Lizard Cult - How to Play - Root

[@chazzerine7650]

I really like it when someone shows an actual example on the board for every ability that a faction has. Personally, it just really helps me go from being stumped, to fully understanding something. Don't ever change this method of example :)

[@nitrorev]

I really appreciate that! Yes, I teach boardgames all the time and I find showing people a physical demonstration works way better than just explaining verbally without visual aid.

[@CAMPANELLO]

This video took me from being confused about the Lizards to actually thinking I maybe possibly sorta understand how to use them. Thanks so much!

[@nitrorev]

Glad it was helpful! They're a very fun faction once you get the gist.

[@MrXmancruz3056]

For the life of me I couldn't understand the lizards. After watching this video everything made sense . Great explanation

[@nitrorev]

Glad the video was helpful!

[@lesserlobster8336]

Recently I've been getting into Root and it's great to see that there are still people making content for it! Great video, as I've always been foggy on Lizard Cult, and you've explained it very well. Keep up the good work 👍👍

[@nitrorev]

That's really great to hear. Yeah there's still a big community of Root enthusiasts. The more you play the more the more this will become apparent but the strategy and depth of Root is endless so even though the game came out a few years ago, I predict people will be playing Root for a long while! Also a new expansion will release very soon and that will draw a lot of renewed interest which the community is very excited about!

[@SFuruli]

Replying to 00:30. A lot of players seem to believe this, but the Lizard Cult is in fact not a religion. They do not worship a dragon god. There is no mention of either religion or a god in the Law, Learning to Play, or back of the Lizard's board. They do however serve dragon *lord*. The Lost Souls icon in Root Digital was rectified to show living animals instead of dead spirits, because Root uses the definition of soul that means "a breathing creature". And that's what the Lizard Cult collects; living, breathing creatures of the Woodlands (cards) who have been discarded by other factions who found no use for them. These discarded creatures have not died, but instead form an Outcast which turn to the Cult to exact their revenge upon the other factions. Depending on which creatures make up most of the Outcast (step 1 in Birdsong), it dictates where the Cult can perform it's actions. Cole says in his design diary that the Lizard Cult had religious inspiration, but ended up as a "politically ambitious cult".

[@faxanadu13]

I’ve been into root a long time and watched hours of Root videos because it’s my absolute favorite game. I didn’t realize how new this channel is. Love these videos and very comprehensive teaching. Had to subscribe for more!

[@nitrorev]

Hey! Glad to have you around! It's my favourite game too and seems to be growing in popularity by the month. I'll be posting more videos soon that will be geared at more seasoned players eventually. For now I wanted to focus on onboarding new players to the Marauder factions and slowly working through the most complex faction like the Lizard Cult. Stay Tuned!

[@5hrsbefore1998]

this is honestly a flawless perfect teach. your enemy turns set up perfectly to show the next lizard turn/actions. well done :)

[@VirgilCummings]

This is actually the best how to play a faction video ive seen yet. Keep em comin!!

[@nitrorev]

That's so nice of you to say! I'll make more soon once I can actually find a quiet time to film.

[@Thungon]

Very well organized and planned! Lizards rise up!

[@nitrorev]

GLORY TO THE ALMIGHTY DRAGON!!!!!!!

[@laytonfoster5057]

Fantastic video. Gonna be playing the lizards for my first time with my friends tonight and this is super helpful. Thank you!

[@laytonfoster5057]

update: we were all crushed by my friend who's never played before. lots of fun though!

[@lucianite0]

Your explanations are always super clear. Glad you've been explaining the difference between vanilla and erratad as well.

[@brianbyrd45]

Love your channel and content. Very thorough explanations and entertaining to watch, even if you already know the rules. Very well done to see their turn using examples. Would love to see more factions!

[@nitrorev]

Thanks so much for the kind words. I will definitely do more factions but I'm also dipping my toes into strategy guides as well. Stay tuned...

[@cpewts]

Just getting into Root recently and I love your videos! Thank you!

[@83738572239]

this is a great video... NetroRev... you rock.

