focus the Mind. Psychics provide good burst potential with the Angsty Protagonists, The Ascended, and Psystrike. Psychonaut will have plenty of bounce targets, as all six of Psychics' minion modifiers can be returned once they have served their purpose terminally.

## Author Notes

This was the first faction that used Marks in the community. As such, I had to be careful about what standards were set regarding how common Marks should be and what sort of effects they should enable. I do think they turned out well though! This was a great breath of fresh air as a faction that was more antagonistically-focused and lacked much internal burst power, as many of my factions before and after it were more self-sufficient.