Welcome, Seekers! This week, we’ll be looking at some cards from the new Legendary Saga set that offer interesting synergies and intriguing deck concepts. Last week, Dan introduced you to Behemoth, the first of the new Legendary Heroes sure to offer a new level of possibilities to the game, overlapping the Good and Evil teams. These Legendary Heroes are so powerful, you won’t want to be the only Seeker caught without one!

Tao begins in your Legendary Hero pile, separate from your deck. Since you have to play Amulet of Tao to play him, and you can’t play a major hero in the same round you play Amulet of Tao, this basically makes him equivalent to a major hero. Amulet of Tao will take the same amount of space in your deck as a different major hero, making deck construction basically the same, but there is one key difference: Tao can be played either a Good or Evil deck. This means these powerful heroes are a must-have for any deck, regardless of what kind of Seeker you are!

You’ll want to keep Tao guarded by other, more expendable heroes. Just like with any big, bad boss, the goons fight first while Tao remains protected. While his 6 ATK and 4 DEF are formidable and the fact that he is unblockable allows him to move quickly across the board, his built-in combat action is so good you won’t want to risk losing him! Even the weakest of your heroes will pose a serious threat to your opponent while you can exhaust Tao to add 6 attacks to a combat, making him a hero that improves your entire deck. With Tao on your side, any of your heroes can become a force to be reckoned with.

A strong Seeker knows which Titans are the brawn and which are the brains. In the same way that we’ll be safeguarding Tao’s powers by keeping him close to zone 1, opposing Seekers are going to do the same with their best heroes. Tao makes all of your heroes into weapons capable of decimating your opponent’s forces and allows you to throw a wrench in even the strongest of strategies. For example, powerful heroes with weak stats, such as Fireblade or Akmen-Meo, won’t survive a combat, but left unchecked in one of your opponent’s low-numbered zones, they could offer him or her a serious advantage. Heroes that are unblockable can quickly swoop into those zones and start a combat to disrupt your opponent’s strategy, picking a fight with those smaller heroes. Though Tao is unblockable, featuring him in a deck that focuses on quick movement across the board will allow him to remain behind while heroes such as Solwing or Gareon take the offensive. Quick movement and potential threats will force your opponent to constantly second-guess which battles to fight, even though you’ll often put him or her in a situation without any good choices. Your opponent can’t outrun every hero in your deck, and with an extra 6 attacks available to any combat, any of your heroes will be strong enough to beat your opponent into submission.

Don’t trivialize the importance of giving your opponent a free card, though. The best Seekers know that every card is valuable, so remember that every card your opponent draws could be the most powerful Titan in his or her deck! When you play Amulet of Tao, your opponent draws a card—this is a fact that Tao’s strength in your deck will have to outweigh, and it doesn’t seem like he is going to disappoint. If his power was an exhaust action instead of a combat action, it wouldn’t be nearly as strong. Luckily for you, though, he’s as strong as they come. Because you wait until a combat is going on to use it, your opponent will be wary of starting any battle until you use Tao’s power. The best use of this power will likely involve moving a hero (probably an unblockable one, though Slipstream allows Evil decks a powerful way to move across the board) into a zone with several enemy heroes. If a Solwing KOs three heroes, it has more than done its job, and every hero in your deck will have that kind of potential strength.

This new Lok Lambert allows you to splice a different strategy into the deck: Bold Explorers. His synergy with other Bold Explorers brings a whole new level to a deck built around them, making his power to stop your opponent from drawing a free card just a bonus added to an already useful hero!

Follow Me allows for more focus on the theme of controlling movement on the board. Speed can be an effective strategy, allowing you to move into an advantageous position to cut the legs from under your opponent. If you can attack your opponent where he or she doesn’t want conflict, you can KO heroes that weren’t meant for combat. By using Lok Lambert’s built-in free action to move Freelancer, Bold Explorer into his zone, you’ll be able to abuse Freelancer’s exhaust action to continue movement toward your opponent’s weak spots.

You can move Lok Lambert into zone 3, use his free action to put Freelancer, Bold Explorer into zone 3 as well, and use Freelancer’s power to Ready Lok Lambert for another surge toward zone 5. You can also use this power to play free exhaust action cards, readying Lok Lambert to move if you don’t require speed. Either way, you’ll be moving much more quickly and at a much lower cost than other Seekers you’ll be facing.

Freelancer, Bold Explorer also allows you to splice another strategy into your deck: Freelancers. The original Lok Lambert from the Secrets and Seekers set is a powerful hero that allows even faster movement. His combat action allows you to put any Freelancer from your hand into play in his zone, again abusing the ability to move across the board and attack your opponent’s weak spots. Your opponents’ strongest powers will most often be held by their weakest heroes in terms of stats (unless they also have a copy of Tao!), and those are the heroes that will quiver in fear as your heroes sprint toward them.