Akash'Thriya is a complex target based hero. Her targets are called primordial seeds; each primordial seed has 3 HP and can be "planted" in the environment deck. Unlike other non-character hero targets, primordial seeds act only on destruction and when they enter play from the environment deck. With 50 HP, Akash'Thriya has the most health of any hero by a wide margin. She has many effects that require her to deal herself damage so that HP is put to good use. Her deck contains a mixture of utility, damage, HP recovery, and support effects. Her seed cycle mechanic makes her the most indirect hero in the game. However, when Akash'Thriya is in the game, she can transform the environment itself into a powerful weapon for the heroes.
Objective of this Guide:
This guide is meant to provided both a high level view of the character's capabilities and a moderately comprehensive look at the specific tactics you can use as a player to get the most out of this deck. The more general information is toward the beginning of the guide and the more specific interactions are toward the back.
Overview:
Best Damage: Thrashing Brambles
Best Defense: One with the Land
Best Personal Support: Primeval Germination
Best Team Support: Akash'Flora
Best Utility: As the Earth Turns
Primary Damage Types: Melee, Toxic
Secondary Damage Types: Projectile
General Strategy:
Akash'Thriya has the most environment destruction effects of any hero and she excels at modifying the tempo of the environment deck. She also has the ability to destroy environment cards mid-effect execution in the same manner as Unity's Bee Bot. However, to really get the most out of Akash'Thriya, you will need to understand her seed cycle. The vast majority of Akash'Thriya's effects are personal support which expedite this cycle.
The seed cycle:
The following describes the path a primordial seed must take before it can enter play via the environment deck. Numbers represent places a seed can be while letters represent the mechanisms that move a primordial seed from one location to another.
1. Akash'Thriya's Deck
A. Card Draw: 1 to 2
2. Akash'Thriya's Hand
B. Card Discard: 2 to 3
B'. Card Play: 2 to 6
3. Akash'Thriya's Trash
C. Special effects unique to Akash'Thriya: 3 to 4
4. Environment Trash
D. Shuffled into Environment Deck: 4 to 5
5. Environment Deck
E. Played from Environment Deck: 5 to 6
6. Akash'Thriya's Play Area
F. Destroyed: 6 to 3
At the start of the game, all if your seeds are in locations 1 or 2. So your first focus will be on using Mechanisms A, B, B', C, and F to get her seed cycle going and get cards into the environment trash. Once she has a few seeds in the environment trash, she will want to find a way to accelerate mechanism D. From that point on, Akash'Thriya wants to focus on accelerating the environment deck so that her seeds will be played instead of environment cards while simultaneously continuing the other mechanisms which make up her seed cycle.
Deck Composition:
Akash'Thriya's deck contains 1 Primordial Tree, 5 primordial seeds with 3 copies each, and 6 ongoing cards with 2 copies each. 5 one-shots with 2 or 3 copies each make up the remaining 12 cards of her deck.
The Character Card:
Akash'Thriya has 50 HP, the most of any hero. Her base power, Dormant Essence, grants her a card draw and let's you get a seed from your hand or trash into the environment trash. This contributes to mechanisms A, B, and C, making this a great early game power.
Full Deck Breakdown:
The Primordial Tree:
Almost entirely separate from her seed cycle mechanics. Akash'Thriya has a team support mechanic in the form of a single card called Akash'Flora. Akash'Flora starts at 3 HP but has no upper limit on its health. At the end of your turn, it heals itself by 2 HP and it heals up to 2 other targets by 1. At the start of your turn, it lets each hero use a power but Akask'Flora deals itself 2 damage each time a power is used this way.
Primordial Seeds:
Primordial Seeds are 3 HP targets that each have an effect when it's played from the environment deck or destroyed. Effects of Primordial Seeds include damage, healing, environment destruction, deck cycling, and damage reduction.
Damaging effects:
-Creeping Mold when played from the environment deals up to 3 targets 2 damage.
-Noxious Pod when destroyed up to 3 targets 1 damage.
-Vitalized Thrones is unique in that it destroys itself when it enters play by any means other than being played from the environment deck. When destroyed it deals 3 damage. When played from the environment deck it deals 1 damage to a non-hero target when that target deals damage Akash'Thriya.
