Card Highlight - Cordyceps

Hello to you all realmrunners and welcome to another Card Highlight!

This week I thought I’d shed a bit more light on a Rare card from Secrets of Spirata that has the potential to be a real hassle to deal with - the Infesting parasite Cordyceps.


Unlike most of the other parasites from the set, Cordyceps can’t be used to Infest a Character straight from your hand; instead you deploy it like a normal Character and it jumps around whenever another Character is deployed afterwards, Infesting them and gaining you shards equal to their cost.

Versus any opponent with big hitting resolve abilities, like those pictured below, this can really throw a spanner in the works for them since not only do they need to consider the fact you’ll gain shards off of them deploying a Character, but they’ll also lose its ability and resolve effect as well. So versus a reckless player you’ll be approaching 30 shards quickly whilst your more cautious opponents will be less willing to deploy Characters, therefore allowing you to get ahead of them that way.

It’s worth mentioning, with the order of abilities triggering, that Cordyceps Infesting a Character will happen after any Action written on the card - so it doesn’t stop those powerful Action abilities that are tagged onto Characters.

Of course Cordyceps is not without its weaknesses that need to be considered. If your opponent plays smaller Characters that have little to no resolve and have a heavier Location focus then it can often be dead, or worse, a benefit to your opponent; don’t forget its +2 resolve goes to them while its on their Canvas.

It’s also fair to say that there are situations where deploying Cordyceps isn’t that beneficial. If your opponent has a strong enough Character already deployed they can just Erase it through combat before it gets a chance to Infest their Characters, or if you have another Character on your Canvas they can deploy a weaker one to then attack into yours which would then also remove it. There’s also Trading-focuses decks to consider; they usually play a low Character count and can easily afford not to deploy them as they can fall back on either their Locations or just Trade to victory with Cordyceps doing very little to them so, versus these strategies, you’ll need to pair with the other hindering parasites Nocturno and Invasive Parasite. 

With this all in mind I’ve often found its better to play Cordyceps in a Palette that’s either very light on Characters or where you have strong Character control so you can reduce the chance of any of the aforementioned weaknesses becoming an issue. 


That's all from me for now guys!

The Achroma store is currently doing an offer of 25% off, including their first edition sets like The Secrets of Spirata, with some heavily discounted bundles of The Warriors of Wishwell and their expansions so its even easier to get ready for the next chapter, The Monsters of Norso!

See ya real soon folks! 



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