I just dont get fanatic

Hello,

 

I was wondering if you could help my understand how to play fanatic. Every time I pick up her deck, I end up sitting through the game wondering what I should be doing. I've played both regular and promo (and i prefer promo) but i just dont seem to get her.

 

 

A little background on me. Ive been playing MTG on and off again for a little over 10 years, so Im not stranger to card games and card interaction. My favorite hero to play is Nightmist and Abz. 

 

But Fanatic just seems to escape my comprehension. I always feel like I could be doing more or better, but I just cant think of what. 

For a guide check out Flamethrower's set of guides, the Fanatic one is good and a different style than I play her.

Fanatic is my favorite Hero to play.  She feels like you are just recklessly flinging yourself into battle and smiting everything until you can't smite anymore, then resurecting to resume the smite.

My moto for Fanatic is:  "The best offense is a strong offense, the best defense is an even stronger offense."

My advice for playing her:  "Don't fear death."

Fanatic has a ton of situational cards, but almost every one of them is epic when their time comes.  Two main playstyle changes are between when you are facing lots of minions and when you are facing one big enemy.

Zealous Offense is Huge in a minion heavy game.  There are a lot of ways to deal the three damage to keep it out, but the first turn is always the hardest since you don't get a one-shot to do damage with.  It is important to remember the many cards that can work to get you that three damage to get Zealous rolling.  

Absolution being in play for your power or an ally getting you a +1 to your base power are the easiest ways.  But also any card that deals damage at the start or end of your turn works well too.  With Divine focus you can discard to start your turn, then let focus destroy itself and you only have 1 daamge left to make up the three recquired, same with Chastise (dealing damage to yourself is still dealing damage).  Embolden on yourself works wonders, since not only do you deal yourself 2 damage at turn end (which if it is in play first is before Zealous Offense would destroy itself) but it gives you a second power to deal damage.  Embolden is probably the best way for Redeemer Fanatic to keep Zealous out, since it lets her use her base powr to heal and draw while still dealing damage to keep Zealous out.

The last is Sacrosanct Martyr.  An incredibly situational card, but remember damage you deal yourself counts, so if the enemies are taking -1 damage you can deal yourself 2 damage, another target 1 and 3 damage has been dealt.

Vs. one big villain Divine Focus is huge, since it can really turn out some serious damage, esp. with some +damage boosts, which also will let Undaunted reduce the upkeep cost.  Unless it has big implication outside of just dealing damage resist discarding cards that give you draws.  Prayer is the best card to keep, esp if you are going to keep focus around.  Empty your hand and then fill it back up, losing your turn hurts, but you are doing it for 6 discards for Divine Focus.  This has the great effect of burning your deck really quick, helping you find the crowning jewel of Fanatic's deck, Wrathful Retribution.

The last card I'll go on about is Sacrosanct Martyr, while not a great go-to power, it has some great uses.  Remember the motto, Sacrosanct Martyr is awesome for killing those targets that your team can't quite kill.  At that point think about the trade off, if that target is going to do a good amount of damage, play villain cards or destroy stuff there's a good chance that sacrificing your HP to take that effect off the board is a win for your team.  Sometimes Chastise is a better option, since you can just lock it in play, where it can't deal damage or go to the trash and come back out.  As an example:  Hired Gun is a great target for Chastise, where the Contract is a better target for Martyr. (assuming you can't otherwise dispose of them and had both available)

The last piece of advice for Fanatic is Visionary.  Fanatic and Visionary are wicked together, two goddesses of combat both with a healthy disregard for death, they work well together, shutting down and redirecting villain damage, Visionary can search Fanatics deck for Retribution, and get back ongoings (which is awesome with Fanatic) and most of all: Twist The Ether.  Twist is insane on Fanatic.  lower the cost of Chastise or Embolden, boost her base power to 2+2, and change Chastise or Divine Focus' start of turn cost to radiant, which of course chains awesomely with Martyr. (since martyr deals damage equal to all the radiant Fanatic has taken that turn)

If you are looking at your hand and it feels like you have epic cards and nothing to do, well that is because of the situational aspect of her cards.  Don't be afraid to get cards in play before they are needed.  Zealous you want out early, since it doesn't take effect for a round after you play it.  Divine Focus is strong, but it is the opposite, play it whenever the villain isn't going to just heal back to full or reduce the damage to 1, because there isn't a "right" time to play it.  The biggest thing is to let go of trying to play her right and just jump in with the most smiting you can.

Edit:  forgot something, remember as Fanatic you have the best heal in the game, if you play to stay high HP you will never use it.  Think of Divine Sacrifice, you eat damage for your team, you end up low HP, but low HP is fine or Fanatic, slap down Aegis and allow yourself to heal.  Taking 16 damage using sacrifice that would otherwise hit all four heroes for 4 each is a good deal when you can get 10 of that back later.  No one else gets to run out of HP to heal awesomely, don't be afraid to use it.