[@bruceyofthesea1564]

Great explanation video! Can’t wait to play these lizards

[@PapiRigatoni]

Great video! I’ve been scared to play Lizards when they’re dealt to me so I skip them most of the time, but now I think I actually want to play them :D

[@nitrorev]

They're very fun! Both the rules and strategy of this faction are somewhat unintuitive but once you grasp it it's a really fun and thinky faction. Glady video inspired you to give them a try!

[@PapiRigatoni]

@@nitrorev been playing them on the mobile version to practice and they’re really interesting. Can’t wait to see how I do against our group!

[@TheBlopster]

Getting good vibes from this video, thank you!

[@nitrorev]

Glad to hear it!

[@marloncardoso1976]

Great explanation! Also, i just really love your commentary for the thematic ties related to the actions

[@nitrorev]

Thanks so much! Yeah I feel like some of these faction have such clever links between theme and their mechanics.

[@bgt2701]

LOVE your content!!!!!!!!! Another trick I do with dominance swap while playing lizard is that, let's say I want to try my best to lock the suite to mouse, even if I do have a mouse card in hand, I will swap that mouse card for a mouse dominance to score, so that, there's 2 mouse cards in the lost soul pile instead of one.

[@nitrorev]

This is a great thing to be aware of. I will say that we should be dom swapping no matter what, regardless of what it does to the Lost Souls. This is because in very competitive games, your opponents will know how important dominance cards are for you and will try to keep them away from you somehow. This could involve taking them and locking them into the decree or just holding them in their hand indefinitely. Because of this, we need to dom swap every opportunity we have because leaving a card in the dominance area for even 1 turn could be disastrous as they are vital to our strategy. Of course, if our opponents aren't paying attention to us, we could get away with selectively dom swapping to influence the lost souls but a good Lizards opponents will just take any dom card they can.

[@seanl.1659]

amazing amazing! will definitely come back to this video when I next play with or against this faction.

[@nitrorev]

Thanks buddy! I made this video partially for you and the boys! Hope you guys enjoy these Lizzie bois!

[@illya-litkin]

Great explanation, thanks! Before this video we had wrong understanding of some abilities mechanics

[@nitrorev]

You're very welcome! Lizards are quite counter intuitive so I'm happy this was helpful

[@gugusalpha2411]

I've played my first game of Root 2 days ago, and as soon as I saw the dumb looking lizards, I knew what I was gonna be playing. That might have been a bad idea, this faction is really hard ! I still love their gameplay though. I made sooo many mistakes that your video highlights, haha. It was a very thorough explanation, thank you so much !

[@nitrorev]

Glad it was helpful. They're definitely a tricky faction to wrap your mind around. The digital app helps a lot with this.

[@LadyRamkinFP]

You are clearly much better at Root than I am, and obviously much more familiar with the rules, but something that I think is very important to know about Lizards, is that (in my opinion) they are the race that is most easily able to achieve a dominance victory. Being able to drop / convert warriors anywhere without rule, revenge making it much easier to defend and reinforce and pilgrims ensuring that every single Lizard piece must be removed to clear their rule means that once entrenched it can be nearly impossible to shift them in time. Once I figured this out, Lizards transitioned from being a slow RNG heavy team, to a puzzle in which I try and figure out the fastest way to score bird dominance. But I obviously do not play this game at a high level.

[@nitrorev]

You are not wrong, Lizards can certainly go for Bird Dominance, I just don't see it often personally because none of the maps we have in digital have opposite corners with 2 building slots. When mountain map comes, I think we'll see it happening more because all the corners have 2 slots and therefore there is 2-fold value in setting up gardens there. The problem with dominance is that advanced opponents are better able to stop it while novice opponents are likely to narrow their focus on stopping dominance and do all the work by themselves instead of collaborating with the whole table, which leads to 1 player who doesn't need to help at all and they end up winning. It's difficult to win in Dominance both at high levels of play and against new players. Also, the goal of 10 VP is a tough mountain to climb for Lizards to then pivot to Dominance. I might have a good setup for Dominance but if I've scored 10 VP already, I might just try to keep going to 30. Dominance is certainly an area I need to explore though, maybe I'm underrating it.

