When playing as Amazons, we have a great portion of control over our faction deck. We’re building our strategy throughout the entire game, shuffling back some cards, discarding the others quicker, so that we hit that sweet-spot of what we have planned at the start of the game.

So let’s move back to planning out part, in particular, choosing expansion cards that we would want to include in our deck. There are three different expansion sets in the box for the Amazons and let’s take a closer look at one of them – Why can’t we be friends. If we want to grab this expansion, we should know our options up front, and how these card replacement will affect our game tactics. With this, we hope it will be easier to choose and build your deck to check all strategies.

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First, let’s take a look at a single card with three copies, New Roots, and all the cards from the base deck that can be replaced with it.

Amazon cards with a building bonus are great especially when they need only a Foundation to build. We can quickly burn a Faction card for it since it goes back to our deck. New Roots card is an alternative choice for a Mythic Tree card, instead of three woods, you get wood, a coin and a worker, which will give you more flexibility throughout the game. Another interesting choice would be to replace Flea Market with it. You lose some scoring options but more Resource income. However, I wouldn’t go overboard and leave the Recon Team at all cost. We need their deck manipulation options.

Next, let’s take a look at the two cards with two copies, Haunted Ruins and Takeover, and the best options for them.

Haunted Ruins
The core of this expansion, which your opponents will gladly take advantage off, Open Foundation production. If you decided to replace Flea Market with New Roots, then go and replace Statue Of Midas with Haunted Ruins, since you already have more then enough Building bonus resource options. Alternatively, you might be a peace-loving Amazon, that isn’t looking for a fight, then a better choice would be their Chamber of Treasures which give you a feature that push you towards Razing.

Takeover
For those peace-loving Amazons mentioned earlier, we have a Takeover card, which doesn’t sound peaceful but your opponents won’t hate you for it. You spend a sword and gain resources, and they get a worker, everyone’s happy. If you still didn’t discard the Statue Of Midas, you can do it now, or the other choice would be Young Warriors, both of them provides resources, but you might be okay already. Whatever you do when you take this card, don’t remove an Ambush card. You might need it to activate both the Takeover and the next card that we will discuss – New Allies.

So the last but not least, one copy cards from the expansion and their purpose in your deck.

New Allies
I mean, let’s face it, the expansion is called Why can’t we be friends, so New Allies card fits here perfectly. You basically give your opponent a sword and get three victory points and one wood for it. However, choose allies carefully, you don’t want to find that sword in your back a second later. Here we recommend either a Rear Guard or Encounter, both aggressive play-style cards, because like I said, you don’t want to provoke them a second after you give them a sword.

Greek Jewellery
Another card manipulation option, which your opponents will love. Open production that allows drawing 2 faction cards, keep one and discard the other. That’s a fine alternative for the Council card, you get a steady production, instead of a building bonus option that would need to be cycled to work best, and works excellent with Sage card.

Reconstructions
Works amazingly in combination with Haunted Ruins, and you want to get this combination in front of you as fast as possible. You remove Foundation and gain two victory points, and you can do it twice per round. However, what should you sacrifice for it? Here not lose any other good options, we recommend The Capital, its the safest exchange for its feature that allows you to store some Resource. Alternatively, remove either a Rear Guard or Encounter mentioned earlier if you haven’t already.

So here it is, all of the strategies, and the propositions of how to build your deck with the use of Why can’t we be friends expansion, you can try and exchange all of them, some of them or create your own strategy with the use of those cards. Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to explore the options and let us know how your Amazon peace-loving strategy worked.

Matt Dembek

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