MND Regional Reviews: d'Resh

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

Magi-Nation Card Review

d’Resh

by Kroodhaxthekrood

Rating Scale

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

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

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

2.5: A little better than “meh”.

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

    support or are at least decent or fun options.

3.5: Very strong with the required support.

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

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

Now, on with the show:

Magi

Ahron – 3.5

Ahron is a weird magi. d’Resh isn’t a defensive region, so Dust Cloud feels a bit out of place. Then again, d’Resh just has a lot of weird stuff going on. He’s got very nice starting cards which is a bit of a theme in d’Resh as a whole and his energy numbers are at the low end of playable but still fine. What Ahron does is give your deck game against big, stompy decks that are trying to attack you in the face and kill you (as long as Ahron can keep some energy on him). He’s less of a build-around and more of a metagame choice. If your play group likes to play giant guys and attack with them, consider Ahron.

Dakat – 3

Good energy numbers is a start. Déjà Vu is actually a nice power although you won’t use it every turn. It allows you to make plays like using a Desiccate to kill the opponent’s biggest creature then turning your worst card in hand into a Desiccate for their second-biggest creature that only costs 2. He also gets to double Crushing Sands which can decimate the opponent’s board if done properly. The problem with this guy is that his starting cards have no synergy with either each other or with Déjà Vu. In normal regions that wouldn’t matter quite so much, but d’Resh keys off of starting cards in a big way.

Dey – 3.5

Dey is a very interesting deck-building challenge. His starting cards want him to play Olum tribal which is actually a pretty nice swarm strategy. His effect wants you not to have that many creatures in play, which is anti-synergy with Olum tribal swarm. Balance can be a powerful effect in the right circumstances though, so building your deck in such a way that he can choose which path to take becomes an interesting game.

D’Jarvish – 3

While he’s a burrow magi in Underneath, in d’Resh D’Jarvish is an Illusion magi. He starts with Sikra, one of the better Illusion creatures, Escape helps against Shockwave effects which are some of the more efficient ways to answer Illusion creatures, and Strengthen helps give your Illusions more energy. This is all fine but none of it is outright powerful. Additionally, despite being a dual-region magi, there is very little reason to mix his two regions’ cards which means his dual-region status is basically not a benefit. He’s better in Underneath simply because Escape is much more annoying in concert with Burrow than it is with Illusions.

Drajan – 5

This guy is a jerk. Fight is obviously annoying. It shuts off powers that cost the creature’s starting energy amount (like Ormagon) and makes others cost much more (like Sea Barl’s Lore which would kill the Barl). Still, not every deck has lots of powers on their creatures. But the ones that don’t get hosed by “Fair” (like most decks do). Think about how many creatures have effects that trigger during attacks. Cawh, all of Kybar’s Teeth, Furok, Chaos Plith, Jungle Stalkers’ Hunt triggers… It’s an endless list. Boom. None of them work. Add to that very good energy numbers at 15/5 and very good starting cards and you see why almost every d’Resh deck uses Drajan in the third spot: He’s generically powerful in a region with a lot of themes and he has access to your discard pile via Sand Cape.

d’Rasha – 3

d’Rasha is a fun alternative setup magi. Foretelling is a good power since it lets you control your draw step in a big way. 12/5 is just slightly below playable in competitive, especially since she plays like a 12/4 magi because you want to use her power every turn. This is the biggest factor keeping her out of competitive decks. She does cool things though. For example, she can set up turn one Obsis if you go first, allowing you to (maybe) Sandaclysm all their stuff on turn two before playing other creatures and drawing you cards from Szhar’s Legacy. This puts Szhar into your discard pile to Recur when your next magi flips, if you so desire. The other thing d’Rasha does is set up Daydreams (which is basically unplayable on lackey but really cool IRL).

Gherish – 4

For me, Gherish is the most difficult d’Resh magi to rate. His basic metrics are off the charts good, especially his starting cards which are three of the best cards in the region. Habob + Drift is a combo that lets Gherish energize for 7 by taking energy away from his board. 14/7 is the best, but the -2 to board means you have to work really hard to play as an effective 14/7 because obviously they’ll kill your Habob. Darbok is a nice way to try to do this, by bouncing and re-playing creatures. Illusions can sort-of help. Basically, you have to work for it. Abrade is nice incidental damage that can stack up quickly against decks like Paradwyn that use a lot of powers. The opponent has to play into it, but it’s so powerful against the right decks that it can be very difficult to manage. Also, starting Forgotten Tales is great and can help magi like Nahara get going early. Overall, I would say Gherish is a 4 in d’Resh since his starting cards are so strong. Tales can get back his Habob for Drift shenanigans or do something else that’s cool. Starting Izmer combined with his own Abrade effect can be really mean. You can build around Drift to try to maximize it but I don’t think Gherish requires it of you.

