Keyword Highlight

Keyword Highlight - Infest

February 14, 2024

Hello to you all Realm Runners and welcome to another Keyword Highlight article!

Secrets of Spirata is finally in players’ hands and with come a couple of brand new keywords to the game. Today I’d like to go into detail on the one that has stirred up a lot of questions straight away; Infest. As usual here’s the definition from the main site.

As you can see this is quite a wordy one due to how it works so let’s break it down to make it easier to understand.

Firstly, all Infest cards we currently have are characters and so you can play them as normal characters by paying their full shard value and having them behave like normal characters would. This does mean that you wouldn’t get any effect after the word Infest though.

Alternatively, you can pay a single shard to deploy them onto another character, on any canvas, and Infest it meaning it loses its abilities and resolve entirely. This would then cause the abilities of your parasite to be active.

If a card is Infested, the parasite does not take part in combat and if the host card is erased then the parasite is also erased. On top of this objects cannot be kept or deployed onto a parasite that is Infesting a card.

What this effectively means is that any card with Infest has the ability, for a single shard, to remove a character's resolve and other abilities; this forces your opponent to either use removal on the parasite itself if they’re able to, as it is still a separate character on the canvas, otherwise they're stuck with whatever negative ability you've given them or no ability at all in the case of Invasive Parasite, who is also able to Infest locations as the exception to the rule.

There is a couple of parasites which actually give you a benefit and so would probably be better suited to deploy on your own characters; those being The Fallen, who bestows Protection on the character he Infects; and Diurno, who can strengthen a character's resolve at the cost of losing its ability.

Last of the Infesting parasites is a rather unique one in Cordyceps; although the card itself doesn't have Infest, so you can only deploy it as a standard character, its ability allows it to basically fly round the board gaining the original owner shards whenever any player deploys a character. This sort of ability could be insanely powerful especially early on in a game on 3+ players!

On top of this variety of characters, Parasites also have a strong variety of actions that Find and Dig for them and then deploy them for free. Most notable within this area is Unfathomable Hunger which is already an upgraded Cutting Cocoons as it's cheaper to deploy but can hit any card on the canvas but incase that wasn't enough it can then deploy any parasite onto the same canvas for free. So you can use it to erase the best location your opponent has and then deploy a parasite, such as Nocturno, onto their best character as well.

Final piece to go along with the Infest support is Scrapyard Barrens; not only does it have the same stats usually found in sets' promo locations (costing 4 shards and stealing 2 in the resolve) but it adds a further layer to the power of Infest by stopping any Infested characters from being able to attack. This means one of the methods of removing the parasite without spending any real resources, attacking into a stronger or same strength character, is no longer possible and will likely mean that unless your opponent is willing to lose a removal card, they're stuck with it.

When compared to other realms, it's possible to see parallels to the Freeze mechanic from Last Snow Dragons of Altari; both abilities achieve similar goals but Infest gives you a more permanent answer your opponent’s card abilities, at the cost of not having an easily repeatable use, whilst Freeze only prevents resolve-based abilities but has cards that can hit a different card every turn.

As it currently stands, while I believe Infest has some fantastic potential, I see it mainly sitting as a tech-piece within already competitive palettes that help them answer certain things your opponents do in a different way, especially considering it has a Find action that instantly deploys the parasite.

You’ll find all the cards with Infect in the newly released Secrets of Spirata set in the palettes from The Forgotten faction. This is available either as a First Edition pack where you’ll get 2 random palettes from different factions or as a First Edition Collection, which will net you all the cards from the set plus a Secrets of Spirata location promo to boot! You’ll find all of this and more on the Achroma store linked below.

That's all from me for now guys!

If you wish to purchase any product from the Achroma website use my affiliate link that will get you 5% off your purchases. Simply follow the link below or use the code ‘antinomy93’ when you checkout.

Also we are now into the Norso Winter season! Purchase £30 of product from the Achroma store (that’s before discounts!) and get yourself a copy of the limited edition seasonal promotion card Norso Winter!