Iconoclasts

## Overview

*You embark on a quest to fulfill your heart's desire, but do you lose yourself along the way? In search of the Maiden, you come across the massive colossi scattered across the lands. With each one you defeat, you begin to change, little by little, and so do the bases you once roamed. You wield the power to reshape the battlefield, but at what cost?*

The Iconoclast (Ico) faction is inspired by the game Shadow of the Colossus and features a unique new mechanic called the Colossus deck. Colossi are played as new bases from a side deck with your cards, and scoring them can gain you many benefits. Be careful to ration your resources and not to neglect the rest of the board though, because with every Colossus that falls, other bases become easier to score. Hunt for Colossi and use their mighty boons to waste rival minions and awaken the Long Lost Maiden to her full potential!

Image Album: https://imgur.com/a/V3kwdPN

## Details

#### General

* Name: Iconoclasts
* Author: Onassi and ludichrisness
* Complexity: 3.5/5
* Version: 1.0
* Last updated: June 12, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Burying
* Energy
* Extra Decks
* Storing

#### Special Details

The Extra Deck used in this faction is called the **Colossus Deck**. It follows all the normal rules for Extra Decks, including having its own discard pile.

There are a few special rules for the Colossus Deck compared to other Extra Decks:

* Colossus cards are bases and can be interacted with like bases.
* A Colossus card can never go to the base deck, even with a card like Terraforming. If an effect would try to make that happen, it fails in its entirety.
* You do not replace Colossus cards after they score.
* **Reduce the breakpoint of every regular base by 1 for every card in the Colossus discard pile.**

## Cards

#### Breakdown

Iconoclasts have the normal 10 minions and 10 actions. They have a total minion power of 28, or an average of 2.8 per minion. Among their actions, there are:

* 2 play-on-base actions: Attack on Colossus, Deal With Xommul
* 4 play-on-minion actions: Ancient Sword (2x), Cursed Fate, Perfect Shot
* 4 standard actions (3 of which affect one or more minions, **in bold**): **Guiding Light (2x)**, **Grip Strength**, Ruined Idol

#### Minions (10)

* **1x Long Lost Maiden (5):** Give this minion added power equal to the difference between this base's current and starting breakpoint until the end of the turn. Special: You may play this as an extra minion on a base where you have a minion after a Colossus goes to the discard pile.
* **2x Wayfare (3):** Ongoing: This minion has +1 power for each card in the Colossus discard pile. If this minion is on a Colossus, it has +4 power but loses 2 power for each card in the Colossus discard pile.
* **3x Ogra (3):** Talent: Move one of your other minions here to another base. If that base has a lower breakpoint than this one, you may also move this minion there.
* **4x Shadow Servant (2):** You may look at the top 2 cards of the Colossus deck. Play one and return the other. Place an Energy on this minion. Special: After a base scores where you win, you may remove an Energy on this minion to search your hand or deck for a minion of power 4 or less and play it as an extra minion.

#### Actions (10)

* **2x Ancient Sword:** Play on a minion. Talent: Look at the top two cards of any deck and return them in the same order OR reduce the breakpoint of another base by 2 until the end of the turn.
* **2x Guiding Light:** Play a Colossus. Play an extra action OR move a minion to that Colossus.
* **1x Attack on Colossus:** Play on a base. Ongoing: This base cannot score. At the start of your turn, destroy this action or store a Colossus from the discard pile under this card.
* **1x Cursed Fate**: Play on a minion. Ongoing: This minion does not add power to its base. After a base scores, destroy this action. Special: You may play this before a base scores.
* **1x Deal With Xommul:** Play on a base. Ongoing: After a base scores if you have a minion here, you may shuffle one of your minions there into your deck.
* **1x Grip Strength:** Special: Play this card when one of your minions or actions on a base or minion would go to the discard pile. Discard all attachments on that minion to move it to another base, or transfer that action to another card.
* **1x Perfect Shot:** Play on a minion. Talent: If this action was here at the start of the turn and the breakpoint here is 15 or less, destroy this card and reduce this base's starting breakpoint to 0 until the end of the turn.
* **1x Ruined Idol:** Choose a card in the Colossus discard pile. Activate the winner's ability on that Colossus, then place it in the box. You may place this card in your hand.