Harresh – 4

Like Drajan, Harresh goes in the vast majority of d’Resh decks, this time in the first slot. Again we see good energy numbers at 15/5 and great starting cards. Bottled City is an especially good play on turn one (before you Time Shuffle!) because you can Capture the opponent and look through at least some of their deck to gain some information about what cards you’re looking for. Harresh doesn’t do anything broken; her power makes her effectively Evu with card selection (energize: 4 since you’re using Time Shuffle every turn, draws 4 but puts 1 away is like drawing 3 but a bit better). Her starting cards just give your deck a consistently powerful opening and starts to craft your hand for the rest of the game. Not broken, but very strong.

Hasseth – 3.5

Here’s a powerhouse Illusion magi. Master Illusionist draws cards. This is good. Banish turns these cards into removal. This is also strong. Because of how resource-intensive Banish is, you don’t want to put Hasseth in the starting spot. He also doesn’t start with any Illusions and has a Sand Cape. 12/5 is low but offset slightly by your deck type giving you natural energy advantages on board. Olum is a wasted starting card but whatever.

Korremar, Avatar – 3.5

Here’s your other powerhouse Illusion magi. He’s heavily anti-Core (flavor reasons), but this doesn’t really matter much a lot of the time. What matters is he’s big, he gets Avatar’s Staff to protect himself from the natural weakness of Illusion decks, and Wisdom is very aggressive.

Mohani – 3.5

Imbue Spell is really cool. With access to a bunch of cards, Mohani can leverage the energy on Illusions or other interesting creatures to play a bunch more removal spells than a normal magi would be able to. For instance, she always starts with Habob + Heat of Day. Heat of Day costs 2, Habob has energize: 2. This is a natural combo but it’s the floor for Mohani rather than the ceiling. The challenge with Mohani is to find creatures that want to discard themselves, Illusions which don’t care as much about spending the energy, or what have you and combine them with removal spells, most of which cost 4-5 energy. Szhar is nice, for example, because you can Imbue a Desiccate onto it (costs the same) but now you’re drawing cards when you Desiccate because of Legacy.

Nahara – 3.5

This magi is crazy. Nahara starts Forgotten Tales, which is one of the best cards in the region and the best card for Nahara specifically. Nahara wants to fill the discard pile in order to abuse it with Remembrance. You’ll often look to creatures from outside of d’Resh for this power. The best one I’ve found is Xyx’s Shock. d’Resh naturally has a hard time killing magi, and access to this power allows Nahara to find the finishing blows better than almost any other magi in the region. Nahara has two weaknesses: First, sometimes the discard pile shuffles back into your deck making Remembrance useless. Second, Nahara’s 12/6 energy numbers combined with the aggressive play pattern mean that after you’ve killed one magi you’ll probably just get revenge killed very easily. But that’s often fine because you get to bring out Drajan last, so….

Nashiq – 3

Here’s another magi who wants to fill up the discard pile. If you can make Salvage work every turn, it’s insane, giving you an effective 16/7 magi. The problem is you can’t do that. It’s just not possible. For one thing, Salvage requires a stocked discard pile and controlling what goes in there is difficult, as Forgotten Tales and Maelstrom Flask are both random. For another, you need 3-of copies of most of your cards. This isn’t necessarily bad. Most decks want this, but it makes one-of tech cards much worse because you can’t discount them. Also, you need to be playing cards that are expensive enough so the discount actually matters, and when you can’t Salvage then you’ve got a 4-energize magi. Finally, Nashiq doesn’t help you fill the discard pile at all with her starting cards, and, like Nahara, basically has to go second. Nahara gets Tales while Nashiq doesn’t. I haven’t really tried to break Salvage and I’ve never seen it done, but this is a magi who could potentially go up in rating if someone figure her out. Right now, I think she’s a fun idea but not quite good enough for the competitive scene.

