Nothing in Kubala's life was normal. Now that TV series about sportsmen are fashionable, the one that could be made about the adventures of Ladislao Kubala Stecz (Budapest, 1927) would raze through many seasons. In one season we could go deeper into his facet of legendary footballer, capable of changing the way of playing this sport, how he saved his life at the very last moment by not getting on the Torino plane that crashed in Superga, or how he was ten minutes away from signing for Real Madrid or enrolling in the Pirate League of Colombia, all of this in order to end being Barcelona's biggest icon... who ended playing for Espanyol.
We could add a season of adventures due to his incredible escape from communist Hungary. His journey through Italy with a football team, the Hungaria, of stateless people in which in addition to Hungarians also played Croats, Albanians, Romanians and Serbs who were looking for a life as good as they could get. One could also add to this the facet of the social phenomenon that dazzled a country during the dark years of Franco's regime by becoming a pop star, and end up with another season about the legends, real, invented or simply exaggerated, of his adventures in Barcelona's nightclubs.
Everything about Kubala is like a movie.

The legend of the escape.

Born in Budapest to a Hungarian man and a Slovakian woman, he always considered himself as both Hungarian and Slovakian, even when this republic was part of the now extinct Czechoslovakia. By the age of 20, Kubala was a football star known for his performances with Slovan Bratislava and Vasas Budapest. In fact, he had already been capped by Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Later, he would go on to play for Spain, and is still the only player to have been capped by three countries. But fed up with the system that was preventing him from developing his professional football career, he embarked on an escape proper of a movie to the West. He contacted a human trafficking organisation, a mafia that, in exchange for a large amount of money, facilitated a partial escape. As is now the case with criminals who gamble with the lives of people who want to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe or pass to the United States through the southern border, the smugglers did not secure anything. The last part of the journey depended on the luck and expertise of the escapees and often ended tragically.
"I remember that when I escaped from Hungary I was just a kid. The traffickers left us in the middle of a mountain to do the last stretch on foot. We were a large group. The adults gathered the children and gave us palinka. A liquor similar to brandy to get us drunk and fall asleep. A child's cry could alert the border guards patrolling the mountain. And they had orders to shoot to kill. The group split in two. My group was lucky and we were able to win the Austrian border. Once we were safe, we learned that the other group that had travelled with us and took another road was discovered and killed." The chilling story is that of Zoltan Czibor, the son of the former Barça player who tells how he had to flee Hungary with his family to join his father in Italy. The odyssey of Kubala, six years earlier, was mirrored.
The traffickers disguised Kubala as a Russian soldier and put him in a truck that would leave the escapees at an undetermined point in the mountains so that they could cross the border into Austria on their own. Kubala remembered that this journey scared him to death because unlike his comrades, he was a national celebrity and any soldier who checked the military truck would recognize him. He was endangering his life and the lives of those who accompanied him.
When they were left in the mountain on January 27, 1949, Kubala walked, and crossing a river helped by a tire that carried him, managed to reach Innsbuck, Austria, without any documentation. He was a stateless man starting from scratch.
In Austria he managed to sign with Pro Patria, a team from Milan, but he could only play friendly matches. His escape provoked the anger of the Hungarian regime, which denounced him and blocked his registration. Kubala had married Anna Daucik two years earlier, sister of Fernando Daucik, a veteran player of the era who would later become a famous coach. When Kubala fled, he left behind his family, whom he was unable to reunite with until six months later, when Anna was able to cross the border and meet Ladislao in Udine. He arrived with one more member of the family. A baby, her firstborn, whom Kubala did not yet know.
While he is irregularly enrolled in the Pro Patria, he gets the chance to sign with Torino, Italy's dominant team at the time. He is offered a trial match. Nothing better than a friendly match that Il Grande Torino had in Lisbon as a tribute to Xico Ferreira. However, when the Turin team's plane is about to take off, the president of Torino prevents Kubala from boarding because he fears a federal sanction. On the return flight, on 4 May 1949, the Fiat G 212 of Avio Linee Italiana crashed into the retaining wall of the Basilica of Superga due to the wind, poor visibility and an error in the altimeter of the aircraft. At 180 kilometres per hour and with a visibility of 40 metres, the pilot saw the stone wall of the basilica too late when he thought the plane was at 2,000 metres and was actually at 690 metres above sea level. The 31 people who were travelling in that aircraft died. Kubala had saved his life again.

The legend of Hungaria.

With no possibility of playing in Italy because the back then very powerful Italian Communist Party was pressing to prevent people fleeing from countries in the orbit of the USSR from taking refuge in Italy, Kubala had no choice but to form a team of stateless people who hired their services throughout Europe to play friendly matches against whoever hired them.
The team was called Hungaria, was managed by his brother-in-law Fernando Daucik and was mainly made up of Hungarians, although there were also players of other nationalities. It was made up of: Kis, Marik, Torok, Mogoy, Lami, Rákosi, Hrotko, Majteny, Nagy, Kubala, Otto, Licker, Turbeky, Monsider (Croatian), De Lorenzi (Albanian), Szegedi (Romanian) and Arangelovic (Serbian).
They played their first match against Italy's B team, but again pressure from the PCI forced them to play outside Italy. And that is how they arrived in Spain, hired by Santiago Bernabéu. On June 5, 1950, they faced Real Madrid in Chamartin, losing 4-2, but with a stellar performance by Kubala, who scored both of his team's goals. Three days later, they beat the Spanish team that was preparing for the World Cup in Brazil, where they came in fourth, 1-2 again with a great performance by Kubala, who received an offer from Real Madrid to be signed.
Kubala requires that to join the team, Madrid must also hire Daucik as a coach, something that Bernabéu does not agree to. The Madrid coach at that time was the Briton Keeping, a great connoisseur of WM tactics. Daucik is offered to train the Plus Ultra, a Madrid branch that plays in the third division. That negative and the federative problems that drags Kubala cause that Madrid becomes disinterested in his transfer, that was already agreed lacking of some fringes that turned out to be determinant.
The Hungaria moves two days later to Barcelona, where on June 10 plays against Espanyol losing 6-4 in a match with Pepe Samitier, the technical secretary of Barça, in the stands. It is necessary to emphasize that Hungaria had been playing three matches in five days with a very short team and without being able to make substitutions. Even so, Kubala amazes and Samitier does not mess around. Six days after that match, on 16 June 1950, at half past six in the evening, Kubala signed his three-year contract with Barça at the Pasaje Méndez Vigo. Obviously, with Fernando Daucik as coach. President Montal, Sr., signed him as an "amateur player" in order to avoid any trouble for the federation.
Real Madrid rages and is shocked. Pablo Hernández, general secretary of the white entity and Santiago Bernabéu's right hand, assures that Barça had broken a non-aggression pact between both teams and had hired a player with whom they were in talks. Samitier, who was unbeatable in the media, declares that he had been following Kubala for months and that the pact had not been broken because it referred only to players who played in Spanish teams. And Hungaria was not Spanish. In fact, it wasn't from anywhere.
But Kubala's problems didn't end there. He still didn't have a registration card or an international certificate. Vasas in Budapest and the Hungarian Federation had reported him to FIFA. Barça used the weak argument that since professionalism had been abolished in Hungary, any amateur player could choose his destiny. But the fight was not going to be so easy.
Barça, it is fair to say, had the total support of the regime and the Federation to carry out the transfer. At the level of anti-communist propaganda, Kubala was perfect. A young and extraordinary sportsman who fled from the red hell to take refuge in Franco's Spain was a candy too sweet to let go. Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation, rowed in favor of Barça as did Ricardo Cabot, secretary of the organization, who, in addition to his affection for the regime, was a well-known Barcelona supporter.
But the procedures were very slow and Kubala could only play friendly matches. He made his debut against Osasuna on 12 October, scoring two goals on the day the Barça fans knew instantly that they had just signed a star. Then he played against Zaragoza, Frankfurt twice, Girona and the Badalona. In six friendlies he scored 11 goals. The fans and the player himself were eager to meet in an official match. For all this, the Federation to play the role with FIFA fined Barça every time he lined up Kubala with the symbolic figure of 50 pesetas.
It is at this time that Kubala is about to leave everything and go away from Barça. He needed the money and wanted to play at the highest level and in Colombia he was offered the chance to do so. The South American country had organised the so-called Pirate League outside FIFA and many of the world's biggest stars joined, including Alfredo Di Stefano who went to Millonarios in Bogota. Kubala had a tempting offer from Atletico Bucaramanga. With the option of Kubala leaving, events accelerated. To begin with, Barça fixed his financial situation by means of a peculiar amateur contract in which they paid him 1,200 pesetas for "compensation" and 3,800 for "encouragement and overfeeding".
On April 2, 1951, he was granted the status of political refugee as a stateless person, which was a step towards granting him Spanish nationality. But for this step, Kubala first had to be converted to Catholicism through the sacrament of baptism. Every Spaniard had to be a Catholic. Kubala was baptized in Aguilas, Murcia, the birthplace of Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation. It is then when Barça, to avoid problems, settles its differences economically with Vasas, which despite being against capitalism accepts a payment of 300,000 pesetas to provide the transfer, while the Pro Patria, which also complained, is satisfied with 12 million lire.
The Kubala era could now really commence.

The legend on the field.

Kubala made his official debut with Barcelona in Sevilla in a cup match. The Sevillistas at that time were one of the best teams. Sevilla and Barça had developed in that period a great rivalry in the high places of the table. In 1946 Sevilla had stolen the possibility of winning the championship from Barça by drawing in Les Corts on the last day, in 1948 Barça beat the Sevillians in the final of the Eva Perón Cup (which would be the current Supercup) and in that campaign a Barça without Kubala had lost all its options to win La Liga after losing 4-0 in Nervión three days before the end of the season.
The Cup, by that time was played once the regular season was over and in those circumstances the official debut of Kubala took place. On April 29th in Nervion, Barça arrived to play against Sevilla in the middle of a difficult atmosphere. The Andalusians had lost the league in a dramatic outcome when they drew at home in the last match against Atletico Madrid with a refereeing performance that the locals judged scandalous. For further concern, the Federation allowed Kubala to line up with Barça in the first round of the Cup, which in Sevilla was taken as a surprise.
With the stadium full to the flag, Barcelona defeated Sevilla in an exhibition of Kubala. He wasn't just the best of the match but he showed Spain a way of playing football unthinkable until that time: chest controls, shots with curve, millimetric changes of play of 40 meters, protection of the ball with his back, use of the body in the shot and touches with the heel.
Domenech, Sevilla's attacker who was the direct protagonist of that match, explained years later how he remembered that day.
"It was something never seen before. Ramallets kicked it and he would receive her with his chest, or with either of his legs. If you tackled him he would dribble you in a brick. He'd put the ball where he wanted her. Besides, from time to time he changed with César, he'd be a center forward and César would be a midfielder. They drove us crazy. The anger of the people became clamours. We were witnessing something extraordinary. It was like going from black and white cinema to colour," explained the former Sevilla player. The Sevilla crowd, who had welcomed Barça and its new superstar with anger, ended up giving Kubala a standing ovation for every action as if they were watching a glorious bullfighting performance.
Kubala's actions on the field change football forever. Since there was no television, his exploits are reported orally. There is no other way to see it than to go to the field of Les Corts, which is packed for every game Barça plays as a local. It is a very common argument to say that Kubala forced Barça to build the Camp Nou because the old Les Corts was not enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to admire him. Maybe he had an influence, but as the journalist Frederic Porta, author of an interesting biography of Kubala (Kubala, l'heroi que va canviar la història del Barça. Ed. Saldonar) explains, "the truth is that Barça had already bought the land to build the Camp Nou two years before and the idea of making a bigger field already existed, but Kubala advanced everything and justified the change".
Blessed with brutal technique, a sensational strike of the ball and an unusual physical strength, Kubala changed football. He would throw free-kicks over the wall with curve or by making the ball bounce in front of the goalkeeper, he would take penalties (he was practically infallible) with what was later called paradinha and was credited with the Brazilians although he was the first in Europe to do so. Physically he was a bull. In his youth he had practiced boxing and if he didn't become a recognized fighter with a great career it was because he had short arms. His lower body was sensational. He had a butt and legs that allowed him to protect the ball like no one else. Frederic Porta says that "in his time of splendour they measured his thighs and each one had a circumference of 69 centimetres, which would be the waist of one of his companions". He was also capable of running the 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. A total athlete with a very refined technique.
However, that physical strength and the confidence he had in her, for he never avoided a collision, were his downfall. Kubala became the target of a hunt by rival defenders. He never went into hiding and that's why in eleven years at Barcelona he suffered up to eleven injuries of some seriousness. With matches without television, the harshness that bordered on violence was the order of the day. He was being kicked to death.
But Barça was living its most golden period to date. Moreover, the club revolved around Kubala. Frederic Porta compares it with the present time: "Now they say that Messi commands the club and surely he commands, but nothing to do with the influence that Kubala had. Kubala was the boss and even the one who decided the transfers. And no one was surprised. That Barça adopted the socks with the horizontal stripes blaugrana is his imposition. He saw them on the rugby team, liked them and incorporated them into the football team by decree. In fact, it is he who insists on signing Luis Suarez when he impresses him in a match against Deportivo. Kubala was Suarez's first fan, but what happened in the stands, which was divided between Suaristas and Kubalistas, is another matter.
Suarez was eight years younger than Kubala. He arrived at Barcelona at the age of 19, Kubala was 27 and his physique was very punished by his injuries and the life he was living, as he did not deprive himself of anything. If he held out, it was because of privileged genetics.
Therefore, there never was a real competition between them, but there was a lot of influence here from the figure of Helenio Herrera, the Barça manager, who saw Kubala as older and slower and was looking forward to a quick change by the young Galician as the leader of the team. The debate reached the stands and the media. It was an absurd debate, because they didn't play in the same position, with whom Kubala really had a certain rivalry with Eulogio Martínez, who was the one with whom he alternated the position.
Kubala's physical problems were not only due to injuries. He had the whole of Spain in suspense when he suffered a tuberculosis that could have cost him his life. There are apocryphal versions that explain that this tuberculosis was actually a stab wound he suffered in a fight in a cheap pub in the fifth district (Barcelona's Chinatown) and he has to retire to Montseny to recover. Nobody is betting on his return to the pitch if he survives a "hole in the lung the size of a silver bullet" according to the chronicles of the time. But once again, Kubala's ability to survive prevails. He returns to the pitches, but already heavily punished and slowed down.
It is against this backdrop that the 1961 European Cup final arrives, with Kubala arriving at the age of 34 with a herniated disc that barely allows him to walk, but he wants to play. He knows that the club is going through a critical situation despite having reached the final of the maximum trophy for the first time: the club is bankrupt because of the construction of the Camp Nou, the fights in the board of directors are chaotic, Luis Suarez has signed for Inter (the one in Bern will be his last game with Barça), which was where Helenio Herrera had left the team in the hands of Enrique Orizaola.
Kubala tells Orizaola to line him up, that like all the Portuguese will go for him and he can barely move because of the back pain and will play with painkillers, it will give more opportunities to his teammates. But the match is a pile of misfortunes for Barcelona. Ramallets scores an own goal, Barça shoots three times to the damn square posts of the goals (from then on they would change their shape) even Kubala kicked a ball that hit a post, went through the goal line until it hit the other post and came out repelled. Barça lost and Kubala's time at Barcelona came to an end.

The man of the year.

Kubala's significance goes beyond the playing field. According to a vote made for Radio Barcelona by journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano in the mid-50s, the Catalans most loved by their fellow citizens were Doctor Barraquer and Ladislao Kubala.
"He was literally the most famous person in the city, people really venerated him, and even Messi's influence cannot be compared to that of Kubala in those years," explains Porta.
His life off the field was notorious. An unrepentant night owl, it was common to see him in Barcelona's fashionable coffee shops and nightclubs. He was a man who stood out. Alfredo Relaño defines him in some of his articles as "a demigod. Tall, strong, blond with blue eyes and an overflowing personality. He aroused the admiration of men and women alike. An idol". Frederic Porta sums it up with the argument that "he would be the sum of Messi and Beckham and on top of that, he would go out every night".
Faced with Kubala's disorganised life, the Barcelona management decided to set up a private detective agency to follow him at night. The reports of the detectives are still in the Centre de Documentació del FC Barcelona and Frederic Porta published them in the history magazine 'Sàpiens'. In them, he gives a detailed account of the nocturnal wanderings of "Mr. K.", the code name of the Blaugrana star in an exercise in absurd discretion. There is also a letter from a Sabadell businessman in the club's archives, expressing concern that Kubala and Czibor had been "found in a Sabadell establishment after 2.30 in the morning accompanied by some of those ladies who were once gentlemen, I don't know if you understand". What the businessman doesn't explain in the letter is what he was doing in the same place.
Kubala's fondness for drinking was no secret. Helenio Herrera explains in a television interview that "one day at an airport in customs they asked Kubala if he had anything to declare and he said two bottles of whisky. The official asked him to show them to him and he, laughing, touched his belly and said: 'X-ray, I have them inside'. On another occasion, in the same situation, but carrying the bottle in the bag, he was told to leave it at the airport because no alcoholic drinks were allowed to be taken on board. Neither shy nor lazy, he drank it in front of the astonished official.
The legends about the occasions when the night was made longer and he did not arrive at training sessions or matches were recurrent. In that case, he called on the services of Angel Mur Sr., the team masseur who knew where to find him. He would start a pilgrimage through the usual places or floors until he found him, took him to the changing room, gave him a cold shower, a coffee with salt, a massage and played. The fans forgave him everything and were aware that their star was a man of joyful life. But he never failed on the field. Among the crowd at the time there were comments about the Kubala ritual in those games that followed a busy night. "He started off badly, and vaguely, but the signal was when, ten minutes into the game, he rolled up his sleeves as if to say 'I'm here, let's start, I've already cleared off', and the machine started to work.
You can't find anyone in the world who speaks ill of Kubala. Absolutely no one. Everyone highlights his huge heart and that despite being by far the highest paid player of the time (he earned six times more than his teammates) he didn't have a no for anyone. His detachment from money was legendary.
As proof, the anecdote explained by his biographer Porta: "one day he arrived at the dressing room and commented that his car had been stolen and that in the glove compartment he was carrying an envelope with 200,000 pesetas, which was a fortune for the time (a good apartment could cost 130,000 pesetas). When his colleagues tried to encourage him, he simply said: someone who needs it more than I do must have taken it".
It was also usual for him to take off his coat and give it to a poor man who begged in Barcelona's winter, or to take in any Hungarian who came to Barcelona asking for help in his house in Carrer Duquesa d'Orleans. Kubala, remembering his times as a stateless refugee without papers, asked nothing. He would take them home and pay them a boat ticket to America. The motto among the refugees fleeing the Iron Curtain was that "if you get to Barcelona, look for Kubala, he will help you". He never failed.
Later, now retired, he set up a bar next to Czibor in Capitan Arenas Street, the mythical Kep Duna (blue Danube in Hungarian) that became an unofficial refugee reception centre that was monitored by the secret services of the United States, the USSR and the Spanish police. Something like the Rick's Café in the film Casablanca, but in the upper area of Barcelona.
He was the great character of Barcelona loved by all, but there was a moment when this was almost broken, strange as it may seem. It coincided with the defeat in Bern, when a part of the press came to write that "Barça must be de-Kubalized as the Soviet Union must be de-Stalinized" and, especially, when he signed for Espanyol. The earthquake was a huge one.

