MND Regional Review: Weave

Welcome to another Magi-Nation Duel Regional card review, by Kroodhaxthekrood!  We'll be featuring these reviews once or twice a week on the blog, and linking all of them in one place on the main Magi-Nation Duel page here on this blog!  Enjoy!  This week, we have the Weave!

Magi-Nation Card Review

the Weave
by Kroodhaxthekrood

Rating Scale

Magi-Nation Duel has only one traditional format, Constructed, where all cards are legal except for a limited few. Cards will be rated in this context with the rating scale shown below. These grades do not tell the whole story and should be viewed in the context of the writing which accompanies them.

1: Unplayable. Actively bad or detrimental to your board own board in some way.

2: Low-Impact. Not actively bad but doesn’t do a whole lot. 

2.5: A little better than “meh”.

3: Role Player. Cards which are simply not played as much but either could be good given

    support or are at least decent or fun options.

3.5: Very strong with the required support.

4: Staple. Strong cards which see lots of play (or should) but are not completely busted.

5: All-star. Practically an auto-include in most if not all of decks from that region. 

Now, on with the show:

Magi

Ahdar – 4

Ahdar looked like a miss to me for the longest time, but since we’re talking about competitive decks smashing against each other, Ahdar’s Spy allows him to draw an insane amount of cards against a lot of really strong magi. In fact, the only traditionally powerful setup magi who does not get punished by Ahdar is Delia (because Vellups don’t actually draw the cards). In addition, he probably has slightly more energy than they do and starts with an Uwamar which is very effective at keeping Ahdar alive. Basically, the more powerful your opponent’s deck is, the more powerful Ahdar becomes and that’s a good place to be in a competitive environment.

Artyva – 3.5

Let me get back on my 14/7 soapbox for a second: Artyva does good work. She’s basically 13/7 with Healer’s Aura, since simply through the regional mechanic of Weave, it’s very easy to get a creature with 1 less energy than its starting. The thing is, the Healer’s Aura trigger happens before you have a chance to Weave, so Artyva needs creatures that actively spend down their energy by using powers. Thankfully, there are plenty of those around. Additionally, Frusk and Heppeswip are quite nice to have as starting cards.

Bo’Ahsa – 4

Bo’Ahsa is probably the “Weaviest” magi out there in the sense that her mechanic really nails the flavor of Weave’s intended playstyle. Her metrics are all rock solid, so that’s great. Weave Tactics though is incredibly annoying, because it allows her to actually use cards like Lascinth or Grass Hyren very well, an Weave is chock full of cards with powerful abilities that trigger when they’re attacked. Weave Tactics can force your opponent to attack into those creatures. Of course, many decks don’t need to attack to win the game, but many others do. With her Shield, she can do this twice, though for some reason she doesn’t start with the relic (I mean Weave Powder but anyway).

Empress Gia – 4

Empress Gia is much better in Weave than they are in Core. First of all, as I mentioned in my Core review, this character counts as both Nagsis and as Gia which means they have access to a bundle of starting card options: Drush, Gia Pet, Corrupt as printed, Weave Powder, Nagsis’ Sigil, and Gia’s Tome. You can only get up to five of these but since they’re all playable cards that very nice and, if Empress Gia is not your first magi in your stack, drawing five cards on the flip is insane. Act Like Gia is the effect you want active most of the time, since it’s more generally useful. Then, when you’ve had enough time to set up a big board of creatures (Uwamar et. al.) you can drop a Nagsis’ Sigil or whatever and smash some faces in with Fight Like Nagsis. It’s worth noting that Empress Gia can also behave as a pure setup magi by not playing Core cards ever, but the power level is very high on Fight Like Nagsis because Weave can grow some of those non-attacking creatures to a very large size quite quickly.

Gia – 3.5

You’d think Unearth would allow Gia to tutor up any relic she desired since it doesn’t specify and there’s no errata. Warlum didn’t specify and it received an errata, Gia should have as well if that’s what the intention was. Unfortunately, thanks to a ruling this is not the case. Gia can only get Weave or Universal relics with Unearth. Boo. Weave magi already have access to Weave Powder so they can kind of get whatever they want anyway, making Unearth much less splashy. Still, Gia is a good sized magi who can get Universal relics out of your deck (Warrior’s Boots, Rayje’s Belt, Relic Stalker etc.). That’s pretty nice. There are a lot of ways to make Unearth powerful, it’s just not the ocean of possibility it should be.

Iyori – 2.5

Sure, there’s an amount of disruption Lost Wisdom provides, but it’s more mildly irritating than actually effective, even if you’re doing cute things like discarding a Junjertrug every turn because your Horn can re-buy it to discard to Lost Wisdom. Also, shut up Fossik. We get it. Knowledge. Power. Blah, blah, blah.

Keru – 4

The fact that Weed draws you a card after all the other stuff is a big deal, as is starting with a Drowl. Keru is, in my opinion, the best setup magi in Weave despite his stiff competition in the form of Ahdar, Empress Gia, and Scyalla. There are two reasons for this: first, Keru can actually survive several turns if you want him to, unlike Scyalla, and more turns means more setup. Second, even in a “normal” Weave deck, there are good discard pile synergies in Weave, especially Brushfire. On top of that, just thinning out your deck by placing starting cards of your other magi into the discard pile is good value. Finally, Keru is quite powerful in more complex deck lists that try to set up some wacky things with the discard pile.

