Magi-Nation Card
Review
Daybreak &
Unreleased Promos
by Kroodhaxthekrood
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Art official by 2i and Matt Holmberg.
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Editor's note: All the cards are put together by region. Promos are marked with 'UNRELEASED PROMO' for clarity. Some promos, with full template, art, and design, may be missing. Also note that there was a fan project making art and templates for some of these cards.
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.
Also, for this review, I will post the card text for each
entry since may older players will not be familiar with the cards and will need
some context for the reviews. The text is posted on the reddit and the cards
are on lackey.
Now, on with the show:
Arderial
Adis Alt – 3.5
Arderial Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 5
Starting: Firestorm Orish, Hurricane Orish, Shooting Star
Effect – Vengeance: Once per turn, after you discard a
Creature from play while it still has energy, draw
a card.
15/5 is certainly good enough, all her starting cards are
playable and Hurricane Orish is quite good. Vengeance gets to trigger from both
ally and enemy creatures, so your Shockwave draws a card but so does using a
Warlum. Sure, it’s only once per turn but given the amount of stuff that can
trigger it, you should be able to almost every turn. Basically, we have a magi
with good metrics who draws 3 cards per turn in Arderial. That’s pretty good.
Not busted, but certainly good. Plus she encourages you to discard your own
creatures to their powers or to play cards like Storm Wings. That’s cool.
Certainly worth experimenting with.
Legatus – 3
Arderial Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 6
Starting: None
Power – FIRE IN THE HOLE!: (1) Search your deck for an
Arderial Spell and add it to your hand. Shuffle
your deck. You may not play any copies of that Spell this
turn. Powers, Spells, and Effects may not copy this Power.
15/6 is awesome. No starting cards is not. FIRE IN THE HOLE!
is a really weird power. Tutoring a spell for one energy is obviously awesome,
but the fact that you can’t then play any copies of it in the same turn is
pretty awful. I have a hard time believing that’s a very useful ability.
Nimbulo Alt – 3
Arderial Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Lovian, Shock Ring, Shooting Star
Power – Dream Storm: (2) Remove one energy from each
non-Arderial Creature with three or more
energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
14/6 is quite good. Dream Storm and the starting Shock Ring
combine to make this magi want to deal direct damage with Arderial spells and
powers. That’s not super useful in Arderial. Also, I don’t understand why Dream
Storm only hits creatures with 3+ energy. The ability to do it turn after turn
would get annoying for decks with a lot of one-drop creatures but meh. It’s
nice that Dream Storm triggers the Shock Ring. At the end of the day, Nimbulo
Alt is just an Arderial magi with solid numbers and a useful power that you
won’t use every turn. I don’t think the Shock Ring build-around gets there but
he’s okay on his own.
Sorreah, Warrior – 4
Arderial Magi – Alternate
Starting Energy: 12
Energize: 5
Starting: Two different Arderial Spells
Effect – Dream Block: Players may not use Powers on
Creatures.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Almost as good as his normal version. He loses 1 starting
energy, and effectively has the same amazing starting cards. Dream Block has
the potential to be even more annoying than Suppress but the problem with it is
some decks’ creatures don’t have a lot of powers on them.
Caleth – 2.5
Arderial Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Alter (1): Choose a Creature and a Spell attached to
a Creature. If that Spell could be attached
to the chosen Creature, move it to that Creature. Only
Arderial Magi may play Caleth.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Alter is interesting. The problem with it is that there
aren’t really spells that do something when they attach to a creature, where
Alter would be able to generate the spell’s effect additional times. The
attachable spells are all static buffs or debuffs and moving those around is
only marginally useful at best.
Cloud Hubram – 3.5
Arderial Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Whisper: (1) The next Spell you play this turn is
placed under Cloud Hubram.
Power – Echo: (0) Discard Cloud Hubram from play to play one
Spell from under Cloud Hubram as
though it was in your hand, paying all costs.
This card is functionally exactly the same as Hubram for
Arderial. Hubram is very good because Underneath has powerful spells. That
means this card is very good because Arderial also has powerful spells.
Giant Alaban – 2.5
Arderial Creature
Energy: 8
Power – Dream Rupture: (7) Discard Giant Alaban and choose
up to two opposing Creatures. Return
them to their owner’s hand if their energy is less than your
Magi’s energize.
UNRELEASED PROMO
I do not like this card at all. First of all, it’s hella
expensive. Given that, I would expect you to just be able to bounce the
creatures without all this rigamarole about they have to have less than your
magi’s energize. You only want to bounce big creatures most of the time anyway.
If they’ve got 4 energy you can just Crushing Winds them and it’s way the heck
better. Also, why does this card discard itself? Too many annoying things attached
to try to balance it out, as if making you pay 8 in the first place wasn’t
enough.
Soaring Yup – 2
Arderial Creature
Energy: 1
Power – Elude: (0) Choose a Region. Until the beginning of
your next turn, Creatures from the chosen
Region remove three less energy in attacks against Soaring
Yup.
Whatever, they can still just kill it if they have even a
single attacker with 4 energy. That’s not a very difficult thing to have.
Thunder Shryque – 4
Arderial Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Charge: After Thunder Shryque is played, add two
energy to it. If there are twenty or more cards
in your discard pile, add four energy instead.
Now we’re talking. This card is cool. Charge is always going
to be a good effect, but it gets better late in the game or if you build around
it. Nice design. Arderial has Tradewinds to help fuel this card but especially
Cloud Sceptre and normal Aula.
Winged Furok – 3.5
Arderial Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Fetch: Once per turn, after a Spell you play
removes energy from one opposing Creature, you
may add half the energy removed, rounded down, to your Magi.
You may only use one copy of Fetch per Spell played.
In Arderial, Fetch triggers on Crushing Winds, Lightning,
Shrink, Storm Cloud, and in corner cases Lightning Strike or Sorreah’s Dream.
Crushing Winds doesn’t really need support, but you’ll certainly take the extra
2 energy. Lightning still isn’t playable. Shrink and Storm Cloud can
potentially add a lot of energy to your magi, and I’m in for that. Shrink
doesn’t see play outside of Adept’s starting card but might see more with this
guy running around. Storm Cloud might also see more play than it does now.
Moonbeam Bow – 2.5
Arderial Relic
Energy: 1
Power – Purge: (2) Shuffle any number of cards from your
hand into your deck and choose an opposing
Creature. Remove energy from that Creature equal to the
number of cards you shuffled into your deck, plus one.
The first Purge requires you to spend four total cards to
become energy-neutral (the relic itself plus 3 shuffled in to your deck deals
3, the relic costs 1 + 2 to use the power the first time = 3). That’s really
bad. Subsequent Purges only require you to shuffle in 2 cards to break even.
Repeatable damage sources are good and good MND decks have access to lots of cards.
That said, the cost of this card is too steep to be good enough. You want to
play the cards you draw, not shuffle them away for a marginal ability.
Star Charm – 3
Arderial Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Arderial
Creature played each turn by one energy, to a
minimum of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first Orothe
Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
If this card lasts for three turns, you’re happy with it, as
long as you’re playing an Arderial creature on the second and third turn it’s
in play. The turn you play it, this card doesn’t do anything, because it costs
1 itself and only affects one creature per turn. Advantage means you can’t play
Spray Narth or Hurricane Orish in your Star Charm decks, which is another
drawback, and you don’t want to play this card in dual-region Arderial/Orothe
either. Still, on a grindy Arderial magi like Delia or Adept, this card can put
in long-term work.
Tempest Boomerang – 4
Arderial Relic
Energy: 1
Power – Return: (2) Return Tempest Boomerang to your hand
and choose an opposing Creature.
Remove four energy from that Creature. You may not play
Tempest Boomerang again this turn.
Three energy to deal four damage. It’s not exciting but it’s
efficient. Once per turn means you can’t just hide behind this card and kill
all your opponent’s stuff, which is fine with me as I don’t think that would
make for fun games. This is the kind of card you’re looking for in a Shock Ring
deck.
Aeroh’s Blessing – 3
Arderial Spell
Energy: 2
Choose an Arderial Creature. Attach Aeroh’s Blessing to that
Creature. While Aeroh’s Blessing is
attached, that Creature gains “Power – Shock: (3) Discard a
non-Arderial Creature with four energy or less.” You may not attach another
copy of Aeroh’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is bad for a couple reasons. First, it costs 5
energy (2 to play + 3 from your creature). For five energy you can just play a
Shockwave and not need to deal with the conditional nature of this removal,
never mind the fact that paying 5 to remove something with 4 or less isn’t a
good deal. Second, these cards almost never stick in competitive games. Casual
games are a very different story, and if you can use Aeroh’s Blessing multiple
times it can be pretty annoying (I’m looking at an Adept deck to mitigate the
3-energy cost). Competitive games are fast and creatures tend not to survive
very long, and in that kind of environment this card isn’t likely to stick in
play for more than the one turn.
Chain Lightning – 3.5
Arderial Spell
Energy: 3
Choose two Creatures controlled by the same player and remove one energy from each. That player
chooses one Creature they control and removes two energy from that Creature. If Chain Lightning discards one or more Creatures from play, draw a card.
First of all, as far as I can tell, this card is not on Lackey we currently cannot play with it. That out of the way, let’s look at what it does. Three energy to deal 4 damage spread out across the opponent’s field in increments of 1, 1, and 2. The opponent gets to pick where the 2 goes, so unless they don’t have a choice, it’s not killing a Creature. If the opponent only has 1 creature, this spell costs 3 to deal 3 and (potentially) draw a card, which is actually decent. If you can reliably draw the card, this spell is good. If you can’t, and I suspect most of the time you will not be able to, this spell is pretty medium. With some support (discounts and/or damage boosts), maybe this spell becomes something you’d want to put in your deck.
Gust – 3
Arderial Spell
Energy: 3
Choose a Creature. If there is another copy of that chosen
Creature in play, discard the chosen Creature’s energy and return the Creature
to its owner’s hand.
Very conditional. Nice upside that you can’t really control.
Lightning Strike – 4
Arderial Spell
Energy: 6
Choose a Creature and discard it from play. Remove one
energy from each opposing Creature that
shares a Creature type with the discarded Creature.
This card is fine. It’s worse than Tidal Wave and Shockwave.
The best card to compare it to is an Unmake, and there it’s about exactly as
good. They have the same secondary effect. If they’re killing a 6-energy
creature they have exactly the same effect. Lightning Strike is better on
bigger stuff while Unmake is better on smaller stuff.
Static – 3
Arderial Spell
Energy: 1
Choose an opposing Creature and attach Static to it. While
Static is attached, that Creature cannot use
any named Effects. Discard Static from play at the end of
your next turn.
I love that this card is cheap. Since it discards itself,
this isn’t a control card. It’s a way for aggressive decks to punch through
annoying defensive effects like Pylofuf’s Burrow or remove annoying benefits
like Bone Grag’s Reclaim or Yaromant’s Scavenge. I don’t think this card is good
enough to merit a slot most of the time, especially since Arderial has direct
discard like Shockwave and Kalius’ Ring to deal with these types of cards to
begin with.
TLDR: Arderial
Magi
Adis Alt – 3.5
Legatus – 3
Nimbulo Alt – 3
Sorreah, Warrior – 4
Creatures
Caleth – 2.5
Cloud Hubram – 3.5
Giant Alaban – 2.5
Soaring Yup – 2
Thunder Shryque – 4
Winged Furok – 3.5
Relics
Moonbeam Bow – 2.5
Star Charm – 3
Tempest Boomerang – 4
Spells
Aeroh’s Blessing – 3
Chain Lightning - 3.5
Gust – 3
Lightning Strike – 4
Static – 3
Thoughts
Arderial doesn’t seem to get any really interesting cards in
Daybreak, which is a shame. Aside from Thunder Shryque, which would see a lot
of play, nothing really excites me. I do want to see what impact Winged Furok +
Storm Cloud has on the game though, because this really punishes opponents who
play large creatures.
Bograth
Baa Alt – 4
Bograth Magi
Starting Energy: 12
Energize: 5
Starting: Rot Arboll, Slarnath
Effect – Leech: When a Creature you control attacks, choose
an opposing Creature. Move one energy
from the chosen Creature to the attacking Creature. Powers,
Spells, and Effects may not alter the amount of energy moved.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Baa Alt’s Leech means he will only want to go in Bograth
decks that are actually trying to attack their opponent’s creatures to win the
game, but he’s really, really good at doing that.
Gorb – 4
Bograth Magi
Starting Energy: 12
Energize: 5
Starting: Green Stuff, Black Stuff
Effect – Mmm: After you play a Stuff, add two energy to it.
Starts with some of the best creatures in Bograth. Makes
them insanely better. Because of how good Black Stuff is, Gorb can play a bit
like a setup magi, getting Black Stuff into your discard pile asap. He’s
probably much better with more cards though. There are only 6 Stuff creatures you
want to play (3 Black, 3 Green), but you get to play a Black every turn and
generate some serious energy in the process.
Olabra Alt – 5
Bograth Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Rot Arboll, Muck Shovel, Moss Pendant
Effect – Pilfer: When an opponent plays a Relic, choose a
Bograth Creature you control. Move one
energy from that player’s Magi to the chosen Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
14/6 in Bograth is nice.
Pilfer is not once per turn. This is key. If it was once per turn, your
opponent would be able to manage it or play around it. Pilfer is more like
Halsted’s Crack effect, punishing your opponent for 2 energy (-1 to them, +1 to
you) each time they play a relic. Halsted is busted, partially because he
energizes for 8. Energizing for 6 in Bograth feels a little bit like energizing
for 7 elsewhere and 14 is a lot more starting energy than Halsted has. I think
Olabra Alt is actually really strong.
Obgren Alt – 4
Bograth Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 5
Starting: Mud Bubble, Ooze Pyder, Trulb
Effect – Ping: After you play a Creature, choose an opposing Creature and remove one energy from it. You may not choose the same Creature more than twice per turn.
First of all, this card’s text is a hot mess on lackey and needs to be re-formatted. His energy numbers are completely average, which means he needs something special to compete. Ping is actually a very nice Effect, and you can (kind-of) think about it like +1 energize for every Creature you play. If Obgren can play 2 Creatures per turn, he’ll play like a bit like a 13/7 Magi. This is a good floor for a Magi to have. Obgren really wants to leverage the 0-cost Creatures and Bograth Creatures that can cheat themselves into play (Vard, Bog Wellisk, etc.). His starting cards are also all highly playable and allow him to slot into a variety of different decks. Trulb is even a great combo with Ping, because it gets you 2 Ping triggers for 1 card. All of this combines together to make for a strong Magi.
Grendawyn – 5
Bograth Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Drain: When you play Grendawyn, choose up to three
Creatures. Move one energy from each of
those Creatures to Grendawyn.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is a little silly. For the low, low cost of 2
energy you’re generating anywhere from 2-6 additional energy advantage
immediately when you play it. Pay 2, get 8 worth of value? Yes, please.
Moss Garadan – 2.5
Bograth Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Impose: While you control more Creatures than each
opponent, Moss Garadan loses two less
energy in attacks.
Impose is very easy to activate in Bograth, but doesn’t
really do anything. It’s a small enough creature where it will still die in
combat with anything that has 4+ energy.
Moss Hyren – 3
Bograth Creature
Energy: 7
Effect – Creeping Growth: When Moss Hyren attacks, add one
energy to it for each Bograth Creature
you control.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Creeping Growth makes a big dude bigger and requires you to
attack. The setup cost is too high to be a serious competitive card but the
ability can be seriously impactful.
Ooze Pyder – 3.5
Bograth Creature
Energy: 4
Power – Fling: (0) Discard any number of Bograth Creatures
you control from play and choose an
opposing Creature. Remove two energy from the chosen
Creature for each Creature you discarded. Powers, Spells, and Effects do not
reduce the amount of energy reduced.
This card could see play in a Makoor Bomb deck as an extra
copy of Makoor with a slightly different effect. Each creature only deals 2
damage as opposed to Makoor’s 3, but it doesn’t require you to nuke your entire board and can’t be reduced by
enemy stuff.
Sludge Hyren – 3
Bograth Creature
Energy: 7
Effect – Creeping Growth: After Sludge Hyren attacks, add
one energy to it for each Bograth Creature
you control.
This is exactly the same card as Moss Hyren. I’m pretty sure
they were just deciding on the name. Sludge fits better with the art.
Swamp Wudge – 2.5
Bograth Creature
Energy: 1
Effect – Fester: After a Bograth Creature is discarded from
play by an opposing card, add one energy to
Swamp Wudge.