From the bench to Sarrià.

After the defeat in Bern's final, Kubala announced his retirement from the fields. He had taken the coaching course and was ranked number one in his class. He made a pact with the president Llaudet, who was also an interesting character as we will see, that in principle he would take charge of the footballers' school of the club and that in a couple of years he would be in charge of the first team.
Meanwhile, Barcelona is directed by Lluís Miró who faces a team in disarray. Suarez has been transferred to Inter in the worst decision in the club's history and myths such as Ramallets, Tejada and Czibor were in the decline of their careers. The season starts badly and after losing at Mestalla to Valencia by a humiliating 6-2 that forces the resignation of Miro. It was time for Kubala, who was promoted to the first team in front of the joy of the fans. And the project results from the beginning. The Barça of the second part of season 61-62 recovers in La Liga and finishes second (the distance with the white ones when Kubala arrived was almost insurmountable) and avenges the 6-2 of Mestalla beating Valencia in the Camp Nou 4-0.
Facing the next season, the 62-63, Kubala can make his team by giving painful drops of some of his former teammates as it is the case of Eulogio Martinez or Evaristo. One of Llaudet's reluctances to give Kubala the job of coach was that he would have to manage some of his former teammates.
The positive expectations about Kubala's first full project were frustrated at first when the Blaugrana team had to play the final of the Copa de Ferias against Valencia, the team that caused the fall of Miró and the promotion of Kubala. And the history, by rare that it seems, repeats: Valencia returns to him to put 6-2 to the Barça. The fans explode against the team. In the return match, obviously, there is nothing to do, but Llaudet's ability to self-flagellation has no limits. As Alfredo Relaño writes, the Blaugrana president calls a dinner with the press the day before the game and makes this statement that if it happened today would open all the news.
Llaudet, in front of the press and accompanied by the coach Kubala and Gràcia as captain, asks the fans to forgive him and announces changes in the protocol of the start of the second leg. "Valencia will go out first to receive the applause, then Barcelona, to receive the whistles. Then Kubala will come out, so he can get the thunders. And finally me, so that all the whistles fall on my person, because I am the barcelonist who loves the club the most and who is destined to die on the pitch, if necessary...". He ends his speech crying. As we can see, Gaspart didn't invent anything.
The match ended in a draw and Kubala's project as Barça's coach was doomed. The manager is fired in the middle of the season and then a bomb explodes in Barcelona. Kubala accepts the offer to return to the pitch, but not as a coach, will be as a player and nothing more and nothing less than in Espanyol, Barça's eternal rival.
On 3 September 1963 Espanyol, then Español, announced that Kubala would be hired as a player. At 36 years of age, he was capable of being competitive.
His decision divides the public opinion. On the one hand, Federico Gallo and Juan José Castillo support his decision, on the other hand, Carlos Pardo or Ibáñez Escofet shoot at him. They call him a "Jew who sells himself for a plate of beans", a "traitor" and they see political interests in his decision.
Kubala explains that he wanted to continue playing and that he saw himself capable of doing so, although he accepted that he was not at Barcelona's level. He had received offers from important clubs, including River Plate and Juventus, but he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, where he feels like another Barcelonian. The Espanyol meets his expectations.
His start of the season is not bad, on the contrary, he scores in his first two games, but the team doesn't work out. The coexistence between the veteran newcomer Kubala and the team's symbol, Argilés, is not easy. Scopelli is dismissed as coach and de facto command of the team is given to the two team leaders despite their differences. The crisis erupts when the Spaniard visits the Camp Nou. The periquitos lose by 5-0 in a match in which the Barcelona crowd booed Kubala who they are eager to humiliate with his new team. Even so, at the end of the match, Kubala has a gesture to his former team that shows that he does not hold any grudge against what he has heard from the stands. At the end of the match, he organizes his teammates to make the corridor to Barça applauding the rival in recognition of the exhibition made. That gesture feels bad among the Espanyol fans and among some of his teammates. Argilés does not make the corridor and goes straight to the changing rooms.
The following year, Kubala becomes a manager-player and among the departures that he causes, there is the one of Argilés, but by contrast, Di Stéfano arrives, also hurt by his bad exit from Madrid fighting against Bernabéu.
Di Stefano and Kubala are like brothers. Even though they haven't officially played together, they have a special chemistry. A friendship that is forged when the Argentinian is about to sign for Barcelona.
When Di Stéfano arrives in Barcelona to sign for Español, he stays first at the Avenida Palace Hotel, but after a month he is living in Kubala's house as one of the family. The children of both always maintained a relationship as if they were brothers.
One of the players under Kubala's command was Jose Maria Rodilla, one of the players who would soon form the famous 'Dolphins' forward line. At 80 years of age, Rodilla remembers Kubala.
"I have a wonderful memory of Kubala, I always had a special affection for him. Not in vain, he was the one who signed me for Espanyol", he remembers when answering the call of this newspaper to which he confesses that* "normally I do not make declarations, but to speak about Kubala I do whatever is needed"*.
Rodilla, former teammate at Espanyol, has clear that "he was the best player in the world in terms of technique. Di Stéfano was the best footballer, but he didn't have his technique. Alfredo was more intense and more player of the whole field, but he could not do things that Kubala did"
Those who had the privilege of playing with both of them remember that "for example, Di Stefano wouldn't leave you alone for a minute, he was all over you and the fights were intense, but he always set an example, he never asked you for anything that he didn't do. Kubala was more paternalistic and tolerant. For example, he would ask us to do as he did in training, and while sitting down he would be able to make 3,000 touches on the ball without dropping it. Only he could do that."
Rodilla adds a story that explains Kubala's quality as a player-coach at the age of 38: "We went to play a friendly at Amposta and they called a foul on the edge of the box. Kubala takes the ball and whacks it into the corner. The referee made him repeat it because someone had moved or I don't know what. Kubala takes the ball and wham, back to the square. And the referee tells him that he has to repeat. That day Kubala got angry and left the field."
Rodilla recalls that Kubala's move from Barça to Espanyol created controversy in the city, but that he was oblivious to it. "He was still a magnificent person, I never heard him say a bad word against anyone. He never got into an argument, he was goodness personified, he was unlucky in his time as a coach, but as a coach he is one of the best I've ever had, with a great love for young players and always trying to help you improve."

Boys well, optimal morale.

He extended his playing career for a couple more years by playing for Zurich and even trying out the American adventure at the Toronto Falcons, where he coincides with Branko and Daucik's son. At the age of 40 he played 19 games and scored 5 goals.
In 1968 he returned to Spain and trained the Córdoba team for a short period of time until he was called up to the national team. Kubala will manage the Spanish team until 1980, when he signs for Barcelona again as a coach.
Kubala's debut with Spain was, once again, a propaganda match for the regime. It was played in the Estadio de la Línea de la Concepción against Finland and Spain beat their rivals 6-0 in a match that was no longer useful. Spain had missed out on qualifying for the Mexico '70 World Cup, but the idea of that game was to showcase a great field that could be seen from Gibraltar as if to give jealousy to those in the Rock for the sports culture of Spain. Dictatorship things.
It's true that at that time Spain was struggling more than anything else on the international scene. It did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup because of Katalinski's goal in the play-off match in Frankfurt, and in both the 1978 World Cup and the 1980 European Championship the team fell in the first round, but there is still no one from that era who will make a judgement against Kubala.
"Kubala, one ahead of his time. No doubt he had a lot to do with his past as a footballer. And not just like any other player, like the best! I remember him always saying to me: 'Ruben, you have to get out of the way on the other side of the ball. Look for the space, not the ball. The goal I scored in Yugoslavia has to do with everything he taught me," he told Fermin de la Calle in an interview with AS Ruben Cano, the hero of the famous 'Battle of Belgrade' in the match that took Spain to the World Cup in Argentina. Yes, the one with the goal by Cardeñosa that could have changed Kubala's record with the national team.
He did a lot to improve Spanish football and his idea regarding the incorporation of foreigners to improve the level of Spanish football was key in the future development of the Spanish competitive level.
His players remember him as a didactic person, tactically bold and very close. At a time when fury was the hallmark of the game, Kubala never forgot that he was the heir to the Magyar tradition of the Honved and the Hungary who, by moving the ball, shocked the world the day they destroyed England at Wembley 3-6.
For the average football fan, Kubala may have been a half-hearted coach who embodied an era of the national team in which nothing was won, as has been the case most of the time, and he became popular for his expressions that would now be meme material on social networks. The national team was known as the 'Kubala boys' and the coach's catchphrase before the matches saying "boys well, optimal morale" was the fashionable phrase in the coffee shops of the 70s in Spain.
But among his colleagues, Kubala still deserved reverential respect. "The first goal was authentically Latin, cunningly scored and perfectly studied. I can only congratulate Kubala on his previous tactical work," said German boss Helmut Schön after facing and losing to Spain in a friendly in which the recent world semi-finalist and next world champion fell to the Kubala boys at the Sanchez Pizjuan with two strategic goals from Arieta. Yes, Arieta against Müller. Seeler, Beckembauer, Maier, Netzer and company.
He left the national team in 1980 to join Barça as the coach of Núñez's second project in an operation that was the prelude to what would happen in the World Cup in Russia with Lopetegui. Kubala committed to Barça while he was coach and tried to alternate functions, but Porta refused. Finally, on 8 June 1980, four days before the start of the European Championship, Kubala signed for the Blaugrana team, which he would join after the European Championship.
His second spell at the head of Barça did not go well either and he was dismissed mid-season. He continued his adventure on the bench as coach of Saudi Arabia (in that he was also a pioneer), training Malaga and the Paraguayan national team before retiring from football on the bench of Elche.
He spent his final years in Barcelona as active as ever. Playing with Barça veterans, helping his teammates, not having a no for anyone and playing tennis every day or going for a run or cycling routes exhibiting an enviable physical condition.
Until the light of genius and the glory faded away 18 years ago. A degenerative brain disease put an end to the adventure, but not to the legend of a world football myth. An icon that changed the lives of so many people that they wouldn't fit even in a stadium.
The coffin with the mortal remains of Kubala was carried on shoulders, amidst the applause of the fans who gathered at the doors of the church of Santa Tecla, by Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gustau Biosca, Eduardo Manchón, Estanislao Basora, Joan Segarra, Josep Bartomeu, Luis Suárez, Antoni Ramallets and Gonzalvo III.
He rests in the cemetery of Les Corts, next to the Camp Nou because that is what he left written in his will, while Serrat sang to him about how...
...Pelé was Pelé and Maradona was the one and that's it. Di Stéfano was a pit of mischief. Honour and glory to those who made the sun shine on our football. Everyone has his merits; to each his own, but for me none is like Kubala. Respectable silence is requested, for those who haven't enjoyed him, I'll say four things: he stops it with his head, he drops it on with his chest, he sleeps it off with his left, crosses the pitch with the ball attached to the boot, leaves the midfield and enters the box showing the ball, hides it with his body, pushes with his ass and gets in with his heels. He pisses on the centerback with a dedicated piece. and touches her gently to put her on the path to glory.

by Santi Gimenez for AS.com (2020)

Nothing in Kubala's life was normal. Now that TV series about sportsmen are fashionable, the one that could be made about the adventures of Ladislao Kubala Stecz (Budapest, 1927) would raze through many seasons. In one season we could go deeper into his facet of legendary footballer, capable of changing the way of playing this sport, how he saved his life at the very last moment by not getting on the Torino plane that crashed in Superga, or how he was ten minutes away from signing for Real Madrid or enrolling in the Pirate League of Colombia, all of this in order to end being Barcelona's biggest icon... who ended playing for Espanyol.
We could add a season of adventures due to his incredible escape from communist Hungary. His journey through Italy with a football team, the Hungaria, of stateless people in which in addition to Hungarians also played Croats, Albanians, Romanians and Serbs who were looking for a life as good as they could get. One could also add to this the facet of the social phenomenon that dazzled a country during the dark years of Franco's regime by becoming a pop star, and end up with another season about the legends, real, invented or simply exaggerated, of his adventures in Barcelona's nightclubs.
Everything about Kubala is like a movie.

The legend of the escape.

Born in Budapest to a Hungarian man and a Slovakian woman, he always considered himself as both Hungarian and Slovakian, even when this republic was part of the now extinct Czechoslovakia. By the age of 20, Kubala was a football star known for his performances with Slovan Bratislava and Vasas Budapest. In fact, he had already been capped by Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Later, he would go on to play for Spain, and is still the only player to have been capped by three countries. But fed up with the system that was preventing him from developing his professional football career, he embarked on an escape proper of a movie to the West. He contacted a human trafficking organisation, a mafia that, in exchange for a large amount of money, facilitated a partial escape. As is now the case with criminals who gamble with the lives of people who want to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe or pass to the United States through the southern border, the smugglers did not secure anything. The last part of the journey depended on the luck and expertise of the escapees and often ended tragically.
"I remember that when I escaped from Hungary I was just a kid. The traffickers left us in the middle of a mountain to do the last stretch on foot. We were a large group. The adults gathered the children and gave us palinka. A liquor similar to brandy to get us drunk and fall asleep. A child's cry could alert the border guards patrolling the mountain. And they had orders to shoot to kill. The group split in two. My group was lucky and we were able to win the Austrian border. Once we were safe, we learned that the other group that had travelled with us and took another road was discovered and killed." The chilling story is that of Zoltan Czibor, the son of the former Barça player who tells how he had to flee Hungary with his family to join his father in Italy. The odyssey of Kubala, six years earlier, was mirrored.
The traffickers disguised Kubala as a Russian soldier and put him in a truck that would leave the escapees at an undetermined point in the mountains so that they could cross the border into Austria on their own. Kubala remembered that this journey scared him to death because unlike his comrades, he was a national celebrity and any soldier who checked the military truck would recognize him. He was endangering his life and the lives of those who accompanied him.
When they were left in the mountain on January 27, 1949, Kubala walked, and crossing a river helped by a tire that carried him, managed to reach Innsbuck, Austria, without any documentation. He was a stateless man starting from scratch.
In Austria he managed to sign with Pro Patria, a team from Milan, but he could only play friendly matches. His escape provoked the anger of the Hungarian regime, which denounced him and blocked his registration. Kubala had married Anna Daucik two years earlier, sister of Fernando Daucik, a veteran player of the era who would later become a famous coach. When Kubala fled, he left behind his family, whom he was unable to reunite with until six months later, when Anna was able to cross the border and meet Ladislao in Udine. He arrived with one more member of the family. A baby, her firstborn, whom Kubala did not yet know.
While he is irregularly enrolled in the Pro Patria, he gets the chance to sign with Torino, Italy's dominant team at the time. He is offered a trial match. Nothing better than a friendly match that Il Grande Torino had in Lisbon as a tribute to Xico Ferreira. However, when the Turin team's plane is about to take off, the president of Torino prevents Kubala from boarding because he fears a federal sanction. On the return flight, on 4 May 1949, the Fiat G 212 of Avio Linee Italiana crashed into the retaining wall of the Basilica of Superga due to the wind, poor visibility and an error in the altimeter of the aircraft. At 180 kilometres per hour and with a visibility of 40 metres, the pilot saw the stone wall of the basilica too late when he thought the plane was at 2,000 metres and was actually at 690 metres above sea level. The 31 people who were travelling in that aircraft died. Kubala had saved his life again.

The legend of Hungaria.

