In Masters of Myth™, the Death State was designed to function as a comeback mechanic. Much like some popular fighting games, you could lose round 1, but you still have round 2 to mount a comeback. It won’t be easy and it’s not guaranteed, but it will help prevent players from being blitzed out of a game. What if I were to tell you this is not the only function of the Death State, that there are other ways to use its features to your advantage. 

We need to identify the unique features of the Death State to be able to leverage it to our advantage. 

“If a god enters the Death State and it is not that god’s turn, that god’s devotion total cannot be changed until the start of its next turn”.

“If a god enters Death State and it is that god’s turn, that god’s turn immediately moves to the Draw Phase.”

“When a god enters Death State its devotion becomes half of its starting devotion total (For example, if the starting Devotion total was 40, then it would be 20 Devotion when put into Death State).”

Additionally, the Death State God Feat is typically more powerful or aggressive than the God Feat which is on the Heroic side. With these features identified, let’s discuss how you can use them to clown your opponents in your next game of Masters of Myth™.

Rushing Into The Death State

I know it seems counterintuitive to burn through devotion to get to the Death State before your opponent, but there is a strategy here. The idea is to spend most of your devotion playing cards and setting up your board. Reducing the amount of devotion lost due to damage from your opponents. If you vary the threats you put on the board between minions, rituals, and relics only very powerful cards like Ragnarok can wipe out your progress. Next, you want to control when you go into the Death State, ideally at the end of your turn so you can maximize the protection you’ll be receiving from entering the Death State. Once you’re in the Death State, you can leverage your refreshed devotion pool and more powerful God Feat to gain a massive tempo advantage on your opponent. 

This works particularly well for gods like Quetzalcoatl and Zeus. Their Death State God Feats are incredibly powerful, with Quetzalcoatl giving you access to consistent healing (as long as you have minions to sacrifice) and Zeus giving you access to a Lightning Bolt! every turn (I don’t think I need to explain how good that is).

Making Your Opponent Lose a Turn

If you’re feeling particularly devious you can use a strategy that will use the Death State to skip your opponent’s turn. Every God can pull this strategy off, even with Odin, but we will have to steal something like a Dark Ankh. The goal is to use either a start-of-turn damage effect or a Fleet damage effect to put your opponent into the Death State during their Start Phase on their turn. This causes their turn to immediately move to the End Phase, in which they discard their hand, draw new cards, and then their turn ends. Employing this strategy can be devastating. It robs your opponent of critical tempo, allowing you to gain devotion and mess with your opponent’s board. Additionally, if your opponent had any end-of-turn affects to gain devotion, like that on Let Them Eat Corn, those effects will be wasted as your devotion can’t be changed then the card destroys itself. 

Using Death State as a Guard

Guard is without a doubt one of the most important Traits in the game. However, sometimes you don’t have a Guard minion and your opponent is gearing up for a huge attack. It might be a good idea to put yourself in the Death State to force your opponent to essentially waste all that damage. While your board might be vulnerable, this can give you critical breathing room to begin picking your opponent’s board apart on your next turn.

When you play your next game, potentially at our event this weekend, try to employ these strategies to gain an edge over your opponents.

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