Sunday, March 17, 2019

MND Regional Reviews: Paradwyn

Hello Magi-Nation Duel fans!  We're happy to find you new content, and today we're featuring some amazing work done by Kroodhaxthekrood, aka Patrick Kilian, who has been working hard on regional card reviews.  He's put in a lot of time and effort to go through each region, so we'll be publishing his reviews here on this blog!

Give us some feedback in the comments below, or in the r/magination subreddit! We're glad to have more input and discussion!



Magi-Nation Card Review
Paradwyn
by Krodhaxthekrood
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

Arawan – 5
His starting energy is low at 11, but he does have a six energize to make up for it, as well as a really incredible power. Warp Driven allows you to search through your deck for almost any creature in the region, as most of the non-Jungle Stalker creatures have Dreamwarp. If drawing a random card is worth 2 energy, drawing a specific card for 1 energy is pretty incredible. Additionally, Arawan starts with access to Robe of Petals, one of the most powerful relics Paradwyn has in a Dreamwarp strategy. He also has access to an immediate Ghazran if you want that. A common play for Arawan is to search out a Vine Hyren on his first turn so that it gets powered up as he continues to take turns and play the Dreamwarp cards he tutored from the deck. It’s a rare magi that can serve as either a setup character or a fighter, but if your opponent doesn’t pressure Arawan, he can run over the game by himself.

Archid – 3
There’s nothing bad to say about Archid. She has good numbers. Lahalou and Bulabantu are both good cards. Stunning is very annoying to some decks. The only thing, I suppose, is that some decks don’t care about Stunning. Against those she’s a bit vanilla. She also doesn’t give your deck any proactive direction. She’s totally fine, and sometimes your opponent will be annoyed, but not being able to count on that pushes her down the tier list a bit.

Ardonia – 3.5
Ardonia gets a 3.5 because she only fits into one deck type, Stalk. In a dedicated Stalk deck, Ardonia performs pretty well, complementing your cards with additional passive damage from Relentless Hunt which synergizes with her starting Jungle Jile. “One Jungle Stalker” is a great starting card in the deck as well. 

Bazha – 2.5
Most Paradwyn creatures with powers actually want to stay in play. I have yet to really see a competitive deck built around Wild Blooming’s mechanic, because that drawback is pretty real. I also don’t like how none of his starting creatures have powers. Starting with his Pendant is probably the best thing about Bazha.

Boria – 3
Similar to Archid but with slightly more energy and slightly worse starting cards. Boria’s Dreamwarp effect is hard to use because you don’t have information about the opponent’s hand, so you might help them inadvertently. Like Archid, Boria is fine but her effect doesn’t come into play a decent amount of the time.

Culla – 3.5
Culla has better energy numbers than Ardonia but is otherwise a very similar magi. She typically performs better than Ardonia because pumping up your Jungle Stalkers is very valuable so they can keep killing your opponent’s creatures. And she has more energy. They go in the same deck pretty much all the time.

Eryss – 5
Eryss is one of the game’s most consistent setup magi and goes first in a great many Paradwyn decks. Since this isn’t obvious, as Eryss doesn’t say “draw cards” anywhere on her text box, I’ll explain. She has four starting cards, draws all of them, and plays all of them (plus the fifth card if it’s a card she can play). She then uses Gremble’s Parasitic Growth to discard the (maybe) one card left and draw 3. Then Fog Hyren draws 2 with Obscure Knowledge. Then draw another 2 cards for the turn. By the end of Eryss’ first turn, you have drawn 12 cards into your 40-card deck, which is more than 25% of your deck’s cards. From there, she can often last another couple turns to play additional card draw, and especially use Fog Hyren again (a good reason to Dreamwarp it as big as possible). Whatever your main magi is, Eryss will set them up for success with an extremely high degree of consistency. Also, never forget about Discordia. It almost never comes up, but when it does, it’s extremely strong. It’s worth mentioning that Eryss is slightly less useful in Paradwyn than in Bograth because 1) Fog Hyren is not as good a card if your magi isn’t Bograth (you’ll probably just play one copy), and 2) Paradwyn also has Arawan and even Liriel as other setup options which are slightly more compelling in some cases than non-Transformers Baa.

