Many of the strongest, most disciplined warriors of the realm have banded together to form the Whitestar Order, based at Morningstar and led by stone golem Garus Rook. Their training grounds are home to enlightened monks, mighty barbarians, and agile ninjas with their cute animal friends. Their strength comes from both their teamwork and skill in combat. The Whitestar Order holds a series of fighting tournaments called Fantasy Strike, intended to bring together the many different peoples of the realm in hopes they learn to question Flagstone’s rule.
Grave Stormborne is one of the most dedicated and skilled martial artists in the land. He’s the embodiment of Discipline, which is his spec. Grave is entirely focused on increasing his own skills, even to the point that some would say it’s a selfish neglect of what he could be doing to help others. When you need a champion though, you’ll be happy to have Grave on your side:
Grave only needs to reach level 3 to become a 3/4 with readiness, which lets him attack and still be able to patrol afterwards—fitting for such an adept fighter. As for his sword, he doesn’t use it often. As a child, the Nox Oracle told him to only use it when necessary. At max level, he will agree to use it ONCE. It will slice through ANY unit or hero—even a tech III unit is not safe.
Heroes are especially not safe against the white faction. The white starting deck contains this monster of a spell:
Snapback works the same way it does in the Marvel vs. Capcom fighting games: you knock a character out of play and force a different character into play. Heroes lose all their levels and any other runes or attachments or whatever when they go back to the command zone. Snapback is a very powerful late-game spell, and you’ll often be tempted to play it as a worker early because it might not help you much then. Here’s my advice though. I’ve said this phrase a lot, “You know, you wouldn’t have lost the game right there if you had kept Snapback.”
Back to the early game though, the Whitestar Order is good at working together in combat. Both these Monks from the white starting deck help your early combats:
I like the contrast in their personalities. Savior Monk is peaceful and heals you, while you can already tell that Aged Sensei is disappointed that you’re not good enough.
This starting deck upgrade card also helps your early game combats:
At just 1 gold, you’re potentially preventing a lot of damage if you can attack enough. The more you attack, the better a deal this becomes. White’s teamwork here makes them quite a threat right from the start.
At the tech I level, Rambasa Twin works in an unusual way:
The 4 gold cost is high for a tech I, but you actually get TWO of this guy. That’s a lot of presence on the battlefield! And another perk is that he only occupies one slot in your deck. Later in the game when you have better cards, you won’t be drawing past 2 copies of him to get to your really great cards; you’ll have 1 of him in your deck and another in your codex.
Continuing the theme of white (and especially Discipline) units working well together in combat:
Make sure to train up with Sparring Partner before going into battle. If your opponent lets you keep him, he’ll eventually give all your guys a +1/+1 rune. And if you’re willing to pay some gold, you can speed up that training process and spar with all your units in a single turn.
At tech II, the power level is even higher.
Focus Master’s ability is a little stronger than I think it first appears. He’ll save one of your units or heroes from dying, and he’ll do it three times, but he’ll only do it if they would EXACTLY die. So that’s like if a 3/3 takes 3 damage (not 4 damage). You can set up those exact situations though. In Codex, you do combats one at a time so you can make sure your 2/2 goes up against their 2/2 and so on. Once you realize that, Focus Master is basically saying “do 3 even trades, then keep all your guys instead of them dying.”
Now that’s a powerful Monk. He parries your moves before you even do them. When he’s on the table, your units and heroes can’t be hit by any spells or abilities that use the target icon. This can throw a wrench in a bunch of strategies your opponents might be using, and it will force them to try to kill the Mind-Parry Monk another way, probably in combat, but he’s a fearsome 5/4 in combat.
Going back to the starting deck for a moment, there’s another Monk who helps protect you from being unfairly targeted:
Morningstar Flagbearer is right at home in the white faction, because Rook’s Morningstar Sanctuary is a place where several people who were oppressed for being different have fled to. In gameplay, both Flagbearer and Mind-Parry Monk let you say “hands off my guys!”
Do you like having awesome heroes? Discipline tech II can train up your heroes to their full potential:
Yes this somehow only costs 1 gold. It’s nice to get +1 ATK on all your heroes (an effect you’re happy to pay 1 for by itself), but if your Training Grounds can survive just one turn, you can exhaust it to instantly max out any of your heroes. Remember that at max level, Grave can use his sword rune to kill just about anything. Training Grounds is ridiculously efficient at leveling up your heroes and frees up a lot of gold for you to put into other things. The main drawback is just that it’s a building, meaning it can’t attack or patrol and you have to protect it.
Now let’s look at some of Grave’s spells. Grave is adaptable and versatile, so this spell expresses that:
It’s a toolbox all on one card. You can beat flying stuff, invisible stuff, upgrades, or just repair some damage from one of your buildings if none of that happens to matter by the time you draw Versatile Style.
If you want something more straightforward, Reversal lets you dragon punch a patroller. That will probably kill it, but even if it doesn’t, it will still knock them out of the patrol zone!
Now it’s time for some True Power:
True Power of Storms is one of the strongest supers in Yomi. In that game, it costs 3 Ace cards to use. In this game, it costs 3 cards with a 3-gold cost (neat!). If you can line up your card draws just right, True Power of Storms becomes an absurdly powerful finisher. You can win the game by casting two of them, or you can point it at any unit or hero to kill it. It even hits tech IIIs, which not many things do.
And finally, the Discipline tech III has some sentimental value:
Grave Stormborne’s father was a mighty warrior and a beast in battle. He was killed in battle when Grave was young. This statue memorializes him. Even being near it inspires other heroes with a +1/+1 bonus. Hero’s Monument summons the ghost of Grave’s father who is an indestructible, untargetable, and unstoppable 8/8. Grave can at least fight alongside the spirit of his father in glorious battle.