[@nyonnara1428]

You do an AMAZING job with explaining how to play these factions. I'm really hoping that you will keep this up and go through a tutorial on ALL factions that they have made. It helps teaching new players and gives novice players a better understanding of what you can do with each individual character. Thank you for all the hard work.

[@nitrorev]

I really appreciate that! Yes I will get to the other factions soon!

[@arnavdudi5400]

Always love more Root content.

[@nitrorev]

Same! there can never be enough!

[@mrsegundas3988]

Nice video. Subscribed. Enjoying all your Root content.

[@SEMMEH]

TY, that was very clear!

[@nitrorev]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

I played with them but I played them wrong apparently. I was using the lost souls only for my discarded or spent cards (not for the other factions), I made acolytes every time I removed warriors from the map (as attacked, when corvid used bombs, when woodland used revold, other cards) and I crafted cards using gardens outside of clearing. Thanks for this video, really helpfull.

[@nitrorev]

Yeah, there are a lot of potential pitfalls with this faction. I do a lot of research on which are th most common mistakes and questions and make sure to highlight them.

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

@@nitrorev Ty for the answer and the heart. We also have an outdated faction board for lizard the Lizard Cult.

[@nitrorev]

@@TheMasterOfByGames my pleasure! Oh man you need to get the errata sticker or the board updates. Lizards are still low tier but those previous versions were even worse.

[@jackabbott7295]

Thanks! Good video. Riverfolk company next please!

[@nitrorev]

Hirelings are next but Riverfolk Company shortly thereafter!

[@chrismccall7893]

I was just curious. Are you able to score with any number of cards from each suit on the same turn or just one suit?

[@nitrorev]

I explained it at 22:45. You can only score once per suit per clearing. So the maximum number of score actions you could take in a turn is 3 (one for each suit).

[@chrismccall7893]

@@nitrorev Ah, I was looking for it in the video, I just missed it. Thanks!

[@nevoalsberg2835]

Hey, love your vids. I would love to see one about the new hirelings and landmarks!

[@nitrorev]

Thanks for the praise! I need to wait until Leder games releases the final Hireling cards before teaching them as some have been rewritten and I don't want to just stuff that will be out of date, as it could lead to confusion. I will try to make it soon though!

[@benjaminj.7897]

My favorite faction! Thanks!

[@nitrorev]

They are so fun!

[@donutflow4039]

Amazing video, many thanks!

[@nitrorev]

Thanks so much!

[@tobias9616]

Your videos are awesome! keep it up 👍

[@nitrorev]

I appreciate that! Thank you😁

[@dyrpgdraws1672]

Love the video! Where did you find the printable advanced setup rules for the individual factions? So cool looking!

[@nitrorev]

Thanks so much! Cole Wehrle posted them on the Woodland Warriors discord a few months back to give the tournament organizers the final documents. You can find the files in the video description.

[@stuartalt7418]

Hey, loving the videos lately! I'm excited for a hirelings tutorial. I notice that your Lizards board is different than mine. For scoring it says to discard an unrevealed card to score points, but yours it is simply to just discard a card matching the harden suit you want to score for. I have looked at the upgrade components given on the Leder site, and there are no updates to this section. Which one is correct?

[@nitrorev]

Hmm, it's possible you have an older printing. There is no difference in rules on the scoring action because a revealed card cannot be discarded, only hand cards can be discarded. 2 major changes did happen to the Lizard board, the card draw symbols were moved (I believe I showed this in my video) and the sacrifice action used to have you remove a warrior from the map to the acolytes box, now it just comes from the supply (thank the dragon God!).

[@nitrorev]

The best advice I can give to playing perfectly correctly is to read the updated Law of Root (on Leder games website). Root is a living game and every now and again rules get added or changed. I know it's not easy to keep up to date with all the changes but I'm making shorts to directly address these changes that aren't widely known.