Nymat – 3

Nymat is fine. Like Ahron, his effect helps out against decks that play giant creatures. Unlike Ahron, Sandstorm isn’t really going to be terribly impactful. It’s free to use though.

Risha – 4

Risha is the biggest magi you can play in d’Resh, as long as you activate Insight every turn (16/6 is better than Korremar, Avatar’s 15/6). Even if you don’t have an Oracle in hand, you get to find one with her starting draw, so you’ll have at least one to Insight with. Oracles are pretty good cards and have synergy with each other. Glorious Prophecy is a dream that will never come true but that’s okay because Risha is just fine without it. You don’t have to put all six in your deck if you don’t want to. She’ll still be good as long as you’ve got 3 Bone Grags.

Salara – 3

Here’s the fourth and final Illusion magi. Salara will likely boost your creatures more than D’Jarvish when your opponent is kind enough to let Spellcraft trigger, but if they don’t play into it, she’s pretty vanilla. Still, punishing your opponent for playing spells isn’t horrible and four energy is a ton.

Ythra – 3.5

You need to play a lot of spells to make Ythra good. When you do though, she becomes probably the most powerful magi in the region. In super spell-heavy decks, some people use Clarity as a setup mechanic. I don’t like this very much. It’s just not as consistent as Harresh or what other decks can do, and Ythra needs a grip full of cards to become powerful. Her starting cards alone don’t give her that. Clarity is great at continuing to draw cards after you already have a bunch, keeping the train rolling. Prodigy is energy advantage (often very large) stapled to a way to get around burrow in a burn deck. d’Resh is very good at making burn decks. She also has good energy numbers and a built-in way to gain energy advantage, meaning her 14/5 goes farther than it looks. Last, starting Sunburn is just rude.

 

Magi: TLDR

5

Drajan

4

Gherish

Harresh

Risha

3.5

Ahron

Dey

Hasseth

Korremar, Avatar

Mohani

Nahara

Ythra

3

Dakat

D’Jarvish

d’Rasha

Nashiq

Nymat

Salara

2.5

N/A

2

N/A

1

N/A

Creatures

Ababila – 2.5

Ababila has a really cute name. It’s Ali Baba spelled backwards, which is why he’s a Thief and why Korremar wants 40 of them. Get it? Also, his effects are Stop! Thief. Unfortunately, that’s the best part about this critter. He’s small enough where Stop! often doesn’t matter but expensive enough to take up most of your energize step. Also, Crushings.

Beeb – 3

Two energy to deal five is a great deal. It’s very conditional though.

Bone Grag – 4

This card is close to a 5 for the amount of energy it can generate, but one of them by itself doesn’t get you there. If you have multiple copies, it’s insane.

Bulabantu – 4

Costs 5, generates 8 energy worth of value, removes small creatures. Efficient.

Cactus Dryte – 3

This has two conditionally strong effects with different targets, which can be enough to include it as a tech choice, especially if you’re using Korremar, Avatar who gets to do so for as close to free as you can get. It’s still a 4-energy Crushing target that might not have an effect on the game.

Cactus Hyren – 3

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.

Chasm Jile – 2.5

This is a Weave card. In d’Resh there’s really no way to set up Dreamform.

Circling Darbok – 3.5

Passing Shadow is cool as some extra card draw in a burn deck. I say a burn deck because then you can kill the creature during PRS 2, after you’ve played Circling Darbok. You don’t want too many of these though. Probably two at the max.

Craw – 3.5

This is my favorite card in all of Traitor’s Reach. Discard pile d’Resh shenanigans get so much more fun if you have access to at least one of this card in your deck alongside Sand Cape. While expensive, Sift for Sand Cape lets you continue to recur Craw, who in turn lets you have constant access to the many strong d’Resh relics (especially those that discard themselves like Bottled City or Aubra’s Canteen.

Darbok – 4

Divebomb can be built around to make it better, but you don’t need to do that. You can just put this in most decks with creatures and make Divebomb good. Four damage is a good chunk.

Drahkar – 3

I used to like this card a lot. I find that, at six energy to play, it’s too expensive even when you’re gaining five energy on board and potentially removing 3 from your opponent with Dominate. I think one copy is a fine inclusion but I’m never thrilled about it. 

Habob – 4

Look, they always kill this card but it’s nice to dream isn’t it? The errata on Serve actually makes it better, which is cool.

