DeckTech Article - The Power of Psychic
Author: Bill "BLauer" Lauer
The Psychic discipline has some of the strongest cards in the game to manipulate both your hand and arsenal and your opponent's hand and arsenal also. It also has pump removal as well as other defensive cards and its gamebreaker will allow the opponent's attack to deal ADMG to their own gladiators.
First off let’s take a look at gladiators that can use Psychic cards and their other disciplines:
4vp Cray Phillips Cyber, Lillith Mys, Queen Alexandra Portal
3vp Goth Garal Bio, Madame Petice Mys, Opac Sentir War
2vp The Stranger Mys, Trace Portal,
1vp Taa Ra
Reinforcement Sara-La Konets.
3 have mystic, 2 have portal, 1 has cyber, 1 has war and one has bio-tek.
The preferred combination would be Mystic or Portal because each has multiple gladiator with the required Psychic connection and still have back up if a gladiator falls in combat. Mystic also has a 3VP glad so it could also advance to use lvl 4 cards if the main gladiator dies.
Psychic cards have the power to manipulate your and your opponent's hand and deck. Some of the ones I noticed for manipulation are breathe deeply, mind over body, epiphany, free your mind, kaleem’s triangle, thought cyphon, love tap and one step ahead. One step ahead allows you to place the top 3 cards of either your arsenal or your opponents in any order which allows you to use love tap and epiphany to maximum effect because you know what is coming. Breathe deeply is just raw card drawing power which is always good. Mind over body allows you to get more cards, which allows you to set up combos faster and free your mind lets you get that one card you need right now to stop your opponent which makes you more adaptable in a game if you need to change strategy. Kaleem’s triangle allows you to cycle better just like Cray Phillips. Thought cyphon really hurts large minion decks by making them draw then discard the number of minions. This card also lets your opponent set up a better hand so make sure they have few cards in hand when you use it.
Epiphany, fumble, inner demons and mindlash are the hand destruction cards that force the opponent to have a smaller hand size, possibly not letting them use their entire CP each turn because they have nothing to play. Mindlash is a good lvl 1 card and its cost is only 1, so a CP for a card is a good ratio. Epiphany cost 2 CP and must first be set up before effectively used and only gets rid of one card but it is at random, which may disrupt your opponent's strategy. Fumble cost 2 CP, but it could possibly get rid of 2 cards of choice or one at random so it’s effective. Inner demons make your opponent pay for attacking your characters by either taking damage or by discarding 2 cards at random, but it is vulnerable to all the anti pump cards out there. Cray Phillips also either adds ADMG or makes your opponent toss cards too.
Defensive cards for psychic are quite strong too. They include pump removal, setting minions and gladiators, reducing damage, or even changing the choice of the attack. These help to keep your opponent off balance so that what they think will happen will not always work out. Full Monty is interesting because you can plan out what they are going to do and plan out your counters to their actions. Vengeful Blow seems to be one of the few offensive cards for psychic, and its bonus for dead gladiators may help you catch up to your opponent's VP total. Confused alliances is a powerful card as a game breaker, but if you are behind your opponent doesn’t have to attack.
So in summary, Psychic has some powerful ways to set up what you want in your hand, discard opponent's cards and good defensive cards, but right now it lacks a punch to be a primary discipline, instead in my opinion it is better used to support.
Bill Lauer
Ophidian Agent
Niskayuna NY
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