All factions
Pretty Pretty Smash Up
PRINCESSES
Medium
Play with a reduced number of minions in your deck, but with a cast of six power-5 minions with useful abilities, and support your deck with movement, card draw and minion retrieval.
Description
The Princesses are one of the 4 factions from the Pretty Pretty Smash Up set.
Rule the bases with a small number of regal minions.
Their complexity rating is: Medium.
Other factions from the same set: Fairies, Kitty Cats, Mythic Horses.
Cards Overview
The Princesses have only 6 minions and 14 actions compared to the usual 10 and 10. Every minion is power 5, which makes the total minion base power (not counting any abilities) still equal to the usual 30. However, the average power per minion is much higher: 5 compared to the usual 3.
Among their actions, there are:
* 3 play-on-minion actions: Heirloom (3x),
* 2 play-on-base actions: Happily Ever After, Woodland Helpers,
* 9 standard actions (7 that affect one or more minions, in bold): Direct to DVD Sequel (2x), Fairy Godmother, Skillet (2x), Some Day My Prince Will Come, Tale as Old as Time, True Love’s Kiss (2x),
* 4 actions that directly increase a minion's power: Fairy Godmother, Heirloom (3x).
2x Direct to DVD Sequel - Shuffle a minion from your discard pile into your deck and draw a card.
1x Fairy Godmother - Draw two cards OR one minion gets +3 power until the end of the turn.
1x Happily Ever After - Play on a base. Ongoing: If you are the winner here when this base scores, gain 1 VP.
3x Heirloom - Play on a minion. Ongoing: This card gives this minion +1 power for each Heirloom on it. This card cannot be destroyed.
2x Skillet - Destroy a minion of power 2 or less and draw a card.
1x Some Day My Prince Will Come - Special: Before a base scores, move a minion from there to another base.
1x Tale as Old as Time - Choose a base. Move all of your minions to it.
2x True Love’s Kiss - Move a minion to another base.
1x Woodland Helpers - Play on a base. Ongoing: After you play a standard action, you may place it on the bottom of your deck instead of in your discard pile.
Actions
2x Direct to DVD Sequel - Shuffle a minion from your discard pile into your deck and draw a card.
1x Fairy Godmother - Draw two cards OR one minion gets +3 power until the end of the turn.
1x Happily Ever After - Play on a base. Ongoing: If you are the winner here when this base scores, gain 1 VP.
3x Heirloom - Play on a minion. Ongoing: This card gives this minion +1 power for each Heirloom on it. This card cannot be destroyed.
2x Skillet - Destroy a minion of power 2 or less and draw a card.
1x Some Day My Prince Will Come - Special: Before a base scores, move a minion from there to another base.
1x Tale as Old as Time - Choose a base. Move all of your minions to it.
2x True Love’s Kiss - Move a minion to another base.
1x Woodland Helpers - Play on a base. Ongoing: After you play a standard action, you may place it on the bottom of your deck instead of in your discard pile.
Characters
1x Apricot - power 5 - Talent: Destroy another player’s minion of power 2 or less here.
1x Eliza - power 5 - Ongoing: Other players cannot play more than one extra card per turn.
1x Griselda - power 5 - Talent: Draw an Heirloom from your discard pile OR play an Heirloom as an extra action.
1x Marie DeGraw - power 5 - Talent: Reveal the top card of your deck. If it is a minion, draw it. Otherwise, place it on the bottom of your deck.
1x Sleeping Beauty - power 5 - Ongoing: If this minion would go to the discard pile, shuffle it into your deck instead.
1x Snow White - power 5 - Talent: Move a minion from another base to here.
Strategy
The Princesses' high power tends to keep them safe, but pay attention to opponent factions that can dispose of the royals anyway, and select for defense appropriately, since Princesses have none.
Synergies
The Princesses' high power tends to keep them safe, but pay attention to opponent factions that can dispose of the royals anyway, and select for defense appropriately, since Princesses have none. Making up for Princesses' exaggerated weaknesses helps their exaggerated strengths shine all the more.
*Robots: Balance out your minion/action ratio, and roll through the deck very fast to play extra minions.
*Wizards: Card draw and extra action plays help thin out the deck, making it faster and easier to draw, play, and replay the Princesses.
*Bear Cavalry: Snow White's talent makes an incredibly powerful combo with High Ground; she can move any minion to her base, and High Ground destroys any other players' minions moving to the base it's on if you have a minion there.
*Shapeshifters: Mimics love having lots of power 5 minions around, as their ability will copy that power. Doppelganger can fetch any of your Princesses. Cellular Bonding can copy an Heirloom, giving you an additional potential +3 on top of the +9 a full set of Heirlooms already provides.
*Super Spies: Sabotage your opponents to slow them down, and sort out your deck to find your best cards. Princesses have several actions like True Love's Kiss and Heirloom that Mole can utilize to swing broken bases your way.
*Dragons: Dragons help stall other players and provide you with card draw through Imperial Dragon. Bring Down the Walls lets you sneak a surprise minion onto a base, particularly effective with Sleeping Beauty.
*Superheroes: Mild-Mannered Citizens can search for the Princesses, making it much more likely that you get, say, Eliza out to slow down swarm and burst decks. Sleeping Beauty shuffles herself back into your deck, ensuring the Citizens always have a valid target.
*Sheep: Little Bo Peep and Snow White make a good team for moving around your flock.
*Grimms’ Fairy Tales: The Frog Prince lets you replay one of your powerful Princesses. Rumpelstiltzkin and Fairy Godmother's Blessing can fetch the Princess you need to the top of your deck.
*Knights of the Round Table: Knights and Princesses offer each other more movement options, and Knights provide rewards for moving minions. Noble Steed allows you to move Snow White to any base you wish, then pull another minion to her base in turn.
*Mermaids: Snow White can help Mermaids gain power by moving other players' minions to their bases.
Tips
Princesses end up with steady, stately, and slow gameplay with decent adaptability and control. Despite their very high average minion power, they are bad at playing bursts above 5 power, so your best bet is to take advantage of your mobility to target the best bases. Undermine your opponents' Big Drops by bopping their power-2 minions and restricting extra cards.
An interesting feature is the stark contrast between extra card draws and plays. Normally factions closely match these two abilities. Marie DeGraw's talent makes it obvious that the intent is to push card draws in an effort to locate the rare Princesses. Stack your deck with the best cards to raise your chances! You will always have actions to play, but usually have to work with just one or two Princesses at a time unless your partner faction lets you play extra minions/actions and push even harder on the drawing. Eliza helps mitigate this weakness by imposing the same problem on your opponents. Teach them some manners!
Mechanics
Play with a reduced number of minions in your deck, but with a cast of six power-5 minions with useful abilities, and support your deck with movement, card draw and minion retrieval.