Masters and Soul Stones

[Thechosenone]

Hey everyone, just a thought and I don't know if its come up but I was thinking about it? Which masters really need the soul stones and who can live without them?

Assuming a game size of 35 to 40 stones (What I play in my meta) who needs them?

From my experience

Collodi- needs few over all. I get by with about 4 to 5

Lucius- I take his max when he's leading a crew to get off those spells if I'm short on cards

Hamelin- I start with few, open by draining souls on rats or stolen and go hulking with him.

Lady J- I use few stones, taking 3 to 4 stones.

Perdita- Few again, just 3 to 4.

Sonnia- I run a lot of stones with her, the maximum if I can, though I heard a recent argument that may make me reconsider her stone usage.

Dreamer- I take a lot. Which is easy to do with him. I need those stones to blitz with Chompy

Somer- Needs very few. I don't feel too bad off with 2 to 4 stones.

Would love to see some lists and advice on how many stones you feel you need for a given master.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I feel most competitive builds will want to max out as many stones as they can. They are too useful, and often the first master to run out suffers for it in our local meta.

[Spiku]

Depends on the match up and VP conditions for me. Generally I'll roll Som'er with 3-4, because I have card control and unresisted damage. I'll take full stones if I need Ophelia to get something done, or if I am reliant on Avatar Som'er's 2Wd farts.

[naiatoc]

From my experience it depends entirely on the master in question. But I don't play competitively so maybe in a tournament environment things are different.

Victorias and Lady J need lots of stones. The more they have the better. When fully stocked on stones I have a hard time beating Lady J.

Collette needs few as she can produce some and she can 'use' them without really using them.

With Kirai I only bring a few. She's not carrying the fight, my Shikome and Ikyrio are. When I don't have the suit for 'in the spirit world' I don't want to spend a stone hoping for a mask.

Von Shill needs some for his slow to die, but I don't take a lot. The 4 or 5 I have is super, super important, but I rarely feel like I need more.

In my games against gremlins sometimes I win, sometimes I loose, but it never comes down to stones. Som'er has card draw and Ophelia doesn't seem to burn through them very fast.

[Koali]

I Think Smer needs very much Soulstones....

Not he himself but his Mosquitos casting Pull my Finger... need the Stones to bring the spell!

Also:
Why draining Souls with Hamelin.

You make one SS out of a 2SS Minion... thats a waste i think...
Don´t like this... exept in Slaughter matchups...

[magicpockets]

Hamelin- I start with few, open by draining souls on rats or stolen and go hulking with him.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Okay, maximum ss you can get from a Stolen is 2ss and that needs 2AP to do it, and you can get 1ss from a rat. That's a 1ss net loss on both models - you may as well take the ss in your pool. Even if you're summoning the Stolen and using your last 2AP to get the stones you'd be better drawing 4 cards rather than 2ss.

Also, avoid Drain Souls unless it's strategically important as the -1wp will bite your ass.

Lastly, I'd recommend always taking 8ss with Hamelin, getting understand the soulless off multiple times or combining one with fate is meaningless to ensure a hit against anything in the game is so powerful. Plus, if you find yourself without Stolen you'l be glad of the damage prevention flips.

[Mister_Q]

Lilith needs all she can get. She's hard to hit, but once the hit gets through she's got no armour, hard to kill, etc. so soul stones are definitely useful.

[Math Mathonwy]

I feel most competitive builds will want to max out as many stones as they can. They are too useful, and often the first master to run out suffers for it in our local meta.

Aye, I feel that the question should be which Masters can make do with six stones and which ones absolutely need the full eight. So'mer is about the only one I can see doing well with a low cache (a bit depending on the match up of course).

[Calmdown]

Almost every master at a competitive level will want to run 8 stones. Occasionally they'll run 6 or 7 due to minion needs for the strategy. The exception to this are the Outcast masters who cant really legitimately get that high with a starting cache of 0, though they're all powerful enough in another way to offset this (The majority of Outcast minions are undercosted to start with, Viks get a whole extra master at the cost of their cache, Som'er runs lists full of very undercosted minions, and Hamelin is broken enough not to care so much about his cache plus he can abuse Drain Souls and also has uber cheap minions to make up any ss differential)

This is also one of the major seasons that Perdita and Seamus with their caches of 2 struggle competitively. It's also a reason that McMourning, despite being pretty average, is pulled up into competitiveness with his cache of 6.

Soulstones are the most powerful thing in the game, and the first person to run out of them is at a very serious disadvantage. A lot of people don't realise how gamebreaking they are.

[Spiku]

Som'er's mosquitoes do not need soulstones to cast Pull My Finger; it is cast on an 8, and with gremlin cycling you always have a good hand for simple cheats like that. Every soulstone saved is one less Bayou available to you, or perhaps the loss of the rat to bring your mosquitoes up to 5Wds and summon a piglet; 5Wd mosquitoes give you easier card denial. I really can't recommend front loading soulstones as even in contain power, you have piglets to truffles him away, 15" potential movement, or 3 healing flips on your activation. The fact Som'er does unresisted damage makes him very different in his options to damage opponents. The only thing they need soulstones on is Swamp Gas, from Avatar Som'er, because that deals flat Wds.

You'll find in 30ss you will struggle to have more than 3-4 and be at full effectiveness as Som'er; at 35 you generally want another key model for overwhelming rather than more soulstones; you want to rely on the war of attrition and out activations in most circumstances with Som'er as he is most effective in your deployment zone. Other masters use high soulstones because they actually get out there and do things. If you have Ophelia, feel free to front end soulstones, she will make them worth while.