Iain – 3
This magi sports the lowest energy numbers in Paradwyn, but that’s pretty telling of the region since he’s not that far below the game’s average. We should expect a pretty good power for our sacrifice. Beginning’s End is an Ambush that only hits opponents (which is what Ambush does anyway). Ambush is a very solid removal spell, so having access to it all the time is cool. Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of power you get to use every turn. If you do, Iain will quickly lose an attrition fight. Mostly used for fun.

Iain, Commando – 3
Same thing goes for his alternate version, though he’s slightly better here. Starting Ambush plus the different (potentially more powerful) use of Impair means he’s still good at killing things but he has a few more tricks. Plus the extra energy helps a lot. Still, more fun than competitive.

Kiersta – 5
If you’re looking for just the biggest magi in Paradwyn, it’s actually Kiersta since she’ll be 19/5 on her first turn even if you never trigger Swoon a second time. Tropical Jumbor combines very well with Swoon, as a card that creates energy advantage when it doesn’t attack. Even though she starts with Tropical Plith and is very powerful, putting Kiersta in your first slot is not recommended. There’s no clean way to guarantee she’ll draw a Dreamwarp creature to go with her Plith. Sure, you can roll the dice but with such great options available for setup you don’t need to. Consistency is key. If she’s behind, Kiersta is even better than when she’s ahead, since she just gets to continuously energize for 10. Keep this in mind when building Kiersta decks: you want to use Swoon a lot, so bring defensive cards including lots of removal and make them try to kill you. Also, bring 3 Warrior’s Boots for those turns when you can actually attack. They’re great cards, but especially important on this magi.

Kioko – 4
This magi does really annoying stuff. The combination of starting Bagala Fangs + Sneak Attack and her Motivate and Demotivate powers means she can basically just decide what happens during creature combat. While that’s a bit hyperbolic, the fact that she starts with all the tools she needs to do her thing means she doesn’t even get what would normally be a 3.5 “build-around” grade. Makes combat a nightmare.

Liriel – 3.5
You want a bunch of Bagala in your deck for this magi, otherwise she stinks. Bagala are all erlatively playable cards and the Hunter can be quite strong. The fact that Bagala Hunter is a Jungle Stalker means that the most common place to see Liriel is in the setup slot for Stalk decks, followed by Culla then Ardonia (usually). She also starts with a Froxfire, which is good removal in that specific deck. She’s basically a worse version of Arawan, but Arawan’s awesome so that’s pretty good. She does run into energy issues a decent amount, but she can always Demand into a regular Bagala and play that with just one energize.

Mijji – 3.5
Mijji requires some creative deck building to enable him to build up a big board of creatures. His energy numbers are just a little low for someone you’d normally want doing that job. He can do it though, and Hyren’s Call is a nice tool in a region with lots of useful Hyren creatures. Once he has built up the board, Guardian allows him to protect it, which is a very useful ability to have in Paradwyn.

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, so 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. Same problem as Iain.

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 Paradwyn can even mess with that pretty 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.

Ookami – 5
This guy is probably the best magi in the game for building giant, swarming boards. All he needs is a Staff of Vines and as many creatures as he can get. Paradwyn has good options for defensive relics to protect his giant board states as well. Not really much to say here other than he makes stuff that gets big get bigger.

Pok – 3
Brilliantly Absent-Minded is cool, but he doesn’t really count as a setup magi because the random discard means he can discard important one-of cards in your deck and mess up your plans. It still basically means you’re drawing 3 cards per turn, which is a real advantage. Peer Pressure doesn’t really every happen and that’s because Blygt/Brog, reverse, Pok is not a strong magi stack. Neither Blygt nor Brog can set up the game and there’s not exactly a payoff for using that specific combination of characters. I assume there are story reasons for this ability but it’s not a thing competitively.