Izmer – 5

It’s got a build-around level effect in Sandomancy while not requiring you to build around it. You’ll probably put some d’Resh relics into your deck anyway because there are a lot of good ones, but that’s not even the point. Also, any deck with Izmer and Sunburn automatically becomes a burn deck.

Lesser Darbok – 2.5

It’s a protection effect that’s trivially easy to remove.

Mirago – 3.5

Many d’Resh decks don’t want this card, and that’s cool. The ones that do care a lot about their discard pile, or play Aubra’s Canteen, or both. This card’s floor is higher in Bograth but its ceiling is higher in d’Resh because it helps enable a bunch of nonsense while giving your board more energy.

Mowat – 3

Mowat is a bit like Cactus Hyren. They’re both a bit too big and can gain a big advantage if they ever get to attack.

Nemsa – 4

Free 3-energy creatures? Yes, please. One reason a magi’s starting cards matter so much in d’Resh. Probably the best reason too.

Obsis – 1

You’re realistically never going to be able to play this card, and actually never in a spot where Sandaclysm will do any good.

Olum – 3.5

Needs lots of Olums in play. Is good with lots of Olums in play.

Olum Digger – 4

The Digger is one of the few ways d’Resh has to actually kill magi so it goes up significantly in value in the region.

Olum Fiend – 2

Situational in the extreme. This card does actually combo with Sareb but then you have to play Sareb in your deck.

Olum Mystic – 3.5

Good in Olum tribal because you can break the synergy. Plague triggers on each player’s turn, and if all you have are Olums in play, they have to ping their own creature. Really annoying in multiplayer.

Quanjuel – 1

There just aren’t any Recurring creatures that are anywhere close to good enough considering how expensive this card is.

Sand Hyren – 3.5

Paying 7 to then get a discount on future cards isn’t exactly a steal, but it does net you an advantage on a magi flip. Dark Side also lets you splash Core cards, which opens up a bunch of possibilities. The most common reason to play this card is because Drajan starts with it and you’re playing him right?

Sand Sark – 2.5

I suppose. Cool looking creature though.

Sandsifter – 3.5

So, let’s get this out of the way right now. The nameless effect does not prevent energy loss due to burn or combat. If they had just said “specifically” discarded from play like all the other cards do, it wouldn’t have been so confusing. Also, yes Sandsifter can live through Cataclysm. Now that’s out of the way, Unearth is awesome value, Inevitable Truth can deal magi damage (in d’Resh), and this guy dominates the board. The only problem with it is how you’re going to actually get it into play. d’Resh magi are not known for the amount of energy they can gain, so you’ll basically have to cheat which is why this rates a 3.5. Paying full price for this guy feels awful even though it can protect itself from some things.

Sandsinger – 2

This is by far the worst Oracle card. Searching out cards is powerful but the cost on this card is way too high.

Sandstone Hyren – 3

If you can cheat this in you might as well cheat in a Sandsifter because it’s better.

Sandstorm Orshaa – 3

In Illusion decks, having access to this card lets you randomly Stinging Sands people who play spells that stay in play. There aren’t a lot of them, but that’s why you don’t run many copies of this card.

Sandstorm Xyx – 3.5

Metagame dependent choice, as not every deck uses a lot of powers and has giant creatures you want to Dissipate. Combined with Gherish, it can be really annoying to deal with.

Sareb – 5

Best creature in the game.

Shimmering Orshaa – 3.5

This is a way d’Resh has to cheat out its giant Sandsifters and can be a great way to generate value out of an Illusion that has already done stuff and is now at low energy (looking at you Xala).

Sikra – 4

Sikra is just a solid card. Unlike the majority of Illusions, you can still double-play from a single energize some of the time, and they have to either spent a Shockwave effect at an energy disadvantage or actually attack this card (also a disadvantage). Or ignore it like people do to Illusions, but shhh.

Skullek – 3.5

Doesn’t have to go in Illusion decks, but Persistence is nice support for the archetype. Inspire lets your decks full of little creatures attack for more damage, including against magi, but it’s difficult to get out before the attack step without spending Boots on this, so it’s mostly useful for Illusion decks despite what I said before. Unlike D’Jarvish, this card does combine with Shimmering Orshaa.

Spined Hyren – 3

It’s fine but some decks don’t play lots of spells and you can’t be sure what you’ll face.