With no possibility of playing in Italy because the back then very powerful Italian Communist Party was pressing to prevent people fleeing from countries in the orbit of the USSR from taking refuge in Italy, Kubala had no choice but to form a team of stateless people who hired their services throughout Europe to play friendly matches against whoever hired them.
The team was called Hungaria, was managed by his brother-in-law Fernando Daucik and was mainly made up of Hungarians, although there were also players of other nationalities. It was made up of: Kis, Marik, Torok, Mogoy, Lami, Rákosi, Hrotko, Majteny, Nagy, Kubala, Otto, Licker, Turbeky, Monsider (Croatian), De Lorenzi (Albanian), Szegedi (Romanian) and Arangelovic (Serbian).
They played their first match against Italy's B team, but again pressure from the PCI forced them to play outside Italy. And that is how they arrived in Spain, hired by Santiago Bernabéu. On June 5, 1950, they faced Real Madrid in Chamartin, losing 4-2, but with a stellar performance by Kubala, who scored both of his team's goals. Three days later, they beat the Spanish team that was preparing for the World Cup in Brazil, where they came in fourth, 1-2 again with a great performance by Kubala, who received an offer from Real Madrid to be signed.
Kubala requires that to join the team, Madrid must also hire Daucik as a coach, something that Bernabéu does not agree to. The Madrid coach at that time was the Briton Keeping, a great connoisseur of WM tactics. Daucik is offered to train the Plus Ultra, a Madrid branch that plays in the third division. That negative and the federative problems that drags Kubala cause that Madrid becomes disinterested in his transfer, that was already agreed lacking of some fringes that turned out to be determinant.
The Hungaria moves two days later to Barcelona, where on June 10 plays against Espanyol losing 6-4 in a match with Pepe Samitier, the technical secretary of Barça, in the stands. It is necessary to emphasize that Hungaria had been playing three matches in five days with a very short team and without being able to make substitutions. Even so, Kubala amazes and Samitier does not mess around. Six days after that match, on 16 June 1950, at half past six in the evening, Kubala signed his three-year contract with Barça at the Pasaje Méndez Vigo. Obviously, with Fernando Daucik as coach. President Montal, Sr., signed him as an "amateur player" in order to avoid any trouble for the federation.
Real Madrid rages and is shocked. Pablo Hernández, general secretary of the white entity and Santiago Bernabéu's right hand, assures that Barça had broken a non-aggression pact between both teams and had hired a player with whom they were in talks. Samitier, who was unbeatable in the media, declares that he had been following Kubala for months and that the pact had not been broken because it referred only to players who played in Spanish teams. And Hungaria was not Spanish. In fact, it wasn't from anywhere.
But Kubala's problems didn't end there. He still didn't have a registration card or an international certificate. Vasas in Budapest and the Hungarian Federation had reported him to FIFA. Barça used the weak argument that since professionalism had been abolished in Hungary, any amateur player could choose his destiny. But the fight was not going to be so easy.
Barça, it is fair to say, had the total support of the regime and the Federation to carry out the transfer. At the level of anti-communist propaganda, Kubala was perfect. A young and extraordinary sportsman who fled from the red hell to take refuge in Franco's Spain was a candy too sweet to let go. Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation, rowed in favor of Barça as did Ricardo Cabot, secretary of the organization, who, in addition to his affection for the regime, was a well-known Barcelona supporter.
But the procedures were very slow and Kubala could only play friendly matches. He made his debut against Osasuna on 12 October, scoring two goals on the day the Barça fans knew instantly that they had just signed a star. Then he played against Zaragoza, Frankfurt twice, Girona and the Badalona. In six friendlies he scored 11 goals. The fans and the player himself were eager to meet in an official match. For all this, the Federation to play the role with FIFA fined Barça every time he lined up Kubala with the symbolic figure of 50 pesetas.
It is at this time that Kubala is about to leave everything and go away from Barça. He needed the money and wanted to play at the highest level and in Colombia he was offered the chance to do so. The South American country had organised the so-called Pirate League outside FIFA and many of the world's biggest stars joined, including Alfredo Di Stefano who went to Millonarios in Bogota. Kubala had a tempting offer from Atletico Bucaramanga. With the option of Kubala leaving, events accelerated. To begin with, Barça fixed his financial situation by means of a peculiar amateur contract in which they paid him 1,200 pesetas for "compensation" and 3,800 for "encouragement and overfeeding".
On April 2, 1951, he was granted the status of political refugee as a stateless person, which was a step towards granting him Spanish nationality. But for this step, Kubala first had to be converted to Catholicism through the sacrament of baptism. Every Spaniard had to be a Catholic. Kubala was baptized in Aguilas, Murcia, the birthplace of Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation. It is then when Barça, to avoid problems, settles its differences economically with Vasas, which despite being against capitalism accepts a payment of 300,000 pesetas to provide the transfer, while the Pro Patria, which also complained, is satisfied with 12 million lire.
The Kubala era could now really commence.

The legend on the field.

Kubala made his official debut with Barcelona in Sevilla in a cup match. The Sevillistas at that time were one of the best teams. Sevilla and Barça had developed in that period a great rivalry in the high places of the table. In 1946 Sevilla had stolen the possibility of winning the championship from Barça by drawing in Les Corts on the last day, in 1948 Barça beat the Sevillians in the final of the Eva Perón Cup (which would be the current Supercup) and in that campaign a Barça without Kubala had lost all its options to win La Liga after losing 4-0 in Nervión three days before the end of the season.
The Cup, by that time was played once the regular season was over and in those circumstances the official debut of Kubala took place. On April 29th in Nervion, Barça arrived to play against Sevilla in the middle of a difficult atmosphere. The Andalusians had lost the league in a dramatic outcome when they drew at home in the last match against Atletico Madrid with a refereeing performance that the locals judged scandalous. For further concern, the Federation allowed Kubala to line up with Barça in the first round of the Cup, which in Sevilla was taken as a surprise.
With the stadium full to the flag, Barcelona defeated Sevilla in an exhibition of Kubala. He wasn't just the best of the match but he showed Spain a way of playing football unthinkable until that time: chest controls, shots with curve, millimetric changes of play of 40 meters, protection of the ball with his back, use of the body in the shot and touches with the heel.
Domenech, Sevilla's attacker who was the direct protagonist of that match, explained years later how he remembered that day.
"It was something never seen before. Ramallets kicked it and he would receive her with his chest, or with either of his legs. If you tackled him he would dribble you in a brick. He'd put the ball where he wanted her. Besides, from time to time he changed with César, he'd be a center forward and César would be a midfielder. They drove us crazy. The anger of the people became clamours. We were witnessing something extraordinary. It was like going from black and white cinema to colour," explained the former Sevilla player. The Sevilla crowd, who had welcomed Barça and its new superstar with anger, ended up giving Kubala a standing ovation for every action as if they were watching a glorious bullfighting performance.
Kubala's actions on the field change football forever. Since there was no television, his exploits are reported orally. There is no other way to see it than to go to the field of Les Corts, which is packed for every game Barça plays as a local. It is a very common argument to say that Kubala forced Barça to build the Camp Nou because the old Les Corts was not enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to admire him. Maybe he had an influence, but as the journalist Frederic Porta, author of an interesting biography of Kubala (Kubala, l'heroi que va canviar la història del Barça. Ed. Saldonar) explains, "the truth is that Barça had already bought the land to build the Camp Nou two years before and the idea of making a bigger field already existed, but Kubala advanced everything and justified the change".
Blessed with brutal technique, a sensational strike of the ball and an unusual physical strength, Kubala changed football. He would throw free-kicks over the wall with curve or by making the ball bounce in front of the goalkeeper, he would take penalties (he was practically infallible) with what was later called paradinha and was credited with the Brazilians although he was the first in Europe to do so. Physically he was a bull. In his youth he had practiced boxing and if he didn't become a recognized fighter with a great career it was because he had short arms. His lower body was sensational. He had a butt and legs that allowed him to protect the ball like no one else. Frederic Porta says that "in his time of splendour they measured his thighs and each one had a circumference of 69 centimetres, which would be the waist of one of his companions". He was also capable of running the 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. A total athlete with a very refined technique.
However, that physical strength and the confidence he had in her, for he never avoided a collision, were his downfall. Kubala became the target of a hunt by rival defenders. He never went into hiding and that's why in eleven years at Barcelona he suffered up to eleven injuries of some seriousness. With matches without television, the harshness that bordered on violence was the order of the day. He was being kicked to death.
But Barça was living its most golden period to date. Moreover, the club revolved around Kubala. Frederic Porta compares it with the present time: "Now they say that Messi commands the club and surely he commands, but nothing to do with the influence that Kubala had. Kubala was the boss and even the one who decided the transfers. And no one was surprised. That Barça adopted the socks with the horizontal stripes blaugrana is his imposition. He saw them on the rugby team, liked them and incorporated them into the football team by decree. In fact, it is he who insists on signing Luis Suarez when he impresses him in a match against Deportivo. Kubala was Suarez's first fan, but what happened in the stands, which was divided between Suaristas and Kubalistas, is another matter.
Suarez was eight years younger than Kubala. He arrived at Barcelona at the age of 19, Kubala was 27 and his physique was very punished by his injuries and the life he was living, as he did not deprive himself of anything. If he held out, it was because of privileged genetics.
Therefore, there never was a real competition between them, but there was a lot of influence here from the figure of Helenio Herrera, the Barça manager, who saw Kubala as older and slower and was looking forward to a quick change by the young Galician as the leader of the team. The debate reached the stands and the media. It was an absurd debate, because they didn't play in the same position, with whom Kubala really had a certain rivalry with Eulogio Martínez, who was the one with whom he alternated the position.
Kubala's physical problems were not only due to injuries. He had the whole of Spain in suspense when he suffered a tuberculosis that could have cost him his life. There are apocryphal versions that explain that this tuberculosis was actually a stab wound he suffered in a fight in a cheap pub in the fifth district (Barcelona's Chinatown) and he has to retire to Montseny to recover. Nobody is betting on his return to the pitch if he survives a "hole in the lung the size of a silver bullet" according to the chronicles of the time. But once again, Kubala's ability to survive prevails. He returns to the pitches, but already heavily punished and slowed down.
It is against this backdrop that the 1961 European Cup final arrives, with Kubala arriving at the age of 34 with a herniated disc that barely allows him to walk, but he wants to play. He knows that the club is going through a critical situation despite having reached the final of the maximum trophy for the first time: the club is bankrupt because of the construction of the Camp Nou, the fights in the board of directors are chaotic, Luis Suarez has signed for Inter (the one in Bern will be his last game with Barça), which was where Helenio Herrera had left the team in the hands of Enrique Orizaola.
Kubala tells Orizaola to line him up, that like all the Portuguese will go for him and he can barely move because of the back pain and will play with painkillers, it will give more opportunities to his teammates. But the match is a pile of misfortunes for Barcelona. Ramallets scores an own goal, Barça shoots three times to the damn square posts of the goals (from then on they would change their shape) even Kubala kicked a ball that hit a post, went through the goal line until it hit the other post and came out repelled. Barça lost and Kubala's time at Barcelona came to an end.

The man of the year.

Kubala's significance goes beyond the playing field. According to a vote made for Radio Barcelona by journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano in the mid-50s, the Catalans most loved by their fellow citizens were Doctor Barraquer and Ladislao Kubala.
"He was literally the most famous person in the city, people really venerated him, and even Messi's influence cannot be compared to that of Kubala in those years," explains Porta.
His life off the field was notorious. An unrepentant night owl, it was common to see him in Barcelona's fashionable coffee shops and nightclubs. He was a man who stood out. Alfredo Relaño defines him in some of his articles as "a demigod. Tall, strong, blond with blue eyes and an overflowing personality. He aroused the admiration of men and women alike. An idol". Frederic Porta sums it up with the argument that "he would be the sum of Messi and Beckham and on top of that, he would go out every night".
Faced with Kubala's disorganised life, the Barcelona management decided to set up a private detective agency to follow him at night. The reports of the detectives are still in the Centre de Documentació del FC Barcelona and Frederic Porta published them in the history magazine 'Sàpiens'. In them, he gives a detailed account of the nocturnal wanderings of "Mr. K.", the code name of the Blaugrana star in an exercise in absurd discretion. There is also a letter from a Sabadell businessman in the club's archives, expressing concern that Kubala and Czibor had been "found in a Sabadell establishment after 2.30 in the morning accompanied by some of those ladies who were once gentlemen, I don't know if you understand". What the businessman doesn't explain in the letter is what he was doing in the same place.
Kubala's fondness for drinking was no secret. Helenio Herrera explains in a television interview that "one day at an airport in customs they asked Kubala if he had anything to declare and he said two bottles of whisky. The official asked him to show them to him and he, laughing, touched his belly and said: 'X-ray, I have them inside'. On another occasion, in the same situation, but carrying the bottle in the bag, he was told to leave it at the airport because no alcoholic drinks were allowed to be taken on board. Neither shy nor lazy, he drank it in front of the astonished official.
The legends about the occasions when the night was made longer and he did not arrive at training sessions or matches were recurrent. In that case, he called on the services of Angel Mur Sr., the team masseur who knew where to find him. He would start a pilgrimage through the usual places or floors until he found him, took him to the changing room, gave him a cold shower, a coffee with salt, a massage and played. The fans forgave him everything and were aware that their star was a man of joyful life. But he never failed on the field. Among the crowd at the time there were comments about the Kubala ritual in those games that followed a busy night. "He started off badly, and vaguely, but the signal was when, ten minutes into the game, he rolled up his sleeves as if to say 'I'm here, let's start, I've already cleared off', and the machine started to work.
You can't find anyone in the world who speaks ill of Kubala. Absolutely no one. Everyone highlights his huge heart and that despite being by far the highest paid player of the time (he earned six times more than his teammates) he didn't have a no for anyone. His detachment from money was legendary.
As proof, the anecdote explained by his biographer Porta: "one day he arrived at the dressing room and commented that his car had been stolen and that in the glove compartment he was carrying an envelope with 200,000 pesetas, which was a fortune for the time (a good apartment could cost 130,000 pesetas). When his colleagues tried to encourage him, he simply said: someone who needs it more than I do must have taken it".
It was also usual for him to take off his coat and give it to a poor man who begged in Barcelona's winter, or to take in any Hungarian who came to Barcelona asking for help in his house in Carrer Duquesa d'Orleans. Kubala, remembering his times as a stateless refugee without papers, asked nothing. He would take them home and pay them a boat ticket to America. The motto among the refugees fleeing the Iron Curtain was that "if you get to Barcelona, look for Kubala, he will help you". He never failed.
Later, now retired, he set up a bar next to Czibor in Capitan Arenas Street, the mythical Kep Duna (blue Danube in Hungarian) that became an unofficial refugee reception centre that was monitored by the secret services of the United States, the USSR and the Spanish police. Something like the Rick's Café in the film Casablanca, but in the upper area of Barcelona.
He was the great character of Barcelona loved by all, but there was a moment when this was almost broken, strange as it may seem. It coincided with the defeat in Bern, when a part of the press came to write that "Barça must be de-Kubalized as the Soviet Union must be de-Stalinized" and, especially, when he signed for Espanyol. The earthquake was a huge one.

From the bench to Sarrià.

After the defeat in Bern's final, Kubala announced his retirement from the fields. He had taken the coaching course and was ranked number one in his class. He made a pact with the president Llaudet, who was also an interesting character as we will see, that in principle he would take charge of the footballers' school of the club and that in a couple of years he would be in charge of the first team.
Meanwhile, Barcelona is directed by Lluís Miró who faces a team in disarray. Suarez has been transferred to Inter in the worst decision in the club's history and myths such as Ramallets, Tejada and Czibor were in the decline of their careers. The season starts badly and after losing at Mestalla to Valencia by a humiliating 6-2 that forces the resignation of Miro. It was time for Kubala, who was promoted to the first team in front of the joy of the fans. And the project results from the beginning. The Barça of the second part of season 61-62 recovers in La Liga and finishes second (the distance with the white ones when Kubala arrived was almost insurmountable) and avenges the 6-2 of Mestalla beating Valencia in the Camp Nou 4-0.
Facing the next season, the 62-63, Kubala can make his team by giving painful drops of some of his former teammates as it is the case of Eulogio Martinez or Evaristo. One of Llaudet's reluctances to give Kubala the job of coach was that he would have to manage some of his former teammates.
The positive expectations about Kubala's first full project were frustrated at first when the Blaugrana team had to play the final of the Copa de Ferias against Valencia, the team that caused the fall of Miró and the promotion of Kubala. And the history, by rare that it seems, repeats: Valencia returns to him to put 6-2 to the Barça. The fans explode against the team. In the return match, obviously, there is nothing to do, but Llaudet's ability to self-flagellation has no limits. As Alfredo Relaño writes, the Blaugrana president calls a dinner with the press the day before the game and makes this statement that if it happened today would open all the news.
Llaudet, in front of the press and accompanied by the coach Kubala and Gràcia as captain, asks the fans to forgive him and announces changes in the protocol of the start of the second leg. "Valencia will go out first to receive the applause, then Barcelona, to receive the whistles. Then Kubala will come out, so he can get the thunders. And finally me, so that all the whistles fall on my person, because I am the barcelonist who loves the club the most and who is destined to die on the pitch, if necessary...". He ends his speech crying. As we can see, Gaspart didn't invent anything.
The match ended in a draw and Kubala's project as Barça's coach was doomed. The manager is fired in the middle of the season and then a bomb explodes in Barcelona. Kubala accepts the offer to return to the pitch, but not as a coach, will be as a player and nothing more and nothing less than in Espanyol, Barça's eternal rival.
On 3 September 1963 Espanyol, then Español, announced that Kubala would be hired as a player. At 36 years of age, he was capable of being competitive.
His decision divides the public opinion. On the one hand, Federico Gallo and Juan José Castillo support his decision, on the other hand, Carlos Pardo or Ibáñez Escofet shoot at him. They call him a "Jew who sells himself for a plate of beans", a "traitor" and they see political interests in his decision.
Kubala explains that he wanted to continue playing and that he saw himself capable of doing so, although he accepted that he was not at Barcelona's level. He had received offers from important clubs, including River Plate and Juventus, but he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, where he feels like another Barcelonian. The Espanyol meets his expectations.
His start of the season is not bad, on the contrary, he scores in his first two games, but the team doesn't work out. The coexistence between the veteran newcomer Kubala and the team's symbol, Argilés, is not easy. Scopelli is dismissed as coach and de facto command of the team is given to the two team leaders despite their differences. The crisis erupts when the Spaniard visits the Camp Nou. The periquitos lose by 5-0 in a match in which the Barcelona crowd booed Kubala who they are eager to humiliate with his new team. Even so, at the end of the match, Kubala has a gesture to his former team that shows that he does not hold any grudge against what he has heard from the stands. At the end of the match, he organizes his teammates to make the corridor to Barça applauding the rival in recognition of the exhibition made. That gesture feels bad among the Espanyol fans and among some of his teammates. Argilés does not make the corridor and goes straight to the changing rooms.
The following year, Kubala becomes a manager-player and among the departures that he causes, there is the one of Argilés, but by contrast, Di Stéfano arrives, also hurt by his bad exit from Madrid fighting against Bernabéu.
Di Stefano and Kubala are like brothers. Even though they haven't officially played together, they have a special chemistry. A friendship that is forged when the Argentinian is about to sign for Barcelona.
When Di Stéfano arrives in Barcelona to sign for Español, he stays first at the Avenida Palace Hotel, but after a month he is living in Kubala's house as one of the family. The children of both always maintained a relationship as if they were brothers.
One of the players under Kubala's command was Jose Maria Rodilla, one of the players who would soon form the famous 'Dolphins' forward line. At 80 years of age, Rodilla remembers Kubala.
"I have a wonderful memory of Kubala, I always had a special affection for him. Not in vain, he was the one who signed me for Espanyol", he remembers when answering the call of this newspaper to which he confesses that* "normally I do not make declarations, but to speak about Kubala I do whatever is needed"*.
Rodilla, former teammate at Espanyol, has clear that "he was the best player in the world in terms of technique. Di Stéfano was the best footballer, but he didn't have his technique. Alfredo was more intense and more player of the whole field, but he could not do things that Kubala did"
Those who had the privilege of playing with both of them remember that "for example, Di Stefano wouldn't leave you alone for a minute, he was all over you and the fights were intense, but he always set an example, he never asked you for anything that he didn't do. Kubala was more paternalistic and tolerant. For example, he would ask us to do as he did in training, and while sitting down he would be able to make 3,000 touches on the ball without dropping it. Only he could do that."
Rodilla adds a story that explains Kubala's quality as a player-coach at the age of 38: "We went to play a friendly at Amposta and they called a foul on the edge of the box. Kubala takes the ball and whacks it into the corner. The referee made him repeat it because someone had moved or I don't know what. Kubala takes the ball and wham, back to the square. And the referee tells him that he has to repeat. That day Kubala got angry and left the field."
Rodilla recalls that Kubala's move from Barça to Espanyol created controversy in the city, but that he was oblivious to it. "He was still a magnificent person, I never heard him say a bad word against anyone. He never got into an argument, he was goodness personified, he was unlucky in his time as a coach, but as a coach he is one of the best I've ever had, with a great love for young players and always trying to help you improve."