Kesia – 5

Kesia is nuts. She’s got enough energy on her printed values and her starting cards are all highly playable. On top of that, she has two effects, each one of which would push a magi to the point of competitive viability. Native Strength is a limitation on your deck build, but it more than makes up for this in raw power level. Wild Growth essentially allows you to Weave for free, and that’s also incredible. Finally, Kesia’s Flute is playable or even good on other magi and Kesia pushes it way over the top. It basically doesn’t matter what your deck is doing in Weave. Unless you’re splashing a lot of spells, Kesia is probably more powerful than any other magi you could run instead.

Kolte – 2

Everything about Kolte is good except for his energy numbers, which suck. Starting cards are very good. Parting Shot is a very good mechanic in Weave, because it punishes your opponent even more for attacking. Fight Back is surprisingly useful and makes Kolte more difficult to kill than your average magi (a little harder anyway, not a lot). None of these things are so powerful it’s worth playing with a magi who generates so little energy and relies on your opponent making bad plays to generate his value.

Marella – 3

Marella is much better than she looks. Vapid is quite bad in general, but in a region with lots of access to setup magi this isn’t quite so bad. You can build up a big hand for Marella to spend. I’m a big fan of this from a flavor perspective, since it’s like a rich parent giving an irresponsible teenage daughter a credit card. Vapid does make a lot of good Weave cards worse (Drowl, Vuryip, etc.) so you have to have a setup magi who relies on those type of cards much less (Keru is probably the worst option for Marella). Once you flip her up though, she’s just a big Nar magi with no text. Vapid doesn’t limit things which aren’t technically drawing cards. Brushfire is an excellent example – she can still do that just fine.

Marella, Savant – 3.5

Yeah, this chick is beefy. 12/8 is only 20 on the energy index meter but it’s an enormous variety of 20. 8 energize is really big (I see you Nar). Unlike Nar, Weave has plenty of ways to draw cards, not that Marella, Savant even needs much of that. She’s best played as a second magi after Keru has had a couple turns to get all the Junjertrug cards in your deck into the discard pile. MS can then use her Horn to start looping the big monsters and smashing you in the face with them. She’ll usually be able to play two Junjertrug creatures in a turn. She can play 2 Stumbling Junjertrug off a single energize step thanks to Bliss, and with their Carouse, this means she generates 16 energy worth of creatures on that turn. Ignorance doesn’t much matter in that kind of aggressive scenario. On her flip turn, she’ll probably play 3 Junjertrug creatures and then play 1-2 every turn after that as long as her Horn isn’t disrupted (in which case she gets a lot worse). Also, paying 1 for a Warrior’s Boots is just fine. She’s a 3.5 because she requires exactly Keru and 7-9 deck slots for the Junjertrug suite (depending on how many Horns you run), but she’s quite powerful.

M’Lady Iyori – 3

The way it’s worded, you’d think Natural Selection would be able to kill a Colossus because the power is making your opponent choose to discard their creature. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works according to the Rules Team. That would have been cool. Natural Selection still turns any creature in your hand into a 3-energy Shockwave that hits their worst creature. They still have to discard something even if they have a Colossus in play along with other creatures. It’s still a good power. You just won’t be using it every turn. M’Lady Iyori is a Paradwyn magi though, and sometimes you can use Natural Selection on the opponent’s turn (Bloom/Bazha’s Pendant, only their first PRS Step). That can be a nice surprise. If you’re using Natural Selection a lot, M’Lady Iyori will quickly run out of energy, and her general lack of stats puts her below a lot of other magi in Weave despite having access to repeatable removal.  

Ninx – 5

Ninx with Bloom and/or a Bazha’s Pendant is one of the most annoying setups in the game to deal with. All you need to do is ensure your opponent can’t kill you on board by using up as much of your energy as possible, then hit them with Stare Down. On their turn, they’ll only have one energize worth of energy to spend, and if they play a spell, play a relic, or use a power on any of their cards (including their magi) you can hit them with Stare Down again. This basically relegates them to playing creatures and attacking with creatures, and Weave is set up to deal with creatures extremely well. Add to that the fact that Ninx is a dual-region magi with access to lots of great cards and the energize 6 and we have an incredible contender.

Quirle – 3

As long as your opponent doesn’t kill all your stuff, Quirle is 13/7 thanks to Gift of Life. If they do kill all your stuff, he’s still 13/6 as long as he has a creature to play. That’s pretty good. Also, so is Vuryip. So is making a Vuryip bigger. It really says a lot about how good Weave magi are that Quirle only gets a 3 on my rating scale. Gift of Life on a Weave Hyren is a sweet way to pump your whole team pretty quickly.

Rehlya – 3.5

Terrible energize rate, really nice effect. At face value, Counterweave means that any time your opponent attacks one of your creatures, their thing needs to be at least 3 energy bigger than yours thing simply to trade off (Counterweave + normal Weave). That’s seriously annoying. If Rehlya has a Quallon out you just can’t attack her (you’ll need up to 6 energy more just to trade). Weave has cards like Crushing Growth which force you to attack, so you’d better have some spells to disrupt her stuff or you’re not winning. The biggest thing you have to worry about is managing that energize rate, so you’ll want Aritex for sure, and maybe other things to boost her energy as well.