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will reply shortly

Ok, I guess you covered it all pretty well. I wouldn't say she has the BEST healing in the game, though. The Scholar heals like nobody's business. Plus there's Dr. Medico. He exists solely to heal.

Granted, Medico isn't OUT yet, but The Scholar is, at least.

That's generally how I play her, and it very seldom seems to work for me.  She ends up dead half the time, and only once has a game been won afterward.

Divine Focus is huge, since it can really turn out some serious damage, esp. with some +damage boosts, which also will let Undaunted reduce the upkeep cost.

IIRC, Divine Focus deals 2 damage to you, and Undaunted only works on 5+, so that would have to be a LOT of +damage.

remember as Fanatic you have the best heal in the game

coughScholarcough

Divine Focus deals 4 damage to you. Not sure that's worth basing a strategy around, although it would still be enough damage to keep Zealous Offence out, even if you couldn't deal any other damage for some reason.

Also as far as healing goes:

*coughNightMistcough*

Sacrosanct Martyr is pretty good for getting Zealous Offence out.

Anyway, Fanatic's deck is basically a mix of aggro and lockdown, and her big weaknesses are damage reduction and the Ennead.

At least Tempest isn't selfish with his healing.

Divine Focus only deals damage to yourself after you've had it out for a round,  by then, the damage is usually done.   I play a more conservative style Fanatic,  I rarely use her powers of sacrificing herself and try to keep her alive just as you would any other hero.  Ultimately you build towards a big hand of cards so you can dish out damage with either Divine Focus or Wrathful Retribution.   You can read the guide I wrote here for a more detailed explaination.   

 

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/fanatic-guide

By best heal in the game I meant one card.  No one else has a single heal as reliably potent.  Recovery (nightmist) is up there, but only with more than 20 cards in someone's trash (usually her own).  I find it much more common to use Aegis than Recovery being a massive heal.  Also I see a lot of Recovery used when it isn't needed, Aegis tends to help a lot when you do need health.

 

The big think with Fanatic's sacrificing HP is to make sure the benefit outweighs the cost, much like Nightmist with Amulet Fanatic is an economic character.

When using sacrifice or Martyr you need to analyze the situation for the cost and benefit.  If you have a group heal on the field it makes no sense for one hereo ta take all the damage instead of spreading it out.  If other heroes have reduction it might not make sense either, since you are increasing total damage taken.

Same with Chastise, it often works best when you have a big damage minion mixed in with a bunch of little minions and you can't clear them all, you chastise the big one and the team kills the little ones, then let Chastise expire and kill the big one.  You don't want to slap it on something that your team can kill, (unless there is another reason to just shut it down)  One of my favorite matches Cosmitron started with an EPE and two railguns in play.  we couldn't kill both, but Fanatic had Chasitse.  We sat on that EPE being Chastised till Visionary played Wrest the Mind on it, then we let Chastise expire and nuked everything.  It was pretty cool.  We've also used Chastise on something that was wrested to give Vis a break from damaging herself to get a projection or cocoon in play.

 

Playing Fanatic with no fear of death doesn't mean risking death for no good reason.  If you are taking damage without saving your team from more damage than you aren't helping, you are weakening the team.  The exception to this is if you have retribution in hand and can set up to finish the match, then by all means go crazy and win.

this wasnt brought up but just in case…

divine focus is at the start of /every/ turn. your teammates. the environment. the villain.

first few times i played fanatic i didnt realize this. upon doing so she went from eh ok? to holy crap in a 3 hero game with some decent card draw thats 5 sources of damage in one round! just from one hero, plus her two base!

even onr damage boost and youre skyrocketing into damage

just throwing that out there

Yeah.

Also, Chastise and Zealous Offense are really powerful as well. When you are against villains like Dawn or La Capitan, where she has numerous hard-hitting villains, you can CONSISTENTLY shut down their damage, turn after turn. Pick the 2 that do the worst (Winter and Assault/Battery, Battle Forged, Final Breath, L'Episte, and Siege Breaker)and as long as you keep hitting SOMETHING, they can't deal damage. At all. It's great. Plus, when you DON'T want to kill certain things, you can Chastise them; not only can  you not accidentally kill them (great for Dawn!) but they can't touch you, either.

Also, its ok if she just isnt for you. Visionary is very powerful, but i cant stand playing her. Expat (base) is regarded as a weaker hero, but she is the most fun for me. styles and different heroes is part of the design

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I agree with that as well. I have friends who can't play Argent Adept, and I don't enjoy Ra, and it took me forever to understand Haka, of all people.