Boys well, optimal morale.

He extended his playing career for a couple more years by playing for Zurich and even trying out the American adventure at the Toronto Falcons, where he coincides with Branko and Daucik's son. At the age of 40 he played 19 games and scored 5 goals.
In 1968 he returned to Spain and trained the Córdoba team for a short period of time until he was called up to the national team. Kubala will manage the Spanish team until 1980, when he signs for Barcelona again as a coach.
Kubala's debut with Spain was, once again, a propaganda match for the regime. It was played in the Estadio de la Línea de la Concepción against Finland and Spain beat their rivals 6-0 in a match that was no longer useful. Spain had missed out on qualifying for the Mexico '70 World Cup, but the idea of that game was to showcase a great field that could be seen from Gibraltar as if to give jealousy to those in the Rock for the sports culture of Spain. Dictatorship things.
It's true that at that time Spain was struggling more than anything else on the international scene. It did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup because of Katalinski's goal in the play-off match in Frankfurt, and in both the 1978 World Cup and the 1980 European Championship the team fell in the first round, but there is still no one from that era who will make a judgement against Kubala.
"Kubala, one ahead of his time. No doubt he had a lot to do with his past as a footballer. And not just like any other player, like the best! I remember him always saying to me: 'Ruben, you have to get out of the way on the other side of the ball. Look for the space, not the ball. The goal I scored in Yugoslavia has to do with everything he taught me," he told Fermin de la Calle in an interview with AS Ruben Cano, the hero of the famous 'Battle of Belgrade' in the match that took Spain to the World Cup in Argentina. Yes, the one with the goal by Cardeñosa that could have changed Kubala's record with the national team.
He did a lot to improve Spanish football and his idea regarding the incorporation of foreigners to improve the level of Spanish football was key in the future development of the Spanish competitive level.
His players remember him as a didactic person, tactically bold and very close. At a time when fury was the hallmark of the game, Kubala never forgot that he was the heir to the Magyar tradition of the Honved and the Hungary who, by moving the ball, shocked the world the day they destroyed England at Wembley 3-6.
For the average football fan, Kubala may have been a half-hearted coach who embodied an era of the national team in which nothing was won, as has been the case most of the time, and he became popular for his expressions that would now be meme material on social networks. The national team was known as the 'Kubala boys' and the coach's catchphrase before the matches saying "boys well, optimal morale" was the fashionable phrase in the coffee shops of the 70s in Spain.
But among his colleagues, Kubala still deserved reverential respect. "The first goal was authentically Latin, cunningly scored and perfectly studied. I can only congratulate Kubala on his previous tactical work," said German boss Helmut Schön after facing and losing to Spain in a friendly in which the recent world semi-finalist and next world champion fell to the Kubala boys at the Sanchez Pizjuan with two strategic goals from Arieta. Yes, Arieta against Müller. Seeler, Beckembauer, Maier, Netzer and company.
He left the national team in 1980 to join Barça as the coach of Núñez's second project in an operation that was the prelude to what would happen in the World Cup in Russia with Lopetegui. Kubala committed to Barça while he was coach and tried to alternate functions, but Porta refused. Finally, on 8 June 1980, four days before the start of the European Championship, Kubala signed for the Blaugrana team, which he would join after the European Championship.
His second spell at the head of Barça did not go well either and he was dismissed mid-season. He continued his adventure on the bench as coach of Saudi Arabia (in that he was also a pioneer), training Malaga and the Paraguayan national team before retiring from football on the bench of Elche.
He spent his final years in Barcelona as active as ever. Playing with Barça veterans, helping his teammates, not having a no for anyone and playing tennis every day or going for a run or cycling routes exhibiting an enviable physical condition.
Until the light of genius and the glory faded away 18 years ago. A degenerative brain disease put an end to the adventure, but not to the legend of a world football myth. An icon that changed the lives of so many people that they wouldn't fit even in a stadium.
The coffin with the mortal remains of Kubala was carried on shoulders, amidst the applause of the fans who gathered at the doors of the church of Santa Tecla, by Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gustau Biosca, Eduardo Manchón, Estanislao Basora, Joan Segarra, Josep Bartomeu, Luis Suárez, Antoni Ramallets and Gonzalvo III.
He rests in the cemetery of Les Corts, next to the Camp Nou because that is what he left written in his will, while Serrat sang to him about how...
...Pelé was Pelé and Maradona was the one and that's it. Di Stéfano was a pit of mischief. Honour and glory to those who made the sun shine on our football. Everyone has his merits; to each his own, but for me none is like Kubala. Respectable silence is requested, for those who haven't enjoyed him, I'll say four things: he stops it with his head, he drops it on with his chest, he sleeps it off with his left, crosses the pitch with the ball attached to the boot, leaves the midfield and enters the box showing the ball, hides it with his body, pushes with his ass and gets in with his heels. He pisses on the centerback with a dedicated piece. and touches her gently to put her on the path to glory.

by Santi Gimenez for AS.com (2020)

Shadowlog : https://shadowlog.com/trend/2019/53/0/r
So it's been a full week since release and we got some actual data plus tournaments with the new expansion so we have a bit more to work with. Though i'd be a bit cautious with the shadowlog data as it will cover a lot of matches against less optimal decks and what not plus may not accurately cover the shifts in the meta.
So what has happened over the week.. quite a bit really and i'll try and cover the best, suffice to say though that at least for now the meta is still shifting it seems.
Forestcraft
In the great Forests of Forestcraft beneath the mighty ancient Oaks we find Kokkoro trying her best to help cheer Arisa up now that Liza has rotated out and does her best to fetch all sorts of things to cheer her up but sadly can't quite find the things that would make Arisa happy, all the while no one seems to remember Korwa anymore .. well except Selwyn. He's a nice guy
For Forestcraft Guardian Forest, Amataz Forest and Natura Forest remain in play and as of late are being joined in by the recently arriving Control Forest.
Guardian Forest
A Midrange deck built around the Greenwood Guardian and playing as many of them as possible to then gain bigger effects and storm cards to then win the game with. A bit on the faster end compared to some midrange decks it can be tricky to pilot for some players but does remain largely solid especially if you can get a good start with the deck and some players have experimented with more aggro oriented builds involving Goblins and pikemen.
Amataz Forest
An Aggro/combo deck that wants to get a lot of fairies into its hand and then give them storm with Amataz and then kill the enemy, a straight forward plan but one that can be tricky due to not always being guaranteed Amataz or Divine Smithing, additionally Ginsetsu shadow with Ceres and it's many wards can also pose a problem for the deck. Still it is a solid deck that can overwhelm many other decks, especially Runecraft and so is still pretty good.
Natura Forest
A Midrange deck built around Natura Forest, less popular and a bit less potent but overall still definitely playable the deck does struggle a bit in the meta as it isn't consistently faster than Natura Rune and may struggle against Ginsetsu Shadow. And so the deck is going to be trickier to pilot and is a bit harder to recommend to newer players.
Control Forest
A recent contender in the meta in these last few days but seems to be getting popular with players, Control Forest is as the name mentions a Control deck that relies on a mix of natura, a bit of machina plus evolve cards to control the match until it can kill the enemy with Primal Giant, Zeus or a Kokkoro buffed board having access to numerous AoE with Arias Whirlwind and Rino (They're not going to be rich) with Rino being recyclable giving the deck some potential serious value in the lategame. Not sure how good it is but initial responses from forestcraft players seem positive and my guess it is meant to take on Shikigami rune and Ginsetsu shadow as the deck can consistently deal with their wide boards plus heal any damage they deal. But it is early and the deck is tricky to play so not one i'd recommend to the average player, but it does seem promising for now at least.
Swordcraft
In the halls of the mighty Castle Swordcraft we find Albert trying to get Pecorine to teach him how to Union burst, unfortunately for him that while Pecorine may be willing to try and teach him.. she is not a good teacher having just winged her way through and honestly is more focused on getting food and so Albert ends up spending his money on food for Pecorine for some quite frankly very dubious lessons in how to Union Burst.
For Swordcraft Evolve Sword seems to be taking the lead followed by Ambush Sword, then Natura Sword and finally Levin Evolve Sword.
Evolve Sword
A fast and tempo oriented Midrange deck built around Evolve Synergies and otherwise efficient followers, it makes aggressive use of its evolves and of free evolves from Kagemitsu to build up board advantage while striking down the enemy leader to close out the match swiftly and while it can be a bit tricky to pilot it can be a potent deck in the right hand, additionally the deck has some flexibility in how it is build with players favouring varying builds depending on their tastes and i have even seen lists include a pair of splendid fencers for more reach.
Ambush Sword
Not dead yet, this highly aggressive tempo deck thrives in any Runecraft heavy meta as it completely dodges what the decks try to do and kills them fast and while it will struggle vs Ginsetsu Shadow it will absolutely steal the lunch of Runecraft decks and so while Runecraft is played to any steady degree.. this deck is pretty good. But will struggle against other board oriented decks, especially ones that can toss a lot of wards in its way.
Natura Sword
An Aggressive Midrange deck built around Natura synergies with several things to buff to finish off a match, it does seem for now at least to have fallen into a bit of a rut though it should still be solid though may require a steady hand to pilot in the current meta Ginsetsu shadow may pose a bit of a headache for the deck.
Levin Evolve Sword
Another Fast Midrange deck built around Evolve synergies but with Levin synergies as the core of the deck, it finds itself struggling compared to Full on OfficeCommander Evolve as its levin synergies are a bit more specific and so while it can start out a bit more aggressively with a stout Lounes, it can struggle to get the Evolve engine firing aggressively and consistently enough. Still a solid deck but will require a more deft hand to pilot succesfully.
Runecraft
In the Mystical Academies of Runecraft we find Kyoka is quickly getting along with Isabelle as they find the same interests in spellboosting things and ruining everyone else's fun and so the two become an inseparable pair in Runecraft while Karyl ends up feeling a bit left behind.. though Cagliostro fixes that with a nice helping of Waffles with whipped cream on top. Waffles fixes everything.
For Runecraft Shikigami Rune leads the way followed by Natura Rune with no sign of other Runecraft decks for the time being.
Shikigami Rune
A midrange deck built around Kuon and her Shikigami, this spellboost can throw in a lot of threats very consistently around turn 7 and beyond and so can be a problem for a lot of slower decks unless they pack a lot of AOE, but on the other hand is weak to faster and more agggressive decks, in particular Aggro decks can very quickly ruin the decks overall day.. and Ambush Sword. Additionally Ginsetsu Shadow is a deck that can also fight it due to being able to play both aggressively but also to a degree contest a Kuon board and heal damage done. Natura Rune
A midrange deck built around Natura Synergies that aims to control the board until it can begin invoking Riley to then try and win the match, and can use Karyl along with it to even occasionally win in one turn if it can activate her Union burst and evolve a sufficiently big Riley, a potent deck but it can struggle against that are fast enough to run it down and Ginsetsu shadow can also give it trouble.
Dragoncraft
In the great caverns of Dragon we find Rowen perplexed at the Arriving Elephants.. first Dinosaurs, now this ? Has it become a zoo or something ? As he is about to stomp off to give Valdain a piss of his mind Forte stops him and tries to calm him down but instead accidentally pushes him over into one of the elephants.. The results were not pretty.
For Dragoncraft Natura Dragon remains the lead deck followed by Aggro Dragon.
Natura Dragon
A Ramp deck built around Natura Synergies, it remains a potent deck in the current environment though without Masamune it does struggle a bit. More decks are starting to include the Mammoth god as a way to deal with Large Kuon boards and with Ginsetsu but otherwise the gameplan is the same of killing the enemy with Burn through Valdains leader ability. And the deck continues to be weak to more aggressive decks like the Aggro decks but also Evolve Sword tends to do well against it.
Aggro Dragon
A full on Aggro deck including several new cards from the expansion and while it does do well against the Runecraft decks it does perform poorly against Ginsetsu Shadow and other simialr decks so not a deck for everyone, but if you got most of the cards and are tired of runecraft, it could be a deck to consider.
Shadowcraft
In the great Catacomb of Shadowcraft we find Miyako floating through the corridors trying to locate Lunas secret stash of pudding, she is sure Luna has one, but so far digging through her closet she found only Skeletons and so her search continues for what must surely be the motherlode of all Pudding, someone as powerful as Luna must have a lot of it. The world would have to have gone mad otherwise.
For Shadowcraft Ginsetsu Shadow has firmly taken the lead followed by Natura Shadow.
Ginsetsu Shadow
A midrange deck built around Ginsetsu and her band of Yokai with Ginsetsu herself and Shuten-Doji being the key cards of the deck, it can play both aggressively and defensively plus with access to a great deal of card draw is also quite consistent, an overall solid deck that can handle many threats in general, no immediate weaknesses appear though it has a close matchup vs Spellboost Rune and there are signs that Control decks may give it a headache though that is too early to say, for now it appears set towards becoming the major contender of the meta and we will see what happens once everyone starts targeting it.
Natura Shadow
A Midrange Natura deck that also includes parts of the Ginsetsu Package it is overall a little less potent as it doesn't quite work as smoothly but nonetheless should not be taken lightly and with Natura it does have a secondary win condition of just burning out the enemy but can be trickier to pilot overall.
Bloodcraft
In the bloodstained and most decadent manors of Bloodcraft we find Urias coming back after a night of raiding covered in the blood of many witches only to find Mono coming back coated in similar viscera leading to a moment of mutual bonding.. however disgusting it may actually be to observe for an outsider.. if they were to survive observing it of course.
For Bloodcraft Aggro Blood leads the way followed by Pain Blood and apparently Machina Blood is still about and kicking as well.
Aggro Blood
An Aggro deck, THE aggro deck, Aggro blood has taken quite nicely to Lucius who presents another goblin but with an upside for stronger aggro starts but also a way to remove larger threats with ease if it comes down to it. A fast deck that can cleave its way through a lot of decks caught of guard, but primarily rune decks, it does have issues with Ginsetsu Shadow but probably represents one of the better aggro decks in the current meta.
Pain Blood
A sort of midrange control deck built around self harming synergies the deck is having a bit of a hard time of the meta as it tries to figure out what sort of direction it wants to take itself in against the enemy and so is a deck that is a bit harder to recommend at the moment.
Machina Blood
A midrange deck built around Machina synergies and seemingly the only Machina deck still in play. Largely thanks to Mono who is the only legendary who actually allows a Machina deck to do anything with a Machina board which is effectively what every other Machina deck lacks and so while i'd not recommend the deck to everyone and it will probably be tricky to play, apparently it still works for a few dedicated madmen.
Havencraft
In the great Cathedral of Havencraft we find Saren inspecting the place as she stumbles upon a Garuda nursing one hell of a hangover after Verdant Conflict though as she tries to help the ailing Birdman Eris quickly appears to inform Saren that won't be necessary and that Garuda has earned every bit of that mean hangover.
For Havencraft we got Natura Haven, Wilbert Haven and Elana Ward Haven.
Natura Haven
A Midrange deck built around Natura Synergies with some ward elements added in and overall there seems to be numerous variations on the deck with some including a few more elements and some including cards like Golden Eagle for more aggression. An overall solid deck that may struggle a bit in the meta depending on build but in the right hands should climb consistently
Wilbert Haven
A Midrange deck built around Wards and synergies with Wilbert being the core card to get it all work and there seem to be numerous variations of the deck as it is still not fully defined it seems. But overall seems to try and win over the enemy through either tempo swings or burning them out with the ward effect, a solid deck though it will require a somewhat deft hand in piloting consistently through the ladder.
Elana Ward Haven
A Hybrid deck of Elana and Ward Haven that looks to use all the ward tokens generated to use as buff targets for Elanas amulet and gives it an additional win condition through the burn as well, not quite as potent as the other two decks as it can struggle to get the two elements to overlap properly together at times it seems but not a bad one, just requiring a solid hand in piloting properly.
Portalcraft
In the swirling madness of Portalcraft we find Yuwan unsure as how to deal with Kaiser bossing everyone around and telling them what to do. This is his place and he doesn't to let some powermad tyrant boss everyone around. That is his job ! Damnit! For now he decides subtle measures might be the best approach and tries to see if Flattery might get ahold of Kaisers Ego.
For Portalcraft Muscle Portal continues to flex its stuff followed by Artifact Portal.
Muscle Portal
Since day 1 Muscle portal seems to have taken the route to become a Control deck including Mugnier and Dawn's Splendour along with a full set of Kaisers and awakened to help as Finishers but also fixing other issues with the hand as things go along. A tough deck to pilot but it can be done with sufficient skill with the right player behind the wheel.
Artifact Portal
A midrange deck built around Artifacts, some decks are starting to include Karula as a midrange control tool to help control the board alongside the artifacts and clear out certain sneaky threats the artifacts may not be able to hit otherwise. The deck is tricky to climb with but it can be done and the deck posted was used by someone to hit grandmaster with. So while it will require some skill, it can seemingly be done.
So there you have, all classes have a minimum of 2 decks, even if they aren't all equally good and half the classes have 3 or more. That's not bad for deck diversity and noting win streaks posted on twitter most are between 10-20 with very few going above 20 which is also a good sign. While the shadowlog numbers are a bit worrying in terms of class displacement (having 3 classes make up over half the meta is a bit concering) this is just week 1 stuff and Runecraft is a popular class plus the decks are cheap to make. If it keeps up i could see balance changes happen, though i might expect buffs more than anything this time around to help some of the ailing class. IF it keeps up, but for now there are signs things are heading in an okay direction what with the deck diversity and the fact we are getting new decks like Control Forest.
So hopefully it keeps up and hopefully the other classes catch up with the rest or at least Cygames gives them a helping hand.
For now my recommendation is to experiment and try out decks and deck variations as the meta is still early and i am sure there are surprises out there still !
Until next week, have fun playing Shadowverse!