Scyalla – 4

Scyalla is another fantastic setup magi in Weave, and the range of options in this category gives Weave a lot of great possibilities for competitive decks. For new players, what setup Scyalla does is choose Barls as her starting creatures, getting a Sea Barl and a Deep Barl. She plays them both, Sea Barl uses Lore, Deep Barl Consumes the 1-energy Sea Barl, and the draw for the turn and after turn 1 you have 9 cards in hand. This costs 12 energy thanks to regional penalty, but that’s fine, as you probably want Scyalla to die after this anyway. Of course, you also have the option to Pet Project Barls if you have nothing else to spend that power on. Speaking of Pet Project, Scyalla allows for incredibly creative deck building options and finding something awesome to Pet Project is a very rewarding endeavor. Also like Keru, Scyalla can go in any deck, not just Weave decks.

Taisa – 3.5

Dual region magi are powerful because of more relic options (and more options overall). Taisa is a dual region magi. Additionally, she’s a big dual region magi. Her Weave effect is not incredibly useful, but there are some corner-cases where it can stymie enemy attacks and you should remain aware of the option. The main reason to play Taisa is when you simply need a Weave/Paradwyn magi because Taisa has the highest energy index of the available options (15 + 6 = 21 as opposed to Ninx and M’lady Iyori at 18). The other two have powerful abilities but Taisa is just big and sometimes that’s what you want.

Ushi – 3

Ushi is fine. Her flavor is actually really evocative of how she plays, which is Blunt. She plays stuff, uses Weave Seed and Weave Maul and hits you with her stuff. That strategy is effective too. Ushi’s only real weakness is that a lot of the aggressive Weave cards are expensive and she therefore tends to run out of steam pretty easily.

Wence the Wanderer – 3.5

In a Weave deck, Wence can function like a setup magi somewhat effectively, since Wence Is Here has a decent chance of hitting a creature with the effect “Weave”. He’s not as good as the big four at drawing cards, but he can still do it. Eleven energy is a bit low to start with as well. To really maximize Wence’s potential, you want to look at cards from both regions. In Weave for example, having access to a Yaki’s Gauntlets can do some serious damage.

Yerthe – 2.5

Poor guy. Yerthe is the casual player’s dream, since he’s the only magi in the game who allows you to just play whatever Hyren you want and not care about regional penalties. He even powers them up with Staff of Hyren and Empower Dream and gets to tutor for a specific Hyren as a starting card. Some of the Hyren are incredibly powerful creatures and he can play all of those. Here’s the thing though: Hyren have no synergy with each other. The good ones are all about synergizing with what their region is trying to do, not with other Hyren (Baby, Rainbow, and Monarch Hyren are not good). Don’t let me stop you from playing your cool Hyren deck, I’m just here to tell you it’s not going to smash people at the top tables.

Zaya – 3

Payback rarely matters but it’s nice to have. Pressure is quite interesting because it’s sometimes 1: draw a card, which is cheap as far as drawing cards goes. Thing is, Weave has lots of access to card draw, and this sometimes turns off Pressure. Zaya therefore wants to have ways to discard her own cards for profit (Channeler’s Gloves works very well here). Also, access to a global Taunt from Zaya’s Bow is and something to make them walk into in Grass Hyren is a nice thing to have in Weave. Zaya doesn’t do anything outrageously powerful, but she has a good amount of energy and several nice things to do that all fit very well within her regional shell.

Magi: TLDR

5

Kesia

Ninx

4

Ahdar

Bo’Ahsa

Empress Gia

Keru

Scyalla

3.5

Artyva

Gia

Marella, Savant

Rehlya

Taisa

Wence the Wanderer

3

Marella

M’Lady Iyori

Quirle

Ushi

Zaya

2.5

Iyori

Yerthe

2

Kolte

1

N/A

Creatures

Aritex – 5

Heal is enormously powerful. In total, with the five energy from playing Aritex and the let’s say 1-2 energy from the other creature you’re discarding, your board will gain anywhere from 10-16 energy based on your magi’s starting. This is a net of approximately 3 at the worst (Marella and a 2-energy creature discarded) to 10 at the best (Rehlya or Zaya and a 1-energy creature discarded). The thing is, since your magi has so much energy on them, it feels much more powerful than even just a 10-energy gain. One reason is because you’ll get to energize after this, the other is because energy on a magi can do many more things than energy on a creature. There are also ways to get free creatures into play in Weave, the easiest probably being a Tweave, and discarding something that cost you nothing makes Heal even better.

Baby Furok – 4

While it doesn’t actually have Weave and this can be detrimental in some decks, Baby Furok is just so solid. Cuddly-Wuddly makes it very annoying to get rid of and it doesn’t cost very much. This card is better in Naroom because of their Furok synergies, but it’s still good in Weave.

Blade Hyren – 3.5

Blade Hyren is expensive and very selfish. Its Great Weave can make it humongous-er than it already is, and Bequest protects it against Shockwave etc. This card is a very all-in strategy, and gets pretty awesome with a Gift of the Weave since you can rearrange after Bequest. The problem is, 10-energy creatures that require lots of other creatures on your board to do their thing are not typically useful because getting them into play is a chore. Weave has the tools to do all of this but it’s a very heavy investment.

