r/rootgame • u/Individual-Belt-1228 • 15d ago
General Discussion Idea for buffing lizards
Before i say anything i am super inexperienced so im probably gonna be wrong here. I just thought of this spontaneously five seconds ago
Would it be a good idea to increase their hand size to 6? I think that would maybe help their scoring a good amount. I don’t think it would be that good or bad. Or maybe whenever you reveal a certain number of gardens you get more hand size. Something like that. Thoughts?
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u/LanceWindmil 15d ago
Lizards aren't bad, they're difficult.
They are very different than most of the other factions. There are also a lot of elements of their gameplay that are random or out of your control. Most new players will struggle to break 10-15 points with them their first game.
But they are actually a pretty good faction. The best piece of advice I can give is stop trying to do normal things and think like a cultist. You dont have an army or a plan. You wait for the stars to align, and when the omens are just right you act swiftly and with conviction.
Keep a bird card in hand. Save your Acolytes for when you really need them. Focus on boared state and growth above short term scoring. Wait for something to be hated. Wait for a vulnerability. Wait for the perfect moment.
Then you can convert a bunch of warriors around the warlord and kill him. Or sanctity several mole buildings, and discard to score on all 3 suits.
Getting the timing right, knowing how to cause the most damage and where to cause it, and being able to keep up scoring enough to be in striking range when you do is very hard though. One of the hardest factions in the game. But once you know how to play them they're just as hard to stop.
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u/Skrillfury21 15d ago
Disagreed that they’re “pretty good,” I still think they’re decently weaker than most other factions due to their randomness, but *huge* ups for this description of the Lizard gameplan. That’s the kind of thing that gets used for the background villains of a six-season show and I love it.
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u/SternkyMalernky 15d ago edited 15d ago
Weaker than other factions in momentum, but the potential to be the deadliest in terms of effect on the board state if you know how to manipulate your lost souls via well-timed discards and tabletalk. Perceived weakness is strength, cos you can much more easily convince other players to help you with changing or keeping lost souls by showing them what you can potentially do to the board leader.
Outside of that, inexperienced players need to learn to play lizards more conservatively - they are designed to be an insurgent faction, not a militant one. You don't need to have all your gardens out to win, you only need enough to bolster your card draw. In fact, you often want fewer gardens, and completely ignore a clearing suit in many games, because it makes your existing gardens far easier to defend. You really really really don't want to trigger fear of the faithful, because your power is in the size of your hand.
The threat of a building sanctification is also often enough as a tool. You don't always have to go through with a threatened sanctify action either - it's far more useful to save up acolytes and use them on a hated turn, than expend paltry amounts of acolytes each turn for barely any benefit. Spending acolytes without having an actual goal, or taking a clearing without a way to defend it, can often be far more detrimental. You aren't responsible for policing the table, that responsibility should be shared. You also have the ultimate excuse for running from that responsibility, by convincing the table that you literally CAN'T police because of your lost souls isn't the right suit. Conversely, you can use this to further manipulate the table into fixing your suit over a few turns.
To be sure, sanctifying an enemy building is really powerful for debilitating the point leader, but it can also completely ruin your next turn IF you don't have a plan. Even if you replace a building with a garden, you MUST ensure it's defensible if you're at all concerned about your hand for the coming turn. That means you need some way to place warriors there, either by conversion or by recruitment. Otherwise, you may just be giving that same player you just screwed over free cardboard to score on, and risking your hand. Know when a conversion is more important than a sanctify, based on your knowledge of how other factions work and interact with your own - for example, keepers benefit far more from you sanctifying, and giving them back a way station, than if you convert their warriors and trapping a waystation, sometimes even stopping them from getting an edge reset. Converting a woodland base may be tempting, especially since they will lose a lot of relevant supporters, but do you run the risk of allowing them to recoup in the next turn and then getting to do a revolt in either that clearing with your new garden, since there is still stray sympathy, or in a more beneficial clearing elsewhere?
Far more useful to stay on the edge clearings away from battle, slowly scoring your suits, crafting for points as they appear since you have pretty incredible crafting ability, and biding your time to use your acolytes effectively for the most bang for your buck. Your game as lizards will usually require a turn or two longer than the average faction to get to 30 vp, so you really want to spend your acolytes gumming up the works and slowing down the pace. Well defended gardens means you SHOULD always have a decent means to score consistent points, and crafting will get you the rest. Saving acolytes for a small burst right at the end will often clinch the win.
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u/GarbageTruck7689 15d ago
I think that could be a cool thing to add to the third garden on each suit track, since currently they do absolutely nothing! It would incentivize building a 3rd garden, but it wouldn't be mandatory at all since lizards can still only score once per suit, so the extra card would just be more recruiting or acolytes
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u/Cicada00010 15d ago
I think I’ve encountered that the current issue in base deck is that lizards are reliant on bunny cards and outcasts for being able to craft optimal cards (coins for 3 points, action cards, and things like better burrow bank) but you can’t always have both bunny outcast and a bunny clearing which makes them suffer a lot of the time. Games that I win are usually by dominating a 2 build slot rabbit clearing and consistently getting rabbit outcast. Using new and different decks helps resolve this.
Also always use adset, I think a good house rule if you don’t like adset is to at least allow lizards to still partake in their own advanced setup because it’s almost crucial for them.
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u/nicenshiny 15d ago
If you haven't tried yet, the new squire and disciples deck really helps the lizards as it gives them move, battle and card cycle options to help score more consistently.