The sound of scurrying feet filled the small room. Happy voices belonging to weary people. Each face telling a thousand different stories, each voice concealing the inner-most desires. The façade thrown up by their voices trying to convince people they were happy with their life. Everyone was fooled by the façade, everyone and no one. But through all the cheery hubbub there was a face not living the lie. A silent face with a motionless voice. Rays of Darkness emanated from this being, for it had seen the place that the beast had come from. O what a terrifying beast, and what a cruel beast it was as well. The bane of all peoples, plaguing all of humanity down the ages. One by one the voices were drowned out by the Darkness. The deafening Silence now reigned supreme alongside the irrefutable Darkness.
​
Time had run out. I had to move faster. Again and again I tried, and time and time again I was too slow. If only I could reach the other side. The other side, where the great beams of light shone all across the ground, where the plants and wildlife grew as much as they chose to, unrestricted by human intervention, save for the annual mowing. Everything seemed so much more colourful over there. Instead I was stuck on this concrete realm, soot caked the rough, hard floor and the sky was constantly grey, with periodic downpours of black rain. The only variation I ever got was between who would beat me today. That and whether it would happen in the mud, on the concrete ground, or in my small room. No matter how hard I tried I could never quite reach the other side. The bell chimed. Time to try again. Inhaling deeply I pressed my back as close to the building as I could. I primed my legs, causing my torn trouser leg to flap open, revealing the scars of previous attempts. All along my leg were markings, each one revealing a failed attempt to reach life. The large industrial clock hanging over us all ticked on and on, soon it would reset to mark the new shift. Taking another deep breath I tensed every muscle I had in my legs, telling each of them they would be needed for our defining moment. As I felt each fibre of my being prepare I knew this time would be different, it had to be. A voice from behind me startled me back to the present, "You There! Stop That! Come here!". Oops. Looks like I was daydreaming for a bit too long. Without a moment to lose I sprang forward. Taking long, fast strides towards the huge fence enclosing us all. The familiar sound of whistles blew behind me, with even more voices shouting. The combination of the two created a terrifying composition, a concerto of fear. While the whistles grew more numerous, they grew quieter also. Perhaps this time I could do it. Maybe, just maybe I could make it.
The fence was mere feet away now, and seeing the huge mesh in front of me, I leapt. Leapt as high as I possibly could. Up and up I flew, soaring through the air. An eternity seemed to pass during my flight. I eyed the top of the fence, watched as it slid down to knee height. I seemed to be gliding to freedom. My face was split ear to ear with a huge grin. I had done it. I had passed over the fence. I snapped my head around to take one last look at my home for the past 4 years. The huge concrete towers seemed so insignificant now, while before they had been my worst nightmare, the dread in every thought. My descent had now begun. It seemed I had almost judged it to perfection. I rolled my legs forward to prepare to land, only to find that my loose trouser leg had caught on the fence.
​
The roaring silence drew the fearful attention of everyone in the room. Each and every one of them turned their gaze towards the source of discomfort. The façade had been dropped. Hatred seethed from every face, their tongues now dripping with malice. This disturber of the peace must be removed. For he had broken the lie. Broken the lie to reveal the truth everyone knew. The silence grew louder, grew louder and moved towards the lonely soul, backed by the full force of the faces with such hatred. Such hatred as had never been seen before. The force hit the solitary figure and the people's need was sated. For now the silence was shattered. Shattered like a falling icicle on a cold winters morn. For the man had begun his story. Such a story as had never before been told. The first of its kind, and the last. For much like the mysterious figure it was fated to be alone.
For many hours that dark figure did speak, all the while attracting more and more people to come listen to his incredible words. He tantalised his captive audience with such tales of bravery and cunning. At great length he laid out his whole life, long so it was. For this figure was not just a man. He was an Interplanum. He travelled forward through time rectifying the mistakes of the past and ensuring everything will be exactly as it was set out to be. His vast crowd was so enthralled by his stories that they scarcely noticed the dark tentacles emanating from him, stretching out to the doorway, sealing it shut.
​
My leg acted as a lever, forcing my head to swing down face first into the cold mesh. I had been so close. So close to freedom, but alas, now my body hung helpless from my impassable hurdle. The whistles and shouting drew near, but not before a huge RIIIIPPPPP sounded from my leg. My trousers had finally done away with the loose flap. It took me a second to realise what would now happen. I crashed head first into the grassy mound below me. The voices grew more fierce and alarm bells sounded. I staggered to my feet and stumbled down the slope, desperately trying to escape the fierce demons behind me. The small forest ahead of me advanced closer and closer. I could almost touch the leaves from here. My hand outstretched, I stumbled towards safety. Towards Freedom. Just as I reached the outskirts of the forest, the ground collapsed beneath me, the whole forest sucked into a gaping hole. A fiery inferno, engulfing the whole planet in flames. Down I fell, deep into the darkest depths of the unknown abyss. All the while as I fell, flames surrounded and enveloped me, transfiguring my very being. Not only was my body renewed, but my very soul was rejuvenated. I had hope once more. Hope in the times to come, hope in the universe, hope in humanity. I felt young again, my whole body was full of energy. Well... Nearly my whole body. My eyes felt as old as they always had been. After many aeons of falling I began to rise. My fiery form had emboldened my spirit. The ascent was glorious, all around the flames chanted my name, cheering me on my way, bidding me good luck in the wars to come. It was as if all my life I had been in a shell, but at the moment of my doom the shell was cleaved in two. For now I knew who I was. I knew my Purpose, and I knew my name. For I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.
​
It is a grey day. The clouds obscure the sun and all its splendour. The wind whips through the valley and all the while I walk to House. My tie would be whipped across my shoulder by now if we were allowed them this term, I muttered to myself. How things had changed. I could no longer use my jacket as a shield against the fierce winds which were known to sweep through the valley, channelled by millennia of delicate landscaping. I knew every crevice, every stump, every tussock of this land, for I had witnessed its birth times beyond count. But I had also survived the fierce winters. Winters which lasted hundreds of thousands of years, filling the whole valley up with snow and ice. They were the hardest moments. When you're all alone, not a soul around. With white light blinding you wherever you should look. It is in those solitary moments however that one can truly discover oneself - And discover I did. For now I have a task at hand. A task which I can entrust to no one else. It must be me. These thoughts swell through my mind as I enter the code and pass through the threshold of John's. A few people give fleeting salutations of "hello", and "Alright?". I nod a few words back. But not enough to initiate any form of conversation. There are more important games being played behind the scenes. I march up to my room and retrieve what I had entered the building for. A dark jacket. I advance onwards to the Music School. For it is in the Music School that it shall all unfold. As it has many times before. But this time I would change it. This time would be different. I found a reasonably comfortable seat in the corner of the room, and there I dwelt, for several hours, until the time was ready. People filed into the room, each of them speaking a thousand words without opening their mouths. Their scurrying feet created such a racket. I put a hood up so as to muffle the noise somewhat. Time passed still and now it was time. It was the 5.10pm on the seventh day of the 11th month. The time had come. A low, nearly inaudible rumble sounded deep below, and the distant roaring of flames. I concentrated deeply and prepared to scatter my life across the whole room. The many shadows of my life began to drift away from me, preparing to board up the windows and doors against the final foe. The people's faces dropped and they turned to face me. In less than a minute they approached me and started talking. Still more people filed into the room. All according to plan. I set out telling them everything I had ever seen and heard, they probably thought I was lying about it all, but at least it distracted them. When the last person had entered the room my shadows quietly pushed against the doorway and windows, closing them to the outside world. The roaring fire was nearly upon us.
The fire slammed against the windows, causing them to bulge inwards. But I endured it. The fire, upon seeing it was obstructed let out a small wail at being stopped in its tracks, before crackling with laughter at the feeble defence it was facing. The great Beast tried once more to force itself in, but to no avail. The inferno held the room in its warm embrace for many hours, trying to ease its way into the cracks in the brickwork, even trying to slip under the window panes. But the darkness inside held it off. The good thing about living for a long time is that you can keep people distracted for a long time. For the unfortunate targets of the attack didn't even notice the fire raging outside the windows. All of them were entranced by tales of kings and stories of strong warriors. All of them bar one that is. Clive had long been a source of interest for the Interplanums. For he was different. He could see things that had yet to happen. Not only this, but he could see things as they happened. The mortals knew nothing of this of course. He was far to clever to give himself away and end up in a prison. There were several who believed he marked the second coming. But while some rejoiced at this theory, there were others who realised what this would mean. For the whole Universe. In time we discovered the truth. To the great delight of many and the great sorrow of many more, Clive was indeed Christ reborn. For the fiery demon was seeking to destroy Clive before he was of age, before he could destroy Death and overcome evil.
We had seen many things in our time. But when God announced the peaceful Ending of the World, there were some who turned against everything we had built. They rejected the peaceful passing and instead in secret planned a coup to keep the Earth we had spent so long maintaining. So it came to pass, instead of a peaceful end to a mostly glorious planet, a mighty war commenced. It was a war as never seen before, there were different generations of everyone on different sides of the conflict. I shan't lie, I was involved heavily on both sides. I must have fought myself several times. There didn't seem to be a pattern to the sides. There were many new Interplanums and many old Interplanums on both sides. From hundreds of these wars I can make a theory as to how the Interplanums divided themselves. It seems that they have phases of Happiness, and phases of Sadness and Anger, much like Humans, whom they once belonged to. When they are Angry they tend to fight against the peaceful end. I know, I know, the theory is lacking a bit. But as I said, it's hard to distinguish how it's all divided.
This particular foe was myself in my darkest moment, ironic really, as I was also made of fire. I have attempted to stop myself many, many times. This is my single biggest regret. All the problems I faced in my human life are trivial compared to this atrocity. I had become Death itself in it's most dreadful form. The very bane of Humanity. For many years we had imprisoned my darkest self, but alas I was too great and escaped from myself, fleeing into the nearby forest where I was transformed into the Fiery demon I was currently facing. The demon didn't appear to obey any laws of time however, even by the standards of Interplanums. It didn't appear to lose any energy over the ages, instead it seemed to gain energy, without doing anything to increase it. Not to brag, but I was the most impressive foe I faced.
After many hours holding out against the demon I lost my concentration and he forced open the door, flinging the very roof from the building. Wearily, I rose to meet him. We grappled on and on, my darkness engulfing the flames, and his flames enveloping my shadows. We were unable to overcome each other. No matter how hard we tried, the flames would flow to one side to swallow a strand of shadow which had strayed too far, and at the same time, several other shadows would sever and beat a tendril of fire. On and on we fought. After many failed attacks I knew what I must do. I must sacrifice myself to end it. I leaped towards the fire and embraced it with my whole body, smothering the fire. We both extinguished each other, the fierce smell of burning filling the air and the whispers of shadows drifting away into vapours, passing on the wind. From the final embrace there came a small object which fused from both of us. A small metallic object, split in two, one side a fiery ocean, the other a cool torrent of black, both sides constantly shifting, always changing.
​
The metal object lay on the ground for but a few minutes before I came along and scooped it into my brand new jacket, it was a little big for me, but I liked it none the less. I had caught a glimpse of it as I stuffed it hastily into my pocket, and as I saw it I breathed a sigh of relief. I would have a generation of Peace again. The war was ended for a little while.

Hey guys, Sunny Sen M.D. here with the first of two development diaries for the world’s greatest footwear peninsula. Today, I’d like to tell you a little bit about Fiume.
The Italian Regency of Carnaro and Upper Dalmatia is the incubator of political Futurism and the starting point of the new revolution sweeping the globe. Influencing National Surrealist French Escadron de l’Futur, Yugoslav barbarian Zenitists and Russian futurists, many simply call the Regency “Fiume”, after its capital and center of activity.
Its territories comprise several small portions of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, centered around the former corpus seperatum of Rijeka. In the initial peace settlements following the Great War, Rijeka was made a Free City as a solution to the border dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy. Gabriele D’Annunzio was shocked at the government’s capitulation of ancient Italian territory, and with several hundred armed followers he successfully took control of the city (called Fiume in Italian) and its environs.On 11 September 1919, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio left Ronchi at the head of a handful of firebrands with the intention of occupying Fiume and annexing it to the Kingdom of Italy. D’Annunzio’s surprise operation was performed to great media effect, and for 16 months a spectacular “revolution party” was staged in the occupied city. Fiume became a little world of its own, a microcosm where radical dreams and aspirations were given an unprecedented chance to be lived out and experimented with. Socialists tried to establish 'soldiers' soviets' as in Germany: syndicalists and anarchists organised producers' networks following Proudhon's example; Utopian life-models were practiced in an atmosphere of free-wheeling individualism and extravagant self-expression.The Futurist idea of Life as Art and Art as Life never found a more concrete realisation: 'Today reigns Poetry', declared Mario Carli, and 'the old antithesis of Life and Dreams has finally been overcome.' Umberto Carpi has described Fiume in 1920 as a 'place where the highest concentration of a specifically bourgeois and intellectual subversiveness' could be found and 'transgression of norms and mass practice of rebellion' was an organised everyday occurrence. Under the exceptional circumstances of the City State under siege, the common constraints of civil law were suspended.Groups of revolutionary intellectuals managed to assume control over the city and created a political culture, where spontaneous expression of beliefs replaced the tedious procedures of parliamentary democracy. Artistic fantasy and energy gave birth to a new 'aesthetics' of communal life, where the fusion of political and artistic avant-garde movements became a reality. A festive lifestyle replaced conventional social behaviour.Transgression of moral and sexual conventions were widely accepted, including nudism, homosexuality and the liberation of women from the shackles of marriage and family life. New and picturesque dress codes were invented. There was the never-ending cycle of dances, concerts, banquets, theatre performances, games, torchlight processions, cortèges, etc. There reigned, as one participant wrote in his memoirs, 'an atmosphere of a perpetual quatorze juillet'.Fiume is an experience that foreshadowed a new socio-political order, a “bubbling magma of moods, conceptions of life, aspirations towards renewal, between idealism, utopia, anarchy and festive vitalism, a response to the apprehensions and malaise of a generation that had experienced war and considered themselves to be different from their fathers’ generation in terms of how they conceived of life, human and social relations, and the organization of power.”Fiume survived initially thanks to the support of the Italian public for D’Annunzio and his patriotic efforts. After consolidating the region around the city, D’Annunzio and his followers (now joined by the Arditi, the most elite units of the Italian Army) occupied Istria and Trentino. The Italian government initially planned to eject the revolutionaries by force, but following the Hungarian Revolution and the increasing chaos in the Balkans, they decided that a highly energetic buffer in the east might not be such a bad idea. The Italian government struck a deal with D’Anunnzio, giving him de facto control over conquered territories while de jure it will be autonomous state under Italy. When Yugoslavia had a revolution of its own, D’Anunzio seized the initiative and annexed upper Dalmatia to the Regency to great public acclaim.
For 26 years, D’Annunzio has presided over a unique country on the world stage. Though majority Italian and fiercely nationalistic, Fiume boasts a number of minorities to whom it extends full equality of rights and freedoms. Its constitution is democratic, corporatist, and localist. Communal governments deal with day-to-day affairs, while the central legislature, representing both local populations and workers’ bodies (corporations) handled overall affairs. An executive council (Consiglio degli Otimi) theoretically presides over the Regency, but real power has remained in the hands of the country’s founder since 1919.In 1936, everything is proceeding as usual. The vibrant life of the country rages on, and though the Slump and developments in the Balkans are beginning to cause some concern, none doubt that the Comandante and his advisors will soon solve both problems with little fuss. In the meantime, the public awaits the yearly Arengo (meeting of both legislative houses), the 15th in the history of Fiume.
For the first year, the player will settle comfortably into the role of leader of the birthplace of the new revolution. Flavor events abound as the government lazily dreams up innovative solutions to current problems between wild parties and exciting plays. 1936 will pass in a blur of pleasure and inspiration, with the proceedings of the Arengo almost imperceptible in the background.
1937 brings a bit more tension to the mix. It is clear to all that D’Annunzio’s age is finally catching up to him, and various factions are maneuvering to secure power in his absence. The 16th Arengo opens in an atmosphere of concern and uncertainty, until D’Annunzio’s health seems to be improving. The meetings proceed with their usual mixture of vigorous enthusiasm and laissez-faire scheduling.
Until---
Disaster! The Consiglio meets immediately.
The factions are each demanding their candidates, and we have no choice but to elect one of them and give them emergency powers to restore order. But who?
Three players have made their bids for power clear: a theorist, an aviator, and a warrior.

The Theorist

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, father of Italian futurism, man of action, and maybe one to be blamed for rise of futurism in Europe, on 6 September 1919, Marinetti made his way to Fiume, dressed in the uniform of a Volunteer. He was warmly greeted by d’Annunzio and fêted in the streets by legionnaires. Together with Vecchi and Carli they organized some Futurist events; but Marinetti was equally active in political rallies and gained access to the top brass in the military command of the city. His judgment on the officers who surrounded d’Annunzio was not exactly complimentary:
«They are nearly all monarchists and passéists, who do not want to understand or admit that their gesture has been a revolutionary one. They declare that they are not involved in politics! Some probably have regrets and want everything to find a quick and good ending, so that it will not inconvenience their career and they will get His Majesty’s approval!!!»
Full of revolutionary spirit, Marinetti will focus on implementing what he demanded in Futurist manifesto:to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness, to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
The Italian people will hit the pedal to the floor and ride this fast car known as Fiume, only riding into the mystical garden of the future. To sing about the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit, What is the use of looking behind when the Italian people must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. Fiume is already living in the absolute, since futurists have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
Futurists want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill!

