The Bottleneck Keeping Duplicator From Breaking

Written by ForceofPhil

Several of the 13 avatars released in Gothic change the rules of engagement by manipulating the rules to their will. Magician plays without an Atlas, Corruptor says things aren't what they say, and Duplicator trades early resources for the powerful potency of making Uniques Elite.

Your spellbook and atlas can only contain matching pairs of Uniques, and you start with only two spells and two sites in hand.

You can only play with Uniques, but you get to, nay, must play two of each. Two Merlins? Double Morgana le Fay? Twofers on Ring of Morrigan? Cores by the pair? Two of any Warded Angel (e.g., Archangel Michael, Archangel Rafael, Archangel Gabriel, Archangel Samael) Wow!

Though flavorful, Duplicator requires conceding one-third of your opening hand as a buy-in to play with its power. This suggests Erik's Curiosa was aware of how powerful Duplicator's ability is and felt it needed a preemptive nerf for balance.

Beyond the financial hurdle of investing in a second copy of each Unique, there may already be a bottleneck more challenging for Duplicator to overcome: Unique sites.

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Unique Sites

At the time of this article's publication, there are 59 Unique sites. Since Duplicator requires Uniques to be played in pairs, that means 15 of those 59 have to support threshold requirements for a pool of designs that are typically threshold-dense.

Below are all the Unique sites and the threshold they provide:

• Avalon — elements, but provides for the opponent, too
• Pristine Paradise — when empty.
• The Colour Out of Space — when adjacent to a void.
• The Empyrean — only if nearby an Angel or Ward.
• Caerleon-Upon-Usk — only in the back row.
• Glastonbury Tor — only in the back row.
• Joyous Garde — , only in the back row.
• Tintagel — , only in the back row.
• Garden of Eden —
• Cloud City —
• Defiler Spire —
• Merlin's Tower —
• Orpheus' Crossing —
• The Apex of Babel — | The Base of Babel is Exceptional, so the Tower cannot be built in Duplicator, except via Erik's Curiosa
• The Manor at Daperyll Hill —
• Endless Fence —
• Pillar of Zeiros —
• Kingdom of Agartha —
• Mount Ussar Sanctuary —
• Wormelow Tump —
• Dozmary Pool —
• Gilman House —
• Innsmouth Dock —
• Maelström —
• Tadpole Pool —
• Watery Grave —
• Fields of Camlann —
• Hellmouth —
• Horns of Behemoth —
• Kor Crematory —
• Purgatory —
• River of Flame —
• Smokestacks of Gnaak —
• Temple of Moloch —
• Vesuvius —
• Mirror Realm — unknown threshold
• Dragonlord's Lair — no threshold, but removes threshold requirements from dragons.
• Altar of Malachai — no threshold
• Baba Yaga's Hut — no threshold
• Boneyard — no threshold
• Bower of Bliss — no threshold
• Brocéliande — no threshold
• Camelot — no threshold
• City of Glass — no threshold
• City of Plenty — no threshold
• City of Souls — no threshold
• City of Traitors — no threshold
• Darkest Dungeon — no threshold
• Dome of Osiros — no threshold
• Donnybrook Inn — no threshold
• Great Wall — no threshold
• Myrrh's Trophy Room — no threshold
• Old Mortimer's Den — no threshold
• Roots of Yggdrasil — no threshold
• Saintweald — no threshold
• Sea of Ash — no threshold
• The Geistwood — no threshold
• The Void — no threshold
• Vaults of Zul — no threshold

Of those 59, 24 do not provide, or have a condition for providing threshold. That leaves 35 threshold-providing sites. The best of them, arguably, are the tri-sites:

• Caerleon-Upon-Usk — only in the back row.
• Glastonbury Tor — only in the back row.
• Joyous Garde — , only in the back row.
• Tintagel — only in the back row.

However, these apply pressure on needing to be placed in the back row, and when played in pairs, real estate becomes scarce.

We might have to accept the downsides of the four-element sites solely because they can provide much-needed threshold, but The Empyrean requires prerequisites to function. Avalon, Pristine Paradise, and The Colour Out of Space are likely temporary or unreliable, but are upfront.

