SantoriniPowerEris

Introduction

As the goddess of discord, Eris can manipulate her opponents, causing them to fall back. Plus, she is the only goddess that can do it at any turn she wants! However, it comes with a handicap…

God Power

You may move and build with an opponent's worker instead of your own, as long as it is not their worker that they most recently moved.

Category

Opponent forcing (he is forcing his opponent to build and move according to his own will)

Explanation

Eris moves workers, not forces them. Therefore, any powers that are activated by moving works. However, Eris cannot use the opponent’s power.

Game Strategies

Early Game

A simple yet effective early plan for Eris is to get both workers into a good position. Since Eris does not have to move, if she gets both workers into a good position, they usually stay to maintain that status (since Eris can use one of the opponent’s workers to defend any possible threat). Moreover, normally Eris wants the opponent’s workers to be close to each other (so that she could use one to defend the threats of the other). Thus, if Eris opts to move the opponent, it is usually a good idea that it is towards the other. Following the previous reasoning, the opponent should keep his workers far away when playing against Eris.

Middle Game

It is a common mistake for the opponent of Eris to move up with one worker and leave the other on the ground. It is unlikely that the highest worker will be able to win by itself and if the lowest level worker moves to help the other, Eris can now move the highest worker and throw it off the building.

An important thing to realize is that if Eris traps one of the opponents’ workers, while the opponent has just lost a worker for the rest of the game, Eris becomes a mortal! In particular, if the opponent is able to trap their own worker together with one of Eris’ workers, they will most likely win as the game will play out as 1 vs 1, where Eris is just a mortal with no power.

Late Game

The previous observations apply to this phase of the game.

Specific Matchup

Aphrodite

It is a good thing to control the placement of Aphrodite’s workers, so Eris is a very good pick against her.

Asteria

Eris can move Asteria’s workers down, ruining her plans to use her power. Eris is good in this matchup because of that, but the game won’t be that linear.

Atlas

Like said earlier, if Atlas is able to trap Eris together with one of their workers, he will most likely win as Eris would be left with no power. Hence this is a good idea to have in mind when playing this matchup.

Charybdis

When Eris moves Charybdis’ workers, the whirlpools still function. Anyway, it will be very tough to defeat Charybdis.

Clio

When a Clio’s worker is standing on coins, Eris cannot use her power on that worker. So Clio will try to play the game by staying on coins every time she can so that Eris doesn’t even get a chance to use her power. Moreover, Eris cannot use Clio’s workers to build on top of the coins.

Dionysus

This matchup probably will come up at least once in your life (an exaggeration, but it feels like a fit pair). Two controllers, so you might wonder which one is stronger. In general, and in this matchup, Eris is stronger (for example, Eris can use Dionysus’ workers to build a dome to prevent Dionysus from doing it), but this still doesn’t mean that Dionysus does not stand a chance.

Eros

Eris will be defending the whole game, but she does it quite well (it is very hard for Eros to make use of his power, but this will prevent Eris from having any real attacking threats). At the end of the day, I would still prefer to play with Eros.

Europa & Talus

This is an interesting matchup and Eris should be theoretically stronger. However, Europa & Talus can use her token with a few interesting ideas in mind. For example, she can prevent her other worker from blocking her threats and to prevent her own workers from getting tossed to bad squares.

Gods with three (or more) workers

It is generally a good idea to pick Eris in these matchups as she gets to control more workers and it is hard for the opponent to win.

Harpies

If you played enough against and with Harpies, you might guess that Eris is stronger, and you would be right. But you would be mistaken if you thought you would have a comfortable game.

Hippolyta

If Eris moves Hippolyta's male worker, she can only move it diagonally and this will make Eris' task more difficult. Still, this matchup should be a balanced game.

Hydra

The more workers the opponent has, the more workers Eris can control. In this game, this factor will be determinant and Hydra won’t be able to do anything productive because of her own workers.

Pegasus

One good thing about Eris is that she can throw workers off buildings (level 2 to level 0). Against Pegasus, this plan is pretty much worthless as Pegasus can just move up in the next move (by using his ability). Moreover, Eris can only control Pegasus like a mortal, i.e., she isn’t allowed to use Pegasus to jump more than one level.

Urania

Although Urania might be stronger, she cannot rush the win as Eris will be able to defend (she “has” three workers so she can cover three corners). Instead, if Urania builds up the board uniformly (and by board I mean the corners and perimeter), she should have a fine game.

Conclusion

Eris can use the opponent's works both to attack and defend. This means that the opponent has to watch out for both possibilities and it won’t be that easy to win. If the opponent plays with their workers close by, Eris can use one to defend the threats of the other. On the other hand, if the opponent plays with their workers away from each other, playing with just one worker might not be sufficient to create a winning threat. So you see it is not clear how to approach Eris since she is always playing with (at least) 3 workers.

Tier ranking: B