Sqwik – 3.5
I’ve lost to the full Scarletsong deck before. It wasn’t close. I don’t remember what I was playing, but it doesn’t really matter. You can make a Sqwik deck pretty strong. Basically, she delivers a really insane flip turn if she has tons of cards in hand. She plays out 3 Scarletsong Hwit, 3 Scarletsong Lahalou, the Scarletsong Banner, and 3 Scarletsong Lilts (total cost 10 with Perfect Pitch), and plays out another 8 energy worth of stuff. Ideally, she can use 3 Warrior’s Boots (or Spirit of Paradwyn) as well so she can make use of the Lilts. With all that done, you just have your Lahalous use Screech three times and gain 9 + 8 + 7 = 24 energy. From there it almost doesn’t matter what you do, especially if you’ve also attacked a bunch of their creatures and removed 6+ energy from their magi with the Lilts in the process. I’ve just described a turn that ideally plays 17-ish cards, so you probably want to run both Eryss and Arawan to make it all happen. Of course, she can do smaller versions of the same combo, so it’s not like you randomly fizzle, and you also don’t have to use off-region magi to make it work. You can build a mostly normal Dreamwarp deck and just dedicate about 10 cards to Sqwik. Additionally, Sing the Scarletsong stacks up very nicely with 1-3 copies of the Hwit’s Call of the Riled effect, making a bunch of small Paradwyn creatures deal big damage, and the Lilt gives you a way to kill their magi with those small creatures by attacking them into bigger stuff. The Banner is a great card in any Paradwyn deck, and she even starts with it so your other magi can feel free to play it when drawn. The Lahalou is really the only “bad” card in the sense that you wouldn’t normally want to play it. All in all, Sqwik is a magi that has some serious potential that I rarely ever see in play and that’s probably just because of a lack of familiarity with her.

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.

Yricho – 4
Athletic is a built-in Bazha’s Pendant, and that card is extremely useful for messing up your opponent’s plans and protecting your own board state. For example, they can never Warrior’s Boots + Ormagon you if you have a Rayje’s Belt out. As soon as they Warpath, you just Athletic to Lockdown on Devastate. Team safe. Yricho also has good energy numbers and Yricho’s Staff to layer in another defensive option. The real trick with Yricho is getting him the right tools to build up your board in the first place, but Paradwyn has a bunch of tools for getting that particular job done.

Magi: TLDR

5
Arawan
Eryss
Kiersta
Ninx
Ookami

4
Kioko
Yricho

3.5
Ardonia
Culla
Liriel
Mijji
Taisa
Sqwik

3
Archid
Boria
Iain
Iain, Commando
M’Lady Iyori
Pok

2.5
Bazha

2
N/A

1
N/A



Creatures

Aerial Flist – 4
This guy is great in Paradwyn. It has Dreamwarp which is important for many regional synergies and it otherwise doesn’t ask much of you. Charge even gives it a way to grow bigger on its own. Just a solid, solid creature.

Bagala – 3.5
With a dedicated Bagala package (basically if you’re playing Liriel), Pack Charge gets quite good, since it counts the Bagala itself, and will always add at least one energy when you attack with it. There aren’t too many situations where you have a ton of Bagala creatures out since this and the Hunter are expensive, but it’s free energy and can really add up.  

Bagala Cub – 3.5
Family Ties doesn’t ask a lot of you. It doesn’t even care how the creature was discarded, just that it dies. So defend with it, attack with it, you’ll still get your card worth of value. This card helps you thin your deck and with Liriel draws a bunch of cards while putting creatures in play.

Bagala Hunter – 4
Bagala Hunter is probably the easiest-to-use Jungle Stalker out there. It gets to Stalk something for free, and it gets paid off on its own without other cards helping it out. Liriel, Ardonia, Culla, and Bagala Cub can all get it out of your deck as well, so you’ll see it when you want it, which is really any time you have the energy to play it. It doesn’t even have to go in a dedicated Stalk deck since it covers all its bases.