The Aviator

No mere mod dev’s description can do Guido Keller justice, so take a look at this description we cynically copied from reakt.org:
“Guido Keller, aviator, aesthete and man of action, instigator of lightning strikes, piratical feats and sensational japes, and follower of the health/naturist movement, as well as disdainer of uniforms and bourgeois clothes, is the only one of the young legionnaires present in Fiume allowed to use the familiar ‘tu’ form of address with D’Annunzio.Keller prepared for and animated the Fiume undertaking with his genial enthusiasm for hatching plans. With his acute, penetrating, witty, pensive spirit, he possessed the Futurist talent for demolition and mockery. He knew the frenzy of action and the superior calm of the purely cerebral. As an imaginative, bantering character, he loved life, and took pleasure from playing with things and people, and inventing paradoxical entertainments. He is known for carrying out reconnaissance missions in his fighter plane, dressed in his pyjamas. Bruno recalls sees him on a few occasions, after a risky flight, lying under a tree completely naked, engrossed in a newspaper or book. On board his plane there is always a little tea set, and flowers, cigarettes and tins of biscuits: it is a genuine flying drawing room.On 14 November 1920 on board a single-seater SVA, he flew over Rome to drop three “messages” to the Vatican, the Quirinal and Montecitorio respectively, with the aim of furthering the Fiume cause.:
‘Having reached my destination I offered red roses to Frate Francesco at the Vatican, over the Quirinal I dropped more red roses for the Queen and the People, as a love token. On Montecitorio I threw an enamelled iron utensil attached to a strip of red cloth, with some turnips tied to the handle and a message: Guido Keller – Action in Splendour Wing – gives to Parliament and the Government that has been ruling on lies and fear for some time, a tangible allegory of their worth. Rome, 14th of the third month of the Regency.’ The tangible allegory naturally referred to the «enamelled iron utensil» an object for intimate use which is no longer in fashion today.”In 1936, Guido Keller leads ‘’Yoga" , a group of the most daring, intelligent and modernist men in the Fiume . This association plans and carries out bold feats, and pledged support for the futurist revolution and the nationalist movements worldwide.
He is seen as the most likely il Duce of Fiume, and he will aspire to keep city of dreams as it was created, decadatist-futurist utopia of freedom, vitality, action and speed. Ulike Marinetti, he will not try to impose specific futurist dogma, allowing various cults, groups, madmen and revolutionaries to have absolute freedom in Fiume.
Keller formed a company to guard D’Annunzio, a company that he called «La Disperata». Many soldiers who had come from Italy to volunteer were without papers and had not been accepted by the Command. Instead of leaving they were camped out in the town’s big shipyards. When he went to see what they were doing there, Keller found some of them naked diving from the prows of the moored ships, others attempting to manoeuvre the old locomotives that used to run between Fiume and Budapest, and others perched up on cranes, singing. He found them to be high-spirited and jolly, and he gathered them for inspection: they were all proud, handsome men, and he declared that they were the finest soldiers in Fiume. He mustered these soldiers, known to all as the ‘desperados’ in view of their situation, and offered them to D’Annunzio as personal guards. This move scandalized superior officials, but the Poet accepted the offer. With the creation of this company, Keller began to put his ideas for a new military order into practice. These new soldiers spent most of the day swimming or rowing, or singing and marching through the city, bare-chested and dressed in shorts. They were not obliged to stay in the barracks, and in the evening they frequented a deserted area called La torretta, where they split into two groups and did battle with real hand grenades, often leading to injury.The presence of a number of morally dubious elements did not sully the company’s reputation, but rather gave it the crepuscular flavour of a group despised by the wise and the mediocre, and this was its greatest source of pride.Today, Desperados are backbone of Keller’s support and he will seek to implement his futurist-vitalist ideas in Fiume and make material preparations .
With his new military order of free spirits, vital heroes who laugh in the face of danger, Keller can prepare Fiume for its final strike, spreading this wild energy of danger, true freedom and romantic excess to the whole of the glorious Italian fatherland.
In the process he will recruit Italian naval captains to his side, use the remaining blackshirts to destabilize the weak liberal fools, and outfit a great aerial armada to crush the senile parliamentarians from the skies.

The Warrior

Harukichi Shimoi, master of karate and head of the greatest martial training school in the Regency, is a huge fan of Italian culture, settling down in Italy before the Great War. He fought with the Arditi, showing great bravery and was one of the first to follow D’Annunzio in his takeover of Fiume city. During D’Annunzio’s rule of Fiume, he established a highly popular martial school, teaching Italian soldiers the way of the samurai. Unlike the techno-worship of Marinetti or the energetic decadantism of Keller, Shimoi offers his own oriental spin on Fiume’s futurism. Taking a highly nationalistic, militarist and well-organised approach, he merges Italian nationalism with Japanese principles of hierarchy and authority.
Hailed as the Despota Oreintale by his “samurai”, he believes that a new bushido for Italy is needed so that the Italian people can regain their past glory. The revolutionary freedom that D’Annunzio prefered in his ranks will be removed and replaced by the strict ascetic lifestyle of eastern warriors. Keller will be promoted to a suitable post in order to shut him up, and Fiume will gather its allies and turn its entire economy to the coming undertaking.
With Fiume firmly under Despota Orientale, Shimoi can finally bring Italy under the control of a man who knows how to use its natural greatness to maximum effect.
​
Here we present content for Fiume up to 1939/1940. Players will have the chance to discover for themselves what awaits in case Fiume’s efforts succeed. Many thanks to @DIO from the France team for doing most of the work on this and to Caveman for posting it (the real COMRADE CAVEMAN GANG from Discord lol). If you have any questions, please visit our Discord and hit up the ask-a-dev-2 channel. Thanks, and see you soon for the Italy diary!

Shadowlog : https://shadowlog.com/trend/2019/02/0/r
A week has passed, nerfs have been announced and how has the meta changed if it has changed at all ? Read on and find out !
Forestcraft
In a small grove we find Rayne the Elven Smith toiling away at her final gift to Forestcraft as the Cruel rotation gets ever closes and sends her to the Roach filled Abyss that is unlimited. Forging a mighty Axe out of Moonsilver for the Greenglen Axeman, she hopes this final piece of work will allow Forestcraft to regain what is rightfully theirs. This leaves Arisa and the other forestcraft leaders most pleasantly surprise and they vow to do whatever they can to save Rayne from Rotation
For Forestcraft the upcoming buff to Greenglen axeman promises much possibility as he can be used in more Aggressive decks as a way to close out a fight plus can easily be tutored by Liza and in slower decks he is additional burn plus a 6/5 with rush is pretty good as well just on its own. As for Forestcraft atm the main decks Remain Aggro and Tempo with the Midrange/Control Buff deck sort of trailing behind the rest with no sign of anything else for now. We'll see if the balance changes can shake that up or just increase the forestcraft share of the cake.
Aggro Forest
Overall Aggro Forest has not seen any major changes though i have noticed one japanese streamer experiment with Grasshopper Conductor and Fairy Sabre, i think for the most part though most players are thinking about how to include Greenglen Axeman with Dayan so far tinkering with a deck just running one so as still to be able to use the Liza Loop after the first Liza. We'll see how the deck evolves but i overall imagine that Greenglen axeman will help Aggro Forest close out more matches in general.
Tempo Forest
Less fast but overall still aggresive with the potential for bigger tempo swings, Greenglen axeman will likely find a home here as his 6/5 with rush for 6pp will be helpful plus further supports the bigger tempo swings that Tempo Forest likes to do. Beyond that i have not seen much of the deck so a bit difficult to say more than that, we'll see how things progress post balance changes.
Midrange Control
The deck still lingers and sees some usage as it is one of the best at clearing large boards but it does at times lack some method to push through damage and with Greenglen axeman you get a nice big rush plus another benefit to playing out all those small buffs meaning even as you clear the board, you're dealing damage to the enemy leader. Beyond that we'll have to see how the meta progresses.
Swordcraft
In the realm of Swordcraft tragedy strikes as during a pitched battle The Blazing Lion Admiral suffers a grievous injury as he saves Albert from a Mysterian Spell which has long lasting consequences for his vitality and results in Swordcraft High Command (everyone but Albert really) decreeing that he is not to be used as lightly anymore. Meanwhile Percival continues to increase his understanding of the Art of Stealth as Latham launches a crusade to punch Daria on the nose.
For Swordcraft the upcoming nerfs potentially pose a notable upheaval on Swordcraft which has finally gained more than one deck, in fact 3. Though overall i suspect that it's not going to be as impactful since Aether is just as crucial a card in many ways and for the different decks the way they use the Blazing Lion admiral rather determines how much they actually lose out and what they can compensate with. So we'll see but for now i am not too worried. Overall Swordcraft still primarily relies on Aggro, Token and Midrange Sword with Aggro being the least played but still sees some usage. Sword's Vow is not something i see a lot of nor have i seen signs of other decks appearing for now, but i'd not be surprised to see Banner Sword arise at some point
Aggro Sword
With numerous versions, some focusing on buffing and ambushes while others just opt for lots of 1 drops and hitting the board hard. The overall impact of Blazing Lion Admiral will be minimal as he was usually seen as a way to finish off things but normally Aggro Sword wants to finish faster than turn 7 or 8, so i don't think it is much of a loss here, some might replace him with Gilnelise or something else. But as an overall fast deck, it will still see usage unless the upcoming balance changes kill all aggro.
Token Sword
Basically any deck that consistently goes wide, including Magnolia sword the version from last weekends JCG seems to have spurred a lot of developments with one brought this week substituting the Floral Fencers for Frontline Ramparts, i've seen Potwasher run a version that cuts Goblin for Goblin Fighter and some instead use Dragon Knights. Plus you got versions that run Magnolia, Taiwanese streamer Lanaiyu being one. Seeing as this deck relies more on the invocation and can consistently invocate Blazing Lion admiral reasonably early i don't foresee a major loss here since Aether is just as important since her board buff does help the board stick around as well. Overall a strong deck even if less played than Midrange and able to take on a variety of decks. Even one deck that looked awfully much like a token deck was in one of the recent JCGs this week
Midrange Sword
Midrange Sword has numerous versions out at the moment, ranging from the aggressive and tempo oriented using cards like Goblin or Lucius with the bare minimum of apostles and Dragon Knights to the more controlling running numerous of those plus chromatic duel and even Octrice. Some run close to Token Sword, others less so. Basically there are plenty of ways to play Midrange Sword at the moment and it basically boils down how you customize it to fit your tastes and playstyle. Seeing plenty of usage at the tournaments with varying success though as more decks are targeting it atm. How it will handle the nerf is harder to say, some are already experimenting with Gilnelise, some might keep him and others will probably look to other things. Hard to say since Midrange Sword is anything but a fixed deck at the moment.
Runecraft
As the Mysteria TV show approaches scandal strikes at the heart of the Academy as rumours are abound of an illicit romance between Miranda and one of her students causing a great uproar (and many displeased male students) causing Daria to limit Mirandas work times until things get settled, knowing that it is dangerous even as Erasmus and his army of Golems and Alchemists approach the walls of Mysteria and Isabelle plots in the shadows.. as for Cagliostro ? She is busy watching Magical Girl sweet Tooth Medusa in her own Magical Girl outfit with a bowl of Icecream.
For Runecraft Mysteria remains the top deck though Burn Rune is getting more popular as a deck that can counter Mysteria and is overall faster additionally Spellboost rune has been supplanted by Prophetess Rune that works more as a control deck with Prophetess as a Win condition.
Mysteria Rune
How the nerf to Miranda will affect the deck is hard to fully state since while it will probably hurt some of the turns and slow down the deck somewhat, the deck itself is constantly changing with numerous versions about, in fact recently some have begun to run Sweet Tooth medusa to help with Board Control against decks like Swordcraft meaning it is hard to fully say what will happen. It will likely still remain popular as it is still by far one of the cheapest decks and does not have a high requirement to begin playing in terms of skill. But i imagine it might have a few more counters, in part thanks to the forestcraft buff.
Burn Rune
Burn rune is steadily catching more and more wind as it is a solid counter to Mysteria rune and other slower decks though it can struggle vs board oriented decks. There are numerous versions of the deck with some running the Chimera but increasingly with Mysteria being the target it seems like more decks are cutting it to focus on other more aggressive elements. The Mysteria Nerf will likely only make things easier.
Prophetess Rune
Slowly rising though for the most part in the shadows, it might be able to take advantage of the nerf to Miranda actually since she will then be a 7pp cost reducible card, additionally some decks are also running Sweet Tooth Medusa for that board control ability. The deck in some ways is in the style of D-shift and Giant Chimera in that it largely seeks to stall and then win with its win condition, the super sticky Prophetess of Creation, though this one has more counters than the previous win conditions. We'll see how the deck develops.
Dragoncraft
Back from the Veterinarian we find Rowen scolding Forte for feeding the Violet Vile Dragon too much cheese as it's got chronic constipation thanks to that now and so will need more time to get ready to join the battlefield. Aldos meanwhile sneaks away having also fed it substantial amounts of cheese.
For Dragoncraft the decks remain Ramp and Satan Ramp with Storm ramp sticking around in the shadows, and i have seen some experimentation with Aggro Dragon but nothing serious so far.
Ramp Dragon
The most played deck, it does find itself struggling in the current meta with plenty of Aggressive decks making it hard for it to do what it want alongside Mysteria Rune leaving Ramp Dragon in a bit of a sticky spot, but it still sees play since people like the playstyle and it does well vs Satan Dragon which is still perceived as the bigger threat. As for how the nerf will affect it.. harder to say.
Satan Ramp
The "Slower" and more controlling version, Satan Ramp is still a somewhat hunted deck despite Mysteria being the lightning rod of attention at the moment. The deck still persists as it can deal with slower and greedier decks essentially crushing them with the power of Satan! But similar to Ramp Dragon, it is struggling with a faster meta, though still performing well, as for how the nerf affects it, we'll have to see, a it harder to gauge that one.
Storm Ramp
The outlier deck, faster and more aggressive, it is about but generally catching less attention overall compared to the other decks, more focused on just ramping up and storming the enemy down. Beyond that hard to say much as it is not a deck i see much of in general.
Shadowcraft
In a great sunken castle, robbed of any splendour it might have once held we find Luna (atop a soap box) holding a war council with her Undead Generals, getting ready to take advantage of the upcoming balance changes with her new and (relatively) fresh armies !
For Shadowcraft there has been another division once more with a board oriented Midrange deck branching off from Arcus shadow once more, will it stick this time or collapse into arcus again ? No other decks though seems to have appeared within Shadowcraft though. At least none that i can see, shadowlog mentions a Shadowcraft General deck, but what it is though.. i can't say
Midrange Shadow
Back once more from the Crypt, the board oriented Midrange Shadow this time though does look a bit more serious with a larger difference between it and Arcus with cards like Orator of the Bones and Skull Prince with some running Lord Deathskull, another key card seems to be genesis of Legend. Overall resulting in a more sticky Shadowcraft deck that is harder to remove and can overall threaten the enemy more and so can't as easily be ignored. Numerous variations on this deck so feel free to experiment to find a version that suits your playstyle the most.
Arcus Shadow
Arcus still remains plenty played though less so than Midrange Atm, a more lategame oriented deck it has seen some success along with Midrange Shadow in the recent JCG opens with Arcus scoring a first place along with Burn rune in the latest one this weekend. Beyond that the overall deck does not seem to have changed much, so not much further to say there.
Bloodcraft
In the vast labyrinths of Bloodcraft we find Vania and Vira trying to figure out another deck as Urias is clearly useless and Medusa is too busy with her gig as a Magical Girl to be of much help to them, sadly no matter how much they try can they seem to come up with anything.
For bloodcraft, not much has really changed, increasingly Bloodcraft is looking to be a bit of a loner as it can still only muster Darkfeast Bat Blood. I have seen no real signs of anything else i am afraid.
Darkfeast Bat blood
Not much has really changed here with this deck, it still sees play with some running Diabolus Agito, others.. not so much. Beyond that i can't really say much as it continues to prey on slower decks.
Havencraft
In the white halls of Havencraft we find Garuda patrolling when he suddenly senses a presence he has not felt before, rushing to alarm the rest he finds Eris enjoying tea with Tzekibaba, the fallen God. Garuda groans in despair as Eris has done it AGAIN
For Havencraft there has been a new challenger on the field besides Holy Lion Haven, that is Tzekibaba Haven, aka Control haven. Seraph haven continues to be talked about, but i don't really see it anywhere.
Holy Lion Haven
Holy lion haven remains the most played Havencraft deck, but beyond that has not really changed this last week in any noticable way, a solid deck, but not particularly high performing either.
Tzekibaba Haven
A recent challenger appearing ,Tzekibaba Haven is a control deck that seems to have slowly caught on with a few different versions about, stalling the game until it can throw down Tzekibaba and create a massive and difficult to deal with Board. It has some good matchups though definitely weaker ones as well, but it can work in the hands of the right player and it will be interesting to see if it sticks around and evolves.
Portalcraft
In a vast hall of Glass we find Yuwan transfixed by a small metal cube infront of him, he can't say why but he can't stop thinking about it and it haunts his dream with terrifying visions of pain and pale gaunt figures he knows are called Cenobytes, but why he knows that.. he can't explain and the rest of the portalcraft leaders are starting to worry about him.
For Portalcraft Artifact has taken the lead with Destruction portal fumbling about a bit and Aggro Portal seems to have had a decent week even if not played so much at the moment.
Artifact Portal
Artifact portal has had a surge in popularity as of late, in part due to the increase of Sword but also the rise of a version of the deck which runs satan, which i shall henceforth call the Lament Configuration, Which basically runs Satan and can either accelerate him and quickly draw out the cards or simply use him as a control win condition. How big it is compared to Regular artifact is hard to say, but i suspect the lament configuration is here to stay
Aggro Portal
Aggro Portal remains and seems to have had some success this week, probably based off some changes to the deck, though what those are is harder to say truth be told as it is not a deck i see played a lot. But Aggro portal sticks around, stubborn as it is.
So there you have it. With most classes by now having at least 2 if not 3 playable decks, bloodcraft is basically the exception by now. The only real major worry is Runecraft and Mysteria which is almost taking up 40% of the meta which is.. a bit worrying to put it very mildly and hopefully these Balance changes will curb Mysteria Rune or i'd not be surprised to see another set of balance changes at the end of the month to bring it to heel. But beyond that rather large wart, more cards and decks are seeing play than in the last 6 months minimum, maybe even a year. So it's a bit of a mixed feeling of a meta where while Mysteria is all over the place and not particular fun to play against, at the same time more decks and cards are playable than has been in a long time.
So i do sincerely hope these balance changes reigns in Mysteria and results in a increasing meta diversity with even more playable decks and cards. My best suggestion like last week is to continue experimenting and trying out new cards and combinations to find something works.
So until next week, have fun playing Shadowverse !