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Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is the only available Unique dual-site; it cuts off a strategic angle that Duplicator could leverage. The combinations available to Duplicator for heavy card draw are potent:

• The 13 Treasures of Britain and the Kythera Mechanism are a well-known combination that dictates where the Treasures teleport, allowing each of your minions to pick them up and draw a card. Additionally, Duplicator allows two Highland Princesses, which provide essentially four copies of the Kythera Mechanism.
• Pnakotic Manuscript and Plague of Frogs draw seven cards. Manuscript and Tadpole Pool draw three. Manuscript's wording suggests that the bearer draws the card, not the player who controls it — different from 13 Treasures of Britain's wording — so Garden of Eden might not stymie it.
• Doubles of Sir Tom Thumb and The Round Table could be big game, but not in the Garden of Eden. Sir Tom Thumb loves reading the Pnakotic Manuscript.
• The Omphalos cycle — Algor Omphalos, Char Omphalos, Dank Omphalos, and Torrid Omphalos — technically gets around Garden of Eden since the monuments draw the card, not the player. If Garden of Eden is necessary for threshold, thereby leaning Duplicator toward and , then Algor Omphalos is the optimal choice.
• Access to two Pendragon Legacies is an infinite game, since the second copy can shuffle the first copy into the Spellbook. Garden of Eden stops its cantrip.
• Queen of Midland in multiples could be mighty, but not in the Garden of Eden.
• Sir Bedivere could provide cards if he were with artifact, but not in the Garden of Eden.
• The Immortal Throne could draw a ton of cards outside the Garden of Eden. Two Immortal Thrones in the Realm sounds like a potent Duplicator win condition.
• Tithe is incredible. Having access to two, assuming its threshold can be met, can keep draws coming from the Spellbook. Though not while in the Garden of Eden.

Single-Element Threshold Unique Sites

The breakdown is:

• — Six
• — Five
• — Six
• — Nine

There are plenty of draws to each element. Fire might be the primary element to experiment with since it has the most threshold-producing Unique sites available.

Fire Uniques

has a few ways to recoup resources:

• Morgana le Fay
• Pact with the Devil

And many ways to control the Realm or swing the game:

• Death Dealer
• Day of Judgment
• Hellstar
• Year of the Blaze
• Courtesan Thais
• Satanic Panic
• The Great Famine
• Immolation

Pray no one ever sleeves up Peasant Revolt.

Mana Matters

Duplicator is so cool, and it is easy to jump to all the awesome stuff it might let you pull off. For example, Chaoswish plus Kythera Mechanism casts infinite spells (always choose another copy of Chaoswish), so Ring of Morrigan can ping infinite times.

Epic spells, however, are sweeter if we can cast them. Our Atlas dictates what we can and cannot do. As a result of mediocre threshold production, Duplicator is likely priced into some supplemental sources in the Spellbook:

• Shrine of the Dragonlord

Shrine of the Dragonlord is a slam dunk. Two copies will go a long way to smoothing out threshold bottlenecks.

• Four Waters of Paradise

While going down another resource isn't where Duplicator wants to go, whatever Four Waters accelerates presumably generates the value back and then some.

• Cores

The Four Cores — Aquamarine Core, Ruby Core, Onyx Core, and Amethyst Core — might also be necessary in the Spellbook. More support for Highlight Princess as a backbone piece in Duplicator.

The Philosopher's Stone is exceptionally powerful but only helps with mana production, not threshold. Depending on where your build of Duplicator goes, this might not be necessary, even if playing two could lead to insane turns.

• Erik's Curiosa

Invest in as many copies of Erik's Curiosa as possible. Duplicator can play two, and they offer access to everything, including non-Unique sites for threshold fixing. Duplicator doesn't limit your Collection to only Uniques, so it is a potent place to solve your problems.

Again, two Highland Princesses effectively means four Erik's Curiosa in the Spellbook. Though Erik's Curiosa was ripped up, Pendragon Legacy could recycle whatever was tutored from the Collection.

Don't Get Duped-licator

Duplicator is fantastic and will only become more powerful over time with more Uniques released in future sets. Most of that will hopefully be in the form of Unique, threshold-rich sites.

I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of Duplicator. If this got your brewing brain churning, and you want to share your take on how to build it:

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Featured image: Duplicator by Dan Seagrave