Bulabantu – 4
Another very efficient Paradwyn creature. Pay five energy, get eight energy worth of value. Good deal. Also gives Paradwyn another direct removal option.

Canopy Hyren – 3
This card is a bit too expensive for what it does. It costs a lot to play, and unlike Bagala Hunter it can’t do anything by itself. It needs Jungle Jile to activate Fear well and even then if they only have one creature it’s not worth it and at two it only feels okay.

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.

Fog Hyren – 3
In Paradwyn, you really don’t see this card played outside of a one-of in Eryss decks. The reason is that your non-Bograth magi will cause you to discard a card for Obscure Knowledge. While you’re still up +1 card after using the power, there are other card draw options. This card is completely fine in Paradwyn, but it’s just fine not exceptional.

Ghazran – 3.5
Realitywarp allows you to cheat this card into play for as little as three energy. It still has Dreamwarp, and since Realitywarp lets you ignore the cost, you always want to Dreamwarp this card as big as possible if you’re discarding three creatures. At face value, this is 11 energy, but you can get it bigger. This card requires you to dump a lot of cards into it, but the energy cost is very low.

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.

Gremble – 3
This card is usually only played because of Eryss. At most other times during a normal game, you will have more than three cards in your hand and you won’t want to use Parasitic Growth. When you’re low on cards though, it’s pretty nice.

Gwomba – 3
Maximum Fury is a joke. Bograth creatures are all really small to begin with, so it’s pretty rare that this comes up. Plus you have to actually be fighting a Bograth deck. Maximum Warp also rarely comes into play. First of all, a lot of Paradwyn creatures just have Dreamwarp anyway. Second, if you’re ignoring costs, you can’t make the other creature bigger than Gwomba anyway. There’s some room to brew with this card but it’s not very practical. That sounds like a 3 (for fun) rating to me.

Hardshell Weebo – 3.5
The hero in the hard shell is a little too low-impact to make him good outside of an Ookami deck. With Ookami in play, this is the card you want most after Staff of Vines.

Inyx – 3.5
Inyx is a very interesting beast. It has Dreamwarp, but instead of the normal thing, you get to massively change its starting energy based on the amount of Paradwyn creatures you have out, so it gets better in low-cost swarm builds. The primary weakness of this creature is how expensive it is, and all you have to do is play it onto a good-sized board to mitigate this weakness. Vitalize pumps all creatures in play, but you’ve built your deck around the ability and your opponent hasn’t. Torpars and Ookami can break the synergy, as can splashing Jips. 

Janx – 3 
Janx cannot stalk things by itself, so it needs help. It also needs to be able to actually attack and is a 4-cost creature that can get Crushed. It’s still a fine card in Stalk decks but all these factors combine to downgrade it from a 3.5 to a 3.

Jungle Eebit – 2.5
Jungle Eebit has a very low impact on the board unless your magi is willing to essentially re-play it every time it attacks or gets attacked. This requires a bunch of energy on your magi to really use effectively, so it only works in cases where your magi can gain absurd amounts of energy (Kiersta, Sqwik, etc.). Even when it’s doing its thing though, it’s still a 2-energy dork.

Jungle Hyren – 2.5
This card is expensive as heck and its Dreamwarp ability is extremely hard to use. Unless you have perfect information (you’re not Arderial so that’s tough), most of the time you don’t actually know if you’re helping or hurting your opponent when you Dreamwarp their stuff.

Jungle Jile – 3.5
This is one of the best Jungle Stalkers because of how well it sets up all the rest. It doesn’t have a Hunt effect, but the power of Mass Stalk is really there.

Khisp – 3
This card is fine in a Stalk deck, but it can’t stalk things, it needs to attack, and it’s slightly expensive because the two main stalk magi (Ardonia and Culla) only have energize: 5.