#### Colossus Deck

* **(7) Talus (1 0):** The winner here draws two cards.
* **(10) Quadrataur (1 0):** Minions here have +1 power for each other minion here. The winner here may search their deck for a minion and draw it.
* **(7) Baltar (1 0):** The breakpoint of each other base is increased by 4. The winner here may place a +1 power counter on each of their minions.
* **(8) Pirsig (1 0):** At the end of each turn, place a +1 power counter on each minion here. The winner here may transfer all actions and counters of any kind from one minion to another minion.
* **(5) Avelo (1 0):** Minions here do not add their printed power to this base. You may use an action play to move another player's minion to this base. The winner here may move all of their minions from one base to another.
* **(8) Rossa (0 1):** You may use an action play to choose another player to play a minion here. If they do not, they may not play their next regular minion. The winner here may play an extra action.
* **(9) Haila (1 0):** After you play a minion here, you may move another player's minion with less power to here. The winner here must return one of each players' minions to their owners' hands.
* **(7) Kuzamori (1 0):** Before this base scores, each player may move one of their minions to here. The winner here may reduce the breakpoint of a base by 5 until the end of their next turn.
* **(9) Chakaran (2 1):** Minions here have -1 power. You may use an action play to cancel this ability until the end of the turn. The winner here may choose one base and draw a card for each minion there.
* **(6) Elegy (1 0):** If a minion was played or moved to here this turn, this base cannot score. The winner here may bury two cards total from their hand on any bases.
* **(8) Lucinia (1 0):** On your turn, if you have the most power here, you may choose a base. Until the start of your turn, all minions there have -1 power while this base is in play. The winner here may draw an action from their discard pile.
* **(7) Tritania (1 0):** At the start of your turn, destroy one of your minions of power 3 or less on another base. The winner here may take control of a minion of power 3 or less until it leaves play.
* **(10) Skarnax (1 0):** At the end of your turn, if you have the most power here, draw a card. The winner here may have all other players discard two cards.
* **(7) Tartarus (1 0):** After the first time you play a minion here each turn, destroy it, then play an extra minion. The winner here may shuffle up to three cards from their discard pile into their deck.
* **(8) Finch (1 0):** Before this base scores, destroy all minions here of power 3 or less. The winner here may destroy a minion of power 4 or less and place +1 power counters equal to its power on one other minion.
* **(14) Pharos (2 0):** To play a minion here you must also use an action play. At the start of your turn, you may move one of your minions to here. The winner here may play a minion from their discard pile.

#### Bases

* **(18) The Last Colossus (3 2 1):** If you are the only winner here, you may take ownership of this base as a Titan for the rest of the game.
	+ Special: You may discard a card to play this card at the start of your turn on a base where you have no minions.
	+ Ongoing: You have +2 power here.
	+ Talent: Move one of your minions to this base.

* **(18) Temple of Xommul (3 1 1):** Play a Colossus beside this base. On your turn, you may move one of your minions between this base and that Colossus. After one of them scores, immediately score the other of the two next.

## Clarifications

* **Attack on Colossus:** While Colossus cards are stored under AOC, they do not reduce the breakpoint of other bases.
* **Avelo, Cursed Fate**: Power that does not "add to the base" does not count towards breaking the base or earning VPs. A monster affected by these abilities does not add to the breakpoint. If your only minion on a base does not add any power to it, then your total there is 0, but if 0 is one of the top 3 totals you can still earn VPs.
* **Avelo, Chakaran, Pharos, Rossa:** The action used for these abilities does not need to be your regular action, but it must be an unqualified action (e.g. you could not use an action play which must be for a specific card or for a particular kind of action like a play-on-base action).
* **The Last Colossus, Wayfare:** If Wayfare is on The Last Colossus, he is considered to be "on a Colossus".
* **Long Lost Maiden:** You may play this card after a Colossus card goes to the discard pile for any reason, even if it was not in play (e.g. discarded after Attack on Colossus leaves play).
* **Ogra:** Ogra cannot move herself to another base if you do not move another minion first.
* **Ruined Idol:** Colossus cards in the box do not reduce the breakpoint of other bases. The "winner's ability" is the ability on the Colossus card which starts with "The winner here".

