[details=Summary]Mistress Persephone is an interesting character, both in terms of gameplay and fluff. In the fluff she is a powerful being that watches over the world helping those she deems worthy of her help. When helping others she enjoys causing them some sort of pain (for example Persephone was the one that gave Degrey his ghost companion. This ghost watcheds Degrey and makes sure he completes his mission. The ghost enjoys tormenting Degrey). In the game she wants to control the opponent. She wants to keep them on the ground and take over their ability to play their own cards.
Persephone is a vortex character. She can take a bit of time to get going but once she does she is in an advantaged position. Taking a look at her innate, if you knockdown (KD) the opponent she gets to retrive a non joker card from the discard but if they were KD last turn she gets the huge pay off of getting to select 4 non joker cards of different ranks. Her hand can quickly go from small to huge if she gets a couple of KD back to back. This innate is extremelly versatile because she can use it to get her strongest throws, ability cards, aces, and whatever else she happens to need such as getting a card to make a pair or triple for power ups.
First I’ll go over her normal attacks and throws then I’ll get into some of her great cards that Persephone will be able to recur.
Persephone’s normal attacks are above average on speed. Having a 2.4 normal attack is quite handy to be able to start straights to get aces or to get various other early game combos going.
Persephone’s throw speed can be deceiving. While she does have the average speed at x.6 she will often be getting her 7s back from the discard. This means that once the opponent has ran themselves low on their 7s Persephone can continue to get hers back making her 7 throw more and more dominating as the game goes on. Also of note is Perse has no ability attached to her 7. Making this card’s only purpose the throwing of the opponent.
In the early game Persephone will usually not want to follow up her throws. She will want to take the KD in order to make use of her innate and put her opponent in a precarious position.
Another game mechanic that Persephone approaches differently then the other members of the cast is powering up. Perse will want to power up early to gain acces to her awesome aces. Unlike other characters Perse usually doesn’t have to worry so much about what cards she powers up with. Thanks to her innate she can get these cards back if she can get the KDs. It is not good to power up if Perse will cripple her hand. Taking advantange of her innate and powering up is something strong Perse’s will have to learn.
Alright now lets get into those lovely face cards
Power Lash is an important early game attack. If the opponent can outspeed Perse on throws it allows her to still get a KD by Power Lashing their throws. It is also a great dodge follow up. It gets a solid 10 damage and the precious KD. It is a slower move at speed 4.0 so Perse needs to be confident that the opponent will play a throw when she face downs this attack. On the brighter side of things it isn’t such a slow attack against a lot of the characters that can outspeed her throws. Learning what match ups Power Lash shines in and when to play it is another step in becoming a strong Persephone.
Rapid Lashes is typically an end game move. It doesn’t KD so Perse really only wants to use this at the end of combos if she doesn’t have KD or if she can kill. Rapid Lashes does 15 damage when fully pumped making it Perse’s most effeceint combo point to damage card. This card becomes a lot more important when the opponent is under the effects of Mistress’s Command. More on that later.
Rising Pleasure is Persephone’s reversal. At speed 0.2 it is useful in keeping her safe from the opponents more threatening combo starting attacks. It doesn’t KD or help with her standard gameplan in any way. It is just used as a safe option.
It does allow Persephone to keep up her offense and be more scary to the opponent when they are at low life so it is still a great card even though it doesn’t tie directly into her plan A. It is a good card to be able to recur.
Persephone gets back to her plan A with Wild Ride. Having another rank of throw is very good for the KD Queen. She wants to keep the opponent flat on the floor as much as possible. At speed 8.0 it will often be the second fast throw in a match up. Much like her 7 throw it will get stronger every time the opponent uses one of their 7 throws. Wild Ride does 9 damage, 2 more then her standard throws, giving her better top damage on her throw and KD combos.
This is a great card to recur especially in mu where the 7.6 speed of her 7 throw and 8.0 speed of Wild Ride do not matter.
And we finally come to Persephone’s ace
Behold! Mistress’s Command is a card that will often generate some anger from the opponent but Persephone doesn’t care. She just revels in their anguish. Mistress’s Command’s ability is one of the most wild abilities in the game. If Mistress’s Command wins combat and deals damage Persephone gets to control the opponent’s next turn!! This is so, so good and it allows Perse to get rid of the opponents strongest cards in their hand. It can also set them up to lose several more turns if they get caught missing some options.