K’ly – 2.5
This card is just highly conditional. Your opponent has to play into its Stalk pretty heavily and then its Hunt effect is rather underwhelming.

K’teeb – 3.5
K’teeb is one of the ultimate combo cards in the game. It can be a second copy of any creature’s power. Go nuts and let your imagination be your guide!

K’teeb Cub – 3
The Cub is similar in a lot of ways to the normal K’teeb, but instead of getting a second copy of the power you get a free power at the cost of a card. They each benefit different support creatures, but in general the Cub is not as useful since it must discard itself and not all powers have high costs.

K’teeb Thumper – 3.5
Normal K’teeb has the greatest potential but the Thumper is the most generally useful. Lots of decks use powers on their creatures and/or magi and this punishes those decks really hard. It only gets a 3.5 because there are regions (Weave for example) against which Dreamthump won’t have many targets. Dreamthump is a fantastic power to be able to use out of turn with Bazha’s Pendant.

Kwup – 3.5
Fear is very efficient removal at one for three. Needs stalk support but it’s a good payoff and can be active the turn you play it.

Lahalou – 4
Dreamwarp + Grow is just a very efficient body. Gets better with Ookami but is just fine without him.

Lurking Minani – 2.5
This creature is better than many of the Skulk card because there are a lot of dual-region Paradwyn creatures running around (Aerial Flist is quite common for example). It’s still too narrow.

Magor – 2
It’s like a Jungle Hyren but worse.

Mydra – 3
While tough to attack into, people run Crushing spells and that feels really sad. Dreamwarping up to five energy doesn’t really help too much in that regard either. If they don’t have spells or powers to deal with your Mydra it’ll be great for you but they always do in competitive. This card is better in Paradwyn than it is in Bograth simply because of Dreamwarp synergy cards, but still not amazing.

N’kala – 4
This card provides a body anywhere from 2-4 energy and Support is just free energy on your magi. What’s not to love?

Nyrex – 3
Catch and Release is a very wacky ability. 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.

Oranragan – 4
The giant ape is a good fatty. Invulnerability helps it live. Vengeance means your opponent will try to focus it down first because if they don’t you’re getting sick value. Crush means you’re getting something right away which is a big deal. Regrettably though, King Kong here does not synergize with any of the primary Paradwyn deck types. It doesn’t have Dreamwarp, it’s not a Jungle Stalker, it doesn’t have any Powers, etc. It’s better in KT but it’s just a good, energy-efficient card.

Poison Baloo Root – 4
Like a lot of Bograth/Paradwyn dual-region creatures, Dreamwarp gives this thing a flexible cost (here from 3-5). That’s cool. Wither is also just good. I spent many years thinking this card was bad and it just isn’t. If they have even two creatures in play Wither is really nice and it scales very well. Also like N’kala, decks tend not to run many copies of this creature but it’s quite solid.

Quido Swarm – 3
This card is super funky. You can’t play it onto an empty board because it just dies (unless you’re Emlob). Its cost fluctuates with how many creatures you have out, so when you’re doing really well it becomes prohibitively expensive. It also plays very well with Dream Balm: play one creature, play this, play all your other stuff, restore it to its full size. You have to constantly check how big this thing is. Sometimes your opponent can’t kill it or won’t want to, and I’ve seen it run over people. It’s quite uncommon though.

Rala – 3
Rala (the creature) isn’t too bad. You can combine it with K’teeb or Taglat to do some wacky stuff, it can grant extra uses of key powers in the Stalk deck, in Dreamwarp decks it can copy Poison Baloo Root or K’teeb Thumper for extra removal, you can use Inyx a second time, etc. There are a lot of uses. The problem with it is that it’s a four-energy creature which is expensive and vulnerable to Crushings, but its effect is useful.

River Abaquist – 3.5
The perfect 3.5 ability: requires some setup, including building your deck with a good balance of creatures and relics and the ability to keep your relics in play, but the payoff is very strong. Dreamwarp also means that this guy really only costs 2 energy unless you want it to actually be a body, in which case it can be 2, 3, or 4 energy as meets your needs best.

