A Gryo’s Guide to Luminary

A Villain’s Hero’s Guide to Luminary

Best Attack: Orbital Death-Laser
Best Team Support: “Consider the Price of Defeat!”
Best Personal Support: All According To Plan
Primary Damage: Toxic (Through All According To Plan) , Lightning (if playing Variant)
Secondary Damage: Melee, Energy, Fire, Projectile, Lightning
Most Situational Card: Backlash Generator
Nemesis: OblivAeon

Summary:
Luminary is a complexity one hero with 5HP Devices he uses for various functions. This guide is meant to give a good overview of what his cards do. Luminary has lots of options available to him through his Devices and On-Shots with his goal to trigger one of his three Doomsday Devices.

The Deck:
Devices (15 cards)
Backlash Generator x3
Disposable Defender x3
Regression Turret x3
Repair Nanites x3
Sabre Battle Drone x3

Devices, Doomsday (3 cards)
Explosive Reconstructor x1
Orbital Death-Laser x1
Terralunar Translocator x1

One-shots (20 cards)
Bared Blade x3
Brilliant Inventor x3
“Consider the Price of Defeat!” x2
Dangerous Vision x2
Hasten Victory x3
Technologically Stable x3
Timely Disruption x2
Triple Cross x2

Ongoing, Limited (2 cards)
All According To Plan x2

What’s a mad scientist to do (general strategy):
Like Captain Cosmic he will put out a lot of his targets through his power and card plays. Unlike Captain Cosmic and Unity and more like Tachyon he has an emphasis on his trash that through his Doomsday Device cards he uses it up for powerful affects. A major item to look for to help with this is All According To Plan and keeping it out can determine how quickly and how many Doomsday Device powers you may be able to trigger in a game. All According To Plan serves multiple purposes as it increases damage dealt by Devices, then as Devices are destroyed you can deal damage or add another card to your trash from top of deck. While building towards that goal you will need to determine what Devices are more helpful and which ones can be fodder that can be destroyed for those abilities. At worst if you no idea what else to play any Device from hand is never a bad idea.

Attack:
Most of Luminary’s damage is dealt by his Device cards. Of those Sabre Battle Drone is the only passive one where you don’t have to trigger it through a power or require another action to trigger. It has the option of destroying a device card you control to deal an additional three fire damage. Please note, if the Sabre Battle Drone destroys itself it doesn’t deal that fire damage. Through power uses Luminary can have the Devices Regression Turret, Orbital Death-Laser, and Explosive Reconstructor deal damage. I’ll talk about the Doomsday Devices later on. Regression Turret will hit three targets with the added benefit of reducing damage dealt by a target hit that way. Backlash Generator also passively deals damage but only as retaliation. If you have targets you don’t want dealt damage this can be a risky play since that damage is not optional. You can have some slight reliability of its damage when hits come at Luminary while Disposable Defender is in play. All According to Plan increases the damage dealt by Devices by one which is mostly often a boon. This card also represents the only consistent source of damage dealt directly by Luminary as it allows you to deal one toxic damage to a target if you don’t discard from the top of your deck instead. Bared Blade is the largest instance of damage Luminary deals himself at two melee damage along with his only method of an extra power use and a card draw. Typically you want to save that until you have multiple powers but the card draw is good for more options even if you don’t have an extra power. You could use with Devise in hope of getting a Device with a power out to use. Hasten Victory is the only multiple target damage dealt directly by Luminary and it allows for a blind card play from the top of the deck. Luminary doesnt have any negative card pays so if you don’t like your other options this is good choice.

Defense:
Defense comes entirely from, you may have guessed already, Devices. Being low HP targets any Luminary Device will take attacks hitting the lowest HP targets. Of those devices Disposable Defender will redirect any damage dealt to Luminary into itself. Disposable Defender is also one way to guarantee Backlash Generator will trigger. If you have multiple Disposable Defenders in play, as they aren’t limited, you distribute damage between them. They can be fragile in attacks hitting all targets as one has to take Luminary’s along with what would hit them normally. Repair Nanites will keep Luminary or multiple Devices healthier. Between Disposable Defender and Repair Nanites Luminary can be a capable tank in lower H games.

Utility:
Luminary’s Base power tries to get Devices in play and fills up his trash. These odds change as you go through the deck but overall these are the odds of how many devices you will get from each use:
2 devices: 20%
1 device: 50%
0 devices: 30%

Brilliant Inventor accomplishs a similar feat but it shows four cards and these are the odds of getting 0-4 Devices:
0 devices: 7%
1 device: 29%
2 devices: 39%
3 devices: 21%
4 devices: 4%

Timely Disruption allows the destruction of up to three Ongoing/non character card Devices which allows you to get rid of nasty villain affects along with him been able to counter his own Baron Blade counterparts. Since it doesn’t have to be villain cards destroyed specifically you can target your own stuff for more card draw. Dangerous Vision allows you to search for All According To Plan or any Doomsday Device from trash or deck meaning you can get access to those when you need them at the cost of destroying one of your Devices. Disposable Defender through a power and Technologically Stable grant you recovery of any Devices in your trash and gets them into play. “Consider the Price of Defeat!” helps out the team with health for all hero targets and extra cards along with putting a card to your discard pile for those Doomsday Devices. Lastly, Triple Cross will destroy multiple targets at 5 or less health along with forcing a target to deal itself damage. It does have a cost of one hero non character card but still works even if that can’t happen. It can also be used to dispose of your own Devices if needed as they are 5HP targets.

