Welcome to the first guild preview of Fatal Factions: Guild Wars. In this week's blog, we're going to show some love to our favorite wretched guild, the Psionus.
The Psionus are a group of psychics that utilize their abilities to exert power over others or remove surprises by looking into the near future and inflicting a small amount of influence over upcoming events. If you happened to check out our first card spotlight, you probably already know a little of what the Psionus is capable of.
It isn't very well known, but there is a tabletop Story Mode that is a part of the several modes that Fatal Factions: Guild Wars has. There are even some cards for it that act as your opponents or the artifacts that you find! One of your very first encounters in the base story comes from the psychics of Psionus. In the story (which you can find some details for the history of here), you show up in Metraal with your conjuration crystal already in place hovering over your shoulder. To your benefit (and sometimes downfall), this shining white-and-gold crystal gives your position as a Conjurer away easily. In the beginning, your conjuration crystal immediately gathers the attention of the Metraalian Council. You are asked by the Councilmaster to utilize your conjuration abilities to assist the Psionus guild with defeating a number of Monster gates at each of the 4 entrances of Metraal (yes, Monster Mode has a big influence here too). If you succeed, then you and your Conjurer allies are inaugurated into the official Guilds of Amoas the very same day that the Psionus is made an official guild.
Of course, you could also tell the council to fuck off - in which case your primary enemy will be the Psionus as they try to prevent your uprising and stop you from adding units to your crystal's compendium of soldiers.
Now that we got a little side-tracked by the story, let's get back to the Psionus.
Psionus is the first official guild of the Guilds of Amoas which are governed by the Metraalian Council. Throughout Amoan history, you won't find many notes or events surrounding the psychics. The ability to utilize advanced kinetics without sparking a flame or throwing a giant icicle wasn't heard of until approximately 20 cycles (years) before the events of Guild Wars. The first documented case of a psychic came from Fravice, a place known by many to be the home of the exiled Elementalists. One of the first psychics, Psiona (of whom the guild was named after) gathered and taught others in Fravice who did not already have an Aetheric System attuned to elementalist abilities how to tap into the abilities exclusive to psychics. Once they utilized their abilities to look into the near future and slightly adjust some less-cemented portions of it, they moved on to gravity-based abilities, aetheric reflection and mind control.
One day, Psiona disappeared without a trace. The young psychics of Fravice were distraught, but eventually, young specialist Sydelle took the group by the reigns and led them north to the blooming Metraal. She knew that being associated with the Elementalists was not good for their success, so they cut ties and fled as fast as they could. No sooner than a few days into assisting with Metraal's building process were they approached by the Councilmaster of Metraal and given jobs as protectors of Metraal and personal assistants to the Councilmaster himself - for reasons that may not become apparent until later in the story.
The psychics of Psionus - like any other guild you're going to find in this game - specialize in 5 schools of abilities:
Gravity Well - Spend 1 resource to perform this ability. A unit of your choice has Crushed until your initial phase. This unit can only perform this ability once per turn. (Crushed is a status effect that stops movement and increases damage taken in battle by 1.)
Clairvoyance (X) - Tap this unit to perform this ability. View the top (X) cards of your deck. Select one card and shuffle the rest. Place the card on the top or bottom of your deck.
Control - Tap this unit, pay 3 resources and deal 2 damage to this unit to use this ability. Give a unit of your choice the Controlled state until your end phase. This ability can only be performed once per turn by any of your units during.
Redirect - Tap this card and spend 2 resources to perform this ability. Change the target of a spell or aura card played from a player's hand and gain ownership of it. You can use this ability as a reaction. The player can pay 2 resources to cancel this ability.
Levitating - This unit cannot be affected by unit zone auras or mine/healing tokens and can directly attack units in stasis zones. (Active ability) Spend 1 resource: This unit ignores the effects of abilities that target units in unit zones and can move once at any time until your initial phase. You can use this ability as a reaction.
Each ability above (and every keyword of every guild) has several units and non-unit cards that are focused solely on the ability. As if it was obvious from a group of psychics, Psionus specializes in exerting control over others and their aetheric energies. They can control the outcomes of auras, spells and units while possibly ignoring field effects. If you happen to have a Gamebreaker, you can control the outcomes of Reaction cards too. Added to all that control, they can also pin a unit in place and increase the damage they take or lift themselves into the air and move around by utilizing what appears to be gravitational influence. They're pretty well-rounded!
In terms of difficulty, Psionus can be pretty easy to use. They have a lot of ability variety, and they work very well with a few keywords under guilds like Chronadax, the Mathist Legion and the elementalists of Aetherflame. You'll be surprised with what they can pull off!
If you try any of the Tabletop Simulator modes (like 1v1), you'll be able to play as the Psionus yourself! See if you can beat the necromancers of The Ascendead with your Control/Gravity Well deck, or maybe take down some Monsters alone to check out their strength. If you're interested in having a Psionus deck printed or sent to you, please reach out to us in the Contact page!
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