Swirling Orshaa – 3.5

Morph is interesting. For instance, this card does not die to Ormagon and can’t be burned by Flame Rudwot (I don’t think). This can also count as copies 4-6 of Grubble if you already have at least one normal Grubble in play. Also, it costs 3 to play.

Szhar – 3

Slow card draw is still card draw. However, this particular card draw is one energy too expensive if we’re going by the rate of two energy per card. I get that you’re paying five for a five-energy body, and that’s why the card is playable. The difference between this card and a card like Drowl, which gives you the cards right away, is enormous though and I just want to make sure people know that.

Thrybe – 3.5

Useful in Mohani decks for the magi that are not Mohani.

Twilight Mowat – 3.5

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.

Uban – 4

Dream Slice turns any card in your hand into three damage to a creature for a low, low cost. Burn decks want this critter. Discard pile decks want this critter. Drajan starts with it so, basically every d’Resh deck wants this critter.

Venger – 3

I always want Counter-Strike to work differently than it does. The only reason to put this card in your deck is if you’re using Ythra in your lineup because she starts with it. Otherwise there are better options.

Warrior Olum – 3

These kind of abilities that give your opponent the choice are pretty meh. Despite that, Challenge gives you an energy advantage no matter which mode they pick. Also goes into Olum tribal, but it’s the worst of the four Olum creatures because it’s more expensive.

Wind Hyren – 3

When has this ever lived until your energize step?

Xala – 5

As much as Illusions open you up to assassination, Xala is so worth it. Piercing Scream is super annoying for opponents to deal with. It’s good against Forest Hyren Naroom, it’s good against Ormagon, it’s great against Interchange decks, stopping Giant Parathin in its tracks. These are some of the strongest cards in the game which means Xala should be in your d’Resh deck. Period. You can even splash this card in other regions because of how powerful Piercing Scream is. Because it’s an Illusion, the splash still gives you 3 more energy on board than you paid for.

Creatures: TLDR

5

Izmer

Xala

4

Bone Grag

Bulabantu

Darbok

Habob

Nemsa

Olum Digger

Sikra

Uban

3.5

Circling Darbok

Craw

Mirago

Olum

Olum Mystic

Sand Hyren

Sandsifter

Sandstorm Xyx

Shimmering Orshaa

Skullek

Swirling Orshaa

Thrybe

Twilight Mowat

3

Beeb

Cactus Dryte

Cactus Hyren

Drahkar

Mowat

Sandstone Hyren

Sandstorm Orshaa

Spined Hyren

Szhar

Venger

Warrior Olum

Wind Hyren

2.5

Ababila

Chasm Jile

Lesser Darbok

Sand Sark

2

Olum Fiend

Sandsinger

1

Obsis

Quanjuel

Sareb

Relics

Amulet of Sand – 3.5

Native Wisdom is not optional. Remember this when sequencing your plays. As long as you don’t play this out and trigger Native Wisdom that turn this relic pays for itself, so despite how expensive it is, it’s well worth it in your burn deck. Crushing Sands + Amulet of Sand is the combo, dealing 4 to one thing and 2 to all their other creatures. More with Sunburn.

Aubra’s Canteen – 3.5

Building around this card is really fun. With Mirago, Uban, Channeler’s Gloves, and a myriad of other ways to discard cards for good effect (even just playing Mohani), d’Resh decks get to pay 1 to draw 5! You have to work for it, but when you do, the draw power is bonkers.

Aubra’s Hourglass – 2

This is probably the better of the two, because it helps mitigate surprise kills from Warrior’s Boots or the like. It’s still an expensive do-nothing a lot of the time and you can’t afford that. If it didn’t affect you, I could see playing this.

Aubra’s Timepiece – 1

Like the Hourglass, except pointless.

Avatar’s Staff – 3.5

Very necessary in Illusion decks due to how vulnerable your magi are at all times. Having Relic Mirror to keep this card alive is probably even worth it in those decks.

Bottled City – 4

This card is great. When you factor in the cost of the relic and the regional penalty, Release still gives you a one energy discount on their creature, but you can even spread it out over another turn so it always feels like more. Capture is the real value on this card though. You get information on their deck, and you can sometimes just steal a key creature and park it on your relic where they have trouble getting it back.

Dreamcatcher – 4

Magam, Flamesmith is a good magi right?

Dune Compass – 3.5

Good in the Oracles deck. Even if they kill it, it’s still one energy for a card which is awesome.