Blue Yajo – 3

Good pump effect at 3-for-6. Big body, Weave, and low threat mean that it can usually survive to do its thing. Can calm down your hyper-aggressive creatures (especially Lascinth) if they have only bad attacks. Very slow and expensive for what it does. It’s not a bad card, but it doesn’t often win games either. Don’t play more than 2.

Bungaloo – 3

This guy is totally fine. It’s very easy to get some sort of small energy advantage from it, and that’s appreciated. Not flashy or powerful, but almost always efficient.

Chasm Jile – 3.5

Dreamform is a potentially powerful effect but your opponent has control of it. This means Weave can exploit the ability with Taunt effects, allowing you to play giant things for 3-ish energy. On the opponent’s turn no less. To really combo with Chasm Jile, you can also Dreamwarp something as big as you’d like since you’re ignoring costs. However, this is an awful lot of setup. When it works, it’s powerful but just know it’s not the most consistent thing in the world. Still, even getting out a Drowl or Vuryip or something for 3 is pretty good.

Dasia – 2

While this thing has Dreamwarp and Weave and is dual-region, which are all pretty beneficial effects, it has almost no board impact thanks to its small size. That means Salvage doesn’t do much because it’s easy to pick this thing off and then hit their magi with what you were going to do anyway.

Drowl – 5

This card kind of blows my mind. For example, Cald has Krawg. For the same energy cost, and a flexible combat effect, Krawg needs to attack to draw 1 card (maybe 2 if you’re Ashgar). Drowl gets 2 cards right away. Yes, in theory Krawg can keep attacking but in practice it will just die. Drowl draws you cards immediately and provides a sizeable body to attack or defend with as you need. You can play 3 of these in a deck. You should.

Flugg – 2.5

Powerful, narrow creature. Doesn’t ever see any play. But if you know your playgroup is obsessed with the Core…

Frusk – 3

Frusk dies to a lot of removal abilities. Pretty much all of them. It also dies to combat pretty easily, even with Weave. Because of its ability wording, Magic Scent does not let you draw a card if the opponent’s spell or relic (somehow) kills the Frusk. The active player resolves effects in the order they choose, and a “when(ever)” trigger must have its triggering card still in play to resolve, unlike an “As” trigger. So, if they Crushing your Frusk you make like Willy Wonka says and GET NOTHING. That said, if your opponent doesn’t deal directly with your Frusk, Magic Scent will draw you lots of cards and that’s incredible for 2 energy spent (it’s fine if it triggers once, anything beyond that is insane).    

Grass Etiki – 3.5

This is a weird card. Basically, Weaver and Dreamwarper give all your Paradwyn creatures Weave and all your Weave creatures Dreamwarp. Dreamwarper is where the combo potential of Grass Etiki shines, because Dreamwarp is quite a mind-bending effect, allowing you to play a creature with a variety of energy costs. The real value is that Dreamwarp has a lot of synergies that key off of it, like Robe of Petals or Radiant Spring. Dreamwarping in Weave creatures can be fun. Tweave, for instance, allows you to play it for free, which gives you a blank check to Dreamwarp it as big as you want. Also, multiple instances of Dreamwarper and Weaver will stack, so this card is just fine in multiples. Essentially, this card enables a lot of interesting, wacky deck designs.

Grass Hyren – 3

Very difficult to kill in combat thanks to its size, Evade, and Weave. They don’t have to attack it though, and the payoff isn’t really there for Taunt synergy.

Heppeswip – 3.5

Unravel is a very strong, annoying ability. It’s sad how much this card got punished by the printing of Crushing spells one set later, as Unravel does nothing to protect against the most common form of removal: spells. Still, if you can stick a Heppeswip against the right deck, it can be pretty strong. This means you want to boost it or protect your team from spells somehow, and that’s why I give this guy a 3.5, not because of any specific combo with the card.

Jumbor – 3

Jumbor has a Taunt effect, so if you’re into doing that the big pig provides a way. That said, he’s nothing special. Zaya’s Bow is the most efficient way to Taunt things, as it’s more resilient to removal than this thing is, which means your strategy is more consistent. I would think of Jumbor more as an extra copy of a Taunt effect than a primary engine piece.

Junjertrug – 3.5

This thing costs a lot and doesn’t protect itself, since it doesn’t even have Weave. With the Horn and/or specific magi though, these things can smash people’s faces in pretty quickly.

Lascinth – 3.5

Reflexes makes Lascinth into a much more effective Taunt payoff than Grass Hyren. You just have to find a way to prevent it from attacking. Tuk Berries is probably the best way, but Blue Yajo works as well.

Nyrex – 3

Catch and Release is a very wacky ability, and can also make for a fun Taunt payoff. Again, you’re ignoring costs on the Released creature, so feel free to Dreamwarp the heck out of it. This card is very expensive to get into play, very fragile, and so many things have to go right for it to do its thing that I have downgraded what would be a 3.5 into a 3. It’s very cool but requires above and beyond levels of setup.

Osatch – 2

Unfortunately, this card stinks. The idea is to drop it on a big board, after flipping a magi say, and protect it for a turn in a manner similar to Shadow Cloak. Sentry is very powerful: your opponent can’t bounce, directly discard, or steal your other creatures or relics. The fact that this dies at the start of your turn isn’t a big issue. You can Weave away from it so you’re only out one energy a lot. The real issue is they can still just kill this with any spell or power that just deals damage (which there are a lot of) or attack this and then wreck you after. Shadow Cloak is good because there’s really nothing the opponent can do about it. This is too easy to get around.