## Strategy

### General

Iconoclasts play quite differently from other Smash Up factions. In the early game, they clearly want to score Colossi with their efficient power and movement tools for the Colossus' boon and its VP. After a Colossus goes into the discard pile, the breakpoint of all regular bases is decreased by 1. This means that in the mid to late game, Iconoclasts want to use less resources to score regular bases before their opponents can. This is a dangerous game to play, as opponents are also able to take advantage of lower breakpoints, so break too many Colossi/pour too many resources into scoring them and you'll be in trouble. However, Ruined Idol exists to reverse some of this breakpoint damage as well as double tap the boons of the fallen Colossi, so try and find it if you plan on playing it risky with breakpoint reduction.

Ogra and Wayfare will be the two minions you'll want to have breaking Colossi, along with the breakpoint reduction from Ancient Sword if possible. These two are extremely efficient at taking them down. Deal With Xommul staged on another base with one of your minions can shuffle these important cards back into your deck after a base scores, and Shadow Servant ensures that you'll have minions to play after the resources you've put into scoring the Colossi leave play. Long Long Maiden serves as a big late game drop to help you score something after a Colossi scores, often appearing alongside the Kuzamori Colossus for an extra spicy power burst.

One of their strategies is to waste other opponents' minions and plays. Guiding Light, for example, can move any minion to the Colossus it puts into play, with Iconoclasts often using minion power from other players to help them score it. Other players' decks typically aren't built to afford to put a lot of resources into low VP bases, so the more this can happen the safer you will be. Bringing over a large minion and then playing Cursed Fate on it before the base scores to ensure first place can be absolutely devastating. Attack on Colossus can also serve as an effective stalling tool in the early or late game. If it ends up storing a lot of Colossi, when the action is destroyed there will be a lot of breakpoint damage on all other bases (as they are returned to their discard pile). This can be an effective way to set up for a double or triple score, but is not without its risks as opponents can see this coming and adjust accordingly.

One major weakness that Iconoclasts have is that the Colossi deck, having 16 cards, can provide a lot of variance game to game. The sifting with Shadow Servant lets you somewhat circumvent this,

### Partner Suggestions

Iconoclasts face several uphill battles in their quest to take out Colossi, but they also have a very unique value proposition with being able to bring in small mini-bases. This makes them a potentially valuable partner if you are equipped to take advantage of that kind of war of attrition. Ico naturally has a second half gameplan as they weaken bases and strengthen their upper tier minions, as long as they can conserve enough resources. A partner who can either recur their key minions as you shift gears, or come out fast to support the early Colossus breaking, can be very effective. Ico has a challenge especially with Shadow Servants of not often being able to break a Colossus the first turn it comes out. A partner who can help keep momentum up as you play Colossi can be invaluable. Lastly, Ico has several very strong but situational actions with Perfect Shot, Grip Strength, Cursed Fate, and Ruined Idol; being able to access those actions as needed can be extremely powerful.

