Welcome to Sentinels Spotlight! This series’ goal is to explore each of the unique decks available for play in Greater Than Games’ cooperative superhero card game, Sentinels of the Multiverse. This series will strive to introduce you to the hero, and then give you an overview on their deck – what it is made up of and some basic strategies so that you may sit down at the table and choose the deck that is the best fit for your play style.
The Virtuoso of the Void – a great musician with a powerful connection to the forces found within the natural order of the world. There has always been one, standing against the forces of chaos and destruction. The newest Virtuoso, Anthony Drake discovered his power by accident when he came into contact with the instrument of an ancient Virtuoso in a museum. After traveling to gather the rest of the ancient Vitruosos’ instruments and learn to control his new powers, Drake has stood as an agent of order and light against any number of dark and destructive forces.
The Argent Adept is another very interesting deck introduced in the Infernal Relics expansion. He, like Absolute Zero which we covered last time, carries a Complexity Rating of 3, making him one of the most difficult decks to play. He derives his ability from the power of music – and many of his cards make reference to music or use musical terms. Many of them also carry the Perform and/or Accompany keywords that we will discuss below. His main power is Vocalize which allows him to activate a single Perform text on one of his cards in play.
Most of The Argent Adept’s complexity comes from the fact that he is a very support focused deck. He doesn’t have a lot to keep himself out of harms way or deal a lot of direct damage and with only 24 hit points can’t stand up to a lot of damage himself. The bulk of his strategy comes from nine different ongoing cards. These nine cards are then further divided into three different types. Rhapsody of Vigor, Scherzo of Frost and Flame, and Sarabande of Destruction are his three Melody cards. Alacritous Subdominant, Inspiring Supertonic, and Cedistic Dissonant are his three Harmony cards. Finally Syncopated Onslaught, Counterpoint Bulwark, and Inventive Preparation are his three Rhythm cards. Going into what each of these cards can do individually could be a separate article of it’s own. Suffice to say that they allow the Argent Adept to do a wide variety of things at the table and slip in a variety of roles. He’s able to do things ranging from dealing small amounts of damage to destroying ongoing or environment cards, to healing and otherwise buffing the other heroes. He will never be as good at them as a hero dedicated to those kinds of abilities, but his versatility in being able to do as he pleases more than makes up for it. He has two copies of each of these nine cards. Melody cards only carry a Perform text while both the Harmony and Rhythm cards have an Accompany text in addition to the Perform text. Now, his main power only lets him utilize a single card’s Perform text, which is where his equipment comes into play
The Argent Adept also has six unique equipment cards in his deck – Telmon’s Lyra, Drake’s Pipes, Musaragni’s Harp, Eydisar’s Horn, Akpunku’s Drum, and Xu’s Bell, legendary instruments within the game world that allow him to activate the Perform and/or Accompany text of one or more of his ongoing cards, allowing him a dizzying array of options when his turn comes up if he has built himself up over the game. Especially since the Perform and Accompany texts are not powers themselves and so can be activated multiple times per turn if you are able to.
To get himself built up, The Argent Adept has some very useful one-shots. Instrumental Conjuration allows him to search his deck or trash for an instrument card and put it into play before drawing another card from his deck. Arcane Cadence allows him a fine degree of deck manipulation. He gets to look at the top five cards of his deck – put one on the top of the deck, one on the bottom, one in the trash, one into his hand, and one into play. Vernal Sonata heals each hero by one and allows every player to move one card from their trash (except Vernal Sonata) to the top of his deck. Silver Shadow allows The Adept to activate a card’s Accompany text, which is useful if you haven’t got any instruments on the table, but also allows you draw or play a card as well. Even if you have yourself fully kitted out, there are some very good Accompany effects, and this card allows them to be activated in addition to the one you could activate with your power. Finally Polyphoric Flare is a situational one-shot that allows The Adept to use a power in exchange for taking 2 energy damage. Considering Inspiring Supertonic’s Accompany text allows the Argent Adept to heal 2 hit points, you can utilize this card to get a free second power a few times during the game. Without it… well, it’s not quite as useful, especially with his lower than average hit point total, but can be useful in a pinch if you need the extra power or if you have other heroes capable of healing on the table. Pairing him up with The Sentinels can be very effective at keeping the entire table at tip top health, or free the Adept up to use his powers to buff his comrades in other ways.
Like Absolute Zero, The Argent Adept is very dependent on getting and keeping his ongoing and equipment cards on the table to maintain functionality. Villains that get their jollies destroy cards like those are quickly going to cause him some headaches. Four copies of Instrumental Conjuration allow him to get the equipment back out fairly quickly, but if you don’t have any in your hand, it can render some of your ongoing cards less effective. You still have Vocalize to fall back on, but that power only becomes partially useful when you have Harmony and Rhythm cards on the table. Still, if you can get yourself built up, you have an absolutely dizzying array of options to choose from when your turn comes around and it’s time to use of your power, making The Adept a lot of fun, if not also a little overwhelming to play. I haven’t found one tried and true strategy for playing him effectively because he can do so much that he can fill many different roles.
His nemesis, Akash’bhuta is also found in the Infernal Relics expansion and while only a Difficulty 2 villain, is a pretty harrowing challenge for most groups of heroes and will be discussed in his own article later.
Argent Adept Deck List
Akpunku’s Drum x1
Alacritous Subdominal x2
Arcane Cadence x4
Cedistic Dissonant x2
Counterpoint Bulwark x2
Drakes Pipes x1
Eydisar’s Horn x1
Inspiring Supertonic x2
Instrumental Conjuration x4
Inventive Preparation x2
Musaragni’s Harp x1
Polyphoric Flare x2
Rhapsody of Vigor x2
Sarabande of Destruction x2
Scherzo of Frost and Flame x2
Silver Shadow x2
Syncopated Onslaught x2
Telamon’s Lyra x1
Vernal Sonata x4
Xu’s Bell x1
And that was our look at The Argent Adept. Next week, we go back to the Base Set of the game for a look at the hero known as The Indestructible Bunker!
Ben Erickson
See, by contrast with Zero, I really like Argent Adept. He’s a ton of fun, but he sure earns that complexity rating. I love fitting together these sort of support-effect machines where one power triggers a second (and sometimes a third!), but he’s really hard to use if you’re trying to control another deck at the same time. It’s easy to lose track of what he’s doing.
Also by the way, Akash’bhuta is a her (or possibly an it), not a him. It’s the embodiment of Mother Earth.