[@stuartalt7418]

@@nitrorev Yeah I have a first edition printing of the game that was delivered by Patrick Leder himself (I'm Minnesota based). The ruling for scoring is different on my board since I have to discard an unrevealed card. So I reveal a card matching the suit I would like to score, then I discard another card. I decided to buy the updated set found on their site so there is no future confusion.

[@RalphBaba]

Hey I was watching this video and looked for a comment about scoring. According to the law of root (09082021): 10.5.3 Score. Spend the same card you reveal (placing in Lost Souls) to score the victory points listed above the rightmost empty Gardens space of the suit matching the revealed card. You may perform this only once per turn per suit. So I think that at 21:50 mark you must spend the mouse and fox cards you've revealed for scoring, placing them in Lost Souls and not returning them to your hand at the Evening phase.

[@ozoneislucky]

love root, love the channel, I think the videos could use some quiet background music though

[@nitrorev]

Thanks for the suggestion and praise, I'll consider it.

[@jaundicedmisanthrope7817]

great video 👍

[@nitrorev]

Thanks!

[@Eidenhoek]

*hears animal* Why do you have a monkey? WAIT THAT'S A GECKO WHAT

[@francesthebard2758]

How do you feel about Better Burrow Bank and Command Warren for the Lizards? I find them invaluable for the added card draw and protection of my gardens, so much so that I tend focus on establishing a double bunny clearing above most other things.

[@nitrorev]

Those are both really strong crafts for the Lizards in addition to cobbler because you can place a warrior adjacent to where you want to warrior to be and simply move it onto the garden in evening. This allows you to get more recruitment where you want it to be even if the suits of the cards don't work out. Better Burrow Bank is amazing for Lizards because extra cards are so important. I tend to only play Exiles and Partisans nowadays but Lizards are one faction I do feel gets some benefits from Base deck more so than other factions. Then again the existence of flavor cards can hurt lizards harder than other factions so we're back at parity between the decks. Always use Exiles and Partisans if you can.

[@gobot90]

I got destroyed this weekend as the Lizards on my first ever play of the game (😢) . AND the guys who taught me the game had an older version that says you have to pull warriors FROM THE BOARD rather than from the supply to make acolytes in the Sacrifice action. But I cant find this supported in the new rules online! Can you cite your source on this? Would be a game changer! Thanks for all this great Root content, very cool and helpful!

[@nitrorev]

That's brutal! First of all, Lizards are definitely not a faction I would give to somebody learning Root for the first time, they are very counter-intuitive and hard to play well even for advanced players. In fact I might only bring the Lizards out on game 4 or after. Download the newly published (as of September 2022) Law of Root from Leder games website as it has all the up to date rulings. I'm surprised you cannot find the online support for this since the change was from the third printing or so which was years ago. There is a whole packet of errata stickers that you either buy or print out to cover up the old ruling and Leder games have an update kit for like 5 bucks that has all the faction boards with the correct rules.

[@brendandaly5594]

At 27:38 when you take the March action, was that not 3 moves?

[@axelmanzanilla]

The gecko approves 14:34

[@042Ghostmaker]

Thanks for a great video. Note: you assigned too many hits at 28:35 as there were only 2 cats, not 3.

[@nitrorev]

Thanks! And wow I'm surprised it took this long for somebody to notice. Hopefully by the time somebody is learning the lizards, they've already mastered the rules of battle and this mistake won't confuse them lol

[@michaelmauck6926]

24:00 Are you sure this is allowed? On the steam version if the card suit were to score 0 points it wouldn't let you discard it at all.

[@nitrorev]

That's a good question. Before recording this, I made sure to check with the rules lawyers over at the Woodland Warriors Discord. We actually needed to get an official ruling by Joshua Yearsley himself to confirm that yes, you can indeed score for zero points if you have insufficient gardens. I try to be as thorough as possible with my videos. As for the app, they did a great job adapting the game with all of its rules intricacies but there are a few areas where they streamlined the game to limit user mistakes. One example is Organizing at the keep, technically you are allowed to organize a Woodland Alliance warrior at the keep but you would just not place the token. The reason to do this is to get a warrior back in supply in order to recruit. They don't allow this in the app but it's legally allowed.

