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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!