Scarletsong Hwit – 3
Call of the Riled is very nice. The problem is they can usually just attack this first and remove the ability from your table. Or, you know, use removal cards.

Scarletsong Lahalou – 3.5
This card enables the Scarletsong combo with Sqwik. That’s all it does.

Taglat – 4
Dream Cross is a powerful and fun ability that gives creative players a lot of neat tools. So, while you don’t see this a lot because it’s not particularly aggressive and it doesn’t help you activate your own deck’s combos, Taglat can do a ton of crazy stuff and almost always finds a way to be useful. It is much better in Paradwyn than in Bograth: it has Dreamwarp for one, and for another Paradwyn has access to Bazha’s Pendant, meaning your Taglat can gain tons of powers or use them more often.

Terkoz – 1
Okay, so you have to have lots of creatures but this doesn’t work if you’ve played even two? Nope. I’m out. So sad because it’s very cute.

T’kanzam – 2.5
Similar in some ways to Taglat. Mostly for fun, but this is one of those cards that can be a funny tech choice and do wacky things. Unlike Taglat, you don’t really get to control when you can use it.

Torpar – 3.5
Protection gives your swarm strategy a protective layer against spell and power damage, which is quite valuable. In Paradwyn, its best friend is the mighty Inyx. There are fewer ways in this region to pump all your creatures (Scarletsong’s Anthem out of Daybreak is another good option), making it less effective than in Bograth, but conversely Paradwyn generally has bigger boards that it wants to protect.

Treepsh – 4
Treepsh is not often included in Paradwyn decks, because Supply is active slightly less often. However, Supply draws two cards for two energy, giving Paradwyn another tool to dig through your deck. And, as mentioned in Torpar’s entry, Paradwyn builds bigger boards that are more important to protect from mass removal. Both of these modes are fantastic.

Tropical Hyren – 4
A six-energy Dreamwarp guy with Energize: 1 and an effect that enables Dreamwarp strategies. Sounds like a bunch of nice things stapled together.

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.

Tropical Plith – 3.5
Surprisingly good in Dreamwarp decks despite not having the ability itself and sitting right at that vulnerable 4-energy mark.

Tropical Vinoc – 2.5
I mean, sure?

Vine Bhatar – 3.5
Move 1 is the same as discard 1, add 1. This is a 2-energy swing that’s free for it to activate. Additionally, the Stalk deck often doesn’t have creatures they can play in a turn where they also do something else, and this card can let the deck double-play because it’s smaller than the other Jungle Stalkers.

Vine Hyren – 3.5
Goes in Dreamwarp decks. Play Dreamwarp cards. Get big.

Weed Hyren – 3.5
The only good use I’ve seen for this card is to combine it with Radiant Spring and Ghazran. If you have three Weed Hyren, you can play each of them for 1 after playing Radiant Spring (4 energy total). Since Withdraw means they come back to your hand after dying to Realitywarp, you can get all your Ghazran in play for 3 energy each, and since Radiant Spring is in play, each of those Ghazran can be as large as 16 energy (so +12 on board for the first and +13 for each other Ghazran). This is without other synergy cards like Robe of Petals. That’s a pretty sweet combo. As an actual creature, Weed Hyren is aggressively mediocre. I wouldn’t put it in a non-Ghazran deck.


