[aaminoff]

The first Baalz guide I ever read was the Helheim one, and that was essentially the strategy I used to reach 3rd in my first MP game.

So I am looking at LA Pan and thinking this could be a place where the Helheim idea of taking Drain scales and overcoming them with Skull Mentors has promise. The design points gained from swapping in Drain 2 for the typical Magic 1 could be used to have your rainbow pretender start awake instead of asleep, and be researching starting turn 1. Or get better scales elsewhere. Or more rainbow magic paths. It also means that if you can manually site-search a bit with your rainbow pretender and get a few more Nature gems income, you might be able to cast Carrion Woods sooner. I do think for this strategy you want the N6D4 on the pretender rather than relying on fancy boosters, though since you are researching Construction 4 for skull mentors anyway maybe I am wrong.