by zbmott
Zachareth's plot deck is rad. I played it in my last campaign (Labyrinth of Ruin), and won with a record of 4-6 (1-5 in Act 1 + Three Heads, One Mind + interlude, and 3-1 in Act 2 + finale). My competition was:High Mage Quellan - Necromancer
Reynhart the Worthy - Knight
Avric Albright - Disciple
Raythen
Those are A-list characters running A-list classes with A-list builds. The Necromancer and Disciple went for all-out area of effect damage with the Army of Death/Radiant Light combo, and the Knight decided to ignore the action economy with Oath of Honor, Advance, Stalwart, and Guard.
Although those are powerful heroes on the battlefield, Seeds of Betrayal was not designed to win quests. It was designed to win campaigns. The rulebook and Quest Guides emphasize that the winner of the finale wins the campaign, and nothing else matters.
There are two points that you need to accept to be successful with Seeds of Betrayal:
1) Losing a quest can win a campaign.
2) Seeds of Betrayal plays best with a strong Overlord deck.
Let me elaborate:
1: Losing a quest can win a campaign.
The best thing about plot decks is that they give the Overlord alternative objectives. Frequently I found that playing a quest to amass threat was more beneficial to me than playing for the quest reward. To that end, Two-Pronged Gambit was, hands down, the best ability at my command. I would play Two-Pronged Gambit (wagering that the heroes would win), knock down each hero once (choosing to gain threat each time), and end up losing the quest (though not for lack of trying). This would net me 6 threat and 1 experience. Obviously a best-case scenario would be to wager a win, knock down each hero (at least) once, and actually win, totaling 7 threat and 2 experience, but given the quality of my competition, that was rarely possible for me. Instead, I'd mark down 4-5 threat and 1 experience as a victory in my books, even if I lost the quest. Accruing threat at such a high rate allowed me to both purchase and play plot cards freely, which let me shut the heroes out of Act 2 items and dominate the finale.
Labyrinth of Ruin also gives the Overlord a side objective: the Sun Stone. The heroes started off with the Sun Stone after defeating me in the introduction. (I didn't expect to win -- I played for threat and came out of the encounter with four, see the above paragraph). On all subsequent encounters, I had the option to stop playing for the victory condition and play for the Sun Stone and/or threat instead. I was able to recover the Sun Stone later in Act 1, which both got me an extra experience point and demoralized the heroes.
Again, it's always better to win quests outright. But the Plot decks (and Seeds of Betrayal in particular) let the Overlord benefit substantially even from losing, so losing doesn't have to be that bad as long as you do it right. Just ask yourself: What would Baron Zachareth do?
2: Seeds of Betrayal plays best with a strong Overlord deck.
Seeds of Betrayal is as much about manipulating your Overlord deck as it is about annoying the heroes during the campaign phase. For that reason, it's important to have a clear concept of how you want to build your deck before you start the campaign. I chose an Infector/Warlord hybrid that builds towards a Tainted Blow/Expert Blow combo in the finale.
Infector synergizes well with straightforward Overlord card choices like those found in Basic and Warlord because Airborne, Contaminated, and Adaptive Contagion each effectively decrease your deck size by one when you play them. For example, in the finale, I played Sole Purpose and Scrying and Plotting. Sole Purpose decreases deck size by two (to a minimum of 13), and I chose Airborne, Contaminated, and Tainted Blow as my Scrying and Plotting cards. Since none of these cards would be discarded or returned to my deck, I had effectively reduced my deck size to 10, which meant that I had a 7/10 chance to draw Dash, Frenzy, Blood Rage (of which I had two to support Expert Blow), or Expert Blow. That's a lot of extra attacks. Combined with a free damage boost from Tainted Blow and/or Expert Blow on heroes with 2 infection tokens on them, That's a lot of extra damage.
Finally, here are some my observations on the individual plot cards in the Seeds of Betrayal deck:
Sole Purpose: I didn't use this very often, because I felt like the benefit (a slightly higher chance of drawing the card you want) was much less tangible than the cost (a reroll of any one die). One notable exception was the finale, as described above.
Scrying and Plotting: Too expensive to be played frequently, I played this before the finale to stack my hand with Airborne, Contaminated, and Tainted Blow.
Rush of Power: This, along with Always Prepared, is a great card for cycling your deck.
Nefarious Power: I didn't get this card, but I should have. It's cheap to buy, it's cheap to play, and it can make a hero fail an attribute test, which is stupid powerful (there was a point during the finale where a successful Dark Charm would have cost the heroes their Knight). The only downside is that the hero you play this on can potentially use the fortune it grants to reroll one of his attribute test dice, and completely negate the card, costing you one threat for no benefit.
Always Prepared: Like Rush of Power above, I used this a couple of times to dive for cards I needed to win a quest quickly, usually Dash and Frenzy.
Two-Pronged Gambit: Get this first, and play it intelligently. There is not a 50/50 chance that the heroes or overlord will win a given quest. Read the quest, think about your heroes, and decide who you think will win, then play the card so that you benefit most.
False Friends: I played this card before every single Act 2 quest to deny the heroes Act 2 shop items. They could have gotten around this by saving their fortune to reveal more items, but because of the power boost that Act 2 monsters get, the heroes frequently had to use their fortune just to stay alive.
Trouble on the Road: I didn't get this card. I don't think it's worth the purchase or trigger cost.
Meticulous Planning: I got this card early and only used it only when the heroes searched and found a Treasure Chest. It's also delicious fun to watch the heroes get excited when they see the Treasure Chest, and then shake your head and toss them a fortune token instead.
Summon - Zachareth: Baron Zachareth (especially the Act 2 variant) is a hella powerful figure. Seriously, he's a truck. If your heroes are smart, they'll recognize that if they defeat him, he costs effectively 5 threat to play, and so they'll try to single him out. I played him exactly once (for Tipping the Scales), and the heroes defeated him at the expense of the quest. Unfortunately, that meant the campaign would play Eternal Darkness as the finale, which, in my opinion, is much more difficult for the heroes than A Glimmer of Hope.