Lens of Truth – 3.5

Future Sight gives you a fun deck building challenge and also fits nicely in the Oracles deck because you have multiple copies of Sandsifter to hit, giving every card in d’Resh except Drahkar and Sandswirl a reduced cost. This card is also why d’Rasha can be fun. She can manipulate the top of your deck to make Future Sight more consistent. This card also helps you fill your discard pile, despite not being terribly efficient at doing so.

Sand Cape – 4

Yes, Memory has a condition attached. You can’t just automatically recur stuff. You have to have fewer cards in hand than they do. There are a ton of cards which let you discard cards, and aside from Canteen (which in itself requires you to keep your hand size low) d’Resh doesn’t have insane draw power. You can also just play cards. That all means that you basically always have Memory active when you want to.

Sand Strands – 2.5

Most of your big creatures are Illusions already and the ones that aren’t should stay that way. It’s only a 2.5 because it can add a chunk of energy to your magi, but you just don’t want to be doing this.

Sun Glasses – 4

Have I mentioned d’Resh decks have a hard time killing magi? This card helps your board of small dorky stuff hit very hard.

Ythra’s Mantle – 3

You’d need to activate Prepare twice before you’d be okay with this card and three times before you were happy. This means it’s mostly too slow, but it’s definitely playable.

Relics: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Bottled City

Dreamcatcher

Sand Cape

Sun Glasses

3.5

Amulet of Sand

Aubra’s Canteen

Avatar’s Staff

Dune Compass

Lens of Truth

3

Ythra’s Mantle

2.5

Sand Strands

2

Aubra’s Hourglass

1

Aubra’s Timepiece

Spells

Aubra’s Wisdom – 3

Funny include in Aubra’s Canteen decks that accidentally drew too many cards but mostly too awkward to use seriously.

Chill of Night – 4

Competitive decks draw lots of cards. Even normal decks draw two cards per turn. This can discard a lot of things. Not everything, but for one energy less than Shockwave, we’ll take some corner cases. It’s worth noting that d’Resh doesn’t often need this card. A) It has Desiccate which gets around a lot of the things which normally prevent specific discard. B) You can overcome Burrow naturally with Effect damage and Ythra. Where you want effects like this is against Arderial because of Arderian Guard-Wings or Tranquility.

Crushing Sands – 3.5

At first glance the one energy to the board doesn’t seem amazing but when you stack Amulet of Sand and Sunburn on top of this card it does serious work.

Crystal Vision – 5

The drawback of your opponent having perfect information is real. The drawback of not being able to splash cards or play too many Universal cards without discard outlets is also real, but less of a problem because you can combat it in deck building. The benefit is crazy. Making all your d’Resh cards cost one less without reducing the cost of the Universal relics you want to get out of your hand helps you gain a massive energy advantage over your opponent over the course of a few turns and very few decks pack cards like Spell Pulse to deal with this. Incidentally, Crystal Vision is one reason why d’Resh gets relics that are generally more expensive than other regions’ or at least why it doesn’t hurt as bad.

Daydreams – 3.5

Unplayable on lackey because the interface isn’t set up to handle it. Really cool card with d’Rasha and to a lesser extent with Harresh.

Deceptive Dreams – 3.5

You need to be able to kill the (smaller) creature that comes down, but if you’re a burn deck, have a board presence, or even just have a Dreamcatcher, you can do that. In those situations, this card can deal with giant creatures, making your opponent have to spend the energy to re-play them and can snipe key utility creatures before they’re ready. It also lets you see their whole hand which is really valuable.

Desiccate – 5

This card is just Shockwave that costs 1 more (to your board) but gets around the things Shockwave can’t kill (Greater Gargagnor, Cawh, Colossus, Sandsifter, etc.).

Forgotten Dreams – 3.5

You typically don’t see this much in d’Resh but rather as a card in combo decks (Naroom, Orothe, or Bograth usually) with a lot of ability to search creatures out of the deck.

Forgotten Songs – 3

This card is fine, but doesn’t stop combat or spell damage and Sandsifter and Sandstone Hyren already protect themselves. Other regions can splash this though.

Forgotten Tales – 5

This card fills your discard pile for decks that care about such things, but it also allows you to use your discard pile as a resource in an additional way. Any creature or relic you really need out of there, go grab it. And yes, yes you can grab Warrior’s Boots.