Creatures: TLDR

5
N/A

4
Aerial Flist
Bagala Hunter
Bulabantu
Lahalou
N’kala
Oranragan
Poison Baloo Root
Taglat
Treepsh
Tropical Hyren
Tropical Jumbor

3.5
Bagala
Bagala Cub
Ghazran
Grass Etiki
Hardshell Weebo
Inyx
Jungle Jile
K’teeb
K’teeb Thumper
Kwup
River Abaquist
Scarletsong Lahalou
Torpar
Tropical Plith
Vine Bhatar
Vine Hyren
Weed Hyren

3
Canopy Hyren
Fog Hyren
Gremble
Gwomba
Janx
Jungle Eebit
Khisp
K’teeb Cub
Mydra
Nyrex
Quido Swarm
Rala
Scarletsong Hwit

2.5
Jungle Hyren
K’ly
Lurking Minani
T’kanzam
Tropical Vinoc

2
Dasia
Magor

1
Terkoz

Relics

Bagala Fangs – 3.5
Does combo stuff with “Starting Energy Matters” cards like Sneak Attack, Ambush, and Kioko in general.

Bazha’s Pendant – 3.5
This card is very strong, but I place it at 3.5 because you need to include disruptive powers in your build in order to make use of it. Simply adding a bit of extra energy to your board usually isn’t a good enough reason to activate Reply. Sure you’ll do it if you have nothing else, but what you really want to do is kill stuff or get another Lockdown off with your Rayje’s Belt.

Dewstone – 4
Dewstone is good value. If Sip gains you 2+ energy the turn you play it, the relic is essentially free like other relics and can occasionally be better than that. Every turn after that, Sip can net you some free energy. While your opponent knows Gulp can happen, it’s still a protective layer around your magi. It’s not quite as good in Paradwyn, since there’s a lot of other stuff going on but it’s quite good. 

Heart of Paradise – 2.5
The alternate win condition on Korg’s War never, ever happens. This is just a second copy of Water of Life with a drawback. Just play Water of Life if that’s what you’re into.

Liriel’s Cape – 2
The multiple different printings of this card are quite confusing, but here’s the scoop: Costs 2 to play, costs zero to activate, discards itself before restoring creatures. Yes, this means Dazzle does not combine with Mass Heal. This card does combine with Bagala Fangs, but Dream Balm does the same thing without the conditions.

Ookami’s Drums – 2.5
Low. Impact.

Rala Tail – 3.5
This is a better Rala since it’s the same effect but isn’t as vulnerable to removal or combat. It’s worth mentioning the errata makes it so you don’t just discard your creatures anymore. It’s also worth mentioning that this card does nothing by itself. You have to put lots of powers (on Creatures!) in your deck.

Robe of Petals – 4
Card is dope. It just takes your deck and makes it cheaper. There are so many cards with Dreamwarp on them that you don’t even need a dedicated Dreamwarp strategy to make this card good.

Scarletsong Banner – 4
Morale Boost is insane. The nameless effect provides sufficient drawback but you can use tricks to help keep this card in play. Three-Leaf Clover is quite nice with this card, for example.

Staff of Vines – 3.5
One of the most powerful build-arounds available. The combo is just being Ookami and playing creatures.

Stalker’s Boots – 3
The reason this isn’t a 3.5 is that it doesn’t actually grant the stalked status for cards like Kwup. It only works during combat.

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.

Tripvine – 3
They can probably kill you through this and it’s quite expensive. Stops Wasperine Stalker and Tunnel though… 

Yricho’s Staff – 3.5
Paradwyn excels at building giant boards of creatures. This card gives you a way to protect them. You just need a bunch of energy on your magi. You want to combine this with ways to get that energy up there.


Relics: TLDR

5
N/A

4
Dewstone
Robe of Petals
Scarletsong Banner
Three-Leaf Clover

3.5
Bagala Fangs
Bazha’s Pendant
Rala Tail
Staff of Vines
Yricho’s Staff

3
Stalker’s Boots
Tripvine

2.5
Heart of Paradise
Ookami’s Drums

2
Liriel’s Cape

1
N/A

Spells

Ambush – 4
Most of the time, this card is Shockwave but cheaper. It’s bad against heavy creature growth and burrow, but it can also combine with Bagala Fangs to deal 10 to something which gives it a way to get around growth effects.

