We just blew through $1.3M, and we're feeling pretty lucky about what great fans we have.

“A cheater, but a charming one”

The Devious Swindler came into being early in the design process. We looked at elements of the game that were underused. In this case, the haggle die. At a high level, the Swindler wants to leverage the randomness of the game so we also designed them to use the market and treasure decks to craft high-risk/high-reward hero. 

Who will like this character: People who like big moments and aren’t bothered by luck.

“You can’t control everything. Sometimes you’ve just got to roll the dice.”

The Swindler’s banner ability is to roll the haggle die and gain the result. Half the time you get something. That’s what you get for gambling. 

The Inventive virtue lets you gain the advantages from treasures in the market. This virtue doesn’t count conditional advantages (so nothing from scrolls) but the ceiling is still high. If there are three undead advantages in the market, then you’re going to put a lot of hurt on Oreks. 

The Joyful virtue is all upside - ignoring the closed on the haggle die when reinforcing. There’s no reason not to haggle every turn. You won’t always get something, but you’ll never get punished for using it.

The Swindler’s other virtues let you mitigate luck. If the haggle die isn’t going your way, get Fortuitous. It gives you a reroll of the haggle die each time you roll it and lets you choose which result to keep.

If you’re getting harried by foes, take Calculating, which lets you ignore all warrior and spirit losses from critical hit battle cards. This combos with several different new mechanics in Covenant, or some companions from Alliances. You might be hoping for this crits.

Finally, you can take Opportunistic, which gives you a blessing every time a player buys a treasure from the market (blessings are a short-term +1 Wild Advantage). Sometimes those treasure just can’t stay in the market. Opportunistic lets you generate value from other players’ actions.