Pagajack – 3

This card is funny. The first one does nothing. The second one is hyper-efficient. The third one is insane. This means you only ever want to play them when you have all three in hand. Weave has lots of draw, so this can actually happen, and when it does you’re putting 9 energy on board for 3 cost. If that doesn’t happen, you’ll probably be sad. Unfortunately, it’s not a combo with Ancestral Flute since that requires you to move to your second PRS Step to do the searching.

Pajick Pet – 2.5

Your opponent can just hit this first.

Paradar – 2

Look, more card draw in Weave! Sadly, this one isn’t good at all. It doesn’t have Weave. You have to wait a full round to draw 1 card. It’s a prime target for Crushing. Skip this one.

Pody – 4

My dude! I love me a Pody. Look at it! In game terms, you get a 4-cost guy with Weave, and Backhand is a very efficient direct damage power. You don’t even need to be Taunting to make this work, since either they attack and you punish them with Backhand, or they don’t and you’re kind of happy too since they’re not killing you. That said, this guy isn’t insane by any stretch. Just efficient.

Quallon – 3.5

Another adorable creature. Quallon makes combat math extremely annoying for your opponent. In a typical defensive Weave deck with some way (usually Uwamar) to generate a bunch of energy on your board, Quallon lets you put it where you want it. But, yes, they can kill the Quallon. As extra spice, this card has plenty of interactions you wouldn’t think about.

Rock Yajo – 2.5

Dream Cross isn’t really a thing, but Invulnerability and Weave together can do some amusing stuff on defense. Overall not impactful, but slightly above a do-nothing.

Sabertooth Jumbor – 3

Here’s another Taunt effect, but this time it makes you attack first then heal up afterward. So, is it really Taunting? Since you have access to lots of creatures which can’t attack at all, then yes it is. This card is better than normal Jumbor (because of the heal after combat), but only if you can prevent your squad from attacking on your turn.

Sagaweave – 2

Here’s a pointless ability if I’ve ever seen one. You’ll probably forget this even has Reweave. The uses it has are just way too janky, like enabling a creature to use a power they couldn’t pay for due to combat. Not a common occurrence to have a player attacks something and doesn’t finish it off.

Scout Bungaloo – 2.5

Efficient, if unexciting, Taunt payoff. The fact that you can’t attack with this and trigger its effect like you can with regular Bungaloo means it’s worse even if the payoff is bigger.

Scurrying Weggit – 2

A region-specific card that doesn’t always have good uses for its power.

Seaweed Lascinth – 4

This card does some serious work. It’s a bit expensive, but its version of Reflexes is very strong by itself. When you combine it with Warrior’s Boots and Weave Seed/The Hunt, this thing pops off.

Snag Hyren – 2.5

Not normally an incredible ability, Stumble combines well with what Weave is trying to do. That said, it’s too expensive and doesn’t have Weave.

Speag – 3

Watch triggers when Speag itself is attacked. This is a big difference over cards like Zassyfer or Pajick Pet. I’m guilty of playing into it all the time, and when you attack a two-energy creature only to have it become a five-energy creature thanks to Watch and Weave, it feels bad man. That said, don’t play into it. Remove it.

Speag Sprouts – 2.5

Weave Strength is very easy to trigger and if you can do it once, you’ll be happy. It’s not very powerful though.

Striped Korrit – 2.5

Basically, with Taunt effects up, Striped Korrit makes their creature take 4 extra damage when it attacks. That’s cool. Thing is, if your Taunt thing is working, getting this in play is probably magical Christmas land. You don’t want to rely on this extra layer of setup before your synergies get good.

Stumbling Junjertrug – 4

While this card doesn’t have Weave, making it harder to ensure it has an even amount of energy, Weave has enough boosts that it shouldn’t be too hard to get Carouse to be a benefit most of the time. Plus, the turn you play this, you generate two free energy from Carouse. Then your opponent has to deal with your big dude, and then you get to engineer a way to get more energy off Carouse, or just smash this into their big guy and get it back with Junjertrug Horn. Suntan is very spicy gravy against Cald, also. Solid creature.

Thresh – 2.5

Rethresh is pretty easy to trigger, but your opponent won’t let you. They’ll just kill this first.

Toasted Yajo – 2.5

Three energy to draw a card isn’t good. Yes, you get to Weave away first, so it’s really two energy to draw the card. That’s not impressive in a region with access to much better draw methods. It’s not exactly a Taunt payoff either, since it doesn’t remove energy from the attacker.

Tropical Jumbor – 4

Scout is extremely easy to get value out of. Just sit there. They have to kill this somehow, otherwise it’ll get out of hand. But that’s so insanely slow your opponent might not mind. In reality, this is a 4-cost 6-energy creature, and that’s nice but not insane.

Tweave – 3.5

Surprise is excellent. Tweave has the slight problem of making your extra card draw a bit worse, but the ability to get a 3-energy body into play for free is very strong. Nemsa is an amazing d’Resh card. This is a slightly worse Nemsa. Unless you’re using League Elder. Then its disgusting. The ability to discard cards helps out Tweave, since if you happen to draw it outside the draw step you can pitch it and feel good about it.