Utility effects:
-Creeping Mold and Strangling Roots can each destroy an environment card when they're destroyed. Creeping Mold can alternatively destroy an ongoing card or discard a card. Strangling Roots can instead destroy a target with 3 or fewer HP. These cards are very useful because they can destroy an environment card mid-effect.
Healing effects:
-When played from the environment deck Healing Pollen grants 4 HP recovery to 1 target. When it is destroyed, you gain a card draw and each hero target regains 1 HP.
Deck Cycling:
-When Noxious Pod is played from the environment deck, you may discard any number of cards and draw that as many cards as you discarded plus 1. This helps you to get the useful cards you will need out of your deck and into your hand. Additionally, it can put primordial seeds into your trash where they can more easily be moved to the environment trash.
Damage Reduction:
-Lastly, when Strangling Roots is played from the environment deck, you can select up to 3 targets to have their damage dealt reduced by 2 until the start of your next turn. If you can manage to have this card enter play during your start of turn phase you can select Akash'Flora as one of the targets and grant each player a power use at no cost.
Ongoing Cards and One-shots:
Akash'Thriya's ongoing cards and one-shots contain mostly personal support effects aimed at accelerating the seed cycle. The ongoing cards contain a combination of powers and passive effects. Some of these cards offer more than just personal support and can be a source of damage or environment control. Cards listed below are ongoing cards unless otherwise specified. Note that Primeval Germination, Thrashing Brambles, and One with the Land are limited.
Location 1 (Seeds in your deck):
Instantaneous Maturation (one-shot): At the cost of 2 HP, this card moves a seed from your deck on top of the environment deck and then has the environment play it. This skips over mechanisms: A, B, C, and D, and completes mechanism E in a single effect. Additionally, this card grants either a card play, or the ability to shuffle the environment trash into the environment deck (completing mechanism D for all seeds in the environment trash).
Scatter Seeds (one-shot): Scatter Seeds allows Akash'Thriya to deal herself up to 4 damage and then draw and discard a card for each point of damage she has been dealt in the current turn. This allows her to get seeds from her deck into her hand (mechanism A).
Location 2 (Seeds in your hand):
Scatter Seeds (one-shot): Choosing to discard primordial seeds with this card's effect completes mechanism B.
Location 3 (Seeds in your trash):
Scatter Seeds (one-shot): The final effect on this card let's you move any number of primordial seeds from your trash to the environment trash. For the Spirit of the Void promo, this card is Akash'Thriya's only means of completing mechanism C.
One with the Land (first effect): This card cannot move seeds that are already in the your trash to the environment trash. However, with this card in play whenever mechanism F is completed mechanism C can be completed automatically. This can substantially improve Akash'Thriya's late game as it will allow her to focus almost exclusively on accelerating mechanisms D, E, and F.
Location 4 (Seeds in environment trash):
Instantaneous Maturation (one-shot): As previously noted, this card can shuffle the environment trash into the environment deck.
Earth's Attunement (passive effect): At the cost of 2 HP this card can shuffle the environment trash into the environment deck at the end of your turn. This will not be worth using every round but can be useful once a few primordial seeds are in the environment trash or occasionally just to reshuffle the environment trash into the deck when a primordial seed is not on top.
Cultivation (power): This power let's you shuffle either 1 or all cards in the environment trash into the environment deck. As a general rule of thumb the more environment cards are in the environment trash the better shuffling just 1 seed into the environment deck is as an option. The power also causes you to play or discard the top card of the environment deck. As a result, if this power is used on an empty environment deck you can effectively cause any card in the environment trash to be played.
Primeval Germination (second effect): You can passively shuffle one Primordial Seed into the environment deck each round. Over time this will saturate the environment deck with primordial seeds. This works very well with Akash'Thriya's base power since that power can put one primordial seed into the environment trash each round and this effect can immediately get that primordial seed into the environment deck.
Location 5 (Seeds in the environment deck):
Accelerate Nature's Order (one-shot): This card helps get primordial seeds into play from the environment deck. When targets enter play they deal 3 damage to a target of your choice. Otherwise, Akash'Thriya deals herself 1 damage and destroys an environment card. The more primordial seeds are in the environment deck the higher the probability of a favorable outcome. In target rich environments like Enclave of the Endlings or Dok'Throath the odds of dealing 9 damage with this card are high.
