Marks

## Overview

Mark is a new mechanic that was created to solve the problem that Smash Up lacks a way to "track" a minion for later use by abilities. Here are a few broad use cases for Marks, which are generally supposed to confer negative effects:

* Choosing minions for effects on one turn and then invoking those effects at a later time
* Requiring extra cost for powerful abilities
* Enabling more powerful or scaling versions of abilities based on Mark presence or quantity
* Enabling "pick your poison" traps for opponents where the downside of one of the options may come at a later time

In published factions, these sorts of effects could be approximated by playing negative actions on those minions, but actions are cards in a deck and require abilities of their own. They cost card draw to get in hand, action plays to get out, and are vulnerable to action destruction when that may be counter to the needed effect. Marks are a flexible way to solve this issue and open up discretely different effects, as can be seen below. Unlike power counters, Marks do not have any inherent meaning, and their general use case as negative tokens allows them to track things much differently than would be possible from an intrinsically positive token such as +1 power counters.

## Rules

**Marks** are counters that are added via abilities, but do not add power. In fact, Marks do not do or mean anything at all unless specified by an ability. Marks are 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, Marks work exactly like other attachments such as power counters or play-on-minion actions. If a minion leaves play for any reason, all Marks on it are discarded.

## Examples

**Example #1 - Irukandji:** Irukandji builds up Marks on itself over time. Other players can take on the Marks themselves at the cost of an action play and destroying the Irukandji, potentially setting up potent Jellyfish traps later. If they do not, the Irukandji can zap power away from another minion when it matters most, or Jellyfish have a couple of ways to convert the Marks into pure power on their own terms. Marks allow Irukandji to track how long it's been in play, as well as force players to pick their poison about whether they fear Irukandji's own Special or the other antagonistic uses Jellyfish have for Marks.

**Example #2 - Charm Person:** Charm Person has antagonistic movement potential, moving another player's minion from a base where you have a minion to wherever else you want it. On its own, this would be a slightly weaker form of Grasp the Belt (from Sumo Wrestlers) or Invasion (from Aliens), but Charm Person has the possibility of taking control of the minion as well. This is a powerful effect, powerful enough to warrant the steep cost of having two Marks on the minion. Since Charm Person itself has no way of getting the Marks on the minion you want to steal, it is relying on the other Mark-placing cards in Enchanters to hit its ceiling. Thus, Marks are allowing a card to have a high antagonistic potential that needs to be unlocked through other means that may be too trivial if the requirement were based on the presence of minion modifiers.

**Example #3 - Nashkel Mines:** Nashkel Mines is a base, meaning it can potentially be divorced from any faction context involving Marks. Thus, it provides both a means of placing Marks and a reason to do so. The multiple-Mark requirement means that this ability would be extremely hard to approximate using power counters. It provides enough incentive for other players to use it even when playing against Enchanters, potentially locking them out of enough potent phase 3 manipulation to swing the base in their favor.

## Factions Using Marks

 Phoenixes |  | Berryl | Put your minions through the cycle of life, perpetually destroying them and bringing them back from the ashes.