Aventuria Card Preview – Suffocation

Aventuria Card Preview – Suffocation

Today we’re going to focus on a simple one-shot card that helps us explain in more detail a number of the mechanics and design principles of Aventuria. This card, Suffocation, is from the hero deck of Mirhiban Al’Orhima, the Tulamydian Mage.

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To begin with, Suffocation is a Complex Spell, as you can tell from the red star symbol in the lower left. This only matters if you are customizing your decks, which is something you may want to do once you have a stronger grasp of the game. Spells come in two levels, simple and complex. The fact that this is a complex spell matters because Mirhiban is unique in that she may include up to 10 such cards in a customized deck. Layariel, the only other magic-user in the base set, can only include 2 complex spells at most.

Suffocation is a one-shot card that costs 1 Endurance. That cost is important because it means this card can be played early in the game if you happen to draw it, and if you play it later in the game it won’t use up a large portion of your resources. But the cost circle tells us something else – because the background is white and not black, this one-shot may only be played on Mirhiban’s turn. That timing is important when we consider the effects of the card.

This card specifically targets an opponent’s resource pool: their Endurance cards. First it forces the opponent to discard one Endurance card from play, and then it forces her to exhaust all the rest. The first effect is devastating if played in an early round, while the second effect can be very useful in a situation where the opponent may be holding on to a reaction card (a one-shot with a black circle). However, it is not a complete shutdown spell because it cannot be played on the opponent’s turn. If it could, Mirhiban could prevent the opponent from using Endurance at all for a turn, which would be too powerful for the cost.

But of course, Leaders and Henchmen in the Adventure Mode don’t have Endurance. They just roll on a table to see what they do. So Suffocation has a separate rules text for what it does in Adventure Mode. In that mode, Suffocation is just a quick 1-cost card that automatically reduces an opponent’s Life Points by 2, bypassing the attack roll, the damage roll, and any dodge or armor the target might have. That’s very useful, particularly because it’s a cheap card that is not considered an attack, so Mirhiban can play it and still have the Endurance left over to make one of her more powerful magical attacks.

If you are facing Mirhiban, don’t forget that she has this up her sleeve!

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