Fanatic is probably the hero I like playing the least - I've not played her that many times, admittedly, but I often find that I'm not really sure of my strategy when I do play her. My partner, on the other hand, really likes playing her and especially likes Redeemer Fanatic. She can be very cool, with the obvious game-finisher of Wrathful Retribution. Doing something like an End of Days against Akash'Bhuta (when she has a load of limbs out and her damage is increased) is epic fun as well ;).

I think maybe she's just the "wrong kind of complicated" for me, for want of a better way of putting it - I'm fine with pretty much every other hero and the Adept is probably my favourite so playing someone with a million different card interactions isn't the problem. I think it's just that I can't really get into her rhythm so much, sort of thing - she hits herself a lot, but can't heal herself nearly as reliably as Nightmist. Stuff like that. I think she just doesn't quite fit with the way my brain works, that's all ;).

I somewhat like Fanny, I'm just not very good with her.  The one I dislike playing the most is Finest Legacy...win percentages go way up with him in the game, but I find it utterly boring to be the one who has to pilot him.  Yet I've seen several people say it's fun to be him.  So yeah, totally difference of playstyles.  One guy I know loves being Fanatic and is way more effective with her than I am.

Fanatic is my favorite character interstingly enough.  I found awp's guide in the flamethrower guide link incredible.  I find her great with Legacy and I play her all about damage and recklessness.  I think people who don't enjoy Fanatic as much analyze her moves too much.  With her I find that going with your gut and not putting the most though in it is the best strategy.

Um, I'm hoping Christopher won't mind it. but I sort of copy pasted his Fanatic guide/comment thingo, and I want to post it here (Can't seem to find it anymore...I copy pasted it onto a word file months ago -___-)

 

Here's my Fanatic strategy:
She has lots of little one-shots that also allow her to draw a card.  Play those ASAP.  Sure, use Holy Nova and Final Dive situationally (such as when there are large groups of opponents, or when there is a single target hanging out with 4 HP.  Especially use Final Dive on a Gene-Bound Guard - no reducing damage for you!), but the main things you want to get to fast are "Absolution", Embolden, and Sacrosanct Martyr.  Are you getting a plus 1 to all your damage, from Legacy, Ra, [redacted], or even maybe an Obsidian Field? Sweet!  That makes Sacrosanct Martyr even better, as you can deal yourself 6 damage to output 7!
Now, blow yourself up.  Since you've had a focus on drawing cards, you can easily get to at least one Aegis of Resurrection.  Don't bother putting it into play until you're under 10 HP, as if it goes out earlier, it might get destroyed by a Villain or Environment card.  Oh, also, hang on to End of Days for terrible situations (like a handful of minions and two spaceships from Voss, a pile of Citizens including Anvil and Truth from Dawn, or all of the Underbosses from The Chairman).  And keep any Consecrated Ground cards for popping the significant threats - it's one of the stronger ongoing/environment destruction cards since it also deals damage.
But your key focus?  You want to feel the burn!  Sacrosanct Martyr will quickly get you at not the highest HP, which means you won't be taking a TON of damage from the Villain or Environment.  Once you're the lowest HP, that's a bit more of a threat, but still, not too much, and you want it at that point.  "Absolution" gives you a +1 to HP, which you certainly want.  Embolden lets you use 2 powers and hurts you for 2, both of which you want.  Sometimes, it's correct to put Embolden on a different hero, but usually it's for you, between your strong innate power, "Absolution"'s power, and Sacrosanct Martyr's power.
So!  Now, you've been doing a TON of damage.  You've been hitting a lot of targets, giving yourself and your teammates occasional healing, taking out massive groups of threats with End of Days and individual hard to deal with cards with Consecrated Ground.  You've even tossed around some annoying targets with Final Dive and once in a while skip the bulk of your turn to draw up to full with Prayer of Desperation.  Sure, you might go into Divine Focus mode for a turn or two, but usually, you're better off hanging on to those cards.  Even Chastise is handy for when an Electropulse Explosive or The Kraken shows up.
This strategy alone is SOLID.  You don't NEED HP - they are just another resource.  However, this strategy is not even finished.  There's one more delicious piece: Wrathful Retribution.  Even without that major beat-down of a card, you're doing a great job.  But when you turn it over and the villain has under 30 HP, that's Game Over folks.  You take yourself down as close to 1 HP as possible fearlessly, since your Aegis will give you a second chance if you overshoot.  And then you deal damage like only a self-righteous avenging angel can.
So, in short, she's a slow burn.  She has lots to do along the way, but between all her "draw a card" cards and Prayer of Desperation, you CAN get to what you need.
Thoughts?
 

Yeah Drakossozh!

That is pretty much how I play her.  It is crazy fun and it works.