Uwamar – 3.5

Wudge is good right? This card is Weave’s version. It only triggers on your cards, but it triggers at twice the rate of Wudge so that’s comparable. These things get enormous very easily, and then they can sit there Weaving their energy to your other creatures. With a Rayje’s Belt or Empress Nagsis, you can turn off Wait and get in there. You can also play cards which let you redistribute the energy on your creatures. And you can just Taunt them into hitting an Uwamar in the face and dying. This card is way better than it looks.

Vuryip – 4

Not a Drowl but if it survives to trigger three times (rare) it becomes better than a Drowl. If it triggers twice it’s still slightly worse, as you don’t get access to the extra cards right away, but it’s still a good-sized guy (with Weave) that draws you cards.

Weave Arboll – 3

Depends how many guys you have out, but this card can net you some nice energy.

Weave Hyren – 3

Any time (once per turn, but works on the opponent’s turn as well as yours) you Weave an energy away from a creature onto this card, you get to add 1 to all your other guys. That means Weaving to this is free for the creature doing it and a bonus for everything else. It’s expensive though and requires you to have other creatures out. It doesn’t protect itself either. Particularly good with Quirle’s Gift of Life, since that effect doesn’t require you to enter combat to get paid off.

Weed Hyren – 2.5

The only good use I’ve seen for this card is in Paradwyn. In Weave, it’s just kind of a dumb guy they have to attack into to get rid of for good, but killing it with a Shockwave is still just fine. You have to pay the energy for it anyway.

Weggit – 3.5

No longer counts Universal relics, which made this card a bit too good. There are a lot of good Weave relics, and drawing cards is great. That said, your average case is probably 3 energy to draw 2 cards. That’s slightly better than rate, so as long as you have 2+ Weave relics out, Weggit is good.

Yajo – 4

This card is just good value. You attack, play this, use Vitalize and you’ve paid 3 energy and added 5 to your board. The only setup needed is a creature that survives an attack, but that’s not difficult most of the time. Never mind Timid. Yajo wants to sit there and use Vitalize anyway. Also, this guy is a starting card for several magi.

Zassyfer – 2.5

Your opponent can just hit this first. A side note, Weave has enough of these abilities where you can play a bunch of them and let your opponent decide which ones to trigger, but that’s not a proactive strategy and those are what win games.

Creatures: TLDR

5

Aritex

Drowl

4

Baby Furok

Pody

Seaweed Lascinth

Stumbling Junjertrug

Tropical Jumbor

Vuryip

Yajo

3.5

Blade Hyren

Chasm Jile

Grass Etiki

Heppeswip

Junjertrug

Lascinth

Quallon

Tweave

Uwamar

Weggit

3

Blue Yajo

Bungaloo

Frusk

Grass Hyren

Jumbor

Nyrex

Pagajack

Sabertooth Jumbor

Speag

Weave Arboll

Weave Hyren

2.5

Flugg

Pajick Pet

Rock Yajo

Scout Bungaloo

Snag Hyren

Speag Sprouts

Striped Korrit

Thresh

Toasted Yajo

Weed Hyren

Zassyfer

2

Dasia

Osatch

Paradar

Sagaweave

Scurrying Weggit

1

N/A

Relics

Bo’Ahsa’s Shield – 3.5

This relic is a bit too expensive to just jam into your deck, but if you’re doing something to combo well with it it’s pretty sweet. You can force your opponent to attack into creatures that are obviously bad to attack into. To do this you really need such a creature, the shield, some energy on your magi, and a Taunt effect, as well as any other pieces of the payoff required. This can be very powerful though as Weave is basically built to do this and this relic turns on a lot of your other cards.

Everburning Wick – 3

Because it deals effect damage, Wick is just as good in Weave as it is in Cald, though Really Short Fuse probably will not trigger as often that’s okay. Short Fuse damage adds up. Don’t expect this to win you games, but it’s a solid card.

Gia’s Tome – 4

Gia’s Tome is a very nice way to generate additional resources. It just helps you get more out of the cards you’ve already drawn and that’s always good. The best case, for Research is when you’ve got a key build-around creature you can recycle turn after turn until they spend removal on it. Obviously, this relic gets even better with Gia and Empress Gia.

Gift of the Weave – 3.5

This relic is also too expensive to just play normally. Unless you’re doing something very specific with Great Weave, the effect can be really awkward since it’s once per turn. It is interesting that Empress Gia can use this in combination with both Weave and Core creatures. Again, probably not worth it in most cases but you can do some creative stuff with it.  

Junjertrug Horn – 4

Not every Weave deck runs Junjertrugs, but this card makes a compelling case for their inclusion. Summon can get them out of the deck for free (with a down payment of 1), and that’s drawing a card. Additionally, you can re-buy the Junjertrugs from your discard if you’ve done Keru things or need cards in hand to spend on a particular resource, even just Channeler’s Gloves.

Kesia’s Flute – 4

Flute is a strong way to build a bigger board once you’ve got several creatures in play. Obviously with Kesia it’s insane, but it’s good on any normal Weave magi.

