MND Regional Review: Naroom

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

Naroom
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

Chayla – 3

Chayla is really fun. She’s can act as a slow setup magi by playing and recurring Eebits, and she makes your Eebits slightly more threatening with Swarm. The big problem with her is there aren’t enough Eebits. You can splash for Jungle Eebit and/or Polar Eebit, but neither one is very good, especially when paying regional penalty. In other words, as a competitive magi, Chayla isn’t good. She’s tons of fun though.

Eidon – 3.5

Eidon seems relatively innocuous at first glance. All his metrics are solid and Familiarity is a nice effect that might not trigger too often in ordinary decks but is still quite a boon. The fact that he is a Keeper (and therefore benefits from Staff of Keepers) and the Familiarity effect combine well to make Eidon a great choice for some of the more complicated decks that splash heavily or have built-in recursion to guarantee Familiarity triggers. So, while he’s always fine, Eidon can be pushed a significant amount.

Evu – 2.5

Evu is meant to draw lots of cards. The only problem with his card as printed is the 4 energize, which is quite honestly terrible. It’s not even as if Lore is incredible to compensate for it, as we see with some other magi such as Valkan in Cald. Add power creep to this problem and we have a magi that just isn’t worth playing. Drawing extra cards is so good that he still merits a 2.5. PS: Evu first is a fun way to play multiplayer, since you’re not a threat and you get to sit there and draw cards.

Ohk – 2.5

Starting energy way too low, which is his biggest drawback. Low-impact starting cards. Mind’s Gift is fine but requires Ohk to have a lot of cards in hand to benefit from the extra energy. Let’s say he has a good Mind’s Gift every other turn. That means he’s generating between 6 and 7 energy each turn. That’s fine, but his drawbacks outweigh this small advantage.

Orwin – 3.5

If Orwin can make use of a big hand size, Recall allows him to recur powerful one-shot abilities (like Warrior’s Boots) or whatever other useful card is lying around in the discard pile. This makes Orwin an especially good choice as the third magi in your stack. The only help he needs is to have cards in the discard pile to get back. This means you want to churn through your deck, but not too fast, as reshuffling the deck will hurt him.

Poad – 3.5

Heroes’ Feast wants at least three creatures on the field, which happens sometimes in normal decks but can occur much more often in a Naroom Weenie deck, playing lots of small creatures and pumping them up. Poad is an ideal choice for those type of decks. Also starts with a Flying Hinko.

Poad, Innkeeper – 4

On the other hand, alternate Poad is just good. 12/6 feels a lot better than 13/5, and starting with an automatic Giant Carillion is probably his best feature but the hidden Flying Hinko is pretty sweet too. Hearty makes combat math annoying for your opponent and nets another free energy with Naroom creatures (not sure why it works with Nar guys honestly). Party allows the Innkeeper to pump small creatures to gigantic size in a Weenie deck, letting them punch through a big defender, and only costs 1 to do it. You’re not using Party every turn but when you need it, the ability is pretty incredible. Even in normal decks you’re still probably getting a good rate on Party, so Innkeeper is not restricted to only one deck type.

Pruitt – 4

Pruitt is my benchmark for how good a magi needs to be. 15/5 is perfectly average. Starting cards are all fine. Refresh is fine and worth an entire card. She does absolutely nothing impressive, but still manages to be solid on every metric. This feature also makes her the ideal magi to teach new players how the game works.

Pruitt, Ringsmith – 3

Refresh and Nurture are both nice in Balamant theme decks. She is a Balamant theme magi who wants to go wide with lots of puppies. Balamants are all solid cards, especially when you can get multiple Pups out so they can all boost each other. Balamants are not really competitive cards. She’s for fun.

Salafy – 3

If it weren’t for the abysmally low starting energy on her, I think we’d see a lot more of this magi. Protégé is a neat effect that lets you loop creatures, and her starting cards let you do that with the Furok + Fird engine, so she can get a lot of value out of your cards, as long as you have a decent discard pile built up in the first place. Still, 10 energy stinks.

Sive – 3.5

Sive has a major drawback: Research means that all her relics that would normally cost zero now cost one. This is horrible, since most Naroom relics cost zero. She only gains an advantage from the following list (in Naroom): Blooming Bracelet, Evu’s Jellybeans, Poad’s Secret Sauce, Remember Ring, Tomes of the Great Library. Knowledge is nice and the first trigger will offset the cost of Research, but still, she limits your deck building and is a non-bo with her own starting Energy Band (until she has used it twice anyway). You have to be aware of this, especially when building your deck. However, playing the big relics with her can allow you to explore a controlling build of Naroom, as Tomes synergizes the best with her text.

Sperri – 3.5

Infuse is pretty dope and so are Furoks. Preserve gets more Furoks, which can get more Firds, all of which can benefit from other good Naroom cards and the magical Fird Stone. Unlike other magi best suited to theme decks, Sperri’s abilities are powerful enough and support good enough cards to be reasonable in competitive play.

