Ascension: Return of the Fallen: Sam breaks the rules

Posted by on December 21, 2011 in Game Diaries

There are two kinds of cards in Ascension: non-monsters that you buy to put into your deck, and monsters. When you beat a monster, it’s banished from the game and you earn some victory points. In the basic Ascension cards, the most powerful monster was a fellow called Avatar of the Fallen. I have no idea who the Fallen is or why he’s sent an avatar in his stead, but I know card was as bad-ass as enemies got. I had a friend maintain that if you could beat the Avatar of the Fallen, you were going to win the game.

After the jump, Sam he is!

Just as the Return of the Fallen add-on for Ascension means Oziah is no longer peerless, it also means the Avatar of the Fallen isn’t top dog anymore. The new most powerful monster is a fellow named Samael the Fallen. Ah, so that’s who the Fallen is! I still have no idea who he is, what he did, or why he sent an avatar in the first set of cards. But I do know that when he shows up, the rules in Ascension threaten to shift a little.

As I mentioned, killed monsters are banished from the game and the guy who beat the monsters gets some victory points. Most monsters also give you a little extra bonus. Samael fits this basic pattern, but he gives you more victory points than any single monster. And the “little extra bonus” for whomever defeats Samael is that now he’s playing by different rules. From now on, when Samael’s victor defeat a monster, it goes into his deck and fights for him. In addition to the military power earned from Heavy Infantry, weapons like Shadow Stars and Void Thirsters, Black Watch cards, the odd angry Lycanthrope, and — if you’re really lucky — a fully armed and operational Hedron Cannon, powered by a Hedron Link Device, every defeated monster turns its power against other monsters. Now monsters cards will cycle through your hand to help you beat more monsters more easily for more victory points.

This isn’t an automatic win, of course, because you can still be a victim of the cards. If no more monsters show up on the “auction block” — only a quarter of the cards in the deck are monsters — all the military power you amassed to beat Samael and all the fierce monsters fighting on your behalf are nearly useless. There’s nothing quite so sad as a hand blazing with military might and nowhere to focus it. In those instances, Ascension gives you the option to fight piddly little cultists for a minimal victory point reward. And what a pathetic display to turn your Sea Tyrants and Doom Weepers and maybe even the Avatar of the Fallen itself against mere cultists! Given the cultist’s unkempt look, we call this “smacking the hobo”, a phrase I blatantly stole from a video review that I’d link if I remembered where I saw it.

  • Jordanmchavez

    Unless he comes out very early (like in the opening 6) and players are gunning for him from the get go at the expense of all else, killing Samael happens so late in the game that you only see any of “your” monsters once or twice in the rest of the game. I thought Samael’s ability was going to be insane when I first saw the card, but after playing with it it’s just not that big of a deal.

  • Bahimiron

    When I first saw Sammael ages ago I really thought ‘that is an insanely overpowered card’. Hell, I still think that. (I think that about your buddy the Chosen as well.) If I were playing live games, I’d probably (definitely) play without him (and the Chosen). That said, I’ve yet to play a game with another person where Sammael ended up being a good predictor of the winner. In one game with Vesper the day the game came out he got Sammael (on the same turn I got enough to kill Sammael, consarnit!) and I still squeaked out a win while a few days later in an multinational four way game I got Sammael early on and THEN got the Avatar of the Fallen yet I still ended up coming in last place. (Sneaky sinnick killing those things that let him steal my points.)

    I notice, btw, that in all but one of these pictures you seem to only be playing with the RotF deck. Is that just to get screenshots, a coincidence or are you choosing not to mix the decks? I know that a few months ago you seemed resistant to the idea of playing a game of Ascension mixing the cards from both decks.

  • Chris Gwinn

    I believe I just got him in my game against you, and I’m realizing he’s not quite as good as he might seem. Since he’s generally a late game capture, and the cards go into the discard pile, you don’t actually get the captured monster cards very often or very many times, unless you’ve really stressed the ability to cycle through your deck rapidly. Perhaps this is where the hectic scribe comes in handy?

  • Anonymous

    Well, I’m convinced any late game card is nearly useless if you don’t have a nicely pruned deck. :)  At a certain point, you’re just grabbing cards for the scoring.
    BTW, the headline about Sam “breaking” the game was supposed to read “breaks the rules”.  I’ve fixed it.  I didn’t mean to say he breaks the game.  I’m just referring to how he changes the rules about monsters.

  • Chris Gwinn

    You’re also in an interesting situation with Samael. If you’ve managed to kill him, you’re probably playing a deck focused on those little red circles and killing monsters already. Which means you’re accelerating the pace of the game and forcing a fast game. His mechanic adds cards to your deck while you’re shortening the length of the game. I think there’s a certain feedback mechanism there that limits his effectiveness, but I haven’t played enough games to know for sure.

  • David Ray

    Scuse my pedantry, but…does your friend maintain that, or did he aver it?

  • Anonymous

    Hey, I love pedantry!  Is the difference that he avers it if he says it only once, but that he maintains it if he continues to aver it?  Because I think he maintains it.