First of all, part of the fun and frustration of Cultist Simulator is experimenting and failing a lot, and then learning from those failures. After about 4 or 5 defeats where my character either went insane, suicidal, or arrested (have never died from lack of Health yet), my character Guybrush Threepwood finally became Enlightened after 45 hours. Sorry, just wanted to brag a bit since I didn't play the early access. :p (Nyahaha, finally won with all the Desires. I am done with this game for now!)
Anyway, the takeaway is: the game will be less fun if you read this guide and you'll be spoiled with most of the info here (I haven't marked most of the stuff with spoiler tags) so consider yourself warned. But if you're feeling frustrated on a certain part, feel free to go ahead, or even message me.
 

General

• Pause a card's timer Simply place them on any slot that will accept them! This way, you'll be able to keep your Jobs, Hirelings, Summons, Prisoners, Corpses, Influences, Vitality/Erudition/Glimmering, and other cards practically forever! And remember, you can pause the game at anytime to carry out other actions. You can only leave one window open though. This makes upgrading your Skills a breeze!
• Can't find the right card to use on a slot? Click on a slot to make cards that can be slotted into it glow.

Dealing with Hunters and Evidence

You've got a variety of ways to deal with these problems

• Hush hush - You can't really go wrong with being stealthy, you're a cult after all! Do this by not performing actions that create Mystique and Notoriety, letting them expire naturally, or getting your Heart cultists to erase them. Notoriety is really the only thing you should be concerned about since only Notoriety will give/upgrade Evidence against you while Mystique only lengthens the time that they investigate you. They only have a chance of creating Evidence from Notoriety however, unless you're dealing with Meticulous Hunters, which always make Evidence from Notoriety. Erratic Hunters can create Evidence even if there's no Notoriety, but in turn have a lower chance of making Evidence from Notoriety, so it might be good to actually have some Notoriety when they're present. Earning money from Painting is also a good idea if Erratic Hunters on the board!
• Kill them all! - Keep murdering/capturing Hunters as they show up by using followers with Edge, or using poisons (items received from Expeditions). Success will give you Notoriety, and either a Corpse or capturing them. Failed attempts will make Notoriety though, and might even kill whoever you sent to do the job! It's somewhat safe to keep attempting to murder them as long as they don't have any Evidence present, or if you can destroy the Evidence. Poisons don't get consumed if they fail to kill them, but will still create Notoriety! Tenacious Hunters have a 1/3 chance of not getting killed, even if it should result in 100% chance (by sending in 10 Edge Summons), and Tenacious also applies to poisoning attempts. Mystic Hunters are protected from Summons, but they're not immune. If you send a Summon and they fail, Hunters have a chance of becoming a Mystic! Just keep sending minions (and poisons) at them until they die or use other tactics.
• I've got a secret to tell you... - Use Dread, Fascination, Lantern, or Winter Lore to drive Investigators insane. Grim Hunters are weak to Dread and Winter Lore while Idealists are weak to Fascination and Lantern. I don't suggest using Dread and Fascination though since I've never succeeded with using them so far. Higher levels of WinteLantern have a higher success chance, although I'm not sure if that only applies if the text description changes... Using Dread/Winter or Fascination/Lantern might give them a chance to become Grim/Idealist/Tenacious though, and it always makes Dread/Fascination and Notoriety (if you fail) so be careful! If you succeed though, they'll become insane and then they'll be gone after a while without leaving a Corpse... or you can use them as a sacrifice in your Rites or the Spider Door!
• Well, I didn't do anything - Keep destroying Evidence using Moth followers. No matter what traits Hunters have, they can't do anything at all if their Evidence keeps disappearing! Failure to destroy Evidence will create Notoriety, or kill your minion. Earning Funds by Painting is a breeze this way, but be warned, there are no Summons that have more than 8 Moth, and even Moth Exalted don't have 100% chance to succeed.
• In the public's eye - A tactic for Painters. By using Mystique when painting (no Lore or Summons as your Inspiration though), you get more Mystique as a result and stop the timers of any Mystique you used while you're painting. If you have a lot of Mystique present, Hunters will have a hard time investigating you so one or two Notoriety isn't bad at all and allows you to earn a bit more money. Or, if they're close to investigating you, you can use Notoriety to paint, although this is somewhat dangerous since there's always a chance that they'll investigate you for two consecutive Seasons.
• Winter is coming - A certain Winter spell will randomly kill Mortals (including you). Obviously, only do this if desperate or want to get The Sun Before Me achievement.

Work

• Earn Funds by dragging Ability aspects such as Health and Passion.
• Working Health and Passion, as well as their associated Skill cards will usually earn you Vitality and Glimmering.
• Health and Passion Skills can also be dragged here for an improved effect. Realistically though, you'll never earn that enough money through the Health even with max Health Skill.
• Painting using Passion or Skill can sometimes net you some much needed Contentment.
• Using only Passion, you can consume Restlessness (which results in Dread after a minute). You can also Paint using the Skill card, and Restlessness as your Inspiration to consume it. Painting does not consume other Influences aside from Restlessness.
• Earn more money through the painting by using Mystique or Notoriety instead of just Passion. Like the game warns though, it will also generate more Mystique or Notoriety after you're done painting. Using Notoriety nets you about 2 Funds, so for example, if you used 3, you'll get around 6 Funds.
• You can make special Paintings that can be used as Tools (gives 8 Aspect) or auction away. To get a Forge painting for example, you'll need at least 6 Forge Aspect total, the pigment associated with Forge, and some Passion (I always use 4 Passion when making these paintings. Haven't tested it yet with only 1-3 Passion. Not using any Passion will not make special Paintings.). All pigments give 4 Aspect, so you'll only need 2 Aspect from Lore, Influences, or Summons. However, you won't get Funds after finishing the Painting and get some Notoriety as a result.
• Dragging Reason will earn you a clerical Job card. Afterwards, you won't be able to directly use Reason on Work, but the Job itself will require Reason.
• Some characters have Jobs at the start.
• You can get promoted on some of the Jobs. For the clerical Job, there's (I'm not 100% sure) a small chance of becoming promoted whenever you Work. For a more surefire way to promotion, you're can let your minions remove certain... Annoyances.
• On some Jobs, you'll be demoted, or even lose them entirely if you don't Work on them after a while. You can usually beg using Passion to keep your Job.
• Fulfill Commissions and write Manuscripts dragging them here. You'll need the appropriate Lore, 1-2 Reason, and sometimes Passion depending on the commission. These commissions can be a reliable way of earning Funds after auctioning the Spintrias.
• Get to the next level of ascension by dragging your Dedication card. You'll need some other stuff though.
• Cast spells or summon creatures through Rite cards. After amassing enough Lore, Tools, Followers, and Ingredients, Summons are better for doing anything that your cultists can, and you can just keep summoning them if they die somehow. Spoiler

Sleep/Dream

• You can take a nap by dragging fatigued Health to Sleep, which has a shorter 30 second timer compared to naturally letting it recover for 60 seconds.
  
• Counter Dread by dragging Dread to Sleep and then using Contentment. Fascination can be countered by Dread using Sleep, but it doesn't consume Dread.
  
• Funds can be used to buy tinctures of opium, generating Contentment. There's a chance of becoming Ill though. The game says there's a small chance of provoking despair but I haven't seen it.
  
• Illness and Injuries can be cured using Funds or Vitality.
  
• Using Health, Passion, or Reason will allow you to dream. Dreams randomly give you: Dread, Vitality, Contentment, Fascination, and Glimmering (not sure if it also gives Erudition). In other words, very unreliable.
  
• Using Passion, and then either Lantern or Knock lore, you can enter the Mansus.
  
• To progress through the Mansus (and thus the game), you'll need to improve your knowledge of Knock or Lantern.
  
• When entering the Mansus, the Way cards are usually a better option than just dreaming randomly since one of the results are always shown. From what I've seen, each location for each Way has 2-5 cards to draw from.
  
• I've found The White Door as one of the most useful Ways. By exhausting just one of your Health, you can get: get Restlessness (useful for countering Fascination), Fascination, Glimmering, Erudition, and if you're really close to getting arrested, A Favour from Authority.
  
• Be careful when dreaming, the Mansus is usually where Fascination comes from. Also, some of the more powerful Influences will turn into Dread, Fascination, and others.
  
• You can enter the Peacock Door by Spoiler
  

Study

• Use Advancement cards like Vitality, Erudition, and Glimmering to improve your Attributes and Skills. Higher levels of Skill will need more cards up to a maximum of 8.
• It seems there's no limit to how much you can improve your Attributes, but you'll always need 8 Advancement cards.
• Read books to learn Lore. Rarer books may also give you Dread, Fascination, or Influences.
• Books in another language need to be translated to be read. Some books and Patrons/creatures can teach you how to translate them.
• Combine same levels of Lore to improve it. You'll usually need some Glimmering, Erudition, and Reason to do it though.
• Split Lore into two lower levelled Lore using one Reason. This is easier and faster than combining or subverting.
• You can subvert Lores using two different Lores. For example, you can Study Grail with Moth, which will subvert (i.e. consume) that Grail lore and improve Moth to the next level. This makes it possible to convert excess Lores into other types. Like with combining, you'll need Glimmering, Erudition, and Reason.
• Studying Knock with another type of Lore will always turn it into Knock, so be careful.
• My advice, always leave at least one level 2 Lore (the minimum level) since all Lore books are Unique (only one exists per game). Some of the rare books give 14 (max) level Lore though, so you probably don't need to subvert that much.

Talk

• Use with any type or level of Lore to find Acquaintances, and sometimes Hanger-Ons, but you'll need Reason or Passion. This always generates Mystique afterwards.
• Important: ALL cultists are Unique. Each Aspect has 2-3 cultists, and you only have up to 8 Hanger-ons per game. Do try to keep them alive and sane.
• Talk to Summons and Hirelings to keep them around longer.
• Talk to your Summon and let them talk to another Summon/other card (with a timer) to keep them both of them longer.
• Talk directly with your Followers/creatures/hirelings, and then drag your Cult card to carry out actions in your cult's name. Depending on a Follower's Aspect, they can do different things. There's always a chance of failure (usually killing them and generating Notoriety), but having 10 in an Aspect is guaranteed...most of the time!
  • Heart removes Mystique and Notoriety. Failure has no downsides, aside from not removing Mystique/Notoriety and "extending" their timers (since timers don't run out when in a slot).
  • Grail finds Prisoners for your Rites or Desire. Can also be used for Annoyances.
  • Edge and Winter are the only ones that have a decent chance of killing Hunters and Annoyances. Edge is better than Winter though.
  • Moth can steal Funds and (Common?)Tools/Ingredients, and destroy Evidence. Failure can result in death or increase in Notoriety. Even Moth Exalted doesn't have a 100% chance of destroying evidence! Can also be used for Annoyances.
  • Forge repair broken Tools for you, but you'll need Funds or Spintrias.
  • Lantern can randomly generate Erudition (not sure about Glimmering) and Influences. Failure can generate Fascination, or kill/turn them insane.
  • Knock, Forge, and Moth steals Funds for you. Probably not worth it unless they're Exalted.
  • Edge and Winter can bring you Corpses for Rites.
• You can't sacrifice Hirelings for Poppy's first request, so it's best to sacrifice a Pawn instead.
• By using your Cult card (e.g. Order of the Bloody Cup for Grail), you can recruit and promote Acquaintances to Believers (or Hanger-Ons to Pawns). You'll need also need enough on a specific Aspect depending on your Cult (e.g. Grail for Order of the Bloody Cup).
• To promote your Believers to Disciples, you'll need at least 7 of your cult's chosen Aspect. Beginners might think they need level 8 Lore, but you can use Ingredients, Tools, Influences, and Creatures to do bring the amount up. For example, Children of Silence (Winter cult) can use level 2+ Winter Lore together with An Icy Atmosphere (6 Winter Influence) to promote them to Disciples.
• To Exalt a Disciple, you'll need 21 of your cult's Aspect. Exalted have unique names depending on your cult.
• You can't promote your Disciples to Exalted if it's not your cult's Aspect (e.g. can't promote Edge Disciples to Assassins if your cult's Aspect isn't Edge)
• Believers have 2 on one Aspect, Disciples have 5, while Exalted have 10. (just a guess) Each point is a 10% chance of succeeding, whether its to carry out cult business or while exploring.
• You can talk directly with Hunters. If you plan to kill Hunters, this is better than talking to a Follower first then dragging the Hunter's because if they're investigating you next Season, the Hunter's card will be taken from the Talk slot.
• Kill or capture Hunters by sending Edge or Winter cultists/creatures. Some Hunters are more resistant to being killed though, or even resistant to creature attacks, generating Notoriety or even killing the assailant if the attempt fails. If the the assailant has 10 Edge but failed because of a Hunter's specific trait, they won't die from what I've seen, but it will still generate Notoriety.
• Lead them to madness by using Dread or Fascination, or by using Winter or Lantern Lores. Higher level Lores will have a higher chance of success. I haven't succeeded ever by using Dread or Fascination on them though. Using Lore or Dread/Fascination will also generate Dread/Fascination, so be careful.
• Grim Hunters are more vulnerable to Dread/Winter while Idealists are more vulnerable to Lantern/Fascination. Failure will usually make them immune for future attempts, and even make them resistant to being murdered.
• Like your cultists, Hunters with names are Unique per game, so its possible to kill, imprison, or drive them all mad. Eventually, you'll only face
• Talk with Patrons to receive and fulfill commissions. Finishing commissions will earn you Iron, Bronze, or Silver Spintrias, and either Erudition or Glimmering. A useful way to earn Funds and getting Erudition/Glimmering for upgrading/subverting Lore!
• Drag your Temporary Headquarters to imprison Followers or Hirelings. If you need Prisoners, I suggest using Hirelings since they don't run out.

Explore

• Use Health or Followers to Explore places, or find Hirelings. Use Secret Histories Lore to launch Expeditions and find Vaults to raid.
• There are only 3 notable Locations: Morland's Shop, Oriflamme's Auction House, and the Ecdysis Club.
  • Morland and Oriflamme's are a source of Books in the early game, but they'll eventually run out!
  • Make sure you don't miss any books you need when buying stuff from Oriflamme, cause they'll be gone forever. Remember, Lore books are Unique! Of note is a movie reel that will teach you a useful Rite.
  • Also, this means that you should never sell Lore books, or those books that increase Passion or Reason. Feel free to sell Spintrias and translation books if you've already learned the language though!
  • Ecdysis Club is useful for getting Contentment. Sometimes generates other stuff too that help or hinder you, like Erudition or Notoriety. Has a cooldown after being visited though, and needs one Fund.
• After finding the three places above, you'll either get Streets Strange by Moonlight or an opportunity to hire a Hireling.
  • Streets Strange by Moonlight generates Contentment, Fascination, Erudition, Glimmering and some Influences. It never generates Dread, so it's a free and useful source of those things. The card is timed and will run out eventually though, and be careful of Fascination.
  • Hirelings have different Aspects just like your Followers, but they're generated randomly. You can take a peek at who you're going to hire though so as not to waste Funds.
  • Forgot their names, so I'll just list the Aspects that Hirelings can have: 3 or 5 Edge/Moth/Knock, 3 Edge and 5 Forge, 5 Lantern and some other Aspect I forgot.
  • Hirelings are limitless and can make do if some of your cultists have died, but they're only temporary and they can't Explore to find more Hirelings, or Streets Strange by Moonlight for you.
  • Like I mentioned earlier, they're a useful source of Prisoners.
  • I suggest using Hirelings or summons when exploring Vaults for the first time, then taking note of the Obstacles once there so you'll be prepared.
• I suggest that you keep looking for cultists until you can't find them anymore and then promoting them as much as possible before sending them to Expeditions. And making sure they have a total of 10 Aspect for a guaranteed success when overcoming Obstacles.
• Vaults have 1-4 Obstacles (depending on the level of the Secret Histories Lore used).
• Each level of Secret Histories have 4 Unique Vaults, and one that's repeatable. Repeatable vaults are usually harder and/or give lesser rewards compared to the Unique Vaults of the same level.
• Each Obstacle needs a Fund, and a Follower with the appropriate Aspect to conquer it. Running out of Funds or Followers will stop the Expedition and generate Mystique and Dread.
• All Obstacles can be defeated using one of the three Aspects. For example, Forgotten Mithraeum has one obstacle, Hidden Door, that needs Lantern or Knock. That's or to be clear, getting a mix of Lantern or Knock will not help, but having a higher amount of either Lantern or Knock will.
• Most Obstacles can kill your Followers, and some of them can result in you becoming Cursed. I didn't notice myself, but apparently Curses permanently reduces one of your Abilities.
• More advanced Vaults will need at least a mix of three Aspects. An example is Star-shattered Fane (level 12 SH), which has Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Desolation (Forge/Grail) and The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter).
• A successful Expedition will allow you to receive excess Funds that you've invested into Expedition, and usually net you at least 2 treasures, which can be: Lore books, Ingredients, Spintrias, or Tools. It will also always generate Notoriety.
• Treasures can be Common, Uncommon, or Rare.

