The Peace spec of the Flagstone Dominion is headed up by General Onimaru. Onimaru is a Sun Tzu-like figure—a master of military strategy. Overwhelming military might is the key to Peace, after all.
Here’s General Onimaru’s hero card:
Onimaru is one of the best heroes in combat. Even at level 1, he attacks as a 3/3 because of his frenzy ability. Once he reaches level 5, he can attack and STILL patrol due to his readiness ability. At max level, he becomes a 4/5, which is really beefy for a hero, and he also gets three 1/1 soldiers to command. That’s a lot of combat power before you even get to spells or units.
Not many spells outside of the red faction can directly damage a building, but Onimaru can with General’s Hammer:
The magic number here is 5 damage because that’s how many hit points the tech I, II, and III buildings have. General’s hammer does 3 instantly, but you can also set up the other 2 damage ahead of time with this blue starting deck card:
Even if the opponent has patrollers defending, Traffic Director can sneak by (he knows all the back alleys and shortcuts, after all). Destroying tech buildings is a form of control, and it’s the kind Peace favors more than Law.
Here's another trick up Onimaru's sleeve:
General Onimaru can send any unit to Boot Camp, and even any hero except himself. (He's a commander after all, so he wouldn't be seen doing lowly training exercises.) The good news for the trainee is that it gets a +1/+1 rune, but the bad news is that it becomes exhausted. Notice that you can use this on a friendly OR enemy thing. In other words, you can make your own unit or hero permanently bigger if you just agree not to patrol with it this turn. Or you can remove an enemy unit or hero from the patrol zone (exhausting it does that as a consequence) if you're willing to deal with it being bigger later.
Boot Camp is kind of like paying with a credit card when you use it on enemy units; you get the immediate benefit of clearing out patrollers, but you'll have another problem to deal with later. This can be worth it if it lets you kill the hero or tech building the opponent's patrollers were trying to protect. When used on your own units or heroes, Boot Camp is pretty efficient. As long as you can do it during a turn where you had enough patrollers anyway, you got +1/+1 forever on something for the cost only 1 gold and ZERO cards. Buffing your units without even going down on your card draw is the Peace way: growing your military power keeps the peace.
Back to the part where Onimaru is great in combat though. If you want him to completely dominate in combat, his ultimate spell turns into an incredible powerhouse:
When you attack with the Art of War buff, your Onimaru will be a 7/7 (+1 ATK from his frenzy ability, and +2/+2 more from the spell to his printed stats of 4/5 at max level). He’s also *unstoppable* AND has *swift strike*, which is just totally ridiculous. He can one-shot any tech building other than a base, or he can take take off over a third of a base's max HP in one hit. He pushes past any patrollers the opponent has, yet he still patrols for you due to readiness. The swift strike part means he’ll kill pretty much any unit without even getting hit back. All of this together means you can play him as a control deck, or you can use him as a win condition and go straight for their base.
Need some backup? First, get some tech I soldiers in there to help you.
Some eager cadets are 1/1 for 1, but this much more exciting Overeager Cadet is 2/2 for 0. That’s the right price! 2/2 isn’t that big, but it’s a really efficient use of 0 gold. If you want a bigger soldier, this shining paragon of Flagstone will rush to your aid:
You get a 3/3 for 3, and you often end up not even having to spend a card, sort of. If Brave Knight would die in combat, instead he flees back to your hand.
Let’s look at a few cards from the tech II level. Before, I mentioned how Peace can choose to play control by destroying the opponent’s tech buildings over and over, crippling them while you fill the board with soldiers lead by General Onimaru. Also keep in mind that whenever you destroy a tech building, the opponent’s base takes 2 damage, so you’re also working towards your eventual victory by doing that. This can help:
Sun Tzu said that spies are the most valuable assets in warfare. Onimaru said that too. In Codex, the Flagstone spy is invisible, which is even better than the stealth ability you’ve seen before. Units and heroes that are invisible, like those with stealth, can sneak past enemy patrollers. In addition to that, invisible things can’t be targeted by enemy spells or abilities and they can’t be attacked in combat either. Opponents need a detector to see through invisibility, but those are hard to come by. They could also build the Tower add-on to detect one invisible thing per turn, though they can only have one add-on at a time.
Flagstone Spy is threatening to deal 3 damage to a building every turn. That, plus your other tricks is probably enough to repeatedly destroy a tech building, which is hugely crippling. He’s also gaining information about your opponent's hand, letting you see which cards they teched from their codex. On top of all that, Flagstone Spy steals a gold if they have any gold in their reserves. Opponents simply MUST answer him somehow to avoid being dismantled, but he’s actually pretty hard to stop.
For a completely different line of play, look at these two Peace tech II cards:
Both of these cards trigger when you play a unit from your hand. In Drill Sergeant’s case, he gets a +1/+1 rune that he can then move to any unit. I assume he does that by yelling at them. In Flagstone Garrison’s case, you get to draw a card. If you have both Drill Sergeant and Flagstone Garrison out, playing a single unit will trigger both of them at once. Heck, if you had two copies of each Sergeant / Garrison out, it would trigger all four of them at once. And what could be more Peaceful than two screaming Drill Sergeants and two military garrisons? You won't find any crime on those streets.
And by the way, you know who is a great unit to play from your hand to trigger those last two cards? Overeager Cadet. Costing 0 was never more sweet.
Now let’s talk about closing the game out. Onimaru himself can do it if you use his Art of War ultimate spell a few times. He’s “unstoppable” with that (meaning he ignores patrollers). Another way to ignore patrollers is to fly over them:
Flying is very powerful in Codex. Fliers can fly over patrollers and hit whatever they want, but that’s not even the whole story. On top of that, when they fight ground units or heroes, they don’t even get hit back unless those ground forces have anti-air. If you’re familiar with StarCraft, think of a Mutalisk (flying) attacking a Zealot (ground unit without anti-air). The Zealot can’t hit the Mutalisk ever, and the Mutalisk gets free shots off.
Air Hammers can attack and hit whatever they want, only stopped if the opponent happens to have a flying patroller. If they happen to have an anti-air patroller, your flier can STILL fly over it, but you’ll take damage when you do (all combat damage is dealt simultaneously). In the majority of cases though, you’ll just hit whatever you want and you'll dominate. Air Hammer in particular gets +2 damage against damaged buildings, so that means if you managed to do even 1 damage to a tech building with Traffic Director, Air Hammer can finish it off. It also means if you managed to deal even 1 damage to their base, a single Air Hammer is putting them on a 4 turn clock.
At tech III, you can use a way more powerful flier:
A 6/7 flier is deadly to begin with, but Patriot Gryphon wins with Peace’s signature style of control: destroying buildings. When you use Patriot Gryphon, your opponent has only a few turns to survive, but you’re ALSO crippling them while you’re winning. Usually you have to choose if you want to spend a turn destroying their tech II building or something. This normally will cripple them a bit and deal 2 damage to their base. But Patriot Gryphon’s ability lets him destroy a tech building AND hit the base too. Their base will take 2 damage from the tech building being destroyed AND 6 damage from Patriot Grypon’s ability. Patriot Gryphon's crushing militance is the embodiment of Peace.
Keep the Peace the Flagstone way.