[@michaelmauck6926]

@@nitrorev Thank you, thats very good to know for when I'm playing the board game irl! Being able to discard any suit in that sense is good for influencing outcast.

[@Bradferd333]

35:21 is this side note about Partisan cards a fact? I think WWM may not have mentioned that in their episode as they also discouraged the use of Partisan cards by Lizards. Not having to discard revealed cards to use Partisans sounds great!

[@nitrorev]

Yep! It's the nature of revealed cards and the term "discard". You can only discard stuff from your hand and cards you reveal are expressly not in your hand so if you happened to have Partisans and LoAM (which allows you to battle/move in daylight after you would reveal cards) you could take the action and not be forced to discard or lose any revealed cards before they return to you in evening.

[@Bradferd333]

@@nitrorev Awesome, thanks!

[@Kurdran]

overwork can be done also in birdsong?? isnt that action on the evening?

[@nitrorev]

It's a daylight action. It cannot be used in birdsong or evening.

[@rudolfvandijk1739]

You make fun movies about 1 of my favorite games! Of all the factions I find the lizard cult and riverfolk company the most difficult I hope you will make more root videos! (With in particular the riverfolk company!) Then I will definitely check them out! Thanks!

[@nitrorev]

Riverfolk is definitely on the list! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@blakhand6847]

Thematically and lore wise. What does outcast and hated signify? Should it not be blessed and favored as those are the spots where lizards get advantage?

[@nitrorev]

Maybe the cards in the Lost Souls are the denizens that helped the enemy factions and therefore the Lizards dislike the suit that worked against them the most, since Lizards don't discard cards, they reveal them (most of the time).

[@blakhand6847]

@@nitrorev I put this same question up on bgg after I asked you here. And some one said that they are not hated by the cult but by the other factions on the board. That particular suit (denizens) are being mistreated and the cult then takes advantage of those denizens. Because they are venerable and more accepting of the cult ways. Don’t know if that is the official reason behind it. Would have still preferred blessed and favored.

[@blakhand6847]

@@nitrorev interesting 🤔

[@cakram6550]

nice vid

[@emilianoaventura5295]

At 25:40 you craft using a bird card, is that allowed? I assumed due to hatred of birds that you would not be able to craft using bird cards at all, but I'm still not sure lol, if it is allowed then I can at least say I won my first time using the lizards, but it's no big deal either way hahhahh

[@nitrorev]

If you read Hatred of Birds carefully, you'll see the answer. Hatred of Birds only pertains to your Daylight ritual actions. Crafting is not a ritual so it's perfectly fine.

[@williamkent2446]

Nice video. I'm not sure I quite agree with your last point about not all gardens are considered crafting pieces, just the outcast gardens. Wouldn't all gardens be considered crafting pieces, but only the outcast ones can be used to craft at any one time?

[@nitrorev]

It's only really relevant for tunnels and I have double checked with rules lawyers that you cannot use tunnels to move between non outcast gardens. The reason is that only outcast gardens are crafting pieces.

[@williamkent2446]

@@nitrorev Who are these rules lawyers? Is this confirmed by Leder Games?

[@nitrorev]

@@williamkent2446 The rules editor of Leader Games, Joshua Yearsley as well as the Root Discord Moderator and Tournament Organizer Guerric Samples. To be clear, Josh is the rules judge and Guerric and I are rules "lawyers". In the community, Rules Lawyer is just a colloquial term for the folks who know the rules extremely well. Like, read the law of Root multiple times and know which sub sections to refer to when making our rulings.

[@williamkent2446]

@@nitrorev Gotcha. Thanks for the replies, good video. I feel like the wording needs to be updated then

[@nitrorev]

@@williamkent2446 Not really, the first section of the Law for every faction (x.2.1) after the faction overview lists the crafting piece. For cats it says "The Marquise crafts during Daylight by activating workshops". This means the cat's crafting piece is workshops For the Lizards (10.2.1) it says "The Cult crafts during Evening by activating gardens whose printed suit matches the Outcast suit." So the Lizard Cult's crafting pieces are gardens whose suit matches the Outcast suit. Gardens that don't match are not crafting pieces. They sometimes are, but not all the time.

