Faithless Prophets

By  The Amazing Azzo · March 2022 · PlaystyleBack to guides

“What is the best elder in Stormbound?” someone asked on a Discord chat. Most people said Prime Oracle Bragda, Scrapped Planners, or Trekking Aldermen which are no doubt great cards. Other elders were mentioned as well but nobody other than myself made any mention of the Stormbound elder family bastard child – Faithless Prophets.

It is a card that many players are often afraid to use because of its betraying nature but in the right hands it can be a valuable card in your Shadowfen deck. In this guide I will go over how to use that card to your advantage and get maximum value out of a very misunderstood and underrated card.

Act now and get 5 mana for the price of 3

Let’s first talk about the stats. Faithless Prophets is a 3-mana card with 1-movement and 5/6/7/8/10 strength which makes it one the strongest 3-mana unit cards in the game. At the time of writing, only Orgone Leechers have more strength for the same mana cost.

In comparison, Harpies of the Hunt — another 3 mana card — have no movement and max out at only 8 strength. In fact, there is not even a 4-mana card that has as much base strength with movement let alone a 3-mana card. So, what we have here is basically a 3 mana card that has the stats of many 5 mana cards. That is a highly efficient use of mana!

Why is mana efficiency so important? Inevitably the best Stormbound players are the ones that get the most out of their mana. You always want to try to spend less mana to remove an enemy unit than your opponent did to put that unit on the board. Let’s say your opponent plays Siegebreakers for 4 mana and then you destroy it with Execution for 4 mana. You spent the same amount of mana as your opponent to get rid of something that they played which is okay, but also not great.

Now let’s say you used Execution on your opponent’s Gifted Recruits. That would be even worse because you are now spending 4 mana to take out something that only cost your opponent 2 mana.

Using Faithless to take down units that cost more mana will provide you with an invaluable advantage over your opponent. You will most likely be spending less mana than they did to place those enemies on the board. This will allow you to have extra mana to play other cards in your hand and give you the upper hand in a match.

Faithless also shine when it comes to dealing with structures, something that lacks with many other Shadowfen cards. At level 4, Faithless has 8 strength which is powerful enough to take down almost any level 5 structure. Most structures cost more than 3 mana so again, very mana efficient!

Nobody puts Faithless in the corner

Actually, the corner of the enemy base line is the best place for Faithless Prophets to be. We’ve established that Faithless pack a punch for a 3-mana unit, so why not try to get all that strength into the enemy base?

A good strategy is to corner Faithless into the enemy base line and surround them with other units so your opponent cannot attack them on their next turn. Cheap cards like Green Prototypes, Gifted Recruits, Dubious Hags, and Sparkly Kitties work well at protecting your Faithless.

Another card that is particularly effective for this strategy is Azure Hatcher. It spawns a bunch of 1 strength toads on death creating quite the obstacle for your opponent. Try to get your Faithless in the corner spot of the enemy base line and then use Hatchers to go through the enemy base 2 tiles over. Depending on the level of your Hatchers you will get a formation that looks like this:

This positioning of units will be very difficult for many of your opponents to overcome and a good amount of time your Faithless will storm safely into the enemy base on the following turn scoring you plenty of base damage.

The Azure Hatcher strategy would work with any unit card but Faithless Prophets is especially effective because of its high strength to mana ratio.

Note that a card like Bladestorm could be a major disruption to this strategy so always try to be aware of possible counter attacks that your opponent might have up their sleeve.

What to do when Faithless Prophets become unfaithful?

With such great stats for a -mana card there has to be a catch and Faithless Prophets indeed has a downside. After surviving damage, they convert themselves and fight for the enemy.

That sounds like a pretty big downside. The simplest solution for when your Faithless go rogue (which they will) is to convert it back to your side. What you don’t want to do is kill off some converted Faithless assuming they still have a decent amount of strength left. You already spent 3 mana to put them on the board — you do not want to spend too much of your own resources to essentially attack your own unit. That would not be mana efficient.

What you want to do instead is indirectly inflict damage to them or what I like to say, “attack them gently.” Keep in mind that your converted Faithless do not need to die, they only need to take the slightest amount of damage to convert back to your team again. Let’s look at some other cards that pair very nicely with Faithless to help you achieve this.