They just kill this first. Even if you have a Treepsh as
well, it’s not an amazing effect.
Amulet of Stuff – 2.5
Bograth Relic
Energy: 2
Power – Congeal: (0) Discard a Stuff you control from play.
Add one energy to each Stuff you control.
The first Congeal requires you to have 3+ Stuff out to break
even (one to discard, 2+ to get the benefit). Subsequent uses require almost
the same thing. Black Stuff has so many other useful (better) things to do that
this card shouldn’t go in your deck, even if you’re playing Gorb.
Blygt’s Ring – 3.5
Energy: 0
Effect – Purity: At the end of your turn, if all Spells in your discard pile are Bograth, discard all of your non-Bograth cards from play and choose an opposing Creature. If that Creature has more energy than your Magi’s energize, move three energy from that Creature to your Magi.
Starting: Blygt
Not one of the better Purity rings. Still, it’s not a bad payoff for playing only Bograth cards. A lot of Bograth decks want to do that naturally since the cards reference “number of Bograth creatures”.
Book of Grath – 1
Bograth Relic
Energy: 2
Effect – Abate: As a Bograth Creature you control is being
attacked, you may discard two energy from
your Magi. If you do, neither Creature removes energy in the
attack.
Bograth is not a defensive region. Two energy is also
probably as much or more than the cost of the creature being attacked. Add to
that you need to pay 2 to get this into play in the first place? No thanks.
Robe of Muck – 3.5
Bograth Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Pros: If you control fewer Creatures than each
other player at the beginning of your turn, draw
two cards.
Effect – Cons: If you control more Creatures than each other
player at the end of your turn, discard a
card from your hand.
Pros is pretty awesome, especially in Makoor Bomb. You blow
up all your guys and all of theirs, they play new ones, you draw some cards.
Cons doesn’t trigger on an empty board either. In other Bograth decks, Cons is
a real drawback and Pros only triggers if they wipe your board. Since that’s a
real concern for Bograth, this card could see play outside of Makoor Bomb, but
that’s where it’s at its best.
Bleph Horde – 3.5
Bograth Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Creature type. Add one energy to each Creature of
the chosen type. If you have twenty or
more cards in your discard pile, add one extra energy to
each Creature of the chosen type.
I don’t see this card doing its thing too much in practice,
since it’s so hard to control having creatures of the same type. A lot of them
discard themselves or don’t stick in play. Bograth doesn’t really have too many
tribal synergies either, aside from the newer Stuff tribal and Trulbs. Medium
case scenario you’re paying 2 to generate 3 energy if you have three of a kind.
It’s fairly easy to get 20 cards into your discard pile as Bograth, but this
competes a little bit with Bleph Horde’s payoff. Paying 2 to make 6-ish energy
is very good though.
Grath’s Gift – 3.5
Bograth Spell
Energy: 3
Return a Creature you control to its owner’s hand and choose
an opposing Creature. That Creature loses
energy equal to the amount of energy on your Magi.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Uhhh… Emlob + Mist Hyren loves this card.
Spawn – 5
Bograth Spell
Energy: 3
Choose a Creature in your discard pile. If there is more
than one copy of that Creature in your discard
pile, play the chosen Creature with two energy. Shuffle all
other copies of the chosen Creature in your discard pile into your deck.
Spawn gets you a creature play during the PRS step.
Crucially, this creature is able to attack. It’s energy disadvantage, but only
by a small amount. Would we play Warrior’s Boots if it cost 1 energy? Yes.
That’s basically what this is. The discard pile stuff is basically gravy. It
can be a drawback or a benefit with somewhat equal chance, you can build around
it a little, but whatever.
Stuff Herd – 1
Bograth Spell
Energy: 3
If you control fifteen or more Creatures, add ten energy to
your Magi. You may only play one Stuff Herd
per turn and only before the Attack Step.
Even Emlob never has 15 creatures in play. This card is
unplayable.
Treepsh Mob – 4
Bograth Spell
Energy: 2
Discard two Creatures you control from play and choose an
opposing Creature. Remove all of the
chosen Creature’s energy.
Look, something else Black Stuff is awesome at doing! Very
powerful ability that chews through a not-insignificant amount of your
resources. Almost always going to be worth it though. Kills Cawhs and Colossi
dead.
TLDR: Bograth
Magi
Baa Alt – 4
Gorb – 4
Olabra Alt – 5
Obgren Alt - 4
Creatures
Grendawyn – 5
Moss Garadan – 2.5
Moss Hyren – 3
Ooze Pyder – 3.5
Sludge Hyren – 3
Swamp Wudge – 2.5
Relics
Amulet of Stuff – 2.5
Blygt's Ring - 3.5
Book of Grath – 1
Robe of Muck – 3.5
Spells
Bleph Horde – 3.5
Grath’s Gift – 3.5
Spawn – 5
Stuff Herd – 1
Treepsh Mob – 4
Thoughts
Holy crap does Bogath get some hits. Makoor Bomb becomes way
more powerful of a strategy, and it’s pretty strong with just Traitor’s Reach
cards. Aggro Bograth gets the new Baa and Spawn, which are pretty critical.
Emlob gets Grath’s Gift which is bananas powerful on him specifically.
Basically, every Bograth archetype gets new toys as well as some cards that
might enable new archetypes. Love it.
Cald
Ashgar Alt – 4
Cald Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Quor, Braggle, Magma Parmalag
Effect – Scorch: When one of your Cald Creatures removes
energy from an opposing Magi in an attack,
draw a card.
The new Ashgar is great. 14/6 in Cald is very, very good,
placing him among the biggest magi in the region. Cald has also been steadily
getting more benefits for actually attacking stuff, and Ashgar already benefit
from one of the best ones, Krawg. Quor is probably the best creature to trigger
Scorch, as Battering Ram will do the job even if they still have creatures out.
Barak Alt – 4
Cald Magi
Starting Energy: 18
Energize: 5
Starting: Ergar, Flame Rudwot, Lava Balamant
Effect – Bolster: When one of your Cald Creatures is defeated
in an attack, search your deck for a copy
of that Creature and add it to your hand. Shuffle your deck.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Another Barak, this time with even more energy. Works as a
setup magi in an attacking Cald deck, as Bolster can keep the creatures
flowing. Starting Ergar and Flame Rudwot means he has value in a creature-based
burn deck as well, with Bolster replacing his creatures when the opponent
attacks and kills them. The only Cald deck he doesn’t fit in is a creatureless
spell version.
Dygran – 3
Cald Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Crushing Heat, Lava Orathan
Effect – Backfire: After an opponent plays a Relic, remove
one energy from each Creature that player
controls.
I think Dygran is good but not insane. He’s very punishing
of relic-heavy decks with Backfire and his Crushing Heat, but you can’t build
around him in any meaningful way and the opponent can play around his abilities
or just have a relic-light deck in which case he’s lower impact than many other
magi.
Grega Alt – 3.5
Cald Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 5
Starting: Spirit of the Flame, Magma Gum-Gum, Lava Orathan
Power – Thermal Detonation: (3) Choose a Creature and
discard three energy from it. If you have twenty
ore more cards in your discard pile, draw two cards.
For some reason this card is named Greg Alt in lackey, but
whatever. 15/5 is quite good in Cald. Thermal Detonation is a really
interesting take on the 20-cards-in-the-discard-pile mechanic in Daybreak. It’s
fine-ish before you hit threshold but once you do, it’s pretty nuts. I can see
running Maelstrom Flasks in Cald with a relatively high spell density to power
this out. League Elder first can also turbo cards into the discard pile.
There’s some cool potential here.
Agrohan – 3.5
Cald Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Empower: When you play Agrohan, add energy to it
equal to the number of Spells or Creatures
in your discard pile, whichever is less. Only Cald Magi may
play Agrohan.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is super interesting. In a Grega Alt deck where
the goal is to fill your discard pile, Agrohan can gain some serious energy (as
long as you balance out your creature and spell counts at least somewhat). Not
a good card early in the game but by the mid-game, as long as you’re working
toward filling the discard, this will get big.
Ash Lovian – 2.5
Cald Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Choke: As an opposing Spell chooses Ash Lovian, you
may discard Ash Lovian from play to
remove two energy from each opposing Creature and Magi.
This is a 4-energy creature that cannot be Crushed, which is
pretty cool. On balance, it’s small enough that it dies to attacks and powers
pretty easily. They never have to give you a Choke trigger if they don’t want
to.
Blaze Moga – 3.5
Cald Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Support: (0) Discard Blaze Moga from play. Add two
energy to each Cald Creature you control
that attacked this turn.
More support for Cald Aggro. As long as you have two
creatures that attacked and survived, this card is great. That’s really the
key, is that they have to survive. You have to earn this card by layering other
support cards with it, but the power level is there.
Coal Weebo – 3?
Cald Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Char: Creatures with more than their starting
energy lose three extra energy in attacks against
Coal Weebo.
The wording is confusing. Does the creature have to attack
Coal Weebo or does Char trigger on both offense and defense. If the former,
this card is a 2. If the latter, it’s probably a 3. In either case, it’s
probably not making the cut.
Firesnap Wasperine – 4
Cald Creature
Energy: 1
Effect – Blitz: You may play Firesnap Wasperine at the
beginning of your Attack Step.
Effect – Snap: If your Magi is Cald, choose an opposing
Creature after you play Firesnap Wasperine.
Remove two energy from the chosen Creature.
Not broken or anything, but Snap is two free energy. That’s
very nice. Blitz also allows your Cald Aggro decks to be faster and meaner.
Giant Kelthet – 4
Cald Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Flamebath: (6) Remove three energy from each
non-Cald Creature and Magi. Your Powers,
Spells, and Effects may not increase the amount of energy
removed by Flamebath.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Flamebath is very strong. It’s basically a one-sided Flame
Geyser. Not being able to boost it is pretty irrelevant, since the ability is
so good by itself. Sure, in a Cald mirror this card is useless, but whatever.
You’re not running 3 copies anyway. The only problem with this guy is how big
he is. A lot of Cald magi can never play this unless it’s on their flip turn,
which is a big limiting factor. However, Flamebath leaves this card in play,
which can be a really big deal. I can see this card becoming a staple in Ergar
decks for sure, probably as a one-of but maybe you’d run two copies.
Lava Orathan – 3.5
Cald Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Boost: Add one energy to Lava Orathan after a
non-Cald Creature is discarded from play.
In creature-based burn decks you get to play this and then
use your Ergar shenanigans to Boost a bunch during PRS 2. That’s cool. Then, if
it lives, you can attack with it. Ergar decks don’t typically run a lot of
creatures that will be able to profitably enter combat. I see this card
actually fitting better with The Last Words than the more common Scroll of
Fire. Warrior’s Boots + Lava Orathan onto your Last Words Ergar board, kill all
their stuff with 3-damage Sparks, Boost this a lot, hit face?
Magma Gum-Gum – 3.5
Cald Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Friction: As Magma Gum-Gum attacks, you may discard
a Cald card from your hand. If you do,
Magma Gum-Gum removes three extra energy in the attack.
Cald doesn’t get access to so much draw where you can afford
to throw away resources recklessly. That basically means you don’t want to play
this in any old Cald Aggro list. However, if you’re using League Elder or
trying to mess with the “fill the discard” mechanic, this is a reasonable way
to help fuel your game plan.
Brash Knuckles – 3.5
Cald Relic
Energy: 3
Effect – Aftermath: At the end of your turn, if at least one
opposing Creature was defeated in an attack
this turn, draw two cards.
Card draw for your Aggro deck is very, very good. If you can
get two Aftermath triggers off you’ll feel super far ahead. Only goes in the
Aggro deck though.
Heat Spear – 2.5
Cald Relic
Energy: 2
Power – Jab: (2) Discard Heat Spear from play and choose an
opposing Creature. Remove all but one
energy from the chosen Creature. You may not use this Power
the turn you play Heat Spear.
Holy crap it’s too slow. Take a pass on this one.
Molten Charm – 3
Cald Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Cald Creature
played each turn by one energy, to a minimum
of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first Naroom
Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
If this card lasts for three turns, you’re happy with it, as
long as you’re playing a Cald creature on the second and third turn it’s in
play. The turn you play it, this card doesn’t do anything, because it costs 1
itself and only affects one creature per turn. Advantage means won’t want to
run Flame Rudwot in your Molten Charm decks (or Ember Hyren in Aggro), which is
another drawback, but truly dual-region Cald/Naroom isn’t really a thing.
Still, on any creature-based strategy this is not a bad card to have.
Dreamburn – 3.5
Cald Spell
Energy: 2
Discard the top card of your deck. If that card is a Spell,
choose a Magi and remove two energy from it. If
that card is a Creature, choose a Creature and remove two
energy from it. If that card is a Relic, choose an opposing Relic and discard
it from play.
I really like this card. First of all, it helps you fill
your discard for those mechanics. Second, all its modes are fine by themselves
and Cald has Scroll of Fire. Where it gets really cool is on original Barak
because he can manually choose the outcome he wants.
Inspire – 3
Cald Spell
Energy: 1
Choose a Creature and attack Inspire to it. While Inspire is
attached, that Creature must attack each
turn, if possible, and gains two energy as it attacks.
Aggro support card. It’s decent there, helping you keep your
Sinder’s Mantle in play and whatnot. It’s not great for your card economy and
is a terrible draw if you’re behind the board but it’s still decent.
Skorch’s Blessing – 3
Cald Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Cald Creature. Attach Skorch’s Blessing to that
Creature. While Skorch’s Blessing is attached,
that Creature gains “Effect – Amplify: Once per turn, when
this Creature uses a Power that removes energy from exactly one Creature,
remove one extra energy and add one energy to your Magi.” You may not attach
another copy of Skorch’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Once per turn is a bit irritating, since you can’t combine
it with Ergar’s Spark on a creature that has a native damage power. That said,
it’s energy-neutral right away. If you can Amplify twice you’re happy. I’m
skeptical with all of these attaching spells because creatures die all the
time.
Volcanic Burst – 3
Cald Spell
Energy: 5
Choose two opposing Creatures. Remove three energy from each
chosen Creature.
I think there are better cards to do this effect but this
isn’t a bad card at all. Just a tad expensive to play (uses up your whole
energize step on the vast majority of magi).
TLDR: Cald
Magi
Ashgar Alt – 4
Barak Alt – 4
Dygran – 3
Grega Alt – 3.5
Creatures
Agrohan – 3.5
Ash Lovian – 2.5
Blaze Moga – 3.5
Coal Weebo – 2/3
Firesnap Wasperine – 4
Giant Kelthet – 4
Lava Orathan – 3.5
Magma Gum-Gum – 3.5
Relics
Brash Knuckles – 3.5
Heat Spear – 2.5
Molten Charm – 3
Spells
Dreamburn – 3.5
Inspire – 3
Skorch’s Blessing – 3
Volcanic Burst – 3
Thoughts
I like the support for Cald Aggro, especially Brash Knuckles
and the magi. I love the “fill the discard” support because of how well it
interacts with a lot of existing Cald cards (Barak the Red for example) and
also gets a lot of new hotness (see what I did there?). Agrohan is really exciting
in that kind of deck, and so is Dreamburn/Barak’s Prophecy. Ergar decks also
get some cool toys. Creatureless Spell decks didn’t really need any so it’s
fine they don’t receive much help if any. Lava Orathan and Firesnap Wasperine
making The Last Words more playable might actually be the sleeper coolest thing
about the new Cald cards.
Core
Agram Alt – 4
Core Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Agram’s Staff, Raveled Drush, Haunt
Effect – Dark Knowledge: Non-Core cards cost Agram one less
energy to play.
Power – Corrupt: (3) Choose a Creature with two energy or
less. Gain control of the Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Okay, so 14/6 is clearly nice. Agram’s Staff + Dark
Knowledge seems mostly like a fun mechanic but certainly one with some
competitive potential. Corrupt is energy advantage on a 2-energy critter and
just fine on a 1 (because 1-energy creatures in competitive decks tend to be
very annoying, like Phrup). Solid magi with some potential for silliness. Also,
he’s still Agram so he can still abuse Agram’s Plaything and Shroud of the
Master like nobody’s business.
Lur – 4
Core Magi
Starting Energy: 11
Energize: 7
Starting: Core Grag, Vile K’teeb
Effect: Lur has a starting hand size of seven.
Effect – Dark Lore: During your Draw Step, you may discard a
card from your hand to draw a card.