If the opponent is hit by Mistress’s Command, they don’t have a joker, and they only have 30 HP remaining Persephone can then win the game. She can make the opponent face down a block/dodge and then K6J++ for a total of 30 damage for the win. She can actually kill from higher life totals against certain opponents but more on that later.
The other side of her ace is the very appropriately named AA attack, On Your Knees. On Your Knees is a fast attack at speed 0.4 which will cut under a lot of the opponents attacks and allow her to get a KD dealing a solid 16 damage and beating a lot of the opponents attacks. It is also a 2cp ender. This allows her to put it into throw combos and get more damage (23 or 25) and the KD.
On Your Knees is the move that makes Persephone’s vortex scary and work well. She always wants to make sure she has at least one ace in the discard to be able to get it back through her innate. It is crucial that she is able to have On Your Knees in her had a lot during the mid and late games. Once she gets back to back KD she will want to get an ace plus some cards that will allow her to power up for the second ace so she can continue to put the pressure on the opponent.
Now on to Persephone’s abilities
Do As Told is a soft counter. Persephone can play this card to try and counter an opponent’s non ace/innate abilities. The opponent has a choice when Perse plays this they can either except the counter or take 10 damage to make their ability uncounterable. The opponent thinks they are in control when Persephone plays this card but really it’s Perse who has control because no matter which option they take Perse is a happy Mistress.
This card actually makes Persephones health not seem so low. Since the opponent will usually have to pay at least 10 life to trigger an ability through out the game it seems as if her 75 health is decent instead of low.
Thanks to Persephone’s Innate she doesn’t have to be as careful with her counters as other characters. She can try and counter a lot of abilities through out the game and then get back Do As Told through use of her innate.
Do As Told goes so amazingly well with Mistress’s Command. On turns that Persephone has taken control of the opponent she can make them use all their draw phase abilities and make them pay the 10 life which can give her a pretty obscene kill range. Even if it doesn’t put the opponent into kill range Perse can still make them waste all draw phase ability cards.
Bare Your Soul is another card that pairs so well with Perse’s kit. When Perse plays it she gets to flip the top three cards of the opponents deck face up onto the table. Whenever the opponent gets to draw a card Perse can chose one of those cards for them to draw. She can chose none and discard all remaining cards and then they draw one from the top of their deck. She can only ever have three cards up on the table so if she plays multiple copies she has to discard down to three. This isn’t a bad thing. It is actually good because it allows Perse the opportunity to kill key cards. If the opponent powers up for an ace from the deck while any cards are face up on the table they shuffle those cards back into the deck. Because of that it is often good to have two Bare Your Souls lined up so Perse can remove strong cards (like Jokers) before the opponent has the chance to shuffle the cards back into their deck.
Bare Your Soul makes hitting with Mistress Command even better. If Perse has Bare Your Soul up and then hits with Mistress’s Command not only will she know what is in their hand she will be able to control what they draw. Their is no escaping the will of Mistress Persephone.
The Bare Your Soul plus Mistress Command combo gets even better if Perse can deprive the opponent of an option. For example if Perse can run them out of blocks she can play On Your Knees all day until the opponent just pleads for Persephone to end it all.
Bare Your Soul still has strong uses out side of getting perfect information. Being able to kill attacks faster then On Your Knees’ 0.4 is quite handy as well.
Of special note: both Persephone’s special abilities are on her slowest throws which allows her to use them purely as abilities and not worry about losing strong cards.
There you have Mistress Persephone the Nox Oracle. If you want to play a vortex character that tries to control the opponent and keep them on the ground all the while being able to recur your best options then definitely check out Persephone. Like all characters she is not with out her weaknesses. She has the potential to die fast. Her vortex can be tricky to get going and if it never gets going she is in a lot of trouble.
Warning: I’d recommend that you do not use Persephone in friendly matches against people just learning the game. At this point they will be working on just figuring out what they are supposed to be doing and Perse’s abilities and play style might cause them to fly into fits of rage if they don’t know what she is about.[/details]