Witches of the Wild, which is a staple in most Shadowfen decks, will quickly convert your Faithless back by simply being placed on a bordering tile. Witches work well because they do not actually attack so you manage to retain all your unit’s strength on the board. Witches will drain strength from Faithless and give themselves the equivalent amount of strength. Faithless simply convert and there is no loss of strength in the transaction, only a shift of strength between the units. Be careful not to place your Witches next to some friendly Faithless or you will convert them against you (unless you are doing so intentionally – we’ll discuss that later on).

The Shadowfen toad trio of 1-strength toad cards: Rain of Frogs, Azure Hatcher and Brood Sages leave plenty of expendable units on the board which are also good at re-converting your Faithless. Faithless fit in very well with decks that create a lot of 1-strength units on the board. One 1-strength toad inflicting 1 damage to your Faithless is an example of a gentle attack that I mentioned earlier. It is okay to use a 1-strength unit to convert your Faithless as it is a very small use of your resources. If possible it’s always helpful to have a 1-strength toad directly behind your Faithless as it provides security to quickly reconvert your Faithless if they turn on you.

Some neutral cards that do indirect damage such as Conflicted Drakes, Felflares, Minion Launchers and Trekking Alderman can be used to re-convert your Faithless as well.

Broad damage spells like Bladestorm and Hunter’s Vengeance can also be used to bring back some converted Faithless assuming the damage inflicted by these cards doesn’t kill the unit. It probably would not be too efficient to use these spells for the sole intent of converting a Faithless but it is good to know that they can be used for that purpose.

Something to note about Hunter’s Vengeance is that it does damage to one unit of each unit type. Faithless Prophets is a Raven Elder card which means that it is a Raven unit type as well as an Elder unit type. This means that it is its own unit type and is almost guaranteed to take damage when Hunter’s Vengeance is played even if you have other Raven units on the board. That is worth making note of when playing Hunter’s Vengeance with all unit type elder cards for that matter.

Frienemies with benefits

So now that we know easy ways to re-convert your Faithless Prophets how do you get the maximum benefit from this card? Having some Faithless on the board that have been converted to fight for the enemy is not necessarily a bad thing if you have the right strategy.

Yes, a converted Faithless will look and act like an enemy because it essentially is an enemy unit at least for the moment. It’s actually more like a frienemy unit because you know you will be able to reclaim it as one of your own by simply inflicting any amount of damage to it.

Think of a converted Faithless as an undercover spy: an enemy unit that is working for you. In fact, the artwork for the card itself reminds me of Spy Vs Spy from Mad Magazine.

Side-by-side the Faithless Prophets artwork and the cover of the comic book Spy vs. Spy featuring characters looking similar to the card

As an enemy unit, converted Faithless will reap the benefits of being an enemy unit. It can gain the strength from an enemy Hearth, Emerald Towers, Personal Servers, Prime Oracle Bragda or any other strength giving sources.

Converted Faithless can also be more obstructive to your opponent than one of your units. Most cards do not allow the player to attack one of their own units so sometimes a properly placed Faithless that becomes converted can simply just be “in the way” for the opponent. Place your Faithless on tiles that will force your opponent to kill them or else they will convert and become an even greater obstacle as a unit of their own.

We established earlier that a great use of Faithless was to corner them on the enemy base line. They’re also very effective at protecting other units that you manage to place on the enemy base line corner spot as well. Here you conveniently had a 10 strength Dragon on the board and were lucky enough to play Sunbeam Serpents on the enemy baseline corner spot. You then use your Faithless to protect the Sunbeam.

Your opponent has to kill Faithless in order to get to Sunbeam. If they only damage Faithless, they will lose because they will convert and make getting to your Sunbeam Serpents even more difficult for your opponent.

If the Faithless were just a normal unit your opponent could play something like Gifted Recruits and Green Prototypes to bring it down and then another unit to attack Sunbeam. Even at a late stage in the game your opponent probably won’t have the resources to get through your Faithless and attack Sunbeam in a single turn.

