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B · Engine & Sequencing · §6Core Engine: The Sprite Discount

B · Engine & Sequencing · §6

Core Engine: The Sprite Discount

Four Energy for the first Sprite, one for the fourth, and a counting rule that decides which.

reads: 4 Energy and a tap, play a ready 3-Might Sprite unit token with Temporary; this ability costs 1 less for each friendly unit with Temporary.◆src

The counting rule

Rules noteThe discount counts friendly units with Temporary, not friendly permanents with Temporary. has Temporary and is a gear, so it discounts nothing, including itself. The Sprite it makes does.

This is a one-Energy difference on exactly the turn it matters most, because the Fountain is usually the first Temporary thing you control and the temptation is to count what is on the board rather than what is a unit.

How the curve actually pays

  • No Temporary units: the ability costs 4. This is the expensive one and there is no way around it.
  • One Sprite standing: 3.
  • Two: 2.
  • Three: 1. At this point the Legend is a one-Energy engine and the deck is doing what it was built to do.

at five Energy makes two at once, which is both a bigger board and a two-step jump down the discount curve. It is the card that converts a slow start into a wide turn, and it is why holding it for one turn is sometimes right and holding it for three never is.

The champion is a fourth maker

costs 3, has 3 Might, and plays a 3-Might Sprite with Temporary at any location she moves away from. She is not shuffled, so unlike the spells she is available in every game, and unlike the Legend she leaves a body behind at a battlefield rather than at your base.

Pilot noteMoving the champion is a Sprite. That means the decision to reposition her is never purely positional, and a move that looks like a retreat still leaves a 3-Might conqueror where she was standing.

The Legend is the one source a counter is not written to stop

says counter a spell. says counter a spell costing no more than 4. Spell is one card type among Unit, Gear, Rune, Battlefield and Legend, so neither counter is written to touch anything that is not one.◆src

Sort your four Sprite sources by type and the picture is better than it looks. The Legend is an activated ability. is a Gear. is a Unit. Only and are spells at all.

Rules noteThree of the four are not legal targets for either counter. Of the two that are, costs 5 and is outside ’s cap of 4, so the format’s most-played counter can only take . has no cap and can take either.