Ritual Spear – 3.5

Weave decks have in many ways an easier time activating the Ritual Spear + Wessig combo than Kybar’s Teeth decks. They have Weave Mind to actively switch into Wessig and they have better in-region card draw to find the Spear. They even have Gia to find Spear then use Weave Mind to activate Landslide at will. Thing is, Landslide blows up your own stuff whereas in KT it doesn’t so be careful doing crazy things like that.

Sand Strands – 2.5

Mirage is technically a way to add energy to your magi so I think it’s better than a 2, but it doesn’t help you actually play the creature to begin with and it creates a vulnerability. Illusions are very easy to exploit by killing all your other creatures and removing the energy on your magi, thus killing you.

Three-Leaf Clover – 4

Little Lucky is a very easy trigger to forget, but if you can remember it every turn, the energy does really add up. Lotta Lucky is very similar to a Climbing Staff effect. It does things Climbing Staff doesn’t, for example it stops Vaporize cold. It also doesn’t work on Effects whereas Climbing Staff does. Also, your opponent sees this but because the relic has two effects they might forget the second ability. It happens more than it should.

Tuk Berries – 4

The opposite of an Energy Band, Tuk Berries are great in the more typically defensive Weave decks. Combo-centric or aggressive Weave decks don’t have room for this card, but the normal ones certainly do.

Uwamar Beads – 3

Juju makes your magi much more resilient to death and as such is pretty sweet with Kolte. It’s also very nice on Ninx, who tends to stay as close to no energy as possible. Karma is a pretty insane payoff against hand disruption, but that’s not really a factor most of the time.

Weave Hut – 3

A nice little defensive tool, Shelter helps out against Cald and d’Resh but is also surprisingly effective against Crushing spells and random stuff found in a lot of decks. Sproing! is a downside against specific cards like Wasperine Stalker but mostly doesn’t come into play until it no longer matters.

Weave Mat – 4

Easy Come triggers on both your turn and your opponent’s, and this allows a Weave setup magi to turn into overdrive (because you can tutor this up with Weave Powder). Your deck probably has a lot of creatures, and as long as you can make them attack your opponent won’t want to trigger Easy Go themselves because you can just kill them.

Weave Maul – 2.5

Crush is slightly too expensive, but to make it any cheaper would have been really good. This relic probably shouldn’t cost any energy to get into play.

Weave Powder – 5

Weave has a lot of strong relics, and the ability to Sculpt up to three times per game from just one card is amazing, even if it’s slow. Weave is one of the more difficult regions to just kill every turn thanks to its defensive nature. You only need 1 copy of Powder in your deck but you should bring it almost 100% of the time.

Weave-woven Anklet – 1

This card is awful. Tied to the Weave is a worse version of Water of Life: It’s conditional and costs you 2 energy as opposed to none. Memento requires your opponent to discard it, so basically does nothing unless you’re getting Vaporized or something.

Wence’s Travelog – 3.5

Baby Furok and Bungaloo are both pretty good, relatively resilient creatures to help trigger Wence Was Here. You still need two creatures alive, but in Weave that’s not incredibly difficult to do. As long as one of those creatures is a dual-region thing, Wence Was Here will trigger and 2 energy is a nice payoff.

Zaya’s Bow – 3.5

Long Shot is the most energy-efficient Taunt effect you can get, so if you’re doing Taunt things you should play this card. It get’s “better” with Zaya but she’s by no means required.

Relics: TLDR

5

Weave Powder

4

Gia’s Tome

Junjertrug Horn

Kesia’s Flute

Three-Leaf Clover

Tuk Berries

Weave Mat

3.5

Bo’Ahsa’s Shield

Gift of the Weave

Ritual Spear

Wence’s Travelog

Zaya’s Bow

3

Everburning Wick

Uwamar Beads

Weave Hut

2.5

Sand Strands

Weave Maul

2

N/A

1

Weave-woven Anklet

Spells

Binding – 3

Binding is a neat little tech spell. Since it’s not actual removal (i.e. it doesn’t help you kill their magi any better), you don’t see it played a lot. However, in combination with Weave creatures who cannot attack anyway, Binding is a nice tool that helps blunt the opponent’s offensive power or stops key powers or effects on enemy creatures, or all of the above. Again, it’s not true removal, but you can use it to fill a niche role.

Brushfire – 4

Brushfire is removal you always have access to after you draw it in the first place (or bin it directly with Keru). This card also really benefits from Robes of the Ages (or Kesia), since playing it turn after turn is much better when it only costs 1. Brushfire doesn’t do much on each individual cast, so you want to use discard pile synergies or reduce its cost and it will become a value engine.

Countless Blades – 2.5

Since you specifically cannot combine this spell with Quallon, it’s not amazing. Paying 5 to deal 3 and gain 3 is actually fine, so if there are 3+ enemy creatures out you’ll get your energy’s worth. The problem is the initial cost is pretty high compared to its board impact. Yes, you get some of that energy back so the overall cost is relatively low, but the high initial cost does make this card awkward to play at times. Against 1-2 creatures, it’s not very good at all and there are enough instances where this will be the case that I don’t think Countless Blades is good enough to merit a slot in your average deck.

Crushing Growth – 3.5

Crushing spells are good. This one is still good, since Taunt effects can allow Weave to do some messed up stuff to their opponent. However, you do have to set up before playing this spell as it doesn’t generate any energy advantage at all by itself.

