{"id":21866,"date":"2024-10-09T15:18:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T19:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/?p=21866"},"modified":"2024-10-09T15:18:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T19:18:32","slug":"from-panel-to-play-mephisto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/from-panel-to-play-mephisto\/","title":{"rendered":"From Panel to Play: Mephisto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The unfortunate often find themselves at a crossroads between bad choices. For the very unlucky, a shadowy being is waiting at the crossroads with a deal to offer them. That shadowy being is Mephisto, Lord of Temptation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mephisto rules a fiery nether realm, loves to impersonate the biblical Satan, and is empowered by the damned souls he\u2019s tricked into accepting his bargains. He is unambiguously evil and completely untrustworthy, and he still manages to manipulate great heroes into accepting his deals. He\u2019s very good at being bad. Among his numerous other powers is apparent immortality, and he\u2019s been bargaining for souls during the entire history of humanity. The souls he\u2019s collected from the Legion of the Lost, Mephisto\u2019s personal army outside of his realm, he uses to fulfill his bargains and acquire yet more power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The best place to start understanding how Mephisto plays is to look at his Demonic Contract<\/strong> superpower. Mephisto gets 1 additional power each round for each Devil\u2019s Deal token he has. He starts the game with 1 token, but to power up to his strongest, he needs to get 3. The only way to gain Devil\u2019s Deal tokens on his Stat Card is his Infernal Bargain attack. As a 5-threat character, only dealing one damage with an action is a tremendous downside. Luckily, he can use his How Can I be of Service?<\/strong> superpower to Place himself next to a target and make an Infernal Bargain attack without spending an action on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he has a stack of 3 Devil\u2019s Deal tokens, he has many more options available to him. Termination Clause becomes a 9-die beam attack that automatically incinerates each target. Devil\u2019s Due<\/strong> allows Mephisto to spend a Devil\u2019s Deal token to do damage and steal power. Meet my Associate<\/strong> lets him spend a Devil\u2019s Deal token when he is attacked to Place an ally next to him and have that ally be the target of that attack instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hellfire Lash rounds out his kit as a flexible attack that gains one power, and it\u2019s a solid option when Mephisto needs to save up his resources and still do damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Mephisto can\u2019t use Meet my Associate<\/strong>, he is easy to take down for a 5-threat character. That often means he needs to be around his allies to be at his best. Fortunately, Meet my Associate<\/strong> can give those allies a lot of movement to keep up with the blistering speed he can move. How Can I be of Service?<\/strong> could allow Mephisto to Place more than Range 5 away from his current position by Placing on the opposite side of the target. If he can Place in a location to make Meet My Associate<\/strong> inconvenient, that superpower could make it detrimental to attack him since it allows him to place his allies into position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Mephisto doesn\u2019t often want to stray away from his allies, sometimes doing so could win the game. That\u2019s especially the case when he can move himself into position to hit multiple characters with a 9-die Termination Clause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you read the fine print of this article, you might have picked up that there are more ways to gain Devil\u2019s Deal tokens than Mephisto\u2019s Infernal Bargain attack. Up the Ante<\/strong> is a fine example of the kind of Faustian deals Mephisto forces on your opponent. It asks the opponent if they would like to lose power instead of taking damage when an ally would deal damage with an attack. In exchange, all they need to do is give Mephisto 2 Devil\u2019s Deal tokens and allow him to have up to 5 for the rest of the game. Of course, they could just not take the deal. In that case, Mephisto still benefits by removing his activated token if he has one or just trying the deal later on if he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brand New Day<\/strong>\u00a0commemorates one of the most infamous examples of Mephisto\u2019s deal making. With this card, he shows his prodigious power by preventing an enemy character from being Dazed or KO\u2019d\u2026if they make a deal with him and Mephisto\u2019s ally gets to activate again. Of course, the violence the deal was offering to prevent and the willpower required to refuse that deal both reinvigorate him, so it\u2019s another win-win for Mephisto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When deals fail to do the job, Hellfire is there to clean up the situation. Mephisto\u2019s mastery over that baleful flame is so great that he can wreathe his allies and imbue their attacks with it. The minor consequence of lighting his allies on fire is a small price to pay for such a boon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If the situation is important enough to him, Mephisto can call on all the souls he\u2019s won and assemble the Legion of the Lost. Damnation forces the opponent to choose which character of theirs will gain Incinerate in exchange for 1 power every round of the game. It also fuels Mephisto\u2019s squad with power. Mephisto\u2019s squad gets these benefits with any characters, offering an extreme amount of flexibility. Corvus wants the mobility offered and is sturdy enough to be a great ally to choose for\u00a0Meet my Associate<\/strong>. When Mephisto uses\u00a0Embrace the Inferno<\/strong>\u00a0to incinerate Corvus and Proxima, they can both activate before the opponent gets to activate by using their Husband and Wife superpowers. On that round, they are likely to daze or KO at least one character with access to a full reroll against what is likely an incinerated enemy character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mephisto doesn\u2019t just work for himself, though. If it serves his goals, he\u2019s only too willing to make a deal and work for others. The leaders of Cabal and Criminal Syndicate are perfectly willing to strike a deal to get Mephisto on their side, and he\u2019s affiliated with both. Shadowland Daredevil has quite a lot of synergy with Mephisto. With Mephisto\u2019s beam and free attack, he often makes more than 2 attacks that can benefit from Shadowland Daredevil\u2019s leadership during his activation. Shadowland Daredevil is also very sturdy, so he\u2019s quite a good target for Meet my Associate<\/strong>, and the Hand Ninjas offer a more disposable shield for Mephisto to hide behind. Mephisto also has strong power generation to pay for All According to Plan, and that Team Tactic Card plays right into the unique scheming playstyle Mephisto offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s all for today\u2019s installment of From Panel to Play. Be sure to check back for more in-depth previews of new and upcoming releases. Thanks for joining!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until next time, Atomic Mass Games, signing off!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unfortunate often find themselves at a crossroads between bad choices. Will you make a deal with Mephisto? Read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":21868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experts"],"acf":[],"featuredImageSourceUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.svc.asmodee.net\/production-asmodeeca\/uploads\/image-converter\/2024\/10\/2024_10_09-MCP-MEPHISTO-ARTICLE_IMAGE-1024x614.webp","productImageSourceUrl":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21870,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions\/21870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asmodee.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}