In a similar example your Faithless can be used as a great way to protect structures. Here you placed a Trueshot Post behind your Faithless.

Again, your opponent has to kill the Faithless and not just damage it in order to take down your Trueshot. Your Faithless might take damage, convert and may even be the unit that gets attacked by your Trueshot on your next turn but what is important is that your Trueshot survives to your next turn and as long as it does then your Faithless did their job.

Here you played Tode the Elevated to attack an enemy unit which made him jump across the board and conveniently landed in front of an enemy Unstable Build. You then played your Faithless right next to Tode to protect him.

Just like the examples above, Faithless will prevent your opponent from being able to attack Tode and allow you to get even more value out of your Toad Hero.

I can present you with many more examples but I think this gets the point across. The bottom line is that you want to play Faithless on tiles that protect your other units or structures. If they get converted, it is okay as it was only being used in these examples to prevent your opponent from attacking your other cards.

Green Prophets and Faithless Prototypes

With proper placement and a little bit of luck Faithless Prophet actually works well with Green Prototypes. One card converts itself to fight for the enemy and the other card gives strength to an enemy unit on death. You may think 2 cards with such major drawbacks would cause a lot of problems for you on the board but they actually get along great with one another.

Green Prototypes is a card with unlimited usefulness. We don’t need to discuss all the wonderful uses for the card – there is already a guide for that. The only thing I want to discuss is being able to take advantage of its on death effect for yourself instead of giving it to your opponent.

Most players will try to have their Green Proto die away from an enemy unit so their opponent does not benefit from their on death effect. With no surrounding enemy units the Green Proto just dies and its enemy-unit-life-giving aura just dissolves into some Stormbound oblivion where neither player gets to profit from.

So, why not have your Green Proto die near a converted Faithless instead? This way you really get maximum value out of your Green Proto. Your Faithless will gain the strength from the dead Proto and be vitalized. When you convert it back to one of your own with any of the methods we discussed earlier it will be an even stronger unit. Assuming your Green Proto is at level 5 then you would have used it’s 5 strength to attack the enemy plus gain 5 strength to another unit that is technically yours — that’s 10 strength on the board from just a 1 mana card. You don’t get much more mana efficient than that!

A prophet walks into a bar (base)

There are a few ways to have your Faithless Prophet do instant direct damage to your opponent’s base and if you pull it off it is probably the single most satisfying use of the card.

Both ways require you to have a converted Faithless at the enemy base line. You can achieve that by attacking a weaker enemy unit (the weaker the better) at the base line or by planting your Faithless at the base and then inflicting damage to it yourself and having it convert.

Once it is converted at the enemy base line, the first method would be to simply use Unhealthy Hysteria. As an enemy unit you can use Unhealthy Hysteria on your Faithless Prophet to march right into your opponent’s base assuming the strength of your Faithless is equal or less than the strength that your spell card will be effective with.

The second method would be to poison your Faithless Prophet. Again, you first need to have your Faithless already converted at the enemy base line. Then play Copperskin Rangers anywhere on the board to poison the Faithless. Be mindful that depending on how many enemy units are on the board there is no guarantee that your Faithless will get poisoned. If it does, when you end your turn and immediately once your opponent’s turn begins, watch the converted Faithless take 1 hit of damage from the poison, re-convert themselves to a friendly unit and then automatically walk right into the enemy base. Other poison methods like Toxic Sacrifice and Crimson Sentry can also be effective in poisoning your Faithless but the damage dealt to your Faithless may be too great to be able to do any significant base damage.

On a side note, be careful not to poison your Faithless in the middle of the board. If you do so the unit will just poison itself, take 1 hit of damage, and convert itself between you and your opponent every turn. Unless you have a certain strategy built around this chaos, it is best to try avoiding such a situation like this from happening.

Faithless Fun

I hope this guide was helpful and at the very least introduced some ideas on how to play a card that you may not have played otherwise. Whether you are a fan of the card or not I think we can all agree that Faithless Prophets always manages to bring a lot of fun and unique scenarios to a match for both players involved

I invite you to experiment with the card, develop your own card combinations and build a deck with it that works for you. Good luck and have fun playing!

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