[@gabrielhortig9794]

I have one doubt: I have been playing with that rule that you mentioned that it says when all my warriors are removed by a bomb or a revolt, i don´t get acolytes, but i´ve read a rule on internet (i don`t remember well where) that says when that happens, i got up to 3 warriors into acolytes box. Is this an Update? or it was fake (it didn`t seem fake, it was a card similar to the one you showed in setup at 4:28)

[@nitrorev]

I'm fairly sure that Revenge has always stated that you only gain acolytes for warriors removed in battle as defender. I am 100% sure of the current rules, that acolytes removed by a bomb or revolt are not added to acolytes. The only way to gain acolytes is to reveal a bird card to sacrifice and to have warriors lost in battle as defender only.

[@liliakozina6982]

Minute 13:47 - you place a fox garden in the fox clearing you "rule". But do you actually rule it? The rules say: you rule any clearings where you have any gardens. Thus that exact fox clearing you don't rule. In my understanding the only way how you can place a new garden in a clearing you don't have any gardens ( =don't rule) is through "Sanctify" during Birdsong. "Build" action during Daylight is designed to add gardens to clearings where you already have a garden (if there is an available slot, of course). Please, correct me if I am wrong and missed some rule ;)

[@nitrorev]

I'm not sure what you mean. There were 2 lizard warriors and no cat warriors at all so I wasn't even contested for rule.

[@liliakozina6982]

@@nitrorev Nvm. I confused myself by the rule "You rule any clearing where you have any gardens", assuming that if there is no garden, it doesn't matter how many lizards you have there, you still don't rule it (because there is no garden). But actually this rule is a footnote for the clause 2.8 in the Law of Root in case if there is a tie between players in a clearing. Thanks for the answer anyway.

[@nitrorev]

@@liliakozina6982 Oh! I see what the confusion was. Yeah in Root, the golden rules are always in place. Never assume a rule is replaced unless it explicitly says so. Another example is the the Eyrie's Lords of the Forest which says you rule clearings when tied for presence. That's in addition to having the outright majority, the normal rules of when a faction rules are always in effect. I once saw someone think that Eyrie rules clearings ONLY when tied for presence, which would be a terrible ability.

[@rollitkvah4238]

Thats the exact reason, why you need to keep an eye on over-confident crazy mongols cheates like the extra move you did on 27:42 :P

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

Also, do you have the each cased in plastic?

[@nitrorev]

I sleeved my cards which I recommend if you want your cards to last awhile.

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

@@nitrorev Thanks for answer and I have other questions if you can answer them please. What happen if Eyrie Dynasties and Woodlands Alliance hoard cards in their decree/supporters in a 7 player game and at some point a player can't draw cards because there isn't enough cards or none at all (no discarded pile to reshuffle and made a new deck). We played normal, but without drawing cards. Were we supposed to do that or should we have played Partisans Deck and taken cards from there? From what I understand, the decks CANNOT be mixed and it is chosen from the beginning which of them to play with. Also the Eyrie Dynasties need to draw in birdsong (Emergency Orders) and MUST add 1 or 2 cards in the decree. What would happen if they don't have cards? Would they go into turmoil? There are many things that are not specified in the law.

[@nitrorev]

@@TheMasterOfByGames There are countless niche situations that aren't specified in the law. The thing to remember is that if you are unable to do something don't do it, if the law doesn't say to do something, Don't do it. If the deck runs out, just don't draw. Adding another deck would be doing something outside the bounds of the law but nowhere does it say you must draw a card every turn. Even though it's a terrible situation, drawing zero cards is the correct answer. That's why I think a future expansion would be instead of another deck, a small booster pack that you can add into a deck if you're playing with 5 or more players. They could have different backs so they're easy to remove. If the Eyrie cannot add a card, that's fine you just don't and keep going. They only fall into turmoil if they cannot perform an action in the decree, adding a card is not an action that's part of the decree so it's fine if you cannot do it because the deck and your hand are empty.

