Mage card "Cheat" is well named.

[brown29knight]

Cheat sets the cost of a random card to "0" for the next turn.

What they don't tell you is that zero becomes the base value of cards that have the "Strain" tag.

So basically you can play any card that increases in cost every time you play it, then use cheat to reset it's cost to zero. Next time you play it, it will be 1, then 2, etc, until you cheat again, and it's cost 0 all over again.

I just won with an infinite combo using this and two copies of Equilibrium to give infinite mana and card draw to my entire party.

[Hailspork]

I think other cost-changing artifacts and ability are bugged with strain cards. I had a similar situation with a sausage-themed artifact, but don't recall details.

[Goldtooth™]

From dev responses this seems to be intended mechanics.

[Konstanty]

This is in fact as designed. Regardless I have marked this down to be taken into account during the next balancing pass!

[brown29knight]

I didn't say it was an error, I was trying to help new players know about a power card that is easily overlooked.

[Konstanty]

Originally posted by brown29knight:

I didn't say it was an error, I was trying to help new players know about a power card that is easily overlooked.

Too late Just kidding! I misunderstood your initial post, thanks for the follow up :-)

[Scojbo]

The equilibrium/cheat combo is the sort of infinite combo that is hella cool but would take a lot of effort and potential risk to set up. I see no problems with this setup!

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by Scojbo:

The equilibrium/cheat combo is the sort of infinite combo that is hella cool but would take a lot of effort and potential risk to set up. I see no problems with this setup!

I have done it about 25% of the time with my mage builds.

You go for conduit Aura or Grit, get a few attacks that give status cards, then look for two copies of shuffle/equilibrium and 1-2 copies of cheat.

Play grit, play a card that gives you a status card.

Next turn you set up your infinite combo and win the battle. As you cycle through your deck, grit does damage every time the status card comes up, so you don't even need other players. If you DO have other players who can give you mana, you can do it all on the first turn.

The equilibrium version is extra strong, in that it gives your allies infinite card draw and mana as well, so the Archdemon can be ignored, as you can round robin forever.

The antipope is only slightly harder, but with good use of mana and card gain, it is easy to kill him 1st turn or get enough block that you are untouchable

Keep in mind that as you are already looking for cards that add status cards, this pairs well with a frost build, and if you are not getting the cards you need for one, you can branch to the other easily.