In today’s Pocket Paragons design blog, we’re talking about the incredibly tricky Kairos, the Timebender.

– Brian McKay

Character Strengths:

• Has a strong damage game plan and a strong exhausting game plan
• Not having to Rest often means fewer chances to get executed
• Readying abilities leads to powerful early combinations
• Abilities are individually very powerful when passed to other characters

Character Weaknesses:

• Character requires a lot of planning to not run out of abilities
• Despite all his readying effects, enemy exhausts hurt more
• Weapon doesn’t fall into the readying cycle, so fewer chances to play your Weapon
• Inheriting abilities from other characters must be very carefully planned as well to not mess up your ability rotation.

Kairos has a unique kit that has many of his abilities ready another one of his abilities, so he doesn’t have to play Rest is often. This is balanced by the fact that you can’t play Rest often– unlike most characters, Kairos is living on Borrowed Time, and can only play his Rest once per game.

“Get You A Paragon That Does Both”

There are two ways to win in Pocket Paragons: reducing the enemy HP to 0, or hitting them with a timely Execute. While all characters have both options at their disposal, most characters skew towards one game plan or the other. Some characters have higher damage at their disposal, while others deal less damage, but can exhaust the enemy’s abilities and more easily ready their own to create more situations to score the execute.

Kairos’s abilities each ready another one, which might push you to try the outlast plan. Grasp of Winter forces your enemy to exhaust an ability, Veil of Autumn brings it back while blocking another ability, and then play Grasp of Winter immediately again to make them drop another ability. This can put your enemy in a sticky situation very quickly if they don’t anticipate this line.

Alternatively, you can come out swinging with Passion of Summer to deal 3 damage, Heartbeat of Spring to ready it and deal 1 and heal yourself up 2, and then another Passion of Summer right after. This is a 9 point swing (7 damage with 2 healing) in 3 turns, which is a powerfully efficient way to get ahead in the damage race.

Keep both the Summer damage plan and the Winter exhaust plan in mind, and mix between the two to keep your opponent guessing. You can also double up in the same way around Spring for healing or Autumn for double defense if you’re falling behind. Your Weapon doesn’t deal any damage, but it allows you to ready any one of your abilities, so it can also help set up any of these combos while fishing for that critical Execute.

“Time Travel! This never happened!”

Kairos’s Ultimate ability, Rewind, is a very powerful effect. It can stop you from getting Executed, give yourself a second chance to Execute your opponent, and pull you out of a bad situation after you’ve already found yourself in it. But while 2 energy isn’t that hard to come by for a standard character, it’s a little trickier for a character that can only Rest once.

Since you can only play Rest once, and you might want to have this ability up before you Rest for the protection it offers, you’re going to have to get at least one energy, if not both, from countering. Pay extra attention to the cards your opponent is playing. For example, if they’re keeping their Intelligence ability in hand, you might want to play your cards to ready up your Agility ability.

“Time is what you make of it!”

Kairos can be a little difficult to play. You should keep him veiled when playing for the first time, but your passion for this character will definitely rise once you get a grasp on the heartbeat of the way his seasons flow together. You can play conservatively to keep the number of cards in hand high or mix it up at the cost of your hand to surprise your opponent.

While the Pocket Paragons Kickstarter offers characters from great franchises like Rivals of Aether, Temporal Odyssey, and AEGIS Combining Robots, don’t sleep on the base set! Check them all out and find the Paragon that matches your playstyle!

– Brian McKay

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