Ascension: Storm of Souls - Tips & Strategies

While there is a great synergy within each group of cards (especially Mechana and Lifebound cards), don’t get so caught up in the “theme” of your hand that you fail to take advantage of the diversity of cards available to you.

Each type of card has a different function and you’ll be much more successful if you keep an open mind to picking up a Mechana construct for nothing but its honor value or picking up a Void card to clear out a little bloat from your deck (when you aren’t going for a Mechana or Void-centric strategy to begin with).

My roommate and I often have Ascension showdowns and what we’ve discovered with randomized starting (rolling dice to see which of us goes first), is that the person who goes first has a distinctly higher win rate.

If you think about it, the game ends when the honor runs out, so the first player is guaranteed at least as many turns, but sometimes one more turn than his opponent (giving him a slight advantage).

What we do to even the playing field in successive games is to have the loser go first. This gives the advantage to the person who’s not fairing as well (we’re evenly enough matched that we almost end up switching turns as a result).

Don’t worry to much about the event card. If it helps it helps, but don’t concentrate on building your strategy around it. It will probably change and if your strategy isn’t solid on it’s own, the even change could weaken your deck and cost you honor. Keep the event card as an added bonus, not as a keystone in the game.

There are a handful of promo cards for Ascension that can be purchased throughout the internet. Here’s a list of the cards and some locations to find them!

Most can be found at the Ascension website. Go to http://www.ascensiongame.com and click on the Purchase tab. Scroll down slightly to the list of Promo cards. Gary Games sells the promo cards for around $2 each. They can really add to the game!

Other than the individual promo cards, you can also purchase promo sets such as the Leprechaun Pack which contain multiple cards. These sets can also add a new layer of strategy to game play.

LIST OF PROMO CARDS FROM ASCENSIONGAME.COM:

Vedah, Sage of Swords: Hero – Reveal top card of center deck. Draw it or defeat it. (Currently Sold Out)

Pathwarden: Hero – Gain 2 Runes. You may spend Runes as though they are Military this turn. (Currently Sold Out)

Deep Drone: Hero – Gain 2 Runes. The next construct purchased this turn can be put directly into play. (Currently Sold Out)

Kythis, the Gatekeeper: Monster – (Fate: When Kythis enters play, place the next card in the center deck face down underneath Kythis. When Kythis is banished, replace him with that card) Reward: Gain 5 Honor and Acquire or Defeat the card beneath him. (Currently Sold Out)

Void Mesmer: Hero – Gain 2 Military. The next time you defeat a monster this turn, you may acquire a hero of equal or less cost. (Currently In Stock)

Nethersnare: Construct – Once per turn if there is no monster under this, you may put a monster from the center row underneath it. You may defeat monsters under this as if they were in the center row. When Nethersnare leaves play, put any monster under it on top of the center deck. (Currently In Stock)

Leprechaun Pack: Hero & Construct Combo (Comes with 3 Leprechauns and 9 Pots of Gold) – Leprechaun gains 2 runes, and acquires a Pot of Gold (Pot of Gold can be taken from other players); Pot of Gold allows you to draw a card when played, and when you play a Leprechaun you gain 1 Honor. (Currently In Stock)

Journeyman Sage: Hero – (Fate: When this enters the Center Row, each player may banish a hero in their hand to acquire a Mystic or Heavy Infantry and place it in their hand.) Banish a hero in your hand, if you do then acquire a hero with an honor value up to one more of the banished card and put it in your hand. (Currently In Stock)

Control Room: Construct – Once per turn you may put a Mechana Construct you control on top of the center deck. If you do acquire a Mechana Contruct from the center row and put it in your hand. (Currently In Stock)

LIST OF OTHER PROMO CARDS:

Rat King Pack: Monsters (Comes with 2 Rat Kings and 10 Giant Rats) Rat King – (Fate: When Rat King enters the center row, place a Giant Rat on top of each other card in the center row) Reward – Gain 4 Honor and defeat all Giant Rats in play. Giant Rat – (Fate: Any card under a Giant Rat may not be defeated or acquired until the Giant Rat is defeated or banished) Reward – Gain 1 Honor (Can be purchased from Board Game Geek’s store for $5)

Vortex: Monster – Gain 4 Honor. Flip this card on to the center row from a height of at least one foot. Once it lands, choose a card it touches. You may acquire or defeat that card. (Check Ebay. I’ve seen plenty for sale there.)

I tried mixing all my favorite cards from Godslayer along with Storm of Souls and got some unintended consequences. What I noticed about storm of souls vs the other sets (as a stand alone) is that Storm of souls is a slower and just different. I liked it, but I wanted to speed things up a bit. I decided to mix in all my favorite draw cards from Godslayer and what ended up happening was that we unbalanced the deck and made things very too combo-like advantage turns. We basically put too many good cards in the stack which caused the game to not be so fun for the player. Because once one player got a ahead by buying all the draw heros it made it so that the other person had no chance at all. This happens, but it was happening more than it should have.