#### Published

* **Action Heroes**: Having only one minion on a base makes a lot of sense when bases only have a breakpoint of about 7. Action Hero minions are great to be able to solo score Colossi well into the late game, and Ico brings a lot of self-directed movement to position them as needed. The biggest challenge this combo faces is running out of minions, so Deal With Xommul will be extremely critical to leverage to recur your strong 5-power Heroes. As the breakpoint of normal bases start to drop, it also becomes more feasible for Action Heroes to take them with a single minion as well, and both factions bring some Specials that can turn the tide of a narrow margin base in the late game.
* **Itty Critters**: Itty Critters brings a really important value proposition for Ico, which is constant access to Shadow Servants whenever you need them - and by extension, Colossi. If you can score a Colossus on the same turn that you sling a Shadow Servant, you can get the benefit from its Energy before it goes back in your deck; and there are some extremely cool plays you can do including Shadow Servant finding Tadpour to save a big minion from the scoring Colossus and push it into a double score situation. This is an extreme toolbox combo, with the only limit being your creativity.
* **Knights of the Round Table**: People joke about Aliens not even trying to play the same game as other factions, but this combination takes VP farming to a whole new level. With both sides of the VP farming triggering off movement to a large extent, the two factions complement each other very well. You can easily solo a Colossus with a large Knight minion and complete a quest at the same time for 2 or more unanswered points, and between the extra plays of Knights, the recursion on both sides, and the waste potential of Ico, you can really control the board even as new bases appear and disappear at your whim.
* **Polynesian Voyagers**: Polynesians tend to strand themselves on bases and want to have presence on many of them at once. Being able to bring in new temporary bases fits them really well, and Wayfinders are perfect to get to a decent size, solo a Colossus, and then move off with Sun Tattoo as a wrecking ball onto another base. You can set up some really powerful pincer attacks and multi-base attacks with this combination as Tikis are good for holding Ancient Swords and supporting base breaks from a distance. The headlining play is an absolutely massive Unity of the Tribes to demolish a normal base which has already been weakened by Colossi scoring.
* **Sinister Six**: Sinister Six is one of the few factions that really gets benefit from low breakpoints and having breakpoints be reduced, as well as giving you the tools to do it in a very controlled way. In the lategame, all Sinister Six benefits will be active all the time, which can be very exciting and powerful. The star minion in this combination is Long Lost Maiden, who can convert the breakpoint damage of Sinister Six into pure power with her On-play ability. It is trivial to get her to mid-teen power levels to break a base which has been softened up by Green Goblin, Ambush, and/or Doctor Octopus along with Colossi. Saving her with Grip Strength into another base can provide a really powerful chain score that is hard to come back from.
* **Zombies**: This combination addresses the inefficiencies of Ico in the most direct possible way, by replaying minions over and over from the discard pile. Zombie Ico can afford to be wasteful with their plays since they know they will be able to replay those minions, and as the game progresses they build momentum on multiple different fronts. This really goes beyond a normal "zombies are good" synergy because of the interesting interactions with the Colossus deck - Zombie Lord and Outbreak work very well with bringing in new bases that have none of your minions on them, and you can really spam Colossi onto the board with Zombie Lord and Shadow Servants specifically. Long Lost Maiden as your late game power drop gains new meaning when she can be played or drawn multiple times from the discard pile.

#### Custom

* **Selkies**: Selkies are a combination waste faction and area control faction. They generally try to intentionally lose low value bases and make other players overpay for them - Ico brings to the table a giant deck of guaranteed low value bases for Selkies to push people onto. The breakpoint reduction they bring can also be very meaningful for Long Lost Maiden, and as the Colossi go to the discard pile, Seal of Approval will always be active to potentially score you bonus VP without much extra effort. There are some very efficient steals that you can create using the Sealie Queen to snipe a Colossus you were losing on, while also engineering a solo chain score elsewhere.

## Author Notes

Iconoclasts were an extremely fun collaboration to make with Onassi. It was fascinating to start from an outlandish premise - bringing small one-shot bases into play - and trying to figure out how to make that work in Smash Up. It turns out there are a *lot* of challenging things which that premise entails; for example, losing resources over the course of the game due to spending minions on Colossi. The global breakpoint reduction was a very important part of the concept to avoid the Colossi dragging the game out too long, but it also meant that rivals were often able to sit back and wait while you softened up normal bases before scoring them in very efficient zero to breakpoint plays. I believe that the final product strikes a really good balance and uses some very novel concepts to approach these challenges, like the one-time Energy reward on Shadow Servant, the Special play of Long Lost Maiden to kick off a double score, and the repeatable toolbox action of Ruined Idol which gives you an expanding set of options as Colossi score. From my perspective, it was really fun trying to come up with 16x different Colossi who all fit basically the same mold of a low value base that awards 1 VP, and still giving them a unique identity and feel. Many of them encourage or force a multiple turn attack, which creates a much more engaging and dynamic back and forth with rivals compared to a Colossus that you play and immediately score. I hope you really enjoy this faction! -ludichrisness

Trivia:

* Each of the 16 Colossus cards is related to the corresponding Colossus from SOTC
* Xommul is a stand-in for the spirit Dormin from SOTC
* The flavour text and the idea of The Last Colossus base came from Bandit of Crank It Up
* All art for this faction was generated using Midjourney v5.1