Paragon Spotlight: Pyre
Welcome to the designer blog for Pyre! Be warned that this article has spoilers for the Dead Lucky comics, which I highly recommend you read, if you haven’t already!
Pyre can control the flames around him, and he can burn through his cards to turn the heat up on his enemies! By exhausting an extra card, you can activate the Boost effects on your cards. Many of his effects let you ready an ability, allowing you to keep the flames going. While exhausting a card to ready a card doesn’t seem like it gets you anywhere, it’s always beneficial to be trading cards you don’t want for different cards that you do want.
Torch hits for 3 damage, which is solid, but getting to replay it by readying it with a different card can put your enemy on the back foot pretty quickly. Likewise, you can go into a play pattern where you reuse Swelter to sweat all the enemy’s cards away over and over. Both strategies can lead to a win, and you’ll have to switch between them depending on the circumstances.
When you choose to burn a card to activate Boost, your enemy will probably want to Defend against your empowered abilities. But if you use it to Boost your Flint Gauntlets, they can’t even be safe behind a Defend! And if you notice your enemy trying to Defend out your boosted attacks, you can always use an extra exhausted card to bluff, and sneak in a safe Rest! — Brian McKay