As the Earth Turns: This card allows you to change each villain card play to an environment card play, at a cost of Akash'Thriya dealing herself 2 damage. This card only lasts one round. With primordial seeds in the environment deck, Akash'Thriya can turn this relatively high cost to her advantage.
Earth's Attunement (power): This power causes the environment to play a card and then lets you destroy an environment card. This not only speeds up the environment deck, but also potentially allows the heroes to trade out a harmful environment card for a less harmful one or even a primordial seed.
Cultivation (passive): Cultivation's passive effect speeds up the environment deck by causing you to either play or discard the top card of the environment deck at the end of your turn. As noted above, Cultivation's power does this as well.
Primeval Germination (first effect): The first time an environment card enters play each turn, if the top card of the environment deck is a primordial seed you can play it. Otherwise, you will generally want to discard the top card of the environment deck giving you an additional chance to end up with a primordial seed as the top card.
Rapid Growth (one-shot): Rapid Growth can be used to discard as many cards as it takes (up to a maximum of 6) until a primordial seed is on top of the environment deck (with damage to herself and another target as a side effect). Alternatively, Akash'Thriya can use this card to deal a certain amount of damage to herself and another target without factoring in what effect this has on her primordial seeds.
Location 6 (Seeds in play):
One with the Land (second effect): This effect redirects damage dealt by environment cards from any hero targets to primordial seeds. This not only provides excellent protection to other heroes but allows you to access your primordial seed destruction effects.
Verdant Explosion (one-shot): Primarily this card is a search card for Akash'Flora but it also has the additional benefit of allowing you to destroy any number of primordial seeds. For each seed destroyed this way, Akash'Thriya takes 1 damage but Akash'Flora regains 1 HP.
Thrashing Brambles: Thrashing Brambles increases dealt by primordial seeds which improves the damage dealing effects of Noxious Pod, Creeping Mold, and Vitalized Thorns. Additionally, the more primordial seeds there are in play the more damage this card's power can deal. The power can also be used on the primordial seeds themselves to trigger their on destruction effects.
Variant:
Spirit of the Void Akash'Thriya has 10 fewer HP than the base version. This version's power allows you either draw or play a card. This grants more speed and versatility than the base version. It then causes each primordial seed to deal 1 damage. This rewards keeping primordial seeds in play and is a very strong damage dealing option. The promo really benefits from One with the Land, Thrashing Brambles, and a well timed Scatter Seeds.
Weaknesses:
Effects that shuffle hero trashes into their decks can really be a setback for Akash'Thriya. Akash'Thriya deals herself a lot of damage, and she lacks the large scale healing of other self damaging heroes like Absolute Zero or NightMist. As such, Akash'Thriya's self damage generally outpaces her healing. Akash'Thriya requires a long set-up time to really get going; she can really struggle against damage race type villains like Iron Legacy. Additionally, her long set-up time can work against her in the games with the Vengeance or OblivAeon format. Akash'Thriya relies on her ongoing cards to accelerate her seed cycle and has no means of recovering destroyed ongoing cards. As such, ongoing destruction can be very problematic for Akash'Thriya.
Notable Matchup:
Against Akash'Bhuta, Akash'Thriya's many cards that can shuffle the environment trash into the environment deck can be used to flip the villain at will.
Team-ups:
-Akash'Thriya loves heroes who can mitigate or redirect her self damage or heal her: Argent Adept, Captain Cosmic, Tempest, Dr. Medico, Writhe, and The Sentinels make great allies.
-The Scholar appreciates the healing Akash'Thriya can provide, can protect Akash'Thriya from damage, and can shut down Akash'Flora's self damage for a round.
-Using Zealous Offense or Brig Teleported, Fanatic and La Comodora each have the ability to shut down Akash'Flora's self damage long term.
-When Creeping Mold is destroyed by Fanatic's End of Days, it can destroy End of Days leaving all other hero cards unaffected by its effect.
-Haka's Dominion can be very effective with Akash'Thriya in the game, due to the accelerated rate of environment cards being played and destroyed.
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