Advanced Ashes is a weekly series covering advanced Ashes strategies. Each week, a different Ashes player will showcase two cards, exploring their strengths and synergies. Visit the PlaidHatGames.com Ashes store, as well as the online Ashes deckbuilder.

Yo yo yo, Ashes Fam!

Welcome back to Advanced Ashes! Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving, and are ready for another epic strategy session from EpicGollum1499. Today I’m going to share with you my favorite unit in all of ashes, give you 3 weird and wacky combos to go with it, and tell you about the most annoyingest phoenixborn ever!

I’m going to cut right to the quick: my favorite Ashes unit is the Blood Puppet:

It might not be “cool,” it might not be “pretty,” but doggone it, these guys can make your opponent say things! First of all, Blood Puppets are the only unit in Ashes right now that you can use to clog up your opponent’s battlefield. That can be huge against a deck with a low battlefield count already! They’re also useful when your opponent has only one battlefield slot left, and they’ve got just enough dice to summon a big unit. Or, if you throw them in a deck with natural dice, even if your opponent’s battlefield is already full, you can ping away one of their units with a side action and throw your blood puppet in there for your main. These guys are way more versatile than at first glance!

Not to mention, they’re a great boost to your economy. For only one die, you’ve got a chance of dealing your opponent one damage, or making them spend at least two dice to get rid of it. Plus, I’ve noticed Blood Puppets have a snowball effect. Once they’ve left one on their battlefield, they’re more likely to leave a second, and the a third! Six dice is a huge investment just to prevent yourself from taking three damage, especially if you’ve got a large battlefield.

Wait, hold up there. Did you just say that you’re making your opponent spend at least two dice to your one? These guys only have a piddly two life, how could you possibly get your opponent spend more dice to get rid of a single blood puppet?

Glad you asked:

It took me a bit to figure this out, but you can put any kind of alteration on an opponent’s unit, positive or negative. It’s not intuitive, but it’s sure legal! Now imagine spending FOUR dice to get rid of one blood puppet...does that seem worth it? It might not at the moment, but by the time your opponent has three blood puppets with life increasing alterations on their battlefield, and they’re running out of life, they’ll wish they had wasted their dice and cards trying to kill that simple, harmless looking little puppet. Mwahahaha. There’s plenty of lif- increasing alterations like root armor out there, all good for different reasons. Root Armor is cheap, takes only a side action, and gives you respark, but Undying Heart gives the silly thing RECOVER. So evil.

Just like most conjurations, they’re better when you have more summon spells out, so it’s not a bad idea to use Open Memories to get another one in your opening hand.

But let’s face it. Blood puppets aren’t perfect. The most annoying phoenixborn to play against if you’ve got blood puppets? BRENNAN. This little upstart can just blow any of his units to pieces whenever he wants, and use them to deal damage to you, at an even cheaper price than you paid to create them! Against Brennan, only two things can really help you: Choke, playing them when Brennan already used his ability or has no dice left, and trying to spam out and keep alive as many of these little things as possible. It can be done, but it’s difficult. That’s why it’s good to have other options, just in case.

Whelp, that’s all for today folks! Hope you enjoyed, feel free to follow me on twitter @EpicGollum1499, I’m sure I’ll tweet something someday. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Great Gaming! :D



Next week: Really really big...



Visit the PlaidHatGames.com Ashes store, as well as the online Ashes deckbuilder.

Previous Advanced Ashes Articles

Week 1: Blood Chains and Butterfly Monk

Week 2: Frost Bite and Ice Trap

Week 3: Anchornaut and Summon Sleeping Widows

Week 4: To Shadows and Body Inversion

Week 5: Regress and Poison

Week 6: Abundance and Summon Orchid Dove

Week 7: Jessa and Chant of Revenge

Week 8: Amplify and Blood Archer

Week 9: Dread Wraith and Three-Eyed Owl

Week 10: Iron Worker and Coal Roarkwin

Week 11: Seal and Reflections in the Water