Drought – 3.5

Drought is weirdly placed. It’s a prison effect, icing the game by preventing everyone from energizing, and that makes me think of Core decks. It has some interactions with Weave though. The big ones are Ninx, who can easily get an opposing magi to zero energy, and Aritex, which is a way for Ninx (or another magi) to turn Drought into a one-sided effect to break the game wide open.   

Harmony – 3.5

Harmony is an extremely powerful card that I’ve never seen anyone play. To make Harmony work, you really want more creatures in play than your opponent, but even if they have tons of things that are bigger than 3 energy, it’s still a fine spell. In the best case, you have a lot of small things out and they have giant stuff, you set everything to 3, and your creatures have Weave which allows them to survive combat by moving energy around so you can attack and Weave to kill their whole board plus their magi. That’s a powerful effect worth building around. Also, it’s a big Weave spell so Kesia makes it much, much better. The problem with Harmony, and the reason it likely doesn’t see much play is that it requires quite a bit of setup. So in your Harmony decks you probably only want 2 copies.

Lifeweave – 3.5

This is another card I’ve never seen played but is powerful enough to be worth building around but requires a good bit of setup. You need to play out a wide board of creatures, play Lifeweave, and discard 2+ cards. Ideally you’re only discarding exactly 2 cards, and ideally those cards are Brushfires or Junjertrugs which you can get back easily or something else that advances your game. Weave has a ton of options to draw cards, but you want to build your deck with low-cost cards so you can play out most of your hand before playing Lifeweave. League Elder + Lifeweave is a nice one, since he combines extremely well with what the deck is trying to do and has another powerful synergy in Weave, namely Tweave.

Quallon’s Quest – 1

Quallon’s Quest is not a great card. You’re spending 2 cards to get (maybe) 2 cards back, and the 2 energy cost of the spell just goes away and doesn’t affect the board at all. If you’re ahead, just play the cards in your hand. If you’re behind, you can’t afford to spend the energy to do this. It doesn’t even reliably help you find key creature combos. Sure you can discard Blade Hyren but even then you can miss.

Sawgrass – 3.5

This is Weave’s Shockwave card. It’s conditional, but that condition is relatively easy to meet because your opponent wants to attack with big stuff most of the time and you want to Shockwave big stuff. Additionally, you can build Taunt abilities into your deck to make them attack you. Against Core, Sawgrass is obviously the nuts because it costs 3 (1 with Kesia!). This is a solid removal card and becomes actively good if you have Taunt stuff.

Sheath – 3

Three energy paid to get eight on the board is an incredible deal. The drawbacks to this are pretty enormous though, especially the discarding two cards bit. So the question you must answer when playing Sheath is, what are you doing with all this energy? Sure, you can Weave from that creature a whole bunch, but is that good?

Spirit of the Weave – 3

The ability to protect your flipped magi’s board for a turn is actually really valuable. This can swing the momentum of a game in your favor because you get to play out a bunch of creatures and live for a turn unmolested by attacks, and then you get to be the first one to make attacks going forward. It doesn’t protect you against removal spells or powers, but that’s fine.

Sprout – 2

This card is usually not very efficient. It’ll cost 2 to add 2-4 energy to your magi. That’s not really worth a card. The allure of Sprout is really there, since sometimes they have a huge board and you get tons of free energy, but there are too many times where it doesn’t do much.

The Hunt – 3.5

Double attacks require your creatures to be pretty big to be useful, since the first attack removes energy from your creature. So basically, you need big creatures that can actually attack. As in, not Uwamar (unless you’re Empress Gia). This isn’t actually all that difficult to set up, and the price is right on The Hunt for sure. The fact that you have to set this up in a particular way makes it a 3.5 in my book. Also, Seaweed Lascinth is a card.

Weave Mind – 3.5

Weave Mind is basically a tool that allows your Weave deck to run Wessig + Ritual Spear to transition back to your powerhouse magi after wiping the board. Sadly, this blows up your own stuff in Weave (except your Rock Yajo), but that’s worth it when you’re losing hard and need a reset. It does other stuff, and you can switch between magi almost at will with this and Ritual Spear, but that’s not usually a good thing to be doing.

Weave Seed – 4

This card does work. You’re getting +2 energy, a substantial boost to your board, and a double attack. The 7 energy boost makes the double attack very worthwhile too, since it helps solve the usual problem of a double attack. Again, Seaweed Lascinth is dope but this card doesn’t really even need to combo that much.

Weave Winds – 2.5

Like Harmony, Weave Winds is a powerful, expensive, situational spell that can completely wreck people. The situation here is when you kill all their creatures except one, then drop this on their head and prevent them from playing additional defenders so you can kill them on your next turn. There are a lot of ways to combo with Weave Winds to make it strong. Binding on their only creature is funny. Ninx plus this is a pain. Kesia makes this much cheaper. Unlike Harmony, this doesn’t help you actually kill your opponent and is harder to set up.

Spells: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Brushfire

Weave Seed

3.5

Crushing Growth

Drought

Harmony

Lifeweave

Sawgrass

The Hunt

Weave Mind

3

Binding

Sheath

Spirit of the Weave

2.5

Countless Blades

Weave Winds

2

Sprout

1

Quallon’s Quest

Find all the regional reviews on the Magi-Nation Duel hub page.  Visit the moonlands again with us next time!