Time Passes

• Consumes Funds whenever the timeSeason runs out and there's no way of stopping it unless you pause the game. Running out of Funds will cause Starvation (decays to Decrepitude), which can only be cured by using Funds.
• Preview the next Season by opening its window. You can check if you're going to become Ill or if Hunters are planning to investigate you on the next Season for example.

The Perils of Renown

• If Time Passes causes Season of Suspicion, you'll be Investigated.
• This will automatically take Hunter, Mystique or Notoriety, and then Evidence cards in that order.
• If no Hunter is present, sometimes this won't look for Mystique or Notoriety, and then generates Contentment.
• This randomly chooses between Mystique or Notoriety. If Mystique is consumed, the Hunter will keep looking for clues for another minute until it finds Notoriety. Notoriety gives Hunters a chance to create or upgrade Evidence.
• Some Hunter Aspects will give them 100% to create/upgrade Evidence from Notoriety or even give them a lower chance but allows them to generate Evidence even with no Notoriety.
• You should keep a low profile especially if they have Evidence against you (like a real cult should!), unless you have a reliable way to deal with Hunters and Notoriety.
• Heart cultists to eliminate Mystique and Notoriety. It's not 100% guaranteed unless you have a Heart Exalted, but they'll never die even if they fail and it can tie up Mystique/Notoriety since they'll be busy "using" said Mystique/Notoriety until they're done Charming.
• Consider readying a Heart cultist before an Expeditions finishes so they can use their charms as soon as the Expedition is over.

Recruitable Cultists

All cultists are Unique so there's always a danger of running out of cultists if you keep sending them to Expeditions unprepared, or some summoning accidents happen, or if they're arrested by Hunters. Here are their names so you can prioritize who to bring into your cult first! Trying to recruit more members beyond the ones below will give you Mistaken Identity cards instead, telling you that no-one else is available to recruit for the rest of the game.

• Heart: Dorothy, Leo, Clovette
• Edge: Elridge, Rose, Victor
• Moth: Sylvia, Ysabet, Porter
• Knock: Enid, Neville
• Forge: Tristan, Valciane, Laidlaw
• Grail: Saliba, Renira
• Lantern: Slee, Cat Caro, Pope Clifton
• Winter: Auclair, Violet
• Hanger-ons: 8

Rites

All Rites are learned from books except for one case.
Aside from requirements, all Rites are the same and can be used to Summon creatures or cast spells.
All Rites (except one) have four slots. One slot for Lore and another for Desire, while the other two slots use Followers, Prisoners, Tools, Ingredients, or Influences. Usually, one of those slots will permanently consume a card. No Rite can have the same requirement (e.g. two slots for Ingredients).
About the Desire slot - It was confusing to me at first as well, but you do not need to use or level-up your Desire to use Rites! You'll only need that for one thing. Spoiler

List of Rites

• Sunset Rite: Assistant, consumes Influences. Can be learned by using the film reel called STUMM! from the auction, or a specific Rare(?) book. An extremely useful Rite for all stages of the game since it can be learned early on and consumes Influences. You do not want to miss STUMM! from the auction no matter what! With just 2 Knock Lore you can use some Summons as Assistants to summon another one of them!
  
• Rite of Map's Edge: Tools, consumes Influences. I consider this the 2nd most useful Rite after Sunset Rite, if you have the Tools that is. Also useful if somehow all your cultists are dead.
  
• Rite of the Mother's Mercy: Assistant, consumes Ingredients. An awesome Rite if you have some Corpses and Ingredients, and a reliable Rite for making Risen.
  
• Rite of the Sea's Feasting: Tools, consumes Ingredients. I consider this equal, if not a little less useful than Map's Edge.
  
• Rite of the Sea's Marriage: Influence, consumes Ingredients. An interesting Rite since it doesn't consume Influences. I can see this being really useful if you've got a ton of Ingredients though.
  
• Rite of the Watchman's Sorrow: Consumes Lore, and two other slots that I can't remember sorry! Probably Tool or Assistant. This consumes Lore, so I find this Rite this pretty useless, unless you're at the late game already and want to clean the board of lower-level Lore (since you should have a couple of max level Lore at this point).
  
• Rite of the Crucible Soul: Tools, consumes Sacrifices. A convenient way to dispose of Prisoners if you haven't unlocked the Spider Door. You definitely don't want to sacrifice your cultists, but you can use this to resummon, although this kills the summon.
  
• Rite of the Rebel's Striving: Assistant, consumes Tools. This destroys Tools, so, not that useful.
  
• Rite Intercalate: Consumes Lore, Sacrifices/Assistants, Tools, Ingredients, and Influences. Yep, it consumes everything you've used for the Rite. Not that bad if you have a lot of Ingredients and multiple copies of tools, or you're desperate or close to victory.
  
• Rite of the Beast's Division: Influence, consumes Sacrifices. Yes it doesn't consume Influence. Not that useful since Influence only last a minute anyway, unless you have a bunch of Prisoners that you want to turn into Risen maybe.
  

Summons

Values shown in parentheses are the minimum Aspects you'll need to summon them (from what I've tested), while the values on the right are their Aspects. All summons except Risen need at least 2 Knock, but Risen needs Corpses. Most Summons have a chance to devour or drive Mortals insane for every summoning attempt. All Summons except Risen have 3 minute timers before they disappear.

Risen

A good way to use Corpses to prevent them from turning into Notoriety. They're not as good as disciples and other summons, but hey, zombies are disposable! They only last 1 minute.

• Shattered Risen (8 Winter, Edge): 4 Edge and Winter.
• Burgeoning Risen (8 Winter, Moth): 4 Moth and Winter.

Standard

Your bread and butter for murdering, stealing evidence, and exploration. You can usually start summoning these as soon as you have 6 Lore and the Influences from the White and Stag Door. Most can be summoned with 2 Knock.

• Percussigant (6 Hearts, Edge): 8 Heart and Edge
• Hint (6 Lantern, Edge): 8 Lantern and Edge
• Caligine (6 Forge, Winter): 8 Forge and Moth
• Raw Prophet (6 Grail, Moth): 8 Grail and Moth
• Voiceless Dead (5? Heart and Winter): 6 Moth and Winter. Doesn't need a Corpse.
• Maid-In-The-Mirror (8 Winter, Edge, 5 Knock): 10 Edge and Winter. Yup, 10 Edge is certain death for Hunters, except if they're Tenacious and/or Mystic.

Unique

Powerful and can teach you other languages, but you need other languages like Greek to learn them. Unlike standard summons, they need 5 Knock to be summoned and they're Unique so only one of them can exist on the board. However, you can summon them again if they disappear.

• King Crucible (10 Forge, Lantern): 12 Edge and Forge. Teaches Mandaic.
• Ezeem (10 Grail, Forge) 12 Edge and Grail. Teaches Phyrgian.
• Teresa (10 Lantern, Secret Histories): 12 Lantern and Secret Histories. Teaches Fucine.

The Mansus

A safer and more predictable way to Dream than just using Health/Reason/Passion. Access locations in the Mansus by using Way cards and another card. This is the standard way of getting more Secret Histories Lore (for Expeditions) and Influences (for summoning). In most cases, you'll need the higher-tier Influences to win the game.
You can get up 3-5 random cards from each location, but one of them is always displayed and usually safer option. Most locations in the Mansus can give you Dread and Fascination, so make sure you're not one card away from losing the game!
To unlock each Way, you'll need increasing levels of Knock or Lantern Lore. Re-entering a Way will require another card. If those Ways require Health/Reason/Passion, don't worry, they only exhaust, not consume them permanently!
Some info may be wrong or incomplete, and I've abbreviated Secret Histories Lore to SH to shorten the text.

Woods

The First Way. You'll need to dream using Passion first, and then using at least 2 Knock/Lantern. Re-enter the Woods using Passion. Completely safe, and it's good way to get Vitality and some Influences.

• Visible cards: Occult Scrap (2 SH), Peculiar Rumor, A Buzzing in the brain (2 Moth)
• The Well: An Awareness of Appetite (2 Grail), Peculiar Rumor, Vitality
• The Temple of the Wheel: A Furtive Truth (4 SH), Peculiar Rumor, Subtle Flaw (2 Knock)

White door

The Second Way. Unlock by using the Way:Woods card with 4 Knock/Lantern. Re-enter using Health. Extremely useful for all stages of the game, particularly for controlling Dread/Fascination, summoning, getting Erudition/Glimmering, and if you or your cultists are close to getting arrested.

• Visible cards: Forgotten Chronicles(6 SH), Restlessness, An Icy Atmosphere (6 Winter), A Furtive Truth (2 SH). Restlessness is a good Influence for summons/promotion or reducing Fascination since it decays to Dread. An Icy Atmosphere is great for summoning Voiceless Dead, but it decays to Dread.
• Orchard: Contentment, Forgotten Chronicle (6 SH), Glimmering, An intensity of radiance (6 Lantern). Go here if you need Glimmering or to counter Dread. An Intensity of Radiance for summoning Hints, but it decays to Fascination.
• Lodge of the sage knight: Fascination, Subtle Fracture (6 Knock), Erudition, A Favour from Authority, Forgotten Chronicle (6 SH). Subtle Fracture is useful for all Summons, and Favours are great if you're close to getting arrested.

Stag Door

The Third Way. You'll need to get the Stag's Riddle card first by using your Desire when Dreaming about the White Door, and then solving the Riddle using a random level 6 (at least) Lore. Re-enter using Reason.

• Visible cards: Forbidden epic (8 SH), Subtle Rupture(10 Knock), A trembling heat (6 Forge), Forgotten Chronicles(6 SH). Trembling heat to summon Caligines, yipee. If I remember correctly, these two influences don't decay into anything dangerous, if at all.
• Ascent of Knives: A furious Air (10 Edge), A bitter atmosphere (10 Winter), An Urgency of Appetite (6 Grail). A bitter atmosphere for summoning Maid-In-The-Mirrors (my waifu), and An Urgency of Appetite to summon Raw Prophets. A Furious Air is nice for summoning creatures with Edge. Careful with Bitter Atmosphere since it decays to either Dread.
• Painted River: Fascination, Erudition, Forbidden epic (8 SH). If you're looking for Erudition, Fascination, or the next tier of SH, Painted River is the place to be. If you haven't noticed, knowledge usually comes at a price of sanity!

Spider Door

The Fourth Way. Unlock this by using 8 Knock/Lantern when dreaming about Stag Door. A little trickier than the other Doors as you'll need Prisoners or Lunatics to re-enter. One good thing about using Prisoners for this is they don't turn into Corpses afterwards (so no Notoriety)!

• Visible cards: A forbidden epic(8 SH), A Favour from Authority, An imperative of appetite(10 Grail). Another way to earn Favour, and a powerful Grail Influence to summon Ezeem.
• The Chamber of Ways: Forgotten Chronicle (6 SH), A howling in the heart(10 Moth), Wrong Door (15 Knock), A Blaze of Radiance (10 Lantern), A Bitter Atmosphere (10 Winter), Fascination. Some very useful influences, but Blaze of Radiance and Bitter Atmosphere decays to Fascination and Dread respectively, so be careful.
• The Malleary: An incandescence (15 Forge), Fascination, Iotic Essence(12 Forge ingredient), Unresolved Ambuiguity (10 SH). Incandescence (decays to Fascination) and Iotic Essence are useful for summoning King Crucible and Ezeem, or winning the game if you Desire Power. This is also where the next tier of SH is found!

Peacock's Door

The Fifth and last Way available, to mortals at least. Unlock using 10 Knock/Lantern on Spider's Door. To re-enter, you're gonna need mirrors which are Uncommon and Rare treasures, or the Franciglave (Rare) which doesn't break and allows you to enter whenever you want. They break after you use them though, and you'll need Forge cultists and Bronze/Silver Spintrias to repair them. If all your Forge cultists are dead, you can use Forge Hirelings to repair them. I'm also not sure about some of the cards here, sorry! If you Desire Sensation or Enlightenment, you'll likely need the Influences here to win. If you want to explore the 14 SH Vaults, you'll need the Vagabond's Maps from here and combine them into Port Noon Anecdotes (14 SH Lore) since only Rare SH books can directly give 14 SH Lore. Unresolved Ambiguities are also ok, but you'll need 4 of them and a lot of time Studying to get just 1 Anecdote.

• Visible cards: Fascination, Unresolved Ambiguity (10 SH), Scholar:Vak, A Splendour(15 Lantern). Learn Vak from here! Splendour to summon Teresa or win through Enlightenment.
• The Worm Museum: Dread, The Perfect Frost (15 Winter), A Vagabond's Map (12 SH). Oof, Dread, and Perfect Frost decays to Dread. Vagabond's Map though!
• The Red Church: An Incarnadescence (15 Grail), Amaranthine Nectar (8 Grail ingredient), A Favour from Authority, A Vagabond's Map (12 SH). This is the place if you want to summon Ezeem or satisfy your Desire for Sensation! Amaranthine Nectar is also a good source of Funds.

Vaults

Vaults are the places you send Expeditions to. Use Secret Histories Lore learned from books or the Mansus to find them! I've listed all the Vaults I've explored so far, their obstacles/guardians, what Aspects you'll need to conquer them, and amount and rarity of treasures you can get. All of them add Notoriety if successful, and some of the more difficult locations even gives you Influences (some even dangerous), while failure (i.e. all explorers died or ran out of Funds) will give you Mystique and Dread.
Each tier of Secret Histories unlocks 4 Unique Vaults, and one Repeatable Vault. You can have many copies of Repeatable Vaults, but they have more obstacles and/or lower rewards compared to Unique Vaults of the same tier.
Seals like Hidden Door won't kill your minions as far as I know, but they'll waste Funds if they can't get through them.
Curses won't stop you from finishing Expeditions, but they can permanently reduce your Attributes or randomly kill someone after some time. You can't stop a Curse after it triggers, you can only prevent them. * Fifth eye: Turns Passion to Fascination * Dry soul: Turns Reason to Dread * Creeping breath: Turns Health into Decrepitude * Worms in the world: Makes Notoriety. Chance to kill Mortals?.

2 Secret Histories (1-3 Common)

• St. Agnes Hospital: Dry Soul Curse(Heart/Lantern)
• Strathcoyne's Residence: Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth)
• Cater & Hero Limited: Treacherous Ground(Forge/Lantern)
• Forgotten Mithraeum: Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock)
• The Forsaken Reach (repeatable):Treacherous Ground(Forge/Lantern), Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth).

4 Secret Histories (1 Common and Uncommon)

• Keglin's Scratch:Fretful Dead(Edge/Winter),Treacherous Ground(Forge/Lantern)
• Gladwyn Lake: Younger Sister(Edge/Knock)
• Crowkiss Hill: A Warded Door(Forge/Knock)
• Lockwood Fen: Treacherous Ground(Forge/Lantern), Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth)
• Kerisham (repeatable): Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)

6 Secret Histories (1 Common and 1-2 Uncommon)

• The Vanderschaaf Collection: A Warded Door(Forge/Knock), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)
• Fermier Abbey: Peril-Prowed Forest(Forge/Moth), Monks(Edge/Moth)
• Orthos Wood: Peril-Prowed Forest(Forge/Moth), Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth)
• Chateau Raveline: Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Dry-Soul Curse(Heart/Lantern)
• The Unnumbered Stones (repeatable): Peril-Prowed Forest(Forge/Moth), Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth)

8 Secret Histories (1 Common, Uncommon, and Rare)

• Voivode's Citadel: Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Fretful Dead(Edge/Winter)
• Grunewald's Permanent Circus: Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), The Worms in the World (curse, Lantern/Moth)
• Cave of Candles: Younger Sister(Edge/Knock), The High Passes(Forge/Winter)
• Tower Revek: Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), The Creeping Breath Curse(Heart/Grail)
• Foxlily Meadows (repeatable): Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), The High Passes(Forge/Winter), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)

10 Secret Histories (2 Uncommon and 1 Rare)

• Hunter's Pits: Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), Younger Sister(Edge/Knock), The High Passes(Forge/Winter)
• Mausoleum of Wolves: Fretful Dead(Edge/Winter), The High Passes(Forge/Winter), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock)
• The Eye of Ikirmawi (2 Uncommon, 1 Rare): The High Passes(Forge/Winter), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)
• Snow's Keeper (2 Uncommon, 1 Rare): Fretful Dead(Edge/Winter), The Worms in the world(curse, Lantern/Moth), The High Passes(Forge/Winter)
• Tombs of the Shadowles Kings (repeatable): Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), The Creeping Breath Curse(Heart/Grail), The High Passes(Forge/Winter)

12 Secret Histories (1 Uncommon, 1-2 Rare)

• Star-shattered Fane: Hidden Door(Lantern/Knock), Desolation (Forge/Grail), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)
• Messana: Watchers(Edge/Grail/Moth), Desolation (Forge/Grail), Creeping Breath Curse(Heart/Grail)
• Lagun's Tomb: Dry-Soul Curse(Heart/Lantern), Desolation (Forge/Grail), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock)
• Temple of Seven Coils: Desolation (Forge/Grail), The Worms in the world (Lantern/Moth), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock)
• Miah (repeatable): Desolation (Forge/Grail), Creeping Breath Curse (Heart/Grail), Fretful Dead(Edge/Winter)

14 Secret Histories (3 Rare)

Honestly, I don't think it's worth it to raid these since Port Noon Anecdotes are too much of a hassle to get, but if you're after the story in the game (from exploring these or reading rare books) or lacking some much needed items or Lore, then go ahead!

• Fort Geryk: A Western Sea (Heart/Forge), Fretful Dead (Edge/Winter), A Warded Door (Forge/Knock)
• St. Tentreto of the Deep Door: Hidden Door (Lantern/Knock), Monks(Edge/Moth), The Fifth Eye Curse(Heart/Winter)
• Raven Isle: Soucouyants (Lantern/Moth), A Western Sea (Heart/Forge), The Fifth Eye Curse (Heart/Winter)
• The Wreck of the Christabel: A Western Sea (Heart/Forge), Creeping Breath Curse (Heart/Grail), Younger Sister(Edge/Knock)
• Port Noon (repeatable, 2 Rare): A Western Sea (Heart/Forge), Long (Moth/Grail), A Warded Door(Forge/Knock), The Fifth Eye Curse (Heart/Winter)