That’s a hell of a setup magi. Draw 2 more cards than your
opponent at the beginning of the game and always has a Tomorrow’s Jewel out for
free? Yes please! Lur doesn’t often want to go first, since 11 starting energy
is rather low, but hey. The thing is, Lur is competing with Evil Evu, Warrada,
Togoth, and The Dark Twins. These magi are all extremely strong. I think Lur
does stack up and there will be reasons to play this magi over others (fill the
discard anyone?).
Morag Alt – 5
Core Magi
Starting Energy: 11
Energize: 7
Starting: Terrorize, Dark Furok, Stealth
Effect – The Master’s Will: Morag may use Powers and Effects
on Core Relics as though he were Agram.
Power – Out of the Shadows: (1) Play a Creature from your
hand, paying all costs. Discard that Creature
at the end of your turn.
UNRELEASED PROMO
While his starting energy and starting cards are a bit weak,
this guy doesn’t want to be your starting magi anyway so it’s far less
relevant. The Master’s Will allows Morag to play Agram’s Plaything and Shroud
of the Master alongside an actual Agram. Your deck can have two magi who abuse
their broken bonuses instead of just one. That’s great. Out of the Shadows is
really dope as a pseudo-Boots, especially on creatures that discard themselves
or are just going to trade into an opposing creature during attacks.
Simreo – 3.5
Core Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 6
Starting: Rabid Wasperine, Box of Greed
Effect – Sacrifice: As a Creature you control attacks,
discard the top card of your deck.
Power – Dark Rewards: (2) Choose an opposing Creature.
Remove two energy from the chosen
Creature. If you have twenty or more cards in your discard
pile, remove all but one energy from that Creature instead.
Love it. He wants you to play Core Aggro, he pays you off in
a big way for doing so. You’ve gotta navigate to his power spike of 20 cards in
the discard a little, but thankfully Dark Rewards helps your Aggro deck even
before you’ve achieved threshold.
Zet Alt – 2.5
Core Magi
Starting Energy: 9
Energize: 6
Starting: Nightmare Hyren, Darkbreed Hyren, Ill Fortune
Effect – Glee: Increase Zet’s energize by two if Korg is in
any player’s defeated Magi stack.
Power – Cunning Blow: (X) Choose and discard an opposing
Creature from play. X is equal to the
Creature’s current energy or six, whichever is less.
Nope. 9 starting energy is way too low. I don’t care if he
has a 6 energize. I don’t care if Glee can make him a 9/8 Nar-like magi. You
have to run Korg in order to do so and your opponent is just going to cackle in
glee and abuse your Korg. Cunning Blow is a strong power but it’s not worth
running Korg. Unlike promo Zet, Daybreak Zet is more of a trap, since +2
energize is so much stronger than +3 starting energy. It’s also not clear that
Cunning Blow is better than promo Zet’s Treachery. It probably is, but it’s
close. In my review I want to make sure people realize that this card is, in
fact, a trap. Korg is so bad.
Asili – 4
Core Creature
Energy: 5
Power – Swipe: (5) Discard Asili from play. Choose an
opposing Creature with four or less energy and
gain control of it. That Creature may not attack this turn.
Only Core Magi may play Asili.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is pretty awesome as long as you’re targeting a
creature with 3-4 energy. I don’t think it quite reaches the level of a 5,
since you can’t steal slightly bigger creatures, but creature theft is very
strong.
Core Nolio – 3
Core Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Threaten: Opposing Spells may not choose your
non-Nolio Creatures.
Threaten provides a protective layer around your creatures,
but the problem is that it can be attacked and killed. When I compare this card
to Treepsh, the problem is not that it can be attacked but because it doesn’t
do anything else. Treepsh sees play because it can draw cards and because it can protect the team.
This doesn’t do anything other than (try to) protect the team, and isn’t
consistent at doing that.
Giant Grax – 2.5
Core Creature
Energy: 10
Effect – Twist: When Giant Grax attacks, remove half of the
defending Creature’s energy, rounded up.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Way too expensive not to do anything immediately on the turn
you play it. Also, Twist isn’t even that amazing. It helps a huge creature
attack better. It’s already huge though…
Twilight Mowat – 3.5
Core/d’Resh Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Dark Sands: (1) Choose an opposing Creature. That
Creature is Core until the beginning of your
next turn.
Effect – Dream Inhibitor: Powers on opposing Core Creatures
cost two extra energy.
Only Core and d’Resh Magi may play Twilight Mowat.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Dream Inhibitor doesn’t matter most of the time, though
against Core it does do a good job at shutting of Zungg, Vrill, Gorath, and
Core Grag and making a few other cards more expensive to use. At face value,
Dark Strands’ job is to make some non-Core creature’s power more expensive to
use, but that’s not great because they’ve already had a chance to use it the
turn they played it. When you consider that the card Traitor’s Reach exists,
Twilight Mowat becomes a two-card combo and that is quite powerful, though more
of a testament to the power of TR than a statement about how good this card is.
Also works with Forgotten Dancer.
Unstable Rokarum – 4
Core Creature
Energy: 5
Energize: 2
Effect – Instability: If Unstable Rokarum has nine or more
energy, discard five energy from it.
Kybar’s Teeth Magi may play Unstable Rokarum.
This card is basically just a Habob. It doesn’t die to
Crushing spells and if it lives one turn it gives you free energy. Instability
is very unlikely to trigger because of damaging abilities and creature combat
that it’s not really a drawback. Even if they don’t touch it and you don’t
attack a creature with it for two turns, you still don’t lose the creature.
Vile K’teeb – 2.5
Core Creature
Energy: 4
Power – Absorb: (2) Choose a Power on an opposing Creature.
Add energy to Vile K’teeb equal to that
Power’s energy cost (X equals zero).
Vile K’teeb is a very situational card, because there are a
lot of decks without creatures with expensive powers (also Ormagon doesn’t
usually stay in play). As a result, it’s too narrow to make your deck.
Box of Greed – 3.5
Core Relic
Energy: 0
Power – Greed: (2) Choose an opposing Creature with less
energy than the number of cards in its
controller’s hand. Remove three energy from the chosen
Creature.
I mean, it’s energy advantage sometimes. Would this card be
broken if it wasn’t conditional? No. But it’s also not really what Core is
trying to do. The only place I can really see this card being useful is to
reduce a creature’s energy so you can then steal it with one of your
conditional possession abilities.
Cackling Skull – 3.5
Core Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Voices: After an opponent plays a Spell, roll a
die:
1: Discard a card at random from each player’s hand.
2: Discard two energy from each Magi.
3: Return all Relics in play to their owner’s hand.
4: Discard Cackling Skull from play.
5: Shuffle all discard piles into their owner’s deck.
6: Each player shuffles his or her hand into his or her deck
and draws ten cards.
This card is really weird. I like that. There’s a lot of
room for wacky design in MND. It’s random and mostly symmetrical (only when you
roll a 4 does it break symmetry). Making this card an integral part of your
deck’s strategy is hard to do and the jury is still out on whether it’s good.
However, I give this a solid 3.5 because of its kooky potential.
Shadow Seed – 4
Core Relic
Energy: 4
Effect – Dark Rebirth: Discard Shadow Seed after an opposing
Creature is discarded from play. Return
that Creature to play, under your control, with five energy,
ignoring all costs and restrictions. That Creature may not attack this turn.
Starting: Agram, Morag
Starting: Agram, Morag makes this card very good because
Agram and Morag are very good, in both of their iterations. This card is 4
energy to net 5, but feels a lot better than that because you’re taking their
card.
Taint Charm – 3
Core Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Core Creature
played each turn by one energy, to a minimum
of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first non-Core
Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is a bit better than the other Charms since Core
doesn’t really play non-Core cards most of the time. You just don’t put this in
a Shadow Magi deck that’s actively splashing non-Core cards. Those aren’t that
common outside of fringe Naroom Shadow Flood of Energy decks or decks with
Nagsis. Either way, you still have to wait a turn before you start generating
energy advantage from this relic, and that’s a consideration.
Contaminate – 3.5
Core Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Creature and attach Contaminate to it. While
Contaminate is attached, that Creature is Core
instead of its original region. If there are fifteen or more
cards in your discard pile, that Creature may not attack or use Powers or
Effects.
One of the better uses for this card is to combine it with
Forgotten Dancer or Traitor’s Reach. It’s strange that the threshold number is
15 instead of 20 like you see on most of the “count your discard” cards, but
whatever. In its empowered state, you have a cheap, defensive control tool
which is good enough for decks like The Dark Twins or theft-based control. So I
like that it can act as a solid enabler for powerful removal or in combination
with high velocity decks to act as removal.
Grymm’s Blessing – 2.5
Core Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Core Creature. Attach Grymm’s Blessing to that
Creature. While Grymm’s Blessing is attached,
that Creature gains “Power – Distort: (1) Choose an opposing
player. That player must remove two energy from a Creature he or she controls.”
You may not attach another copy of Grymm’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
I have the same problem with this that I have with Blessings
in general: your creature will likely die. If it does after one turn you’re
actually behind 1 energy (spent 2 + 1 from your creature to deal 2).
Ill Fortune – 3
Core Spell
Energy: 1
Attach Ill Fortune to an opposing Magi. As the first
Creature controlled by that Magi’s owner attacks
each turn, remove one energy from that Creature.
Not powerful but certainly irritating. It doesn’t fall off
the magi, so this can generate advantage over a stalled game where you’re not
aggressively looking to defeat the enemy magi but to wear them down. Core has
decks like this but they’re not the most powerful ones.
Sacrifice – 3.5
Core Spell
Energy: 4
Choose a Creature you control and an opposing Creature.
Discard both Creatures from play.
One more dumb thing Agram’s Plaything and especially Shadow
Fird let you do. This card is very good in combination with Shadow Fird
specifically, since you can keep getting it back. You don’t want to discard a
Wudge or a Zungg to Sacrifice but you can in a pinch. With anything 3+ energy
you’re overpaying and Core doesn’t really have many 2s. Basically, expect
Shadow Fird decks to run 3 copies of this card and not to see it much in decks
without that guy. Maybe as a one-of in Plaything decks because a 4-energy
Shockwave is great even if it costs 2 cards.
TLDR: Core
Magi
Agram Alt – 4
Lur – 4
Morag Alt – 5
Simreo – 3.5
Zet Alt – 2.5
Creatures
Asili – 4
Core Nolio – 3
Giant Grax – 2.5
Twilight Mowat – 3.5
Unstable Rokarum – 4
Vile K’teeb – 2.5
Relics
Box of Greed – 3.5
Cackling Skull – 3.5
Shadow Seed – 4
Taint Charm – 3
Spells
Contaminate – 3.5
Grymm’s Blessing – 2.5
Ill Fortune – 3
Sacrifice – 3.5
Thoughts
Core gets some really good magi to add to the mix and
another Zet to troll people. Contaminate is also very powerful removal and
might generate a rise in Core Furoks (I hope so). Asili is a good way to steal
creatures and Box of Greed might help possession decks activate Turn. Cackling
Skull is very silly and the mad deck brewers out there will surely have fun
messing with it as well.
d’Resh
Drajan Alt – 4
D’Resh Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Sand Cape, Craw, Sandtrap
Effect – Blind: Opposing Magi must discard one energy each
time a Creature they control attacks,
otherwise that Creature removes no energy in the attack.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Energy and starting cards are awesome (except Sandtrap which
you don’t need to play). Blind is very annoying too. Basically, Drajan alt gets
to use his energy to build creature boards, protect them with Blind, and then
recur the creatures he has that do die with Sand Cape. If they ever blow up
Sand Cape, he can Craw it back out and keep going. I see this guy as capable of
really grinding out games. I don’t quite think he makes a 5-level because there
are several decks that don’t rely on attacking so much, but he’s definitely
strong.
Harresh Alt – 3.5
D’Resh Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Drahkar, Mirage, Sand Hyren
Power – Sleight of Hand: Choose a Creature you control. Play
a Creature from your hand, ignoring all
costs, with less starting energy than the energy on the
chosen Creature. Return the chosen Creature to its owner’s hand. Use this Power
only before your Attack Step.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Sleight of Hand is pretty interesting. By bouncing illusions
like her starting Drahkar, Harresh can get out big creatures before the attack
step. That’s definitely powerful. Drahkar even allows her to get a discounted
Sandsifter into play and certainly combos with her starting Sand Hyren. One of
the weird things about her is that neither the bounced creature nor the one she
puts into play is region locked, as most strong d’Resh cards are, so Harresh
can splash effectively too. The problem is actually getting her creatures to
survive (or using Boots). The other problem is that you can’t use normal
Harresh to set up in decks with this Alt magi.
Hasseth Alt – 3
D’Resh Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 5
Starting: Avatar’s Staff, Sand Cape, Xala
Effect – Imaginary World: Non-Illusion Creatures lose one
energy at the beginning of your turn.
Very strong starting cards, good energy numbers. Imaginary
World is a good effect in an Illusion-centric deck. I don’t think this magi is
better than his normal version. Banish is quite powerful. In addition to that,
they want to go in the same deck and they can’t.
Uruk – 4
D’Resh Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 6
Starting: Two different Recurring cards
Effect – Cycle: Once per turn, after you play a Creature,
you may discard the top two cards from your
deck.
Power – Cuff: (2) Choose an opposing Creature. Remove two
energy from the chosen Creature. If there
are twenty or more cards in your discard pile, remove one
energy from each opposing Creature.
Energy numbers are competitive. The Recurring cards are
Habob, Mirror Braggle, Szhar, Uban, Venger, and Buried Treasure, so these cards
in some combination are what you can get as Uruk’s starting. Cycle is pretty
awesome, both as a way to reach 20 card threshold but also in d’Resh which has
discard pile themes already. Cuff is a bit odd. It’s a mediocre burn power
until you have threshold and then it’s a solid one. It obviously plays
extremely well with Sunburn, and the play pattern of Sunburn > Cuff >
buyback Sunburn costs 5, leaving Uruk with 1 energy to save up. I think this is
a solid magi that can fit in specific builds of burn.
Cactus Hyren – 3
D’Resh Creature
Energy: 7
Effect – Pierce: As Cactus Hyren attacks a Creature with six
or more energy, remove three energy from
that Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Big boi that fights other big bois. That’s fine. The problem
is that there’s not a single d’Resh magi who can play this off one energize
step except Gherish if he has Drift available. Also, it’s slow.
Cef – 3
D’Resh Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Dehydrate: When an opponent uses a Power, choose a
non-d’Resh Creature and remove one
energy from it.
Only d’Resh Magi may play Cef.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Dehydrate does not have a “once per turn” clause. That said,
d’Resh already has several cards that punish the opponent for using powers and,
while I think this card is comparable to a Sandstorm Xyx, I don’t think it’s
better. Sandstorm Xyx is only a fringe playable, so that’s what this is.
Mirror Braggle – 2.5
D’Resh Creature – Recurring
Energy: 4
Effect – Reflect: Mirror Braggle is unaffected by non-d’Resh
Spells.
Power – Cleanse: (1) Choose a Spell attached to a Creature
you control. Discard that Spell from play.
After you reveal a d’Resh Magi, if you have one or more
Recurring cards in your discard pile, you may
discard one energy from your Magi to choose one Recurring
card in your discard pile and add it to your hand.
Reflect is pretty great. This is another 4-energy creature
that’s immune to (most) Crushing spells. Thing is, attached spells aren’t very
common and this only hits the ones that attach to your creatures. Cleanse is a
sideboard-worthy option against Nar decks with Crystallize but that’s about it.
Sandy Craw – 3.5
D’Resh Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Gifts: After any player plays one of his or her
Magi’s starting cards, choose a Creature in play.
Restore that Creature to its starting energy. This may add
or remove energy from a Creature.
This card is pretty sweet. In d’Resh, it’s mostly an
additional way for burn decks to deal with heavy creature growth, but it can
also reset your illusions (Xala) to full size. I’ve seen this card splashed in
Naroom as additional Weebo effects though, and that’s pretty cool. Again, it’s not
“once per turn” and it can even mess with the opponent’s plays. If you have a
Sandy Craw out, you need to keep track of what cards count as starting for
their magi. Also, it’s not a “may” ability but you can choose a creature that’s
already at its starting energy if you don’t actually want to use Gifts.
Twilight Mowat – 3.5
Core/d’Resh Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Dark Sands: (1) Choose an opposing Creature. That
Creature is Core until the beginning of your
next turn.