How do I want to end the world:
As Luminary you want to show off your Doomsday Devices but which one to use can always be a tough choice as they provide different benefits.

Explosive Reconstructor - On the surface this may seem like the weakest of the Doomsday Devices but I moreso see this as setup for the next turn or a longer game. For the next round setup you want Dangerous Vision in hand and All According To Plan in play. That next turn you can destroy most or all of your Devices in play with Dangerous Vision and with each one destroyed discard from deck with All According To Plan to power up a different Doomsday Device. For a longer game with these Devices out you’ll likely be able to tank and heal through Disposable Defender and Repair Nanites. With all those devices put you have fodder for extra damage from Sabre Battle Drones. Its also another method of recovering the other Doomsday Devices from your trash. Lastly, with Heroic Luminary this is more potent since her base power will be further boosted for that round and for however long the Devices remain in play.

Orbital Death-Laser - This is the primary finisher for Luminary as it converts your trash directly into damage on a single target. What’s nice about this card is that the Device is dealing the damage so you can play that turn then activate it’s power for damage even if Luminary is prevented from dealing damage. If this isn’t dealing the final blow to the villain or close it on a villain character card then likely you probably want Terralunar Translocator

Terralunar Translocator - This Doomsday Device is for when there are problems that can’t be fully dealt with through damage or multiple targets need to be dealt with. At minimum you have seven non character cards in play that can be destroyed. This has the level of power of Cedistic Dissonance where card types like Scion and Diversion which heroes normally can’t destroy without going through a villain affect can be destroyed to help out the team.

Some additional tricks with Doomsday Devices. If Luminary can manage to destroy a Doomsday card midway though the power use you do not have to shuffle his trash into deck allowing to trigger another Doomsday Device. Here a few methods to do that:
- Wrest the Mind on Explosive Reconstructor or Orbital Death Laser - Redirect damage so that Visionary will destroy the Doomsday Device.
- Autonomous Blade on Explosive Reconstructor or Orbital Death Laser. You can have the construct destroy the Doomsday Device assuming it’s at 2 health.
- After destroying all the non-hero cards you want to with Terralunar Translocator, destroy Bee Bot, or a Stuntman/Mainstay card that will let you destroy Terralunar Translocator.
- Have Terralunar Translocator destroy a device and then destroy it with damage from All According To Plan

Weaknesses:
- Any villain or affect that causes Luminary to shuffle his trash into his deck basically counters any Doomsday Device Power he might want to use. Proletariat’s incap is an example of that.
- All According To Plan increases damage dealt by any card with the Device Keyword so any Device Card that directly deals damage will have their damage increased by the villain or environment.
- While Luminary does not have as much attachment to his Devices not being able to keep any play due to villains regularly hitting all targets if you don’t have All According To Plan out can put a net in your plans or ability to contribute.
- Beyond the power on Terralunar Translocator Luminary has no other ability to deal with non-target environment cards.
- Luminary only has one Ongoing Card in his deck which is limited and no equipment. This is a negative as it means he can’t contribute toward protecting other hero cards in play but it does mean equipment/ongoing destruction like That Card has minimal impact on him.
- A lot of Luminary’s damage through his deck are smaller instances so DR can shut down a lot of it. All According To Plan at least let’s his Device cards overcome DR.

Team-ups:
- Luminary is not a major damage dealer himself without specific Devices so being teamed up with more damage focused heroes can give him the time for a Doomsday Device.
- Visionary's base power is well suited to Luminary as it not only draws him cards but also fills his trash.
- Extra powers and plays can both be used to accelerate Luminary's gameplay to great effect. Therefore, Argent Adept and Capitan Cosmic make good teammates for Luminary.
- Tempest and Legacy both have powers that heal all hero targets, this greatly improves the survivability of Luminary's devices.

Interesting Matchups:
- Vengeance Baron Blade: If playing Advanced Baron Blade, his advanced text applies to Luminary’s Devices as well. With Disposable Defender in that game Luminary is very hard to damage let alone anything else you have in play. You can
- Omnitron: Playing against base Omnitron the game won’t end until not only are Omnitron’s Device cards destroyed but the ones played by Luminary as well. You do have ability to destroy your own Devices through Terralunar Translocator, Triple Cross, Timely Disruption, and Dangerous Vision.
- Ambuscade: Beware of Charged Attacks as it will trigger off the destruction of Luminary’s Devices
- Mordengrad: The Conscripted Engineer will heal Luminary's devices. Device Assembly Line can play devices for you. Blackhole Generator becomes very dangerous.
- Heroic Luminary: Any villains or environments which use Devices count towards the damage on her power.

Note: Special thanks to Dandolo for providing notes and information for this guide from one they were preparing that I incorporated into this.