Auric Impulse

Auric Impulse

Colorless unit

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At the start of your turn, gain 4, and sacrifice Auric Impulse.

Supply:	20
Cost:	3
Build time:	1
Health:	1
Notes:	Sacrifices self
Position:	Back Left

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An Auric Impulse

Auric Impulse is a Colorless unit. It provides a small income when saving gold for the next turn.

Panel

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Strategy

For the cost of one more gold than a drone, Auric Impulse provides players with strong option value. Even though it costs an energy and requires cutting a drone to buy, the energy is returned on the following turn. This allows the purchase of an additional drone to replace the one that was cut, so there is no net loss in economy if a player buys Auric Impulse in place of a normal drone. The strength of Auric Impulse is that in certain reactive games, a player can essentially delay purchasing decisions by one turn without sacrificing on economy, see what the opponent is doing, and then move to counter the opponent's strategy.

Another major use of Auric Impulse is as a temporary economy boost. Because Drones cost 3 gold, they take 3 turns to break even and only start generating profit from the 4th turn onwards. Auric Impulse, on the other hand, returns its full purchase cost and an extra gold the very next turn. Thus, some extremely fast rushes are possible by buying Auric Impulses in place of Drones, most notably a turn 2 Centrifuge off of 2 engineers. Note that this will usually require significant economic sacrifice as the Drones are not replaced. When used this way, Auric Impulse can be likened to a spell like Pyretic Ritual from Magic: The Gathering.

With Antima Comet

When buying Antima Comet, you generally saves the rest of your gold until the next turn, when you buy as many Engineers as possible right before the comet activates. By purchasing Auric Impulse in the same turn as the comet, you can buy more Engineers in the next turn than you would have been able to buy just by saving up gold.

Centrifuge off of Two Engineers

This rush takes advantage of the extra Energy resource produced by Auric Impulse to purchase a Centrifuge without having to buy a third Engineer. It is available to both players, but the player 1 version requires a much more significant economic sacrifice.

As player 1:

1. Auric Impulse
2. Centrifuge

As player 2:

1. D + Auric Impulse
2. Centrifuge

Lucina Rush

This rush allows for a turn 4 Lucina Spinos from player 2. While it's also possible to get a turn 4 Lucina as player 1, this requires staying on 6 drones until turn 5, which makes the build impractical. The build is weak to strong early aggression from the opposing player.

As player 2:

1. D + Auric Impulse
2. Auric Impulse x 3
3. AA + Auric Impulse x 3
4. DD + Lucina

If more defense is necessary, this variation allows an extra 2 Engineers at the cost of one less Drone.

As player 2:

1. D + Auric Impulse
2. Auric Impulse x 3
3. AAEE + Auric Impulse x 2
4. D + Lucina

Odin Rush

In this rush, both players can get Odin on turn 5, but in a mirror match situation player 1's Odin will arrive first and beat the player 2 version of the rush.

As player 1:

1. DD
2. Auric Impulse x 2
3. Auric Impulse x 4
4. BBBD + Auric Impulse x 3
5. D + Odin

As player 2:

1. DD
2. Auric Impulse x 2
3. Auric Impulse x 4
4. BBBD + Auric Impulse x 4
5. DDD + Odin

Change log

• February 15th, 2015
  • Cost changed from 5 to 4.
  • Produced resources changed from 6 to 5.
• December 1st, 2014
  • Renamed to Auric Impulse, from Victory Bond.
  • New Art.
• November 14th, 2014
  • Supply increased from 10 to 20.

Unit types
Colorless