Effect – Dream Inhibitor: Powers on opposing Core Creatures
cost two extra energy.
Only Core and d’Resh Magi may play Twilight Mowat.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Dream Inhibitor doesn’t matter most of the time, though
against Core it does do a good job at shutting of Zungg, Vrill, Gorath, and
Core Grag and making a few other cards more expensive to use. At face value,
Dark Strands’ job is to make some non-Core creature’s power more expensive to
use, but that’s not great because they’ve already had a chance to use it the
turn they played it. When you consider that the card Traitor’s Reach exists,
Twilight Mowat becomes a two-card combo and that is quite powerful, though more
of a testament to the power of TR than a statement about how good this card is.
Also works with Forgotten Dancer.
Cactus Cloak – 3.5
D’Resh Relic
Energy: 3
Effect – One Thousand Needles: As an opposing Creature
attacks a Creature you control, you may
discard Cactus Cloak from play and a card from your hand to
discard the opposing Creature from play.
Expensive protection but One Thousand Needles is serious
business. Craw can loop this card so I can see a funky defensive d’Resh build
using Ahron.
Dey’s Ring – 4
D’Resh Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Purity: At the end of your turn, if all Spells in
your discard pile are d’Resh, discard all of your
non-d’Resh cards from play and choose a d’Resh Creature in
your discard pile. Add that card to your hand.
Starting: Dey
UNRELEASED PROMO
Love it. d’Resh decks tend not to splash much to begin with
due to region-specific card effects and especially Crystal Vision. While Dey’s Ring
does mean you’re inclined not to play Universal relics that don’t discard
themselves (Belt and Channeler’s Gloves especially), you get more recursion
power in a region that likes recursion to begin with. Dey can now guarantee a
re-buy of regular Olum every turn to make Olum tribal much better.
Dust Goggles – 3.5
D’Resh Relic
Energy: 2
Power – Sand Storm: (0) Discard Dust Goggles and a Creature
you control from play. Non-Illusion
Creatures may not attack until the beginning of your next
turn. Use this Power only before your Attack Step.
Here’s another d’Resh relic which Craw can loop that has a
controlling ability. With Dey’s Ring and/or Sand Cape you can essentially shut
down aggro decks as long as you can stick a creature through your opponent’s turn.
Olum Claws – 3.5
D’Resh Relic
Energy: 2
Effect: ECKS!: After an Olum is played, add one energy to
it.
Starting: Dey
More stuff for Dey and Olum tribal! With this card and Dey’s
Ring, Dey is up to five starting cards which is a ton. He also has a consistent
turn of Olum Claws (12 left), Olum (10), Olum Digger (6), Warrior Olum (0).
This generates a 3-energy Olum, a 6-7 energy Olum Digger, and a 8-9 energy
Warrior Olum, depending on order. Aid actually causes you to lose an energy on
this board so it’s not worth it, but you can Aid and drop Dey’s Ring to get
Olum back to your hand for next turn. Of course, this is just going first and
not getting his energize step. With 5 additional energy Dey can play 2
additional Olum and go nuts (not as a starting magi obviously). Basically, as
long as you’re playing 3 Olum creatures the turn you play the Claws, it’ll more
than pay for itself. After that it’s free energy.
Sand Castle – 3.5
D’Resh Relic
Energy: 1
Power – Harsh Reality: (1) Choose an Illusion you control.
Until the beginning of your next turn,
unnamed Effects on the chosen Creature produce no effect and
that Creature is not considered to be an Illusion.
Korg may play Sand Castle.
Sand Castle finally gives illusion decks a consistent way to
threaten magi damage. This is amazing. At the same time, it mitigates the
fragility of illusion decks by making the creature “real” for a turn. This is
an incredible addition to the game because illusion decks were not competitive
prior to this card. They die too quickly to canny opponents removing energy
from their magi and they have trouble defeating magi even though they can
create energy advantage on board. This card solves both problems. The fact that
Korg can play it makes no sense whatsoever and I think is meant to be a joke
about Korg being silly and juvenile.
Buried Treasure – 2
D’Resh Spell – Recurring
Energy: 4
Choose up to three d’Resh Creatures in your discard pile and
return them to your hand. Each opponent
may return the top Creature in his or her discard pile to
his or her hand.
After you reveal a d’Resh Magi, if you have one or more
Recurring cards in your discard pile, you may
discard one energy from your Magi to choose one Recurring
card in your discard pile and add it to your hand.
Mostly too expensive. The Recurring text is a bit
interesting though.
Durresh’s Gift – 4
D’Resh Spell
Energy: 3
Return a Creature you control to its owner’s hand and choose
a Creature in any discard pile. Put that
Creature into play, under your control, with four energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
The creature you get can attack this turn. Also, d’Resh has
Nemsa. Nemsa is free. This is a great card. Most of the Gift spells are. You
don’t need Nemsa or a splashed Agram’s Plaything (Sand Hyren lets you) to make
this card good though. Bouncing a 1-energy Uban or whatever is just fine too.
Hallucination – 2
D’Resh Spell
Energy: 3
Choose a Creature you control. The chosen Creature removes
two extra energy in attacks this turn. If
you have twenty or more cards in your discard pile, draw a
card.
Meh. I don’t see the payoff honestly and paying 3 to remove
2 from the board is awful. Sure, at 20 cards in discard you’re okay with this
card’s effect but you’re very much not beforehand. Plus, this isn’t something
d’Resh decks really need. Burn doesn’t need it. Illusions don’t need it. Olums
don’t. Mohani doesn’t. Discard pile decks don’t need it either, even though
that’s the best place for this card.
Haunted Dunes – 1
D’Resh Spell
Energy: 2
Attach Haunted Dunes to your Magi. While Haunted Dunes is
attached, Creatures lose two energy as
they attack your Magi. Reduce your Magi’s energize by one.
Oh no. Reducing your magi’s energize to then let stuff hit
you in the face is terrible.
Sand Blast – 4
D’Resh Spell
Energy: 3
Search your discard pile for one of your Magi’s named
starting cards and play it, ignoring costs. If that
card is a Creature, it may not attack this turn.
Only d’Resh and d’Resh Shadow Magi may play Sand Blast.
There are enough d’Resh magi who have named starting
creatures that cost 5, 6, and 7, as well as big illusions like Xala or Drahkar
that this card is just good. It doesn’t even need support really, since you can
just have your creature die to combat, but this card can obviously get better
with discard outlets.
TLDR: d’Resh
Magi
Drajan Alt – 4
Harresh Alt – 3.5
Hasseth Alt – 3
Uruk – 4
Creatures
Cactus Hyren – 3
Cef – 3
Mirror Braggle – 2.5
Sandy Craw – 3.5
Twilight Mowat – 3.5
Relics
Cactus Cloak – 3.5
Dey’s Ring – 4
Dust Goggles – 3.5
Olum Claws – 3.5
Sand Castle – 3.5
Spells
Buried Treasure – 2
Durresh’s Gift – 4
Hallucination – 2
Haunted Dunes – 1
Sand Blast – 4
Thoughts
Aside from Uruk, the new d’Resh magi, while good, conflict
with existing d’Resh magi who are also good. I don’t like that a ton, but at
least the new ones are interesting in different ways (except for Hasseth who I
think is a miss). I love the boost to Olum tribal because I think it was at the
edges of competitive viability already. I love Durresh’s Gift and Sand Blast
because they’re powerful cards. I’m intrigued by this sort of Craw-centric
control idea though I think it’s more fun than good. Cool additions all in all.
No Blessing spell or Charm relic. I’m fine with this.
Kybar’s Teeth
Kazm Alt – 1
Kybar’s Teeth Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Vopok, Giant Baldar
UNRELEASED PROMO
Well, this is clearly not a complete card design. I think
any alternate Kazm is going to have to be insanely good to see play, because
Kazm is in every KT deck that exists for good reason.
Koll Alt – 4
Kybar’s Teeth Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 5
Starting: Climbing Staff, Boulder Vaal, Cragnoc
Effect – Mastery: Kybar’s Teeth Creatures you play cost one
less energy to play, to a minimum of one. If
you have twenty or more cards in your discard pile, after
you play a Kybar’s Teeth Creature, add one energy to it.
Discounts are so useful in the fatty region, especially when
combined with his starting Climbing Staff. Starting Cragnoc is sweet. The 20
card threshold effect is just gravy. You’re really playing this card for the
discount and I like that design a lot.
Targ’n Alt – 3.5
Kybar’s Teeth Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Cragnoc, Rokarum, Stand and Take It
Effect – Rockslide: Your Kybar’s Teeth Creatures remove
energy in attacks equal to their printed starting
energy instead of their current energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
What an interesting effect! Right away, it flips KT decks on
their head a little bit. Vopok is pretty horrible with this guy, for instance.
His starting Cragnoc on the other hand is an immense threat, as is any other
normal fatty that’s been whittled down. Stand and Take It becomes playable on
this magi as well. Cool card that could be pretty good too.
Tarok – 3.5
Kybar’s Teeth Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 5
Starting: Gogor’s Spade, Baldar Amulet, Granite Axe
Effect – Summon Defender: Once per turn, after you play a
Kybar’s Teeth Relic, reveal the top card of
your deck. If that card is a Creature, you may either play
it for two less energy or add it to your hand. If the card is not a Creature,
put it on the bottom of your deck. That Creature may not attack this turn.
My first thought is that I don’t like the “once per turn”
clause on this guy because there’s no way to stack the deck. Hitting a relic or
spell is pretty sad. My second thought is that he’s pretty dope in an Emec’s
Forge deck. KT has plenty of good spells and Tarok doesn’t want to see many of
them, which is weird.
T’Korr – 4
Kybar’s Teeth Magi
Starting Energy: 16
Energize: 5
Starting: Akkar, Mosp Pendant
Effect – Aggravation: At the beginning of your turn, if each
opponent controls more Creatures than you,
add two energy to T’Korr.
This card is basically Kazm lite. He encourages you to play
one big creature at a time and gives you a chunk of energy when your opponent
tries to get around the one-v-one KT mentality. Having a 16/7 magi in mostly
creatureless decks is a pretty interesting notion too.
Black Agrilla – 2.5
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 5
Effect – Juggernaut: If you have fifteen or more cards in
your hand, Black Agrilla removes five extra
energy in attacks.
Whatever. If you have 15+ cards in hand you can do better.
If you don’t you can certainly do better.
Boulder Vaal – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 5
Effect – Arrogance: At the beginning of your turn, if an
opponent does not control a Creature with more
than its starting energy, add two energy to Boulder Vaal.
Effect – Invulnerability: This Creature loses one less
energy in attacks.
This card is fine, and against a lot of decks it will be
very good. Against an equal number it’s very vanilla.
Chasm Vogo – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Divebomb: As Chasm Vogo attacks a Creature, you may
remove energy from the opposing
Creature equal to twice Chasm Vogo’s current energy. If you
do, discard Chasm Vogo from play.
I like this creature simply because it’s a playable 4-energy
creature in KT. They don’t really have those. That said, I’m not crazy about
it.
Cliff Hubram – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – RETREAT!: As a Creature you control is chosen by an
opposing Spell, you may shuffle it into its
owner’s deck to add four energy to your Magi.
Again, protective creatures have the problem of dying to
just about everything and don’t see much play if they don’t do something else.
Sagawal doesn’t see play. This card is basically a Sagawal.
Granite Hyren – 2.5
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 7
Effect – Improved Invulnerability: Granite Hyren loses three
less energy in attacks.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Tough to kill in combat. That’s literally all I have to say.
Kartha – 4
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 5
Power – Vitalize: (1) Add two energy to the smallest
Creature you control.
This card is pretty solid. Most of the time, it’s just
Vitalizing itself for a 1-energy boost and that’s okay. I don’t think this sees
heavy use but it’s definitely a consideration because it’s an efficient
creature that a KT magi can play in a single energize step.
Maliwin – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Roar: Maliwin removes four extra energy in attacks.
Only Kybar’s Teeth Magi may play Maliwin.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This is a better Chasm Vogo. That means you’re probably
never playing Chasm Vogo.
Summit Furok – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Creature
Energy: 6
Effect – Lookout: Once per turn, after an opposing Spell
removes energy from a Creature you control,
remove energy equal to half the energy removed by the Spell,
rounded up, from an opposing Magi.
Don’t they just kill this first?
Flint Charm – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Kybar’s Teeth
Creature played each turn by one energy, to a
minimum of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first Weave
Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Discounts are great in KT but this card just isn’t it. We
already have Climbing Staff to be better. Yes, they stack but having to wait a
turn is really bad.
Granite Axe – 1
Kybar’s Teeth Relic
Energy: 2
Power – SMASH!: (2) Move up to four energy from the largest
opposing Creature in play to the smallest
opposing creature in play.
What the actual hell? This card costs 4 and doesn’t remove a
single energy from the opponent’s board. I have no words.
Mosp Pendant – 2.5
Kybar’s Teeth Relic
Energy: 2
Power – Harden: (3) Choose a Creature. Until the beginning
of your next turn, the chosen Creature
cannot attack and loses four extra energy in attacks. Other
Effects, Powers, and Spells may not reduce the energy removed from the chosen
Creature in attacks.
At first glance I thought, what a useless effect. It costs 5
and (maybe) prevents 4 damage. Then I saw that you can target your opponent’s
creatures to stop them from attacking. This card is still too expensive but it
does have some very minor potential.
Krag’s Blessing – 3
Kybar’s Teeth Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Kybar’s Teeth Creature. Attach Krag’s Blessing to
that Creature. While Krag’s Blessing is
attached, that Creature gains “Effect – Slam: Add two energy
to this Creature when it attacks a Creature with less energy.” You may not
attach another copy of Krag’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Like all the Blessing spells, it’s not amazing the turn you
play it but gets pretty good over time. If it stays in play. This one is a bit
more likely than others to stick but it’s about the same overall.
Overwhelm – 4
Kybar’s Teeth Spell
Energy: 3
Attach Overwhelm to a Creature you control. While Overwhelm
is attached, this Creature gains “Effect –
Overwhelm: After this Creature defeats an opposing Creature
in an attack, this Creature may immediately attack the opposing Creature’s
Magi.”
I can see this card being good. For 3 energy you get a mini
Momentum trigger (Giant Baldar). Magi damage is pretty good, and KT creatures
are quite likely to be able to survive making attacks and still have enough
energy to matter.
TLDR: Kybar’s Teeth
Magi
Kazm Alt – 1
Koll Alt – 4
Targ’n Alt – 3.5
Tarok – 3.5
T’Korr – 4
Creatures
Black Agrilla – 2.5
Boulder Vaal – 3
Chasm Vogo – 3
Cliff Hubram – 3
Granite Hyren – 2.5
Kartha – 4
Maliwin – 3
Summit Furok – 3
Relics
Flint Charm – 3
Granite Axe – 1
Mosp Pendant – 2.5
Spells
Krag’s Blessing – 3
Overwhelm – 4
Thoughts
Why did the devs hate KT so much? All these cards are
extremely mediocre, aside from some interesting magi. Even Overwhelm isn’t
overwhelming. For a region with such a simple flavor, designing good cards around
it must be really difficult. This is much more disappointing than Arderial’s
lackluster additions because KT needs more good cards while Arderial already
has a lot. I wish all the regions got cool new toys but this one makes me
especially sad.
Nar
Koza Alt – 2.5
Nar Magi
Starting Energy: 10
Energize: 6
Starting: Blizzard Lovian
Effect – Immunity: Powers and Effects on opposing Relics do
not affect Koza or Creatures you control.
Effect – Relicbond: Once per turn, after an opponent plays a
Relic, add two energy to Koza.
10/6 is still not a very strong energy index. Immunity
negates a few common competitive cards, though not a ton. Relicbond is very
nice but not reliable.
Nibowl – 4
Nar Magi
Starting Energy: 10
Energize: 8
Starting: Iceberg Hyren
Effect – Armor: Once per turn, as a Creature you control is
attacked, you may remove two energy from
Nibowl to add four energy to the defending Creature.
10/8 is fantastic for a Nar magi. Iceberg Hyren is a solid
playable. Armor makes attacking Nibowl’s creatures a real pain. This magi fits
in with other strong Nar magi like Laranel and Odavast who do things to protect
their board state while out-energizing the competition.
Odavast Alt – 3.5
Nar Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Yaromant
Power – Shatter: (2) Choose a Creature and discard a card.