T’Dek – 5

Energy numbers are above rate. Starting cards are all very good, which is a rarity. Vitalize is an entire Weebo which has very powerful applications in Naroom (Forest Hyren, Giant Carillion, etc.). The only drawback on this card is the text “T’Dek may only play Naroom and Universal cards”. That basically means he can’t splash removal spells and doesn’t play as well with Tomes of the Great Library, but he even mitigates this downside by starting with a Crushing Roots, second conditional removal ability in the Thumper, and the ability to immediately Stomp something if he has a GC in the discard pile.

Tiller – 5

I don’t think it’s a secret that Tiller is the best magi in Naroom and one of the most powerful magi in the entire game. For those of you not in the know, let me explain. On the first turn of the game, Tiller will draw 9-10 cards (starting 3 plus an additional random 2, Vortex, Scrounge the Weeblit, Exchange optional). This is 25% of your entire deck! Other magi have to spend tons of energy to do something similar. How much does it cost Tiller? 1. Stinking. Energy. He still has 14 or 19 left (depending on if you went first) to play things with that turn! Every turn he stays active after that has you drawing up to 5 additional cards for no energy. Before you say, “yes but he has to discard cards to draw them”, this is only relevant on Exchange, when you’re at an even or detrimental rate of card exchange. Scrounge is always +1 card advantage as long as you play a decent amount of relics in your deck (which you should be doing here). Whatever your deck wants to do, Tiller has the tools to find those pieces and make them happen starting on turn one. Often what he will want to do is guarantee a Forest Hyren + Weebo on the first turn, which is tough for even the most competitive decks to beat, but he’s not limited to that. All he requires from you is to play more relics than you might normally.

Tryn – 5

So simple. So effective. 14/7 is an incredible stat line. Wait, she’s only 14/5! Yes, but her Refresh power adds two for no cost, so she’s basically 14/7. She’s actually better than that, because there are many cards in Naroom that synergize with powers that add energy, and Refresh will trigger all those abilities.

Tryn Flame Saver – 1

As bad as she is in Cald, she’s probably even worse in Naroom since they have more ways to add energy to their magi which get blanked by the worst rules text in the game.

Wence – 3

Again, 10 starting energy is way too low. Otherwise, we’d probably see more Wence as well, since everything else about him is good enough. Wayfarer’s Lore lets him draw 4 cards per turn as long as you’re playing creature-heavy decks and is at rate even when it misses. Starting with a Robe of Vines can be quite nice as well.

Wence the Wanderer – 3.5

Dual-region magi are great, since they get access to two regions of relics. 11 is still a bit low for starting energy, but with all the other stuff he has going on, he can be good. He’s more of a Weave magi, since Wence Is Here will hit more on “Creature with the Effect ‘Weave’” than it will on Naroom spells, but still. There are a lot of Naroom effects like Orwin’s Gaze which can put Naroom spells on top of your deck, and in practice, this is a lot of what he does to maximize his potential so in that sense he’s more of a Naroom magi.

Woot! – 3.5

Weebos Are for Wimps makes Woot! a poor fit for typical Naroom decks, as it prevents the region from doing a lot of what it does best. That said, just by having access to tons of Wasperines, he is a powerful finisher in aggressive decks that can take out at least two magi before he flips up.

Yaki – 4

Yaki might be the most commonly played Naroom magi. He’s great in either the middle or last slot due to his decent size and up to five starting cards (including Yaki’s Gauntlets). I’ve also seen him played first and that can be a very aggressive start with the right draw. Double Strike is a very powerful effect in a region that wants to grow its creatures to a large enough size so they will survive to make use of it.

Yaki, Core Stalker – 3.5

I don’t see this guy a lot but he’s basically a dual-region magi (Naroom/Core). He’s not as good as his basic version, but he still has some uses in specific decks that are making use of weird interactions between cards caused by Absorb Darkness.

Zajan – 2

This guy doesn’t do anything. He was created at a time when Gruk was running rampant with Vulbor Lock, and the theory was that he’d always have access to at least two cards. Zajan doesn’t even solve that problem because he opens himself up to direct damage effects preventing him from playing cards in a different way. There are some funny things that he can do, like play Ebony Mirror if he follows The Dark Twins or Nagsis in a magi stack, but mostly he just sleeps there dreaming about milking Yakows.

Zannah – 4

Before errata, Zannah was probably the most annoying magi in the game since she got a free attack on her turns and a free defense on the opponent’s. Even after fixing it, Charm is obnoxious, especially when combined with her starting Baby Furok. She provides a protection effect for her field of boosted Naroom stuff, and that’s just strong no matter what deck she’s in.

Magi: TLDR

5

T’Dek

Tiller

Tryn

4

Poad, Innkeeper

Pruitt

Yaki

Zannah

3.5

Eidon

Orwin

Poad

Sive

Sperri

Wence the Wanderer

Woot!

