Swordmaster : Almost mandatory ? And yet i never find the time to get it.

[mikusama]

When i can get it early i prefer to get some alliances or i simply don't have that much interesting cards to play. When i can get it late i feel like it's not worth the investement, and i think it really hinders my play. Like in general, i tend to ignore high council and all the green zones, i think i play them maybe 10 % of the time.

[spike2071]

I am no expert, but I tend to go for high council before swordmaster. In the beginning your cards are poor, and if you don't have good cards, then swordmaster is less important. And I agree that it's not worth it late.

But once you start collecting good cards (and trashing some of the starter ones), then swordmaster becomes powerful. The first few rounds I concentrate on building up my deck and maybe winning a combat with minimal investment that no one really wanted. A turn spent going to the Great Flat or Hagga Basin (with +1 spice), and then hitting Sell Melange can net you the Swordmaster at the start of your next turn.

But if you're winning without the swordmaster, then don't listen to me. :) I'm also curious what other people think about the topic.

[View The Phenom]

Swordmaster ASAP is normally the better play. I wouldn't say it's mandatory, but winning will be harder without it.

High Council seems like something you grab if there's extra Solari, but I can't imagine picking it before Swordmaster is taken.

[coryanderson8]

I thought so too, but just played an online match and someone smoked us without ever getting the swordsmaster, they were at about 8 or 9 VP while the rest of us were 3-5, they did end up winning too without ever getting it

[Ice-Nine]

I almost always win the game without ever grabbing Swordmaster. High Council is definitely way better IMO.

High Council is always helpful, every game, every Leader, every time. Getting an early jump on the good Imperium cards is huge. Swordmaster is highly situational. Oftentimes when I do grab Swordmaster, I end up never actually using the third agent because revealing my cards is more valuable than playing another one.

Swordmaster is best if you're focusing on a very Conflict-heavy strategy, because it allows you to place Troops a third time, potentially after everyone else has already revealed. It helps you get the final word in Conflicts. But even then, with four players and the limited number of spaces that produce Troops, it's still very likely that a third agent isn't going to increase your Troop count anyway. Or, like I said, the card you were about to play might be worth more Troops by revealing instead of playing as an Agent.

Swordmaster does work much better if you pair it with a decent amount of card draw, like if you're playing Paul Atreides or leaning heavily into Bene Gesserit.

Swordmaster has its place, but it's kind of a niche place, and I think High Council is just inherently way better. By a lot. My two cents.

[Sylastin]

yeah I like High Council more and even got 3 but sometime I have to skip 1 swordmaster to get card i want :))

[noctilucus]

Swordmaster indeed works well when you have a good use for an extra turn - which almost means you'll need high council to improve the quality of your draws, or you have an inherent card drawing ability (e.g. Paul)

But if you don't manage to get swordmaster early, it's often no longer worth it and you're better off using the mentat, with the additional angle of taking that extra turn late which means limited spaces to choose from but also having much better insight into what other players have done (especially useful to decide whether to go all-in on combat or not). For the price of the swordmaster, you can hire the mentat 4 times, at least if it's available.

[Binjie]

I almost always get swordmaster

[Trolleur_Durden]

Originally posted by mikusama:

When i can get it early i prefer to get some alliances or i simply don't have that much interesting cards to play. When i can get it late i feel like it's not worth the investement, and i think it really hinders my play. Like in general, i tend to ignore high council and all the green zones, i think i play them maybe 10 % of the time.

Swordmaster's worth is tied to various factors:

-Progress of the game: much like any kind of upgrade, like High council or simply getting new cards, Swordmaster's worth is tied to the progress of the game, in the sense that the sooner you get it, the better, because you have more time to profit from it. Paying 8 Solaris and one action in order to gain two actions down the line is probably not an efficient move. Overall, I would say it's worth to get it until turn 6 or so, and in most games, everyone will be able to get it before that limit. However, there are some games that are slower than others, which usually happens when there's not many Victory Points as combat rewards, so the decision to take Swordmaster should also be weighted by the overall amount of VP around. If it's turn 6 and someone is already at 8 or 9 VP, it's probably too late for that, whereas if it's turn 7 and there's no one above 5 VP, you can probably still go for it and expect a 9/10 turn game.

Another advantage of getting Swordmaster as early as possible is to benefit from a better 3rd action, because the board will be less crowded. If you are the first to get your Swordmaster, you will have much more spaces available for your 3rd action, whereas if you get it last, you might find yourself left with spaces with very little impact, because there's up to 11 other agents on the board already, and some one-time spaces like High Council and Swordmaster aren't relevant for anyone anymore.


-Quality of your deck: obviously, if your deck is packed with good cards, having more actions will be much more beneficial. There's a caveat to that in the sense that if you get Swordmaster too early (it's possible to get it turn 2 sometimes), then by the sole virtue of playing a 3rd card, your reveal phase will be a bit weaker, which will certainly reduce the quality of your deck down the line.

-Leader: some leaders will profit more from Swordmaster than others. The most obvious example is Helena: being able to infiltrate blue spaces makes Swordmaster really strong with her, by allowing you to go Carthag or Sietch Tabr with your 3rd action. Besides her, leaders with a strong ring ability like Beast, Baron or Ariana will also benefit a bit more from Swordmaster.

-Strategy: Swordmaster is almost mandatory if you are leaning towards combat and are considering competing for the 2 VP combat rewards that can appear on tier 3 conflicts, because having a 3rd action allows you to react to other players involvment in combat, whereas having only 2 actions means that everyone else with a Swordmaster will have the last word over you and the opportunity to overbid you.


So all in all, I would say that Swordmaster, while not being strictly mandatory, is one of the most straightforward paths to victory to pursue, and should be considered a standard game objective most of the time.

[FericJaggar]

It was debated a lot since the game is out, in 2020. But after thousands of games, players noticed it's not mandatory (same as for High Council), for the reasons ppl mentioned above : you have less cards on reveal, it depends of timing of the game, etc.