By Brian Bankler
Fermat’s Last Stand
Event
[Pur] [Pur] 1
All Characters you control gain +1 Fighting until they leave play, then take one damage.
When I opened up my Shurikens & Six Guns cards, I stared at this. Then I banished it to the back of the box. With so many good cards, why bother? Later I recognized the amazing potential.
This gives one fighting per character. But you suffer one damage per character, so it’s a wash. If you can’t avoid the damage, it’s slow. Many characters ignore the damage, though.
• Any character with Toughness is safe, which includes Void, Twisted Horror (if you have an edge) and Morphic Spirit (if you have a second faction).
• The Ordinal Spirit would like to remind you that he is safe.
• You can sacrifice a Purist Aspirant to take all the damage the rest of you characters would deserve.
• Or expandable unit the damage, or use Mr. Simms to redirect it.
• A splash of Hand gives you access to Festival of Giants, especially useful in turns where you have 2 or more Last Stands in your hand.
• An Eagle Mountain in the front row likewise helps to avoid the damage while attacking.
• While defending, why not make your Last Stand at the House on the Hill?
A spot of healing works wonders. City Hospitals can patch up the odd point of damage. Since most people intercept ‘efficiently’, you can usually save a character with that combo. Hexagram Spirit blocked by a Blade of Darkness? Fermat, City Hospital the damage, and you survive. Barely, but another player will have to waste a card or an attack to finish you. As your other characters die, the Hospital can heal you. (Floating Restaurants also work well, but you don’t get to control the timing). Spot healing combines with a Sacred Heart Hospital (or other ‘full’ healing). And if you have Guts or Regenerate, so much the better. But that requires multi-factioning. If you have full healing, then you may play multiple copies at once and then patch up.
Even without healing or Toughness, multiple Fermat’s Last Stands break deadlocks. Play two, then turn everyone to heal. If you have five characters, you’ve bought ten fighting for two power and a turn. (In a deadlock situation, that turn isn’t as important). Fermat’s Last Stand pumps foundation characters into minor threats.
To really shine, recruit a horde. Any deck with ‘automatic’ recursion will benefit most. The Eaters of the Lotus have Demon Whiskey, Destroyer, Underworld Tracker, and Inauspicious Return. Most factions have some recursion, and you can toss Reverend Zebediah Paine into any deck.
Finally, embrace the damage. Binary Spirits worships Fermat. They instantly heal the point; 3+ fighting lets them shine. Instead of draw, discard, draw, discard, they keep drawing, then turn to heal. It really speeds up card flow.
Jenaya Ou lets you hit another card whenever she takes non-combat damage. If you multi-faction, you have access to a number of characters that love damage (Big Daddy Voodoo, Chang, John Tower, Madame Yen, Mutoid, Novice Students, Old Man Wu, Yellow Monk, Mui Tsui Fa).
And there are edges, states and events that can heal, redistribute or make use of the damage. Our Lotus friends have Rend Chi, for example. There aren’t many cards that turn damage into a weapon, but each one helps. And last but not least, you can turn all that damage into power by playing “Now You’ve Made Us Mad”. A combo of Last Stand and NYMUM can easily bump your power up by 3-4, and Purist has access to the Scroll of Incantation to virtually guarantee that you’ll have both events in your hand at the right moment.
Fermat’s Last Stand doesn’t go into every Purist deck. It is not a staple. But with careful character selection and the right mix of events, it provides a huge fighting boost.