Remove energy from the Creature equal to
the amount of energy on its Magi. If that Creature is
Frozen, remove two extra energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
14/6 is very good in normal regions, and I think it’s good
enough for Nar decks as well. The thing is, these numbers push Odavast toward a
different style of Nar deck. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. Starts
Yaromant which is the best possible card and makes Shatter more powerful.
Shatter can be very strong. The thing is, this version of Odavast wants to
avoid dealing damage to magi. This means he’s going in a very different style
of deck than others and is powerful enough to encourage players to explore
decks that depend less on making sure the opponent doesn’t have the energy to
play cards. Again, I like this design a lot.
Syllik – 4
Nar Magi
Starting Energy: 10
Energize: 7
Starting: Polar Eebit
Power – Refrigerate: (1) Choose either Magi, Creatures, or
Relics. Until the beginning of your next turn,
all cards of the chosen type are Frozen. Powers on Frozen
cards cost one extra energy to use. Spells cost Frozen Magi one extra energy to
play.
10/7 is the same as Odavast who is heavily played. Polar
Eebit is fine as a starting card though you’ll probably only run the one copy.
Refrigerate seems simple but actually has a lot of uses. First off, if Nar
doesn’t draw into creature freeze it’s pretty awkward and Syllik fixes that
issue for the cost of 1 energy per turn. Second, you can just freeze their magi
every turn and not worry about yours being frozen, allowing you to put Syllik
in spell-heavy control lists and not worry about paying all those penalties but
complement them by freezing opposing magi or relics as needed. Third, you can
also freeze yourself for specific cards that care about such things.
Velouria Alt – 3.5
Nar Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 5
Starting: Hunter Furok
Effect – Frost Bite: Powers on opposing Magi cost three
extra energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
13/5 is very awkward in typical Nar decks. Hunter Furok is a
solid card but loses the synergy it has with Velouria’s first form. Frost Bite
completely shuts down power-based magi. Imagine if O’Qua’s Conjure cost 7 but
her energize stayed at 4, or if Tiller had to pay 3 energy every time he tried
to Scrounge away a relic. Basically, Frost Bite is powerful enough against a
bunch of common magi that it’s worth considering this magi as a surprise
counter. However, don’t expect her to do much of anything against magi who
don’t rely on powers and don’t expect her to live very long. Putting Velouria’s
alternate form in your magi stack is a big gamble and either you or your
opponent are going to feel salty at the end of the game.
Arith – 4
Nar Creature
Energy: 5
Effect – Scavenge: When an opposing Frozen card is discarded
from play, draw a card.
Only Nar Magi may play Arith.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Card draw in Nar! Perfect for those controlling,
removal-heavy freeze decks as lots of your removal spells will replace
themselves with an Arith on the board. Also, it’s big enough not to die to
Crushing spells and small enough to be able to play this and something else in
the same turn.
Blizzard Lovian – 3
Nar Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Anti-Magi: Blizzard Lovian is unaffected by
opposing Spells and Powers while it is Frozen.
Small enough that they can attack it to death anyway. It’s
great to pump up with Mombak but not quite so strong that a single Cold Pack on
it will make an opponent quake in their boots. After two Cold Pack uses I’d be
scared though.
Cool Stuff – 4
Nar Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Augment: After Cool Stuff is played, add one energy
to each Stuff you control.
Power – Snowball: (0) Add one energy to each Stuff your
control. Use this Power only if Cool Stuff is
Frozen.
Gorb would have to splash freeze cards and that’s pretty
terrible in Bograth, so this doesn’t really go in the Stuff deck. What it does
is give Nar access to another strong 2-energy creature aside from Sarf. You
don’t even need to draw this thing in multiples since it doesn’t say “other
Stuff you control”. Augment will always give you +1 energy advantage. Drawing
multiples is the only way to get a benefit from Snowball, since being frozen
will make it cost 1 energy. Decks that want Ice Arboll will love to put 3
copies of this creature in as well.
Ice Wudge – 4
Nar Creature
Energy: 1
Effect – Swell: After an Arctic card is played, add two
energy to Ice Wudge.
Free energy is good. Literally every single Nar deck should
start with 3 copies each of Yaromant and Zyavu and figure the rest out from
there, so it’s not like you need to build around this card overmuch.
Iced Twee – 3.5
Nar Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Stir: (0) Discard Iced Twee from play and choose a
Frozen Creature you control. Move that
Creature’s energy to another Creature you control and return
the chosen Creature to your hand.
Stir is pretty dank with Vrak but works quite nicely with
Furok Protector too. Also, if they ever attack your Iceberg Hyren because they
lost their mind for a moment. Can also reset your Mombak after it has used Cold
Pack.
Iceflow Hyren – 3.5
Nar Creature
Energy: 5
Energize: 3
Effect: Iceflow Hyren must attack each turn if able.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Energize 3 will cause your opponent to do anything they can
to kill this creature. Attacking every turn is a drawback but not a huge one.
It’s only bad against giant creatures and Nar has a bunch of great ways to
remove giant creatures. As long as you’re playing several of those kind of
cards, this thing will be good. However, Crystallize won’t do it and Blizzard
won’t work before attacks, so you’ll have to get a little creative.
Tundra Hyren – 2.5
Nar Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Freeze: (1) Choose an opposing Magi. That Magi’s
Creatures are Frozen until the beginning of
your next turn. Powers on Frozen cards cost one extra energy
to use.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This is cool design space. That said, I’d be much more
interested in a one-sided magi or relic freeze (like on Syllik), since Nar
almost always wants to have all creatures frozen at all times anyway. I see
this card as being mostly unnecessary thanks to the prevalence of Yaromant,
Zyavu, and Essence of Frost.
Wharska – 2
Nar Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Overworked: (1) Choose a Creature with two or more
Powers. Remove all but one energy from
that Creature.
Pretty niche card. Not that many creatures have 2+ powers.
Cald decks with Ergar and Paradwyn decks with Staff of Vines come to mind. The
thing is, if you just freeze creatures (like every Nar deck wants) that already
punishes power-heavy decks a lot. You don’t need this card too.
Thast’s Ring – 5
Nar Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Purity: At the end of your turn, if all Spells in
your discard pile are Nar, discard all of your non-
Nar cards from play and choose an opposing Magi. If your
Magi’s energize is higher than that Magi’s, add one energy to each of your
Creatures and one energy to your Magi.
Starting: Thast
UNRELEASED PROMO
What? First of all, Nar already builds Purity decks because
their good magi have so many “isolation” clauses so it’s not even really a
drawback. Second, having a higher energize is a very easy condition to meet.
Third, the energy generated is pretty incredible. It’s not Orlon’s Ring but
it’s also less work. On Thast in particular, you do have to work hard to get
the trigger, but the +1 energy on magi enables you to spend all your energy
playing creatures to boost his energize rate and not need to worry about
leaving at least 1 on him for survival purposes. Also, Thast wants a lot of
creatures out and if he gets the trigger he’ll have a lot, which also means the
energy generated is very high.
Burst – 4
Nar Spell
Energy: 4
Choose two opposing Relics and discard them from play. If
those Relics were Frozen, discard one energy
from each opposing Creature.
Nar gets a Beam of Light-ish card. You probably only want
one copy of this card because it does conflict with Shattershards a bit, but
it’s quite powerful.
Glaciate – 2
Nar Spell
Energy: 3
Choose an opposing Creature and attach Glaciate to it. While
Glaciate remains in play, opposing
Creatures may not use Powers.
Again, just freeze creatures. That makes their powers bad
but doesn’t waste your energy. I give it a 2 because it can go on the same
creature with a Crystallize so they also can’t attack and get rid of the
Glaciate, but it’s pretty unnecessary.
Hail Storm – 2.5
Nar Spell
Energy: 6
Choose an opposing Creature. That Creature’s controller must
discard a Creature he or she controls
from play. If the discarded Creature is not the one you
chose, add two energy to your Magi.
It’s no Shockwave. You always target their biggest creature,
they’ll always choose their smallest creature to discard. That means you
discard their smallest creature for 4 energy, as long as you have 6 when you
play this card. The creature they discard has to have 4+ energy (preferably
more than 4) for you to be very happy and there are a lot of decks where that’s
not too likely. Also, this card randomly makes Crystallize a lot worse, since
they can discard that useless creature.
Keva’s Gift – 3.5
Nar Spell
Energy: 3
Return a Creature you control to its owner’s hand and choose
an opposing Creature. Remove energy
from that Creature equal to your Magi’s energize. If that
Creature is Frozen, remove two extra energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
That’s a lot of damage. The question is what are you
bouncing? Nar has Snow Barl Pup, creatures like Mombak or Kyroll who have spent
most of their energy on powers, and now Cool Stuff, which is certainly good
enough. This card can deal 10 damage pretty easily!
Snowdrift – 4
Nar Spell
Energy: 2
Attach Snowdrift to your Magi. While Snowdrift is attached,
all Creatures in play are Frozen. If you have
twenty or more cards in your discard pile, all Relics are
Frozen as well. Powers on Frozen cards cost one extra energy to use.
Spells are the most difficult card type to get rid of.
Essentially perma-freezing all creatures for 2 energy is great. Nar mostly
doesn’t care about frozen relics either, since a lot of their good relics are
effect-based anyway, but that’s not what you’re worried about. This will
replace Essence of Frost in some decks and allow decks that don’t currently
play Essence access to a similar ability.
TLDR: Nar
Magi
Koza Alt – 2.5
Nibowl – 4
Odavast Alt – 3.5
Syllik – 4
Velouria Alt – 3.5
Creatures
Arith – 4
Blizzard Lovian – 3
Cool Stuff – 4
Ice Wudge – 4
Iced Twee – 3.5
Iceflow Hyren – 3.5
Tundra Hyren – 2.5
Wharska – 2
Relics
Thast’s Ring – 5
Spells
Burst – 4
Glaciate – 2
Hail Storm – 2.5
Keva’s Gift – 3.5
Snowdrift – 4
Thoughts
Nar receives a large power and fun-factor boost from the new
cards, and the second point is even more important than the first. One of the
big problems with Nar is that their decks look very much the same due to the
fact that freezing creatures matters so much. With a bunch of new fun,
interesting, and powerful cards, Odavast Alt who encourages players to build a
different style of Nar, and Snowdrift which provides another enabler for
creature freeze, Nar players should be happy to experiment and branch out.
Naroom
Ohk Alt – 3.5
Naroom Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Braggle, Parmalag, Flutter Yup
Effect – Wander: After you play a Creature that does not
share a region with Ohk, add two energy to it.
Cool. So you still pay regional penalty, but you make up for
it. Non-Naroom creatures are just one energy bigger and then get a bonus
energy. That’s going to lead to some funny stuff I’m sure. His starting cards
are a big of a joke. You want to do something specific with Wander, not just
play random dudes.
Orwin Alt – 3
Naroom Magi – Alternate, Elder
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Glade Hyren, Eebit, Vortex of Knowledge
Power – Recall: (4) Choose up to three different Naroom
cards in your discard pile and add them to your
hand. You may not draw any cards until the beginning of your
next turn. Use this Power only before your Attack Step. This Power may not be
copied.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Named Orwin, Elder in lackey. The new Recall is very
expensive. There’s probably something good to do with it, but I don’t know.
14/6 with playable starting cards is good though. Regular Orwin which gets
played in combo decks because his Recall gets any card. This guy doesn’t do
that and I really don’t see where he fits.
Tryn Alt – 3.5
Naroom Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Eebit, Flame Rudwot, Rudwot
Power – Growth: (3) Choose a Creature that you control and
add energy to it equal to its starting energy.
At the beginning of your next turn, discard energy from that
Creature equal to half its starting energy, rounded down.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Uh, okay. Growth is hard to wrap my head around. Are you
pumping up small-to-medium guys like her starting cards want you to? Are you
pumping up huge guys because it’s tons of temporary energy? While I don’t think
this card is more powerful than regular Tryn, I think it’s different enough
that she might have a deck.
Valleya – 3.5
Naroom Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 5
Starting: Hunting Moga, Remember Ring, Yaki’s Gauntlets
Effect – Relic Lore: Once per turn, as a Creature you
control attacks, add one energy to it for every
Naroom Relic in play.
I’m looking at Robe of Vines, Energy Band, and the starting
Yaki’s Gauntlets for around +3. That’s a good chunk. A creature that you’ve
boosted by about 6 energy (combining those relics) getting to attack twice is
pretty mean. The Hunting Moga she starts with can then proceed to blow up 2
enemy relics if you want. Gotta actually have these relics out though. Without
them Valleya does nothing, and Remember Ring doesn’t count.
Giant Eebit – 3
Naroom Creature
Energy: 6
Effect – Foster: When Giant Eebit is discarded from play,
choose up to two other Creatures in your
discard pile and add them to your hand.
UNRELEASED PROMO
It’s fine. Six energy is a bit awkward for most Naroom magi,
but this card does things.
Glade Raxis – 3.5
Naroom Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Splinter: (2) Choose an opposing Relic and discard
it from play.
If you’re not boosting this for a potential second use, you
should just play Relic Stalker. If you are, this is a card I want access to.
Hinko Cub – 3.5
Naroom Creature
Energy: 1
Effect – Fluffy-Wuffy: As Hinko Cub is discarded from play
by an opposing card, add two energy to your
Magi.
This is the kind of thing a Naroom Weenie deck is looking
for. Attacking their creature triggers Fluffy-Wuffy. It doesn’t fit in Forest
Hyren decks but those decks don’t need any more help.
Hunting Moga – 3
Naroom Creature
Energy: 5
Effect – Raid: As Hunting Moga attacks, you may discard a
card from your hand. If you do, choose an
opposing Relic and discard it from play.
Turns your worst card in hand into a Relic Stalker when it
attacks. That’s totally fine but I wouldn’t count on it for relic removal
because it has to actually survive long enough to attack. Good enough as a
starting card but not much more than that.
Jailin – 4
Naroom Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Underbrush: Once per turn, when a Spell or Power
adds energy to Jailin, add two extra energy
to it.
Only Naroom Magi may play Jailin.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Yep. This card is great. Growy Naroom decks obviously want
it. Weenie decks probably do too. Tryn’s new best friend. 4 energy for free is
nonsense.
Jhaga – 2
Naroom Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Lonely: Discard Jhaga from play if you do not
control at least one other Creature.
Effect – Link: Once per turn, as a Creature you control is
being discarded from play by an opposing card
while it still has energy, move that Creature’s energy to
another Creature you control.
You have to have 3 creatures out for this card to do
anything. If you only have 2, you Link the other one’s energy to this and it
immediately dies. I think this card is a trap and will increase the likelihood
of blowouts rather than decrease them.
Leaf Vulbor – 2.5
Naroom Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Absorb: (1) Choose a Creature you control that has a
Spell attached to it. Add energy to the
Creature equal to the energy cost of the Spell (X equals
zero). Discard the Spell from play.
Whatever. Attachment spells are mostly bad. Overgrowth sees
play but this doesn’t combo with it well at all.
Root Baldar – 3
Naroom Creature
Energy: 7
Effect – Thick Skin: Root Baldar loses no energy while
attacking Creatures with four energy or less.
Big dumb guy that’s mostly too expensive. It’s not horrible,
it’s just not actively good.
Shrub Balamant – 4
Naroom Creature
Energy: 5
Power – Tangle: (1) Move up to two energy from each opposing
Magi to Shrub Balamant.
Starting: Pruitt
Magi damage good. Efficiency good. Randomly super annoying
in multiplayer and will likely get you killed by pissing people off. Might not
see tons of play because it costs 5.
Timber Bisiwog – 2
Naroom Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Fury: As Timber Bisiwog attacks, choose an opposing
Creature. Instead of removing energy
equal to its current energy in the attack, Timber Bisiwog
removes energy equal to the chosen Creature’s starting energy.
Random. You don’t know if this will be useful or not. Also
it costs 4, dies to Crushing, and does nothing for a whole round until it gets
to attack. Pretty bad.
Wood Thresh – 4
Naroom Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Assault: As Wood Thresh attacks, add two energy to
it if the defending Creature has an Effect
printed on it.
This is more like it. Not every creature has an effect. A
lot don’t, but this has good attack targets against basically every possible
deck. Three energy is much less taxing on a magi with energize 5. So, while
it’s slow, at least you can play it and do something else in the same turn,
giving it a much higher chance of getting to attack.
Elm Charm – 3.5
Naroom Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Naroom Creature
played each turn by one energy, to a
minimum of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first
Underneath Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
In Naroom Weenie specifically, I can see this card being
very good. Making Underneath creatures more expensive does actual nothing,
since decks that splash Ormagon aren’t interested in this card anyway.