Heat of Day – 3

It’s hard to use and a bit low-impact given options like Amulet + Crushing, but it is spell damage, it’s cheap to Imbue, and it triggers Sunburn.

Horizon’s Mirage – 3

This is a way to cheat out Sandsifters but it’s slow as heck and your opponent sees it coming a mile away.

Lightning Sand – 2.5

It helps protect against attacks a bit. In d’Resh, you have Ahron and Sunburn to discourage attacks as well (and Sareb obviously), so there’s maybe something there in multiplayer. Otherwise it’s just too expensive.

Mirage – 3

With four creatures in play we’re doing stuff but that stuff isn’t very powerful.

Oasis – 3.5

This can work well in Illusion decks to protect your magi. Additionally, Izmer and other effect-based damage gets around this effect.

Redream – 3

Playing one-of is pretty decent because you have a lot of synergy with starting cards in the region. Dey is probably the best use case because it draws three Olums.

Sandshape – 3

This is the last way to cheat out a Sandsifter. Finally, a use for those Sand Strands (the only d’Resh relic that costs zero energy). You still have to pay half the cost though, so your Sandsifter will cost you 5 + 1 for the spell is 6 + 1 for the relic because you’re probably not playing Sand Strands is 7 energy. Saves you 3 whereas Horizon’s Mirage saves you 7 and Shimmering Orshaa is cool and more generally useful. On balance, Sandshape is the fastest way to do it.

Sandswirl – 5

In d’Resh it’s better than in Arderial which usually doesn’t have problems attacking for lots of energy or finishing off magi in general. d’Resh gets to make use of both modes, the Rayje’s Belt-like effect and the extra damage. d’Resh also gets to Sandswirl its own Illusion to punch face.

Sandtrap – 2.5

Too slow.

Sunburn – 5

Have you read this card? Take a minute. Okay, the only thing I want to mention is that Sunburn doesn’t actually deal the damage itself, it increases damage dealt from other sources. This only matters occasionally, but it does matter.

Unmake – 4

Unless your opponent has multiples of a creature out or is playing a tribal theme, Unmake will never give you an energy advantage. That said, it discards stuff directly. Mostly, you play it because Harresh starts with one and when it’s bad she can just Time Shuffle it away.

Spells: TLDR

5

Crystal Vision

Desiccate

Forgotten Tales

Sandswirl

Sunburn

4

Chill of Night

Unmake

3.5

Crushing Sands

Daydreams

Deceptive Dreams

Forgotten Dreams

Oasis

3

Aubra’s Wisdom

Forgotten Songs

Heat of Day

Horizon’s Mirage

Mirage

Redream

Sandshape

2.5

Lightning Sand

Sandtrap

2

N/A

1

N/A

Find all the regional reviews on the Magi-Nation Duel hub page. 

MND Regional Reviews: Paradwyn

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

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

Magi-Nation Card Review

Paradwyn

by Krodhaxthekrood

Rating Scale

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

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

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

2.5: A little better than “meh”.

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

    support or are at least decent or fun options.

3.5: Very strong with the required support.

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

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

Now, on with the show:

Magi

Arawan – 5

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

Archid – 3

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

Ardonia – 3.5

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

Bazha – 2.5

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

Boria – 3

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

Culla – 3.5

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

Eryss – 5

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

Iain – 3

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

Iain, Commando – 3

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

Kiersta – 5

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

Kioko – 4

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

Liriel – 3.5

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

Mijji – 3.5

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

M’Lady Iyori – 3

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

Ninx – 5

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

Ookami – 5

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

Pok – 3

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

Sqwik – 3.5

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

Taisa – 3.5

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

Yricho – 4

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

Magi: TLDR

5

Arawan

Eryss

Kiersta

Ninx

Ookami

4

Kioko

Yricho

3.5

Ardonia

Culla

Liriel

Mijji

Taisa

Sqwik

3

Archid

Boria

Iain

Iain, Commando

M’Lady Iyori

Pok

2.5

Bazha

2

N/A

1

N/A

Creatures

Aerial Flist – 4

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

Bagala – 3.5

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

Bagala Cub – 3.5

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

Bagala Hunter – 4

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

Bulabantu – 4

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

Canopy Hyren – 3

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

Dasia – 2

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

Fog Hyren – 3

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

Ghazran – 3.5

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

Grass Etiki – 3.5

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

Gremble – 3

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

Gwomba – 3

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

Hardshell Weebo – 3.5

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

Inyx – 3.5

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

Janx – 3 

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

Jungle Eebit – 2.5

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

Jungle Hyren – 2.5

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

Jungle Jile – 3.5

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

Khisp – 3

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

K’ly – 2.5

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

K’teeb – 3.5

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

K’teeb Cub – 3

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

K’teeb Thumper – 3.5

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

Kwup – 3.5

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

Lahalou – 4

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

Lurking Minani – 2.5

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

Magor – 2

It’s like a Jungle Hyren but worse.

