When learning any new game, one of the first things I try to identify is the resource most critical to success. Maximize my use of that resource and minimize my opponents' use of it, and I often have the key to winning.

Card Advantage in Hecatomb

In trading card games, this typically means maximizing card advantage. If you have useful cards and your opponent doesn't, you're in good shape. Hecatomb is something of an exception in that you are drawing two cards every turn (as is everyone else), and almost every card you draw is useful in its own right, as opposed to strictly producing resources to play other cards. You can't just take out an opposing abomination and count on having a couple of turns to act freely, as anyone can conjure up even a token blocker in a short amount of time.

But card advantage is not just about trading one of your cards for a bunch of your opponent's cards. If one of your cards allows you to reuse a group of your others, that still builds up the sort of advantage we're looking for while allowing the two cards per turn to work for you instead of against you. Some types of cards that build this sort of card advantage are cards that allow you to draw cards, exhume minions, and so on. But one of the more interesting and flexible ways of gaining card advantage is by using stitching cards, especially when combined with the Fanatic ability.

Stitching

Dark Genesis

Stitching is a problematic rule for many players, since it's a simple concept that can yield counterintuitive results -- so let's go over some of the basics. When you stitch minions together, you're just moving them around the board. You aren't playing the minions; you're playing the Unholy Fusion (or whatever) that has the stitching effect.

Since you're not playing the minions, you aren't bound by the usual restrictions on how you could have played them out of your hand. For example, if you have a bunch of stray Agonels on the board, you're free to stitch them all together – an obvious example of using one card to reuse several others. On the other hand, since you're just moving the minions around, their summon effects don't happen. For example, you can't gain advantage by stitching a bunch of Brain Surgeons together in order to exhume some greed minions.

On their own, stitching cards provide a fair amount of utility. Dark Genesis, in particular, offers a lot of flexibility in gaining card advantage. During your opponent's turn, the ability to stitch during combat can be used to create a surprise blocking opportunity, trapping a small attacking abomination in a devastating block. Dark Genesis can also offset your opponent's combat fates, neutralizing a nasty surprise by taking the minions in a doomed abomination out of combat, ready to fight (and reap) another day.

Stitching + Fanatic = Good Stuff

Hypersonic Fiend

But the real power of stitching cards comes in their ability to leverage multiple attacks out of a single stack of minions by combining with the Fanatic ability.

The basic recipe goes like this: Start your turn with a Hypersonic Fiend stacked with some other minion that allows the abomination to attack without fear of being blocked, perhaps a Damned Thing against a destruction deck. With a card such as Dark Genesis, you can attack normally, reap 2 souls, stitch the minions into a new abomination, and attack to reap another 2 souls.

You can further combine the Dark Genesis with combat fates whose effects last until end of turn. For example, you could use Soul Drain to give your abomination +1 Reaper for each attack.

Scartist

If you combine this tactic with reaping abilities, you can build card advantage. For example, throw in a Scartist, and you can attack for a total of 8 souls: Once with your original abomination, playing the Scartist to untap it (and attack), and then playing Dark Genesis to stitch those minions into an abomination that can also attack. If there are 2 minions for your Scartist to destroy, the second attack offsets the use of Dark Genesis, so you aren't even yielding card advantage there.

But remember, this sort of a card-play combination strategy won't work with a minion such as Hungry Chupacabra, whose Fanatic ability results only from a conditional ability, so it isn't triggered by stitching it onto anything.

Add-ons and Alternatives

This entire strategy is even more effective with NYARLATHOTEP, which allows you to stitch a new abomination every turn, and can clear a blocker out of the way for the first turn. And Signet of Loki can get the combination going without having to rely on a minion such as Hypersonic Fiend.