Twee Whistle – 3.5
Naroom Relic
Energy: 2
Effect – Beckon: Once per turn, after you play a Creature,
you may search your deck for a copy of that
Creature and add it to your hand. If you do, you may not
play any more Creatures this turn.
This is good card draw in decks with multiples of all your
creatures. It’s a “may” ability, so you just play your creatures out in order
such that you can Beckon on the last one you intend to play for the turn. It’s
tough to justify in fast Naroom decks, but might see a lot of play in grindy
ones.
Trunnk’s Blessing – 3.5
Naroom Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Naroom Creature. Attach Trunnk’s Blessing to that
Creature. While Trunnk’s Blessing is
attached, that Creature gains “Power – Invigorate: (2) Add
four energy to a Naroom Creature.” You may not attach another copy of Trunnk’s
Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is also better than your average Blessing spell
because Naroom has so much support for grow powers. The problem these cards
have is that they need to last multiple turns before you can generate energy
advantage. This doesn’t as long as you have something like a Flying Hinko or a
Poad’s Secret Sauce in play.
TLDR: Naroom
Magi
Ohk Alt – 3.5
Orwin Alt – 3
Tryn Alt – 3.5
Valleya – 3.5
Creatures
Giant Eebit – 3
Glade Raxis – 3.5
Hinko Cub – 3.5
Hunting Moga – 3
Jailin – 4
Jhaga – 2
Leaf Vulbor – 2.5
Root Baldar – 3
Shrub Balamant – 4
Timber Bisiwog – 2
Wood Thresh – 4
Relics
Elm Charm – 3.5
Twee Whistle – 3.5
Spells
Trunnk’s Blessing – 3.5
Thoughts
I like that Forest Hyren doesn’t get pushed. I like that
Weenie does. I want to jam 3 Jailin in a Tryn deck and smash people with them. I
think Valleya could be a scary magi in a specific build. I can’t wait to see
who comes up with the way to break Ohk Alt because I bet it’s out there.
Orothe
Ebylon Alt – 3
Orothe Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 5
Starting: River Orathan, Orathan, Orathan Amulet
Effect – Frenzy: Once per turn, after you discard one or
more opposing Relics from play, choose an
opposing Creature and remove two energy from it.
So, Frenzy triggers off discarding enemy relics but Orothe
has more tools to actually steal them rather than discard them. This effect
isn’t going to trigger anywhere close to once per turn, since sometimes they
don’t have relics out and even when they do, your relic removal is awkward and
Ebylon Alt doesn’t guarantee he draws any. Basically, this magi can play
Orathan tribal and only because he draws some of the cards, not because he enhances
them in any way. I would expect more energy on than this given his low impact.
Not a good card.
Mobis Alt – 4
Orothe Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Bwill, Iximin, Corf
Power – Vengeance: (4) Choose a Creature that attacked last
turn. Discard that Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Vengeance is a power, even though it’s templated as an
effect in lackey. It’s also a pretty good power. A conditional Shockwave for 4
is really nice. His creatures also disincentivize the opponent from attacking,
and he is just short of Quilla levels of energy. This is a nice, generically
powerful control magi and might find a home in lists where players would
normally consider Quilla.
O’Qua Alt – 3.5
Orothe Magi – Alternate, Tracker
Starting Energy: 11
Energize: 5
Starting: Ripcurl, Undertow, Sphor Charm
Power – Invoke: (2) Discard an Orothe Spell from your hand.
Play an Orothe Creature from your hand,
reducing its cost by the cost of the Spell you discarded, to
a minimum of one.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Invoke requires a dedicated deck but can be very powerful
when you build around it. Playing a fast Giant Parathin for 4 (by discarding
Typhoon) is pretty cool. It costs the same as regular O’Qua’s Conjure, requires
more setup, but gives you a giant creature you can attack with immediately and
then Interchange later. 11 is very low starting energy, but when you can cheat
costs it’s less of an issue. Also, Ripcurl + Undertow is a pretty nice removal
combo and if nothing else O’Qua can discard these cards to Invoke. All in all,
she rewards creative deck building in a way that is different enough from her
original incarnation that they won’t compete with each other very much. At the
same time, they remain mechanically similar enough where players can recognize
a fresh take on an old classic. Great design.
Coral Weebo – 3.5
Orothe Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Pillage: (0) Discard an Orothe Relic you control
from play and choose another Creature. Add
three energy to that Creature.
This is a very interesting design. Most relics are there
because you want them to stay in play. Either that or they discard themselves
to begin with. Where I can see this card get interesting is when you want to
use a relic multiple times in a turn, because if you have a second copy in your
hand you can use the relic once, Pillage it, then play and use your second
copy.
Giant Iximin – 3
Orothe Creature
Energy: 6
Effect – Spite: When one of your Orothe Creatures is
defeated in an attack, choose up to two opposing
Relics and shuffle them into their owner’s deck.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Orothe just doesn’t need this ability. Between Hubdra’s Cube
and Crushing Surf they have a very strong way to control enemy relics, and
stealing them is better than shuffling them away. Sure, this can handle an
entire board of relics in one turn, but situations where that matters are few
and far between. I wouldn’t put a 6-energy pseudo-vanilla creature in my deck
unless it was a magi’s starting card.
Nolio – 2.5
Orothe Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Dreamsnag: As you play Nolio, discard all Spells
from play.
How often does this ability matter? Not often. Classic
sideboard card in a game that doesn’t have sideboards.
River Orathan – 3.5
Orothe Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Reinforce: (2) If you control four or more Orothe
Relics, add three energy to an Orathan.
As another Orathan creature, this card makes Orathan Amulet
much more playable. Four Orothe relics is pretty easy to assemble, in which
case this card can play like a Submerge for Orathans. Amulet does grow this
card but sadly Spray doesn’t let this thing survive using its power. This card
is playable within the Amulet package but it’s not amazing.
Seaweed Bwisp – 4
Orothe Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Larceny: After an opponent plays a Relic, choose an
opposing Creature. Move one energy from
the chosen Creature to Seaweed Bwisp.
Not “once per turn”! Very annoying little creature. This
dies easily but if you’re ahead on board and they can’t simply attack to kill
this creature, you can reasonably expect Larceny to pay off. If they only play
one relic on their turn, this is not as powerful as Bog Wellisk, but if they
play a second one it’s better (as long as they have a creature in play that
didn’t attack this).
Wimond – 3.5
Orothe Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Feedback: (2) Choose a Creature. Remove one energy
from that Creature for each Relic in your
discard pile.
Only Orothe Magi may play Wimond.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card combines really well with Coral Weebo and makes me
interested in dumping relics into my discard using cards like Maelstrom Flask
(since it’s not limited to Orothe relics) or even Parathin. Leaving itself at 1
energy conveniently helps set up a Deep Hyren’s Hurricane, and that combo can
outright kill a magi in a lot of circumstances.
Xano – 4
Orothe Creature
Energy: 5
Effect – Strong Current: If an opponent controls more Creatures
than you, reduce Xano’s cost by four.
Effect – Swept Away: If you control more Creatures than each
of your opponents, discard Xano from
play.
Strong Current is like it says: strong. Four free energy is
no joke. Sure they can try to play around it and activate Swept Away but a)
you’ve only paid one energy for this thing, and b) you can control how many
creatures you have out. If this is all you have, they have to have zero
creatures to trigger Swept Away, in which case you can just Hubdra’s Spear them.
I don’t know what deck wants this exactly, but it’s very powerful.
Coral Armor – 2
Orothe Relic
Energy: 3
Effect: K-BISH!: Once per turn, after you play a Spell,
choose a Relic and discard it from play. If there are
twenty or more cards in your discard pile, add one energy to
your Magi.
It seems like Ebylon Alt should start with this card, since
it’s making his signature sound effect and it’s triggering Frenzy. He doesn’t.
Anyway, this isn’t a “may” ability which means if they don’t have any relics
and you do you simply can’t play any spells. That’s actually a pretty
reasonable scenario for Orothe to find itself in, so right away I’m skeptical.
Also, this costs a lot of energy and doesn’t quickly make up for it.
Coral Charm – 3.5
Orothe Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Orothe Creature
played each turn by one energy, to a
minimum of one.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is much better than other Charm relics simply
because it’s in Orothe. It also doesn’t have a drawback second effect for whatever
reason. Arosa decks will probably love this card.
Karak Belt – 3
Orothe Relic
Energy: 2
Power – “Borrow”: (0) Discard Karak Belt from play and
choose a Relic in an opposing discard pile. Play
that Relic, ignoring regional penalty and restriction, paying
all costs.
This is regular Ebylon’s best friend. As a tech choice, it’s
okay in normal decks. People play relics that discard themselves and if you
defeat their magi all their relics are discarded so it’s not as if you need
dedicated synergy for this. That said, it’s only okay. You’d rather be
consistent and have a game plan involving your own cards.
Mirror of Knowledge – 4
Orothe Relic
Energy: 1
Power – Reflection: (0) Add one energy to your Magi for each
Magi in your defeated stack.
Cool design. Your first magi never wants to look at this
card, your second will happily play it because it’s essentially free, and your
third magi thinks it’s super good. Low enough cost to go into relic decks and
perform well. Interchange decks hate this, which is fine.
Orothean War-Walker – 3.5
Orothe Relic
Energy: 2
Power – Stomp: (2) If you control more Relics than each
opponent, remove one energy from each
opposing Creature and Magi.
Effect: As Orothean War-Walker is discarded from play,
remove two energy from each Magi in play.
If you control more relics than each opponent: not hard.
This card is expensive at first but can really fuel some kind of Orothe
relic-based burn deck with Wimonds and some other stuff. Sphor Charm has caused
me to explore that style of deck in the past. It wasn’t good enough but maybe
some of these new cards help it get there.
Platheus Scales – 3.5
Orothe Relic
Energy: 3
Power – Equalize: (0) Discard a Creature you control from
play. Each player that controls more Creatures
than you must discard a Creature they control from play. Use
this Power only after your Attack Step.
Goes in the Xano deck for sure but I don’t know what that
deck looks like.
Ebb and Flow – 1
Orothe Spell
Energy: 4
Discard a Creature you control from play. Shuffle your deck
and reveal the top three cards. Choose an
Orothe Creature from the revealed cards and play that
Creature, ignoring all costs. That Creature may not attack this turn. Discard
the remaining revealed cards.
Since you shuffle first, you can’t combine this card with
Goggles. Missing is horrendous since you’ve spent 4 and discarded a creature.
Sometimes you can high roll but boy howdy does this thing set you up for
failure.
Tyde’s Blessing – 3.5
Orothe Spell
Energy: 2
Choose an Orothe Creature. Attach Tyde’s Blessing to that
Creature. While Tyde’s Blessing is attached,
that Creature gains “Effect – Lash: When an Orothe Creature
is attacked and defeated, discard one energy from each opposing Creature.” You
may not attach another copy of Tyde’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
I like this a lot more than the average Blessing since even
one trigger can get your more than 2 energy worth of value the turn you play
this card. The fact that you can get multiple triggers in the same turn is
pretty cool. That said, they have to attack you, so basically you’ll want to
combine this with Will of Orothe. I still don’t know if that’s good, but it’s
worth exploring.
TLDR: Orothe
Magi
Ebylon Alt – 3
Mobis Alt – 4
O’Qua Alt – 3.5
Creatures
Coral Weebo – 3.5
Giant Iximin – 3
Nolio – 2.5
River Orathan – 3.5
Seaweed Bwisp – 4
Wimond – 3.5
Xano – 4
Relics
Coral Armor – 2
Coral Charm – 3.5
Karak Belt – 3
Mirror of Knowledge – 4
Orothean War-Walker – 3.5
Platheus Scales – 3.5
Spells
Ebb and Flow – 1
Tyde’s Blessing – 3.5
Notes
Orothe gets a lot of low-end playables this set. The
interesting cards are the Xano/Platheus Scales idea of low-creature decks as
well as Mirror of Knowledge in general. Wimond/Orothean War-Walker burn is
probably still bad but would be fun to try to make work. Orothe certainly
didn’t lose this set like Arderial and KT did but I’m not dying to experiment
with the cards either.
Paradwyn
Bazha Alt – 4
Paradwyn Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Ambush, Spell Pulse, Bulabantu
Power – Dream Drain: (3) Choose an opposing Creature. Until
the end of your turn, that Creature loses
two energy each time you play a Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Solid magi. Very good energy numbers, good starting cards,
and a power that you’ll use some of the time. When you do Dream Drain something
(like when he flips) that thing probably dies. In general this guy is very good
at killing creatures. Generically powerful, gets a 4.
Boria Alt – 4
Paradwyn Magi – Alternate, Keeper
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Tropical Sarazen, Janx Pendant, Staff of Keepers
Effect – Accelerate: Creatures you control with the Effect
“Dreamwarp” remove one extra energy in
attacks.
Named Boris Alt in lackey. Don’t get confused. Accelerate is
pretty awesome. Also, it’s straightforward. Goes in Dreamwarp decks, makes them
better.
Lilia – 4
Paradwyn Magi
Starting Energy: 15
Energize: 5
Starting: Minani, Jungle Jile, Bungi
Power – Sneaky, Sneaky: (1) Choose a Creature you control.
Until the end of your turn, that Creature
loses no energy in attacks against Stalked Creatures.
This card will almost certainly replace Ardonia or Culla
(probably Ardonia because of energy numbers) in the stalk deck. Sneaky, Sneaky
is super strong and is a very good power to use on your opponent’s turn with Bazha’s
Pendant (which stalk decks can naturally make good use of).
Ookami Alt – 3.5
Paradwyn Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Lahalou, Hardshell Weebo
Power – Inspiration: (1) Choose an opposing Creature and a
Creature you control. Move up to two
energy from the opposing Creature to your Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card should demonstrate how good Ookami is. Inspiration
is insanely strong, netting you 3 energy every turn of the game and sometimes
killing enemy creatures in the process. His energy numbers are the same as
regular Ookami, as are his pertinent starting cards. Normally, this magi would
be a 5 for power level reasons. The fact that he replaces his normal version though
means that you should never, ever put this card in your magi stack. I can’t
give this card a 1 because look how good it is, but I’ve considered it. That’s
quite a statement. The reason I give him a 3.5 is just that you have to have a
helluva good reason to use this version over the other one.
Bungi – 4
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Bounce: Bungi removes two extra energy in attacks
against Magi.
Power – Pounce: (1) Choose an opposing Creature and remove
two energy from it.
Efficient creature is efficient.
Canopy Hyren – 3
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Fear: (3) Remove two energy from each Stalked Creature.
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.
Jungha – 4
Paradwyn Creature – Jungle Stalker
Energy: 4
Power – Hunt: (2) Choose an opposing Creature and remove
three energy from it. If that Creature is
Stalked, remove one extra energy.
Efficient creature with upside in stalk decks. I like this
one a lot, especially since stalk decks can sometimes flounder by not having
the right balance of enablers and payoffs at the same time. This thing adds a
measure of consistency.
Jungle Agovo – 2
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 4
Power – Lore: (1) If you control three or more cards with
the word “Jungle” in the name, draw a card.
Effect – Dreamwarp: As you play this Creature, increase or
decrease its starting energy by up to one, to a
minimum starting energy of one, until the end of the turn.
Too much setup cost as there aren’t all that many “Jungle”
cards.
Minani – 3.5
Paradwyn Creature – Jungle Stalker
Energy: 3
Power – Coil: (3) Discard Minani from play. Choose a Stalked
Creature and remove six energy from it.
Nice removal in the stalk deck and only in the stalk deck.
Orange Stuff – 3
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Hybrid: Each Stuff you control gains “Power –
Cling: (0) Choose an opposing Creature. Discard
this Creature from play to remove two energy from the chosen
Creature.”
Effect – Dreamwarp: As you play this Creature, increase or
decrease its starting energy by up to one, to a
minimum starting energy of one, until the end of the turn.
All the other Stuff creatures are Bograth, so this asks you
to play some kind of dual-region deck or splash it in Bograth rather than
splash 6 Bograth creatures in Paradwyn. Each Cling is going to be efficient
unless you’re playing as Gorb (you know, the “Stuff” magi) in which case you’d
rather keep your Stuff in play. I see this as something fun to do rather than
something powerful.
Sevarew – 4
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Poison: At the beginning of each opponent’s turn,
choose an opposing Creature. Remove two
energy from it.
