Gilded Glaxx and Argonaut are two strikingly similar units with only a small ability difference.
Gilded Glaxx
What situations would make you prefer one over the other? What enemy Codices would make you tech Glaxx over Argonaut and vice versa?
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Glax i would prefer when my opponents Codex was looking to kill my units with spell/abilities. Argonaut is preferred against “honest” codices.
For instance, white/green are mainly about buffing their units to kill yours, so Glax’s ability is not very useful here, while Readiness always is. Black on the other hand, has a lot of ways of killing units without using their units (sac the weak, hooded executioner, doom grasp, Spreading plague, Sickness etc), so having units resistant to that can be very useful.
Glax also has the added beneficent why combined with truth, as if you copy a glax, then the mirror won’t be trashed when it normally would (end of turn or quince/original glax leaving play depending on which ability was used) as it can’t leave play when you have gold in the pile from non combat damage.
If your in doubt, Argonaut is always a solid choice. Glax can be excellent, but often can just be an iron man (it’s not always easy to leave that gold unspent, doubly so against red)
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That’s a really interesting interaction between Glaxx and Mirror Illusions…
Quince’s mid ability says the Mirror Illusion “becomes a copy” of a unit, and then is “trashed at the end of the turn”. Does this mean that if it copies a Glaxx using Quince’s midband, with 1 gold in the bank, it is now a Glaxx for the rest of the game until killed? Does this illusion Glaxx still count towards the “max 2 mirror illusions”?
I think that could be a very very interesting Tech I rush strategy, getting out 2,3, even 4 Gilded Glaxx units.
Mirrors are limited to 2 copies, even if they are copying something else, per sharpobjects ruling in the thread. Limit: 2 means hard limit of 2 can ever be put in play by you, because limit 2 is meant to represent the physical limitations of the tokens you have available in the physical game.
So, only ever can have 2 mirror Glaxxes, and they don’t remember that they are supposed to be trashed after the first time, so they could indeed stick around.
Also, this should be posted in the codex topic, not the play by post topic. You can edit it by clicking the title, which apparently I can do for you.
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This actually came up in a slightly different context last night - and I’m pretty sure the answers are “yes” and “yes”. (Although I guess with a maxband Quince you can turn one of your mirrors into a copy of a just-played unit, even if it’s currently copying something else? I’ve never seen it come up, though.)
To return to the original question - it’s hard to add much to @Shadow_Night_Black’s answer. In my personal opinion (which isn’t worth much, since I’m terrible at this game), outside of particular matchups and combos, Argonaut is the best Tech 1 in the game. A 3/4 is equal or better stats than every other Tech 1 save Twilight Baron, who obviously has a major weakness (but is awesome if you can play around it). And Readiness is just such a great ability, since it lets you avoid the dilemma of “I really want to attack with this but then I won’t have enough defence”.
Tbh I don’t see a lot of similarity between the two units. Apart from both being purple, the only similarity is that they’re both 3/4 for 3 gold, with a bonus - but that is a pretty common pattern for Tech 1s. You also have Centaur (with Overpower as its special thing), and the strictly weaker but still pretty decent Iron Man in Bashing Tech 1.
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Neither Quince Midband Nor Maxband actually keep the mirror type when copying a unit, so you can’t overwrite a mirror that is copying something, but the limit:2 still applies because it is still a mirror token physically.
Sirlin himself has ruled on the subject of limit: X
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Note that Quince also has errata to add “limit: 2” to his “Arrives:” ability.
90% of the time, Glaxx is just Iron Man, so I would always reach for Argonaut first, unless I was playing against specifically black starter, and it looked like the only unit(s) I was going to control at some point were Glaxx and/or Hardened Mox.
Or as part of a self-inflicted Judgement Day, Maximum Anarchy, or Rewind shenanigans. I haven’t seen it pulled off yet, but that could be something to explore.
The Quince / Glaxx interaction is too slow to be a viable strategy. But Quince / Omegacron is very, very scary.
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The only thing I would add is that Argonaut is usually better as P1, as Readiness only does anything if you get to attack. If you’re playing defence (which you often are as P2, with your opponent looking to clear your board as much as possible), then Readiness doesn’t help much, because there’s a good chance that your 3/4 won’t survive until your next turn. It is very colour dependent though, so look at what removal your opponent has. Also, the above obviously doesn’t apply if you have access to Haste (through Drakk or Now!)
I got this very decision wrong in a game against EricF in the last RACE semi-finals. I teched Argonaut against his black starter, and several times I wished it was Glaxx. I don’t think I got to attack with an Argonaut a single time that game, in spite of playing several of them.
Here is a game in which @Jadiel rocks the mirror Glaxx against one of @Kaelii’s experiments. It was pretty cool to watch.
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@ARMed_PIrate: Wow, that was such an interesting game, thanks for the link. Future/Truth is definitely something I’d like to try in the… future…
What’s a good third spec with it? My first thought is Blood, which gives you the option of hasty mirrored Crashbarrow strategy, but that seems like more of what Future already gives you.
I think @Jadiel is the person to ask about this, as he’s been playing Future/Truth combos recently - although I’ve been too busy to follow the games in any kind of detail (but they do generally feature mirror Omegacrons to crushing effect 
). I know he’s using Feral as the 3rd spec in the CAPS tournament, with the Green starter - and I think he’s played this pairing with Anarchy as the 3rd spec in the past.
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So far I’ve tried: Discipline, Balance, Anarchy and Feral. Neither Future nor Truth have particularly powerful combat heroes or T1 units (Spectral Hound is great in some matchups, but terrible in others, Glaxx is ok, but KotC is terrible in this deck). So far, I’ve found I basically always go for Future tech II, so tech II units are not really a factor. I’ve been trying specs which have strong T1 units, and an impactful hero early. Also, I’m not a huge fan of either Blue or Purple starters, so that has an impact too. Other specs I’d like to try are Necro (very strong T1 units, Garth is not an amazing early combat hero, but skeleton spam could give you the board presence you need to set up T2, and his spells are really good) or Strength (Rook is arguably the strongest hero in the game, and has good spells - T1 is pretty awful though). I’d also like to give Discipline another go - it was the spec I tried first, and I’ve learnt a lot about piloting the deck since then.
The deck looks impressive when you can pull off the combo, but the major weakness is that you’re often paying 6g and a card (Tech II + Omega) to set up a threat (18 hasty damage for 6g, or 27 for 10g, more if you have another Omega in hand) which generates no actual board presence. Opponents who go all in at Tech I can usually capitalise on that and leave you in a position where you can’t keep Tech II up (you can see this in my casual games against @cstick and @Mooseknuckles - for links see Anarchy above and here).
As is often the case with Codex strategies, it’s easy to get caught up with the combo you’re trying to use, and to tech/play/spec cards which will make it even better. Instead, you need to concentrate on getting the combo in place, because it’s usually powerful enough by itself to end games.
ETA: links
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