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

@@nitrorev Thanks again and sorry for the delay. A booster deck would be wonderful. Keep up the good work.

[@TheMasterOfByGames]

What sleeve do you recommend?

[@ah92756]

Visual aid is the best

[@yans2107]

Nice!

[@nitrorev]

Thank you!

[@jesusimpersonator1648]

14:35 Lizard cult attempting to convert board game reviewer

[@92ospe11]

27:37 Wasn't that move illegal? Seems like they did 3 move actions instead of 2.

[@nitrorev]

Probably. I was more interested in showing the mechanisms of the Lizards and needed to make an illegal extra move to show it. I was hoping nobody would catch it

[@92ospe11]

@@nitrorev Ahh no that is totally fine! Was just scared that I had been playing the game wrong haha. Really like the video!

[@philv2529]

Dude, I'm pretty sure you don't put the far left gardens down. Those remain blank on your Card

[@nitrorev]

I'm not sure what you mean. During setup? On the player board or on the map. I didn't get any rules wrong regarding garden placement in this video as those are fairly straightforward.

[@philv2529]

@@nitrorev NM I was wrong

[@popgas3821]

43:14 😂 I love how you try to give way of rememberring Tax Collector's impact to the Lizard by justifying the nature of Lizards 😂😂😂 "Tax Exempt" because they're a cult 🤣

[@ryll3]

A me thing perhaps, but Lizard's seems like the weakest link, compared to other factions. Tried 'em yesterday, and did poorly. Way faster for the other to gain a steady income. At a point i thought that it would probably be a smarter choice to go for dominance, since the gardens lets you rule clearings more easily then others. Perhaps i need to give em another spin. Thanks for the video! 👍

[@bobbyjustbobby1]

Anyone know how to beat the Lizard Cult?

[@nitrorev]

Lizards tend to protect their gardens very firmly because of how bad it is to lose one. Discarding a card is worse for Lizards than any other faction because they rely on cards for 100% of daylight actions. If you attack the warriors, you are just feeding acolytes so if you decide to attack, you need to commit to taking out gardens as that will really slow them down. If the get a clearing of each suit with 2 gardens and 5 warriors defending it will be very hard to stop since attacking the gardens will necessarily give them Acolytes which they can leverage into more points from attacking and sanctify. Try to manipulate the outcast through mindful discarding. Keep the outcast unhated so their conspiracies are expensive. Also be mindful of their Crafting ability, if they revealed coins, try to steer the outcast away from rabbits. Unfortunately this outcast manipulation is a group effort and requires som collusion between the other players so communication will be important. This can be hard to do both in digital and with less experienced players (which is why the Lizards are a faction I only ever pull from the box when the table is quite experienced). Lizards are tough to win with and depend a lot in good card draw so you can also just race them. Lizards can mitigate bad card luck through swapping bird cards for dominance cards so you can steal the dominance card before they get it and keep it locked away and make it harder to get the suits they want. Keep it in hand jail or lock it in the decree. Good luck!

[@seancloser]

It seems to me if you reveal the card, it is still part of your hand, because you only reveal it. Correct me if I am wrong

[@nitrorev]

No, it is not part of your hand. If you look a the wording of the law it says that revealed cards are in your play area and they cannot be spent, discarded or used for any purpose unless explicitly instructed. There is currently nothing that affects revealed cards besides the fact that moles must discard revealed bird cards in their evening step.

[@JamesFoxFiles]

“Put three warriors in clearings adjacent to it” - dumb question but are we sure that doesn’t mean 3 warriors in each clearing?

[@nitrorev]

It's not a dumb question. The full wording on the card is "put 3 warriors in clearings adjacent to the homeland as evenly as possible". If they meant for it to be 3 warriors each they would say "put 3 warriors in each clearing adjacent to it..." Or something to that effect. I'm 100% positive on the ruling.

[@Carsonist]

I feel bad for people who tried to win with the original version of Lizards. Sacrifice was hilariously bad. Do people have a sense of their current power level with Advanced Setup?