Bloom – 3
Post errata, this card is basically a worse version of Bazha’s Pendant. It’s worse because it costs 1 and because it can’t copy Universal powers. The only real reason to play it is for the surprise factor on Ninx.

Crushing Vines – 3.5
It doesn’t need to go in the Stalk deck but that’s where it’s most at home. Because of this and because Ambush is so good, you often don’t run this in non-Stalk Paradwyn decks making it one of the less powerful Crushing spells. It’s still a Crushing spell.

Curse of the Abaquist – 3.5
Powerful card you often want access to a single copy of. As far as card advantage goes, it’s neutral (spend 2, steal 1), but it can take powerful creatures for cheap in combination with growth (Ookami) or something like a Ghazran.

Drum Solo – 3.5
We’re looking at playing two giant monsters for very low with Radiant Spring(s) and then pumping them back up with this spell. Also naturally combines with Inyx swarm.

Flourish – 5
This card is pretty insane. You play it when you’ve flipped over a new magi and it pays for itself after you’ve dropped two creatures. But you’ll play more. Lots more.

Froxfire – 3.5
Shockwave for the Stalk deck only. Well, any deck that runs Liriel works too because of Bagala Hunter.

Jungle Riddle – 3
Weird card. It’s somewhere between Spirit Drain for 5 and gain 5 on your magi. It’s nowhere near as good as either of those outcomes. Still, this card is always 1 energy spent for 5 energy of value and that’s an incredible deal, even at the cost of a discard. It gets a 3. As in, “weird, maybe good, doesn’t have a home but might” type of 3.

Mydra Swarm – 2
They still get their draw step now.

Radiant Spring – 3.5
Ultimate combo enabler in certain versions of a Dreamwarp deck. If you’re ignoring costs, it doesn’t matter how big you make your Ghazran.

Scarletsong Lilt – 3
Goes in the Scarletsong Lahalou combo (optionally). It’s also a way to take a bunch of small creatures and attack them into a single big creature, dealing a bunch of magi damage in the process.

Scarletsong’s Trill – 3
Optional in the Stalk deck as a way to give non-Hunting Jungle Stalkers a Hunt trigger. Can also just combine with Crushing Vines in any deck. It’s a bit win-more though.

Snare – 2.5
The problem with this card is that it’s only useful when you’re losing and it doesn’t help you not lose.

Sneak Attack – 3.5
I honestly just don’t attack on Sneak Attack turns because I know I’m just going to mess up combat and get wrecked somehow.

Spell Pulse – 3
Surprisingly bad. It blows up your relics too and Paradwyn has a lot of nice ones. The best case for this card is actually to blow up enemy spells that stay in play because you don’t have to play any of your own and some of them (Will of Orothe, let’s say) can be devastating. The majority of decks do not have any of these type of cards in them.

Spirit Drain – 4
Competitive decks draw lots of cards. In that environment, this card just says kill a magi who has no creatures in play. Paradwyn has a bunch of good ways to deal with creatures, especially in the Stalk deck.

Spirit of Paradwyn – 2
This can let you revenge-kill magi but it’s very expensive to do so. Warrior’s Boots does the same thing.

Stalk – 3.5
Sometimes you just need this spell to turn on your deck for a turn. It’s also decent surprise value if you have a board of Jungle Stalkers but no visible way to activate their abilities. Stalk decks usually run somewhere around one copy of this card because drawing multiples is bad.

Tropical Rain – 4
It’s efficient at face value but playing it can give your opponent a big headache in combat.


Spells: TLDR

5
Flourish

4
Ambush
Tropical Rain

3.5
Crushing Vines
Curse of the Abaquist
Drum Solo
Froxfire
Sneak Attack
Stalk

3
Bloom
Jungle Riddle
Scarletsong Lilt
Scarletsong’s Trill
Spell Pulse

2.5
Snare

2
Mydra Swarm
Spirit of Paradwyn

1
N/A

We'll be working on posting each of the regional reviews right here, with a link in the main page!  Thanks for reading!


 

No comments:

Post a Comment