Only Paradwyn Magi may play Sevarew.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Once again, efficient creature is efficient. Randomly, this
card is awesome in multiplayer since you can target a specific player rather
than spread around the Poison triggers. That way, only one person is mad at you
and you get tons of free damage out.
Toxic Heppeswip – 2
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Forced Gifts: (X) Choose a Magi and a Creature controlled
by the same player. Move X energy
from that Magi to that Creature. Forced Gifts may not reduce
a Magi below one energy.
I don’t like this card much. The idea is to then kill the
creature efficiently leaving the magi open for assassination. That requires too
much work and doesn’t get them all the way to zero on the magi. Also, Ambush
doesn’t combo with Forced Gifts and that’s your most efficient removal spell.
This then pushes in the Froxfire direction but stalk decks have plenty of cards
already that fit better and aren’t good at boosting non-Jungle Stalker/Bagala
creatures. Plus, Paradwyn already has Spirit Drain which is one of the best
ways to kill magi in the whole game. Interesting idea, too many issues.
Tropical Sarazen – 3.5
Paradwyn Creature
Energy: 8
Effect – Ally: After you play Tropical Sarazen, you may
choose a Hyren in your discard pile and play it,
reducing its cost by three. That Hyren may not attack this
turn.
Effect – Dreamwarp: As you play this Creature, you may
increase or decrease its starting energy by up to
two, to a minimum starting energy of one, until the end of
the turn.
Since this card has Dreamwarp 2 it’s not as bad (meaning too
expensive) as it looks. If you play this for 6 with Robe of Petals out it only
costs 5, then you get to recur a Hyren (probably Vine or Tropical) and get
another savings of 4 energy (3 + that Robe I mentioned). This is without
mentioning Radiant Spring or Flourish which you can likely combine with this on
a magi flip. That’s a pretty cool play pattern. Additionally, I find Paradwyn
Hyren decks actually have some legs.
Arawan’s Ring – 2.5
Paradwyn Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Purity: At the end of your turn, if all Spells in
your discard pile are Paradwyn, discard all of your
non-Paradwyn cards from play and choose a Magi. Until the
beginning of your next turn, each of that Magi’s Creatures gain “Effect – Fear:
This Creature loses one energy when it attacks a Paradwyn Creature.”
Starting: Arawan
UNRELEASED PROMO
Probably the worst Purity ring in the whole cycle because it
requires your opponent to choose whether or not you get the benefit and by how
much. Not a fan.
Janx Pendant – 4
Paradwyn Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Toughen: After you play Janx Pendant, add two
energy to a Creature you control.
Effect – Sustain: Once per turn, after an opposing Creature
is defeated in an attack, add one energy to
each Creature you control.
The combination of instant energy from Toughen and
repeatable energy boosts from Sustain is really awesome. You get all this
energy adding for a measly 1 spent as well.
Pok’s Circlet – 3.5
Paradwyn Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Hindsight: After an Effect forces you to discard
one or more cards from your hand, draw a card.
Pok is great with this card. Combining Brilliantly
Absent-Minded with Hindsight has you drawing 4 cards at the end of your turn,
then discarding one, then drawing one. That means you’re up 4 total cards.
Trogovo requires you to invest in a creature and reduce your energize by 2 to
get that same ability. This card also combines very well with Tomorrow’s Jewel,
turning its Lore into discard 1, draw 2. Notably, Hindsight only triggers on
Effects, so the vast majority of cards that make you discard won’t trigger it.
Nice that Pok becomes a much better magi with this relic out. Can’t think of
other magi I’d use it on, but I’m sure they’re out there too.
Mareahla’s Gift – 2.5
Paradwyn Spell
Energy: 3
Return a Creature you control to its owner’s hand and choose
a Creature. Until the end of the turn,
when that Creature attacks, it removes extra energy equal to
its printed starting energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
One of the less good Gift spells because it requires you to
move to the Attack Step before you see the benefit. Paradwyn can use this
ability but it’s not insane.
Scarletsong Anthem – 3.5
Paradwyn Spell
Energy: 3
Add one energy to each Creature you control. If there are
twenty or more cards in your discard, remove
one energy from each opposing Creature.
This can be a really big swing. It doesn’t empower your
Scarletsong Lahalou any which makes me sad, but whatever. I really only want to
play this card when it’s empowered so that takes a bit of work to make happen.
TLDR: Paradwyn
Magi
Bazha Alt – 4
Boria Alt – 4
Lilia – 4
Ookami Alt – 3.5
Creatures
Bungi – 4
Canopy Hyren - 3.5
Jungha – 4
Jungle Agovo – 2
Minani – 3.5
Orange Stuff – 3
Sevarew – 4
Toxic Heppeswip – 2
Tropical Sarazen – 3.5
Relics
Arawan’s Ring – 2.5
Janx Pendant – 4
Pok’s Circlet – 3.5
Spells
Mareahla’s Gift – 2.5
Scarletsong Anthem – 3.5
Thoughts
Paradwyn gains some strong magi, especially Lilia, and some
generally efficient cards. Stalk decks receive the biggest support but Tropical
Sarazen might secretly be the most powerful card of the bunch. Glad to see
Pok’s Circlet get printed, giving Paradwyn access to yet another good (?) setup
magi (seriously, between Eryss, Arawan, Liriel, and now Pok you’ve got
options!). Happy not to see a Blessing or Charm, unhappy to see a mediocre Gift
spell and Purity ring.
Underneath
Gavik – 4
Underneath Magi
Starting Energy: 10
Energize: 6
Starting: Spiked Parmalag, Crystal Lascinth, Amulet of Ombor
Power – Symbiosis: (2) Choose a Creature you control. If
that Creature is still in play at the beginning of
your next turn, add four energy to Gavik.
Gavik is a good magi for sure. Starting with Amulet of Ombor
gets you access to Gate if you want it, and you can then sit behind a wall of
Spiked Parmalags and/or Urhails and use Symbiosis on them. If he can keep a
creature alive each turn, Symbiosis effectively lets Gavik play as a 10/8 magi,
and that’s very good. Due to his ability to fish Urhails continuously, he can
even play in an UnderCore deck pretty well. Like much of Underneath, he is
better on the defensive than the aggressive and that’s not great in general.
It’s much better to be proactive most of the time. Despite that, he is
certainly powerful enough to see a good amount of competitive play.
Motash Alt – 3
Underneath Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
UNRELEASED PROMO
Even as a 14/6 vanilla magi, that’s better than a lot of
what Underneath has to offer. Clearly this card is not finished, but it exists
so I rated it.
Strag Alt – 4
Underneath Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 5
Starting: Pillar Hyren, Entrench
Effect – Rugged: Your Creatures gain one energy in attacks,
after energy is removed.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This version of Strag is almost a strict upgrade over his
original form. He gains one more starting energy, some different starting
cards, and an overall better effect. On the starting card front, he basically
just loses access to Bottomless Pit which is a small ding to Strag’s power but not
too big a deal. OG Strag doesn’t usually get Giant Parmalag or Gum-Gum and New
School Strag isn’t usually getting Pillar Hyren or Entrench. The point is that
he can still find his Claws and his Ring. Rugged lets you get benefits from attacking
and defending which is leagues better
than only defending. Yes, his creature now has to survive to get the energy,
but it has more opportunities to. Plus it now combos with the Claws.
Trug, Engineer – 4
Underneath Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 7
Starting: Thunderquake, Thunderquake
14/7 is really good. That hasn’t stopped being true. Having
the starting cards Thunderquake x2 and Hidden Door isn’t bad either. This magi
is actually better than Quilla, and Quilla is insane. In my Orothe review, I
give Quilla a 5 and I stand by that rating. That means Trug 2.0 should be a 5
too, right? Sadly, Orothe is enough better than Underneath that Trug only gets
a 4.
Cave Plith – 3.5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 3
Power – Memorialize: (0) Discard Cave Plith from play. Draw
a card for each opposing Creature that was
defeated in an attack this turn.
My first inclination is to disregard this card because
Underneath has not typically been an aggressive region. However, Underneath is
also historically bad at drawing cards and this thing can draw a bunch of
cards. I’m looking at Rabid Bisiwog or something to try to combo with this
creature. It also stacks with Gogor’s Spade, meaning that if you can figure out
a build of Underneath Aggro that has enough juice to get going, all those cards
can definitely keep it going.
Chinnor – 3
Underneath Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Overwhelm: Chinnor loses no energy in attacks
against Creatures with less than their starting
energy.
Only Underneath Magi may play Chinnor.
UNRELEASED PROMO
In this Underneath Aggro deck that might happen, this card
might be decent. If you have a Thunderquake to spread around some damage (or
even some nonsense like Rumble Stones), Overwhelm can sort of always be active.
Defensively, it combines very well with Crystal Lascinth’s Spines effect, but
whatever. The problem (as usual) is that this creature is Crushing food and a
bit slow.
Crystal Brub – 3.5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Slash: As Crystal Brub attacks a non-Crystal
Creature, add two energy to Crystal Brub.
Cheap creature that’s good at attacking. Crystal Brub might
actually be what the Aggro deck is looking for to complement Granas et. al.
Crystal Yajo – 3
Underneath Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Vitalize: At the end of each opponent’s turn, if
Crystal Yajo was not attacked, you may remove
two energy from it and add one energy to each of your other
Creatures.
Effect – Entrenched: When Crystal Yajo is attacked, add two
energy to it.
Crystal Yajo may not attack.
UNRELEASED PROMO
I like that this is a cheap creature. I like that it has a
decent play pattern. If you have a wide board, they have to attack this and
give you the 2 energy from Entrenched, otherwise you’ll get more than 2 energy
from Vitalize. What I don’t like is that they don’t actually have to attack it.
The difference between a 2- and a 3-energy is enormous in Underneath, thanks to
burrow mechanics, and the opponent can use removal on this pretty easily.
That’s not even the real issue. The real issue is that you basically have to
have this plus three other creatures in play after your opponent’s turn is over
for Vitalize to give you an advantage. That’s a lot to ask.
Giant Gum-Gum – 2.5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 6
Effect – Super Slide: Twice per turn, when one of your other
Creatures is attacked, you may choose to
have the attacking Creature attack Giant Gum-Gum instead.
UNRELEASED PROMO
What the heck do you so desperately need to keep around that
you’re putting this creature in a competitive deck? In a region with burrow
stuff no less.
Menao – 3.5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 4
Power – Thrash: (2) Until the end of your turn, each
Creature you control gains one energy as it attacks.
A potentially powerful piece of the Aggro deck that might be
out there.
Mushroom Sareb – 2.5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Amplify: Underneath Creatures with two energy or
less remove one extra energy in attacks.
Cute, but it doesn’t really do enough. I think it’s cute
because the burrowed guys they can’t quite kill can use Amplify to squeeze out
a little more value. That’s not quite strong enough of a card.
Spiked Parmalag – 5
Underneath Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Bristle: After Spiked Parmalag comes into play, add
six energy to it.
Effect – Impede: Spiked Parmalag removes three less energy
while attacking.
Bristle is six free energy. That’s more than the energize
step of at least half the magi in the game. I don’t care the Impede makes it worse
on offense. It still attacks for 5 and you paid 2. New Strag requires his
creatures to live through attacks, and this creature is more than big enough to
do so. Plus, on defense this creature is exactly as annoying as it looks. Even
if they spend a Shockwave on it, you paid 2 and they paid 5 so you win the
exchange.
Crystal Ring – 2.5
Underneath Relic
Energy: 2
Effect – ???: After an opposing Creature attacks, choose a
Creature you control and add one energy to it.
Why the hell does this relic cost 2?
Ombor Brooch – 2
Underneath Relic
Energy: 3
Effect – Refund: As a Creature you control is discarded from
play while it still has energy, move up to
two energy from that Creature to your Magi.
So when they Shockwave your guy you get 2 energy on your
magi? But your opponent knows about this. Also, they have to trigger Refund
twice for you to get your energy’s worth. No thanks.
Spore Charm – 3
Underneath Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Rally: Reduce the cost of the first Underneath
Creature played each turn by one energy, to a
minimum of one.
Effect – Advantage: Increase the cost of the first Arderial
Creature played each turn by one energy.
UNRELEASED PROMO
It’s a Charm relic. It’s fine but not good. There’s really
no drawback on this one, since you don’t see Arderial creatures in Underneath
decks, but whatever.
Staff of Fungus – 3.5
Underneath Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Expand: Increase your Magi’s energize by one. If
there are twenty or more cards in your discard,
increase your Magi’s energize by two instead.
Without threshold, this card is worse than Water of Life
because you have to pay an energy for it. That’s actually significantly worse
because you don’t see a return on your investment until a whole 2 game rounds
have taken place, which is forever. Basically, if you don’t have a full discard
pile you should not play this card. If you have threshold though, Staff of
Fungus is pretty sweet. First of all, it pays you off a full round sooner, like
Water of Life does. However, every turn after that you’re able to get way ahead
of your opponent. Underneath has some magi that already have energize rates
between 6-7, and increasing those to 8-9 is a big deal. Underneath has Ormagon
which is expensive and powerful, and a lot of their other powerful options can
require quite a lot of energy to pull off too. This card can get you there. The
real question is “How are we filling up our discard pile in the first place?”
Aside from splashing Tradewinds and running Tomorrow’s Jewel, which many
Underneath control decks do already, I’m not too sure.
Fosfur’s Blessing – 3
Underneath Spell
Energy: 2
Choose an Underneath Creature. Attach Fosfur’s Blessing to
that Creature. While Fosfur’s Blessing is
attached, that Creature gains “Effect – Wrath: This Creature
gains one energy when it attacks and one energy after it attacks.” You may not
attach another copy of Fosfur’s Blessing to this Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
You basically put a Strag’s Claws onto a single creature.
Sure it combines with Claws but for the same cost the relic affects your whole
board. They’re competing with each other for deck space and I know which one
I’d pick, especially since we have a magi who can tutor for it.
Sinkhole – 3
Underneath Spell
Energy: 3
Attach Sinkhole to an opposing Magi. After that Magi’s
controller plays a Creature, discard Sinkhole from
play to remove up to five energy from that Magi.
Underneath Shadow Magi may play Sinkhole.
Five magi damage is a very nice chunk, and playing creatures
is something (almost) every single magi in the game needs to do to stay alive,
much less win the game. My concern with this card is that it’s terrible in
those situations where both players are playing off just their energize. In
that case, they can just play a creature that uses up all or most of their
energy and then Sinkhole will trigger and give you less than 3 energy worth of
value. You can’t have this card on a magi on their flip turn, unlike Corrupt,
and that’s a big difference too.
TLDR: Underneath
Magi
Gavik – 4
Motash Alt – 3
Strag Alt – 4
Trug, Engineer – 4
Creatures
Cave Plith – 3.5
Chinnor – 3
Crystal Brub – 3.5
Crystal Yajo – 3
Giant Gum-Gum – 2.5
Menao – 3.5
Mushroom Sareb – 2.5
Spiked Parmalag – 5
Relics
Crystal Ring – 2.5
Ombor Brooch – 2
Spore Charm – 3
Staff of Fungus – 3.5
Spells
Fosfur’s Blessing – 3
Sinkhole – 3
Thoughts
Underneath gets some more strong magi this set, as well as
the powerful Spiked Parmalag and some aggressively-minded creatures. I am
actually intrigued about the Underneath Aggro deck thanks to new Strag and the
potential draw power of Cave Plith + Gogor’s Spade. That basically draws you 2
cards for each creature you attack and defeat on your turn, which can be a
bunch.
Universal
Rayje Alt – 3
Universal Magi
Starting Energy: 16
Energize: 5
Starting: Rayje’s Shield, Rayje’s Belt
Rayje may play non-Universal Creatures, ignoring regional
penalties.
Effect – Intimidation: Opposing Powers and Spells remove two
less energy from your Creatures.
UNRELEASED PROMO
16/5 is clearly good. So is the fact that he can play any
non-Core creature for no penalty. Indimidation is also a strong effect,
essentially granting this version of Rayje a full card worth of value (Arderian
Guard-Wings is a full card). His starting cards are also great (you have to
factor in that he starts with Rayje’s Construct). His starting play can never
really be worse than get a 14-energy Rayje’s Construct out and use Lockdown on
something. My initial thought (and I’m sure many people have similar reactions)
was that he’s not great because he doesn’t gain any of the other Rayje
abilities, and that’s true. However, the way it’s worded, if this version of
Rayje is in your stack, all subsequent Rayjes in your magi stack will gain
Intimidation. Intimidation is probably better than Defense and maybe even
Charge, but I think Aid, Lore, and Wily all outclass it which means this guy
probably won’t see much play. If you find yourself losing to a bunch of burn
decks though, pop this version of Rayje in the first slot and proceed laugh
maniacally. Also, Intimidation is close enough in power level that the ability
to splash creatures without Staff of Keepers may cause him to go up in value.
Cedrit – 3.5
Universal Creature
Energy: 2
Power – Focus: (4) Discard Cedrit. Play a Creature, ignoring
all costs.
Only Universal Magi may play Cedrit.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is sweet. How you give it the extra 2 energy is
the whole puzzle, because obviously the ability does work. Universal has Heal,
which is a great way to use multiple Cedrit in a turn. If you’ve just got one,
you’re probably looking at a Rayje’s Shield and/or Ring of Secrets interaction.
As far as what creature to play, you go big. Rayje’s Construct is an easy
answer but you can play any non-Core fatty so this thing opens up some
interesting design space as well. Love it.
Omni Construct – 3
Universal Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Enhance: (2) Choose a Creature type. Add one energy
to Omni Construct for each Creature of
that type in play.
UNRELEASED PROMO
There aren’t that many specifically tribal decks in MND.
There are a few, but I’m not too sure they want to play 7-energy creatures that
just make themselves bigger. Maybe some of them do, but I’m a bit skeptical. If
it cost 5 this card would be pretty cool.
Inhibitor Cloak – 3
Universal Relic
Energy: 1
Effect – Hinder: Creatures may not use Powers or Effects
unless that Power or Effect is printed on that
Creature.
This card stops Mohani and Thrybe, all the Blessing spells
that attach to creatures, K’teeb, Taglat, T’kanzam, and especially Ergar and
Staff of Vines. That’s quite a decent selection of things. It would be a great
sideboard card if the game had any. Maybe too good. If your deck loses hard to
any of those strategies, it’s worth considering a tech slot for this but even
then I would only run it as a one-of in decks that gain a big benefit from
having or playing relics.
Resistance Orb – 2
Universal Relic
Energy: 2
Effect – Dissent: Creatures that do not share a Region with
their Magi lose two energy after they enter
play. This may not reduce a Creature’s energy below one.
Similar to Rayje’s Boots which doesn’t see any play. Costs 2
which is much worse. Affects Universal magi too which is marginal upside.
Generally worse than preventing them from playing the card in the first place,
especially since it can’t kill the creature. Again, if you happen to lose a lot
to triple Rayje decks that play all kinds of non-Universal creatures here’s a
card that helps. That’s way too specific to make a deck in 99% of cases though.
Scales of Justice – 2
Universal Relic
Energy: 3
Effect – Fair Game: As an opposing card would take control
of a card you own, you may return Scales of
Justice to your hand. If you do, that card does nothing
instead.
Wow, look, a card that costs 3 and does nothing! This only
gets a 2 because possession is so powerful.
Gamble – 2.5
Universal Spell
Energy: 2
Shuffle your deck. Put the top four cards from the top of
your deck on the bottom of your deck, then
reveal the top card of your deck. If that card is a
Creature, play it with three energy, ignoring all costs. If the card isn’t a
Creature, discard it.
Another card that mostly does nothing. Sure, if you happen
to hit a creature you’re gaining one energy on board. That’s good but not
exciting. If you miss you’ve just spent 2 for no benefit. Most competitive
decks play somewhere around 50% creatures, so you can expect to hit half the
time, maybe more if you play more creatures than is probably good for you (or
maybe if you’re Bograth or something). The problem is that you can’t improve
your odds or try to guarantee anything because you shuffle first. In a very
creature-heavy Bograth swarm deck I can see this card being okay. It’ll never
be good though.
Repossess – 2.5
Universal Spell
Energy: 3
Choose a Creature or Relic you own. Gain control of that
card.
This is a better version of Scales of Justice. Yes, Scales
helps prevent your magi from dying on the turn when your opponent steals your
guy, but spending 3 to do nothing makes you more likely to die. At least with
the spell version you know it’s worth the energy when you play this card. Good
tech card against Orothe and Core, medium tech card against River Abaquist
builds of Paradwyn. I’d only run it if I were guaranteed to face one of those
decks.
Traitor’s Reach – 3.5
Universal Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Creature and a Magi controlled by the same player.
If the chosen Creature does not share a
region with the chosen Magi, discard that Creature from play
and remove two energy from that Magi.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card is bananas powerful but requires either Hrada or
Twilight Mowat to turn it on.
Unity – 1
Universal Spell
Energy: 1
Discard a Creature you control from play. Until the end of
your turn, Creatures that share a type with
the discarded Creature cost you two less energy to play, to
a minimum of one.
Can’t think of a tribal deck where paying 3 and discarding
one of your creatures is worth this discount. At minimum you need to play 3
creatures of the same type before you see any benefit because we’re assuming
the creature you discard has actual energy on it. Plus the creature you discard
has to be the same type and if you’re playing a bunch of Furoks or what have
you, I assume you’d rather just have one in play and not bother with this mess.
TLDR: Universal
Magi
Rayje Alt – 3
Creatures
Cedrit – 3.5
Omni Construct – 3
Relics
Inhibitor Cloak – 3
Resistance Orb – 2
Scales of Justice – 2
Spells
Gamble – 2.5
Repossess – 2.5
Traitor’s Reach – 3.5
Unity – 1
Thoughts
The new Rayje is cute but probably not going to make it. They
tried to push tribal decks and maybe Omni Construct gets there but Unity is
quite bad. Cedrit is awesome. Like, really awesome. So is Traitor’s Reach for
the people who didn’t know about that card already. That’s about it.
Weave
Gia Alt – 2.5
Weave Magi
Starting Energy: 16
Energize: 5
Starting: Gift of the Weave, Grass Hyren
Effect – Lore: At the beginning of your turn, you may choose
a Weave Relic in your discard pile and add
it to your hand. If you do, discard a card form your hand.
UNRELEASED PROMO
Regular Gia is mostly better. The reasons to play her
alternate form are pretty slim. Weave relics that discard themselves include
Three-Leaf Clover and Everburning Wick. You can order the Wick first, deal 5 to
a creature and then get it back, which is interesting but not reliable because
you need to have no creatures in play to do it. Three-Leaf Clover lets you
immune a Spirit Drain every turn, which is good but not an active game plan.
You can use Weave Powder to tutor for all your relics over a million turns but
you have to discard a card every time you use Lore so I don’t even think that’s
good.
Ninx Alt – 10
Weave Magi
Starting Energy: 12
Energize: 5
Starting: Bulb Trulb, Weave Ergar
Power – ???: (0) If you control at least two Creatures,
discard each Creature you control from play. Add
energy to Ninx equal to his starting energy.
This card needs an errata. The way it’s worded right now,
??? doesn’t actually require you to discard creatures because there’s this
little card named Bog Stench. With that card active plus a Mirror Pendant, Ninx
can gain 24 energy in a single turn. It would be very easy to fix this problem.
Either require the creatures to be Weave (since Bog Stench gives you imaginary
Bograth ones) or change the wording to something like “Discard each Creature
you control from play. If you discarded at least two Creatures, add energy to
Ninx equal to his starting energy”. If our community ever uses Daybreak in a
tournament we need to either ban this card or agree on an errata. Not that
difficult, it’s just a thing. With these changes in place, I imagine Ninx would
be somewhere like a 3.5 for power because you can use the Radiant Spring + Weed
Hyren combo to gain 9, have Tweaves in your deck, or just spend 2 cards on tiny
Weave critters.
Zaya Alt – 5
Weave Magi
Starting Energy: 14
Energize: 6
Starting: Drowl, Frusk, Countless Blades
Power – Entwine: Discard up to five cards from your hand.
Add energy to Zaya equal to twice the
number of cards you discarded. You may not use Entwine on
your next turn.
UNRELEASED PROMO
This card seems quite strong. Weave has access to very good
draw power including her starting Drowl. Gaining tons of energy for relatively
little effort is always one of the best things you can do in the game, and
Entwine doesn’t require much work at all. Not using it every turn isn’t really
an issue since you won’t have enough cards for that anyway. Even in a
conservative example where Zaya uses Entwine as often as possible and only
discards 2 cards each time, she still energizing for an average of 8 energy.
The reality is that she’ll be able to do more than that with lots of card draw.
Additionally, Weave has cards that want to be in the discard pile, and even a
form of limited recursion with Junjertrug Horn. The best part is that Zaya
doesn’t ask much of you other than that you have lots of cards, and all
competitive decks want that anyway.
Bulb Trulb – 2.5
Weave Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – Recycle: After Bulb Trulb comes into play, choose
up to two cards in your discard pile and
shuffle them into your deck.
Effect – Weave: Whenever Bulb Trulb attacks or is attacked,
before energy is removed, you may more
one energy between Bulb Trulb and any one of your other
Weave Creatures in play.
This might be useful in weird combo decks that use things
like Grubble. However, Forgotten Dreams is probably just better in those. This
can shuffle spells back into your Tomes of the Great Library deck, but the cost
to do that is astronomically high at 4 energy.
Grass Plith – 3
Weave Creature
Energy: 1
Effect – Wisdom: Once per turn, after a Creature you control
uses the Effect “Weave”, draw a card.
Seems okay. You can trigger it offensively and defensively.
If you can pull off a full round of that you’ll be thrilled but it’s not super
likely.
Mearith – 4
Weave Creature
Energy: 3
Effect – Regrowth: When you play Mearith, you may choose a
Weave Creature in your discard pile and
add it to your hand.
Only Weave Magi may play Mearith.
UNRELEASED PROMO
While there aren’t a ton of Weave creatures that discard
themselves for fun and profit, this can get you back an Aritex or a Weggit and
that seems fun. Even at face value it’s a 3-energy creature that draws a card
most of the time. I think this card is pretty solid.
Quikket – 2.5
Weave Creature
Energy: 2
Effect – Hop: Once per turn, as Quikket is attacked, reduce
the energy removed by the attacking
Creature by that Creature’s starting energy.
It’s small enough to remove and not punishing enough to be
worth setting up a Taunt situation onto this creature.
Snag Hyren – 2.5
Weave Creature
Energy: 7
Power – Stumble: (3) Until the beginning of your next turn,
opposing Creatures remove two less energy
in attacks.
UNRELEASED PROMO
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.
Uwaru – 3.5
Weave Creature
Energy: 4
Power – Deconstruct: (3) Choose an opposing Relic. Add
energy to Uwaru equal to that Relic’s cost.
Discard the Relic from play.
Most of the time this card is an expensive way to deal with
relics. It’s also a creature which you can loop with your Mearith and it leaves
a one-energy body behind for things such as Aritex. Playing one, maybe even two
in a deck can allow you to handle relics much better, especially if you have
stuff like Gia’s Tome, Nyrex, or the aforementioned Mearith to get more uses
out of the few copies you do run if you need to do that. I don’t really want to
run it without this support, since at that point I could just play Relic Stalker,
but the reusability gives it some interesting options.
Weave Ergar – 3
Weave Creature
Energy: 4
Effect – ???: Once per turn, after another Creature uses the
Effect “Weave”, choose an opposing
Creature and discard one energy from it.
You can’t guarantee the ability to Weave the turn you play
it without a Boots effect, and even though it’s likely you can’t guarantee a
Weave on the opponent’s turn either. What that means is that you can’t
effectively build around this card. However, if your Weave Ergar sticks in play
over even two turns, you can get a lot of value from ??? triggers.
Iyori’s Ring – 3.5
Weave Relic
Energy: 0
Effect – Purity: At the end of your turn, if all Spells in
your discard pile are Weave, discard all of your
non-Weave cards from play and choose one of your Creatures.
Until the beginning of your next turn, that Creature gains “Effect – Impede:
Your other Weave Creatures may not be attacked. Powers, Spells, and Effects may
not prevent this Creature from being attacked.”
Starting: Iyori
UNRELEASED PROMO
A nice little relic in Taunt decks.
Weave Armor – 3
Weave Relic
Energy: 2
Effect – ???: As a Creature with five or more energy attacks
a Creature you control, add one energy to
your Magi.
This card costs too much. You need the third big creature to
attack you before you get paid off. Surviving that long can be a chore, even in
very defensive Weave builds. That said, Taunt decks will probably be able to
find a home for this card because it does help punish the opponent for
attacking.
Embrace the Weave – 3.5
Weave Spell
Energy: 1
Choose a Weave card in your discard pile. Place that card on
top of your deck.
This card is really cool. The thing that immediately comes
to mind is to combine it with expensive Weave spells and Maelstrom Flask. Keru
can put the spells in the discard pile and in a Kesia list this card means you
can Weave Winds someone almost every turn if you want to. You can also get back
creatures and relics if there’s a specific reason to do that. Lots of
possibilities for this cheap little enabler.
Fight or Flight – 3
Weave Spell
Energy: 3
Choose an opposing Creature and attach Fight or Flight to
it. If the Creature does not attack on its
controller’s turn and is still in play at the end of that
player’s turn, return it to its owner’s hand and draw a card. Powers, Spells,
and Effects may not prevent this Creature from attacking.
Kind of cute as a way to get around a Pylofuf that’s not
attacking you. In highly defensive builds where attacking you is a nightmare
for the opponent this basically forces them to attack because letting you get
the value out of it is very bad for them. Still, they get the choice and there
are enough aggressive decks out there that I don’t know how good this is.
Glow Grass – 3.5
Weave Spell
Energy: 2
Choose a Creature you control and attach Glow Grass to it.
While Glow Grass is attached, as this
Creature is being attacked, add one energy to it and draw a
card.
More Taunt payoffs. If your creature survives the attack to
get a second Glow Grass trigger (which the spell helps it do a little) you’ll
be quite happy.
Reinforce – 3
Weave Spell
Energy: 3
Choose a Weave Creature and attach Reinforce to it. As this
Creature is attacked, discard Reinforce from
play and add energy to the Creature equal to its starting
energy.
Yet more Taunt payoffs. This one is interesting in that it
cares how big the creature is that you put it on. The bigger the better. If the
creature has less than four starting energy, you’re not too happy to put this
card on it, which does limit the cards you put this on but not an incredible
amount.
Surge – 5
Weave Spell
Energy: X+2
Play a Weave Creature from your hand, ignoring all costs. X
is the Creature’s energy cost. If there are
twenty or more cards in your discard pile, this spell costs
two less energy to play.
This card is just Warrior’s Boots. Warrior’s Boots is a 5.
Sure, some of the time you’ll have to pay 2 extra energy but Weave can use Keru
as its setup magi, in which case you’re very likely to get a large discard pile
pretty quickly. Additionally, this card is pretty dope with the Zaya Alt magi
(who can dump cards into the discard pile) and also with Embrace the Weave
which can buy this back.
Vieva’s Gift – 3.5
Weave Spell
Energy: 3
Return a Creature you control to its owner’s hand and choose
an opposing Creature and a Creature you
control. Move half of the opposing Creature’s energy,
rounded down, to your Creature.
UNRELEASED PROMO
The payoff isn’t as strong as a lot of other Gift spells,
but one of the things that Weave can lose to is giant creatures that don’t care
about all the little defensive tricks you have going on. This card helps fight
giant dudes quite well. Also, there are a lot of Weave creatures you don’t
exactly mind bouncing to your hand. There’s Tweave, Pagajack, anything with a
“when played” ability like Drowl, even an Uwaru who has already blown up a
relic.
TLDR: Weave
Magi
Gia Alt – 2.5
Ninx Alt – See above
Zaya Alt – 5
Creatures
Bulb Trulb – 2.5
Grass Plith – 3
Mearith – 4
Quikket – 2.5
Snag Hyren – 2.5
Uwaru – 3.5
Weave Ergar – 3
Relics
Iyori’s Ring – 3.5
Weave Armor – 3
Spells
Embrace the Weave – 3.5
Fight or Flight – 3
Glow Grass – 3.5
Reinforce – 3
Surge – 5
Vieva’s Gift – 3.5
Thoughts
Aside from the need for an errata on Ninx Alt, I’d say Weave
did very well in the new set. Zaya Alt and Surge both seem insane and Embrace
the Weave has vast untapped potential. Taunt decks also get a lot more support
and while I’ve never really been interested in them, I hope some players out
there who are enjoy playing with their new toys.