Yaki, Core Stalker

3

Chayla

Pruitt, Ringsmith

Salafy

Wence

2.5

Evu

Ohk

2

Zajan

1

Tryn Flame-Saver

Creatures

Alpine Xamf – 2.5

Good effect on a creature that’s too expensive to play in the same turn as other creatures unless it’s a magi flip.

Arboll – 2.5

This gives your magi +1 energy for a whole card. Wowee.

Baby Furok – 4

Dear lord this thing is annoying. Cuddly-Wuddly makes it very aggravating to deal with and there are lots of synergies this little guy can take advantage of to make it better. Furok is a good creature type.

Balamant – 3

This guy is much better than I thought it was when I first started playing the game. That said, I used to think this was unplayable. Now it’s just too expensive a body. Naroom magi mostly have energize rates of 5, which means there are turns where they can’t play this. While that’s fine for big, splashy effects, this isn’t. Magi damage is good though and a repeatable two-for-four is a nice way to do it.

Balamant Pup – 3.5

Good in multiples. Good with Naroom synergies. Never amazing.

Bhatar – 2.5

This guy is fine but too small a payoff most of the time. Tunneling Charge sometimes doesn’t even do much because their guy is burrowed.

Bikneets – 2

Not repeatable, defensive power in an aggressive region. Makes me laugh every time I see it though.

Bungaloo – 3

A good weenie creature since Flee makes it basically free as long as they don’t burn it. Only really fits into weenie decks.

Carillion – 3

It’s fine. Pretty much only sees play as a starting card.

Carillion Titan – 2.5

I want to see someone make this good but it’s so damn expensive, vulnerable to all sorts of removal options, and needs to see the Attack Step for Rampant Growth to trigger. It’s a giant meatball.

Eebit – 3

The old-school combo was Eebit + Robe of Vines, netting you a constant stream of one-energy positive transactions. Eebit is another good weenie that can generate some value for you. Escape triggers on offense and defense, so remember that!

Elder Weebo – 3.5

This card is great in Flood of Energy decks and incredibly bad outside of them.

Ember Hyren – 4

In Naroom, your creatures are going to be attacking things pretty regularly. This of course means Heat Feed will net you some good value, which means this is pretty much always a solid creature.

Fird – 3.5

Play lots of Furoks. Furoks are good anyway.

Flame Rudwot – 4

If I had a 4.5 rating, this would be what it looks like. Flame Rudwot does everything. It burns, it grows, it synergizes with other good cards in region, it gets better in multiples. Staple+ rating.

Flying Hinko – 5

This card is nuts in Naroom, because it triggers off of just about everything. Extra energy for doing what you already want to do is very strong, and in normal growy Naroom decks Empower will more than pay for itself in no time.

Forest Hyren – 5

This is (arguably) the best Naroom creature. There are a lot of good ones, but this has an energy adding power in Energy Transfer and benefits from other energy adding powers via Underbrush. It’s big enough to attack things dead, and it also benefits from other very strong support cards in Naroom (Hyren’s Call, Weebo effects, etc.). It doesn’t have to survive past your turn to generate value either. Compare this with Carillion Titan and for the same cost you have a much more versatile threat.

Forest Jile – 3.5

The only thing here is your creatures have to survive the attacks. Reinforce can be very strong on some boards, but only some.

Forest Wudge – 3

A regular Wudge this ain’t. Strengthen only triggers on opponent’s creatures which is fine but they will minimize the effect. It’s great against other Naroom decks but what are the odds right? At face value its all right though.

Furlosk – 1

Bograth/Naroom decks are not real. Even if they were, Companionship would still make this card a huge liability, even post-errata where they changed it from “and” to “or”. The benefits of Swamp Lore and Forest Power are real, but all they have to do is kill off your other stuff and you’re eating a 7-energy loss for free. That’s too big to recover from.

Furok – 4

This creature is very solid. You’re not getting anything extreme, but Retrieve will net you a good reward for attacking. The bigger you make your Furok the better the reward, so it also rewards good Naroom play: pump stuff, attack with stuff. It also has tribal synergies.

Furok Guardian – 3.5

This thing, on the other hand, is for doing silly combo stuff. There aren’t really any amazing decks I can think of that abuse Terra Rebirth, but it’s a powerful and unique effect that I’m sure can be pushed to do some good things. The key with it is you can discard your own creature and trigger Terra Rebirth to get it back.

Garan – 2.5

Rake is an interesting effect. The drawback isn’t as bad as you might think because that’ll probably be your plan anyway, and it doesn’t punish you if you run out of targets. Mostly Garan is an interesting option against burrow and other defensive strategies, but there are better (cheaper, less vulnerable) options out there for that.

Giant Carillion – 4

Boom. GC is probably Naroom’s best removal card. While it is expensive, 6 energy is the cost of a splashed Shockwave anyway, so it’s basically Shockwave on a stick. The creature part helps tremendously in Naroom though, because of Weebo, Nocturne, and Remember Ring, or even just regular creature growth which are all very powerful in conjunction with Stomp.

Glade