[@nitrorev]

Great question. Lizards are definitely stronger under ADSET what with the curation of starting cards, choice of homeland and 2 acolytes. We didn't see an improved winrate in the tournament because lizards are still difficult to win with and people either overpoliced them or the Lizard player didn't play as effectively as they could have. Also just classic bad luck of the draws affected some of the Lizard players which ADSET does nothing to change.

[@JamesFoxFiles]

Unrelated: I didn’t know geckos make noise!

[@nitrorev]

Yep, they're hella loud! I think it's where their name came from, like a Pokémon XD

[@JamesFoxFiles]

@@nitrorev Since you’re being so generous with the replies, I’ll take advantage 😊: when can you craft Royal Claim? I recently played digital as Lizards and had gardens all over the place and still couldn’t craft it. I know it shows you need four, but is that it?

[@nitrorev]

@@JamesFoxFiles Remember that only gardens matching the Outcast suit are crafting pieces. You might have 7 gardens total out on the map but if the current outcast suit is mouse, then only the mouse gardens can be activated for crafting. With Mouse outcast, you must have 4 mouse gardens in order to craft it.

[@JamesFoxFiles]

@@nitrorev that was it. Okay thank you!

[@cakeprophet]

Even if you COULD craft Tax Collector, it wouldn't work, because acoyltes are only generated from "defending warriors" in battles.

[@nitrorev]

I think you're misunderstanding what I said. I never claimed that you could get acolytes from removing a warrior. The way Lizards would use it if they had it is that they could recruit a warrior to the map by revealing a card, then use Tax Collector to remove said redundant warrior in order to draw a card. The amazing benefit of this for lizards is that the card to recruit was revealed and not discarded so you essentially get a free card every turn, not that you get acolytes for this.

[@cakeprophet]

@@nitrorev Ah I see. I thought you were illustrating another example where someone might see potential for "free acolytes" that isn't there based on the context and previous discussion about the revenge rule, but I see it's more about the card advantage. I didn't think you were implying it could generate acolytes if you could craft it, I just wanted to point out to others that it's "doubly" unable to generate free acolytes for the same reasons you mentioned earlier in the video (must be defending warriors in battles)

[@JamesFoxFiles]

“Bit of an old faction???” - digital only player 😭

[@nitrorev]

I know, I know. Technically the Riverfolk expansion has been out since the base game though as Kickstarter backers of the Base game got Riverfolk for free. I'm so glad they exist on digital as this is a tricky faction to grasp and digital is a great learning environment for teaching players what they should and shouldn't do.

[@JamesFoxFiles]

@@nitrorev haha, just teasing. Thanks for replying, love your content. Not your fault I have no time to play the real deal!

[@ladyfluorspar2460]

I used to think the lizards were creepy but they have a pretty good gameplay

[@nitrorev]

I used to think their gameplay was too luck based but the more I play them, the more I encounter situations that require some careful planning and consideration. They have really grown on me since the app released the expansion. They're definitely creepy but also possibly the silliest creatures in the woodlands with their tongues popping out and little grins.

[@stevenstewart6889]

Are you a drummer? 😂

[@nitrorev]

Not really😆 Why do you ask?

[@michaelnelson2976]

Oohhhhhhhhh....... SPEND Acolytes.... I had like 15+ Acolytes my last game, didn't know what do with all of them. Duh.

[@nitrorev]

Yeah LOL, they're really nice to have, especially in the late game to attack some stray buildings for points. What where you doing with them? Just piling up?

[@michaelnelson2976]

@@nitrorev I was playing with the Duchy and Mechanical Marquis 1.0 and yeah, when the acolytes overflowed the sides of their box, even turned on the short side, I knew I was going something wrong. Maybe I was confusing with the Alliance, but I was just laying them down to use them and then refreshing them. There were certainly a number of things I was doing wrong with the Lizard Cult lol I thought they were everyone's favorite because they decimate the board, but I'll have to play by the rules next time!

[@nitrorev]

@@michaelnelson2976 I knew this was the right faction to cover next. There are so many little things that could be easily missed. Glad my video was helpful 😁