Mydra – 3

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

N’kala – 4

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

Nyrex – 3

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

Oranragan – 4

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

Poison Baloo Root – 4

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

Quido Swarm – 3

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

Rala – 3

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

River Abaquist – 3.5

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

Scarletsong Hwit – 3

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

Scarletsong Lahalou – 3.5

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

Taglat – 4

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

Terkoz – 1

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

T’kanzam – 2.5

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

Torpar – 3.5

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

Treepsh – 4

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

Tropical Hyren – 4

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

Tropical Jumbor – 4

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

Tropical Plith – 3.5

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

Tropical Vinoc – 2.5

I mean, sure?

Vine Bhatar – 3.5

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

Vine Hyren – 3.5

Goes in Dreamwarp decks. Play Dreamwarp cards. Get big.

Weed Hyren – 3.5

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

Creatures: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Aerial Flist

Bagala Hunter

Bulabantu

Lahalou

N’kala

Oranragan

Poison Baloo Root

Taglat

Treepsh

Tropical Hyren

Tropical Jumbor

3.5

Bagala

Bagala Cub

Ghazran

Grass Etiki

Hardshell Weebo

Inyx

Jungle Jile

K’teeb

K’teeb Thumper

Kwup

River Abaquist

Scarletsong Lahalou

Torpar

Tropical Plith

Vine Bhatar

Vine Hyren

Weed Hyren

3

Canopy Hyren

Fog Hyren

Gremble

Gwomba

Janx

Jungle Eebit

Khisp

K’teeb Cub

Mydra

Nyrex

Quido Swarm

Rala

Scarletsong Hwit

2.5

Jungle Hyren

K’ly

Lurking Minani

T’kanzam

Tropical Vinoc

2

Dasia

Magor

1

Terkoz

Relics

Bagala Fangs – 3.5

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

Bazha’s Pendant – 3.5

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

Dewstone – 4

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

Heart of Paradise – 2.5

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

Liriel’s Cape – 2

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

Ookami’s Drums – 2.5

Low. Impact.

Rala Tail – 3.5

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

Robe of Petals – 4

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

Scarletsong Banner – 4

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

Staff of Vines – 3.5

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

Stalker’s Boots – 3

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

Three-Leaf Clover – 4

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

Tripvine – 3

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

Yricho’s Staff – 3.5

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

Relics: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Dewstone

Robe of Petals

Scarletsong Banner

Three-Leaf Clover

3.5

Bagala Fangs

Bazha’s Pendant

Rala Tail

Staff of Vines

Yricho’s Staff

3

Stalker’s Boots

Tripvine

2.5

Heart of Paradise

Ookami’s Drums

2

Liriel’s Cape

1

N/A

Spells

Ambush – 4

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

Bloom – 3

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

Crushing Vines – 3.5

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

Curse of the Abaquist – 3.5

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

Drum Solo – 3.5

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

Flourish – 5

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

Froxfire – 3.5

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

Jungle Riddle – 3

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

Mydra Swarm – 2

They still get their draw step now.

Radiant Spring – 3.5

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

Scarletsong Lilt – 3

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

Scarletsong’s Trill – 3

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

Snare – 2.5

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

Sneak Attack – 3.5

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

Spell Pulse – 3

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

Spirit Drain – 4

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

Spirit of Paradwyn – 2

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

Stalk – 3.5

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

Tropical Rain – 4

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

Spells: TLDR

5

Flourish

4

Ambush

Tropical Rain

3.5

Crushing Vines

Curse of the Abaquist

Drum Solo

Froxfire

Sneak Attack

Stalk

3

Bloom

Jungle Riddle

Scarletsong Lilt

Scarletsong’s Trill

Spell Pulse

2.5

Snare

2

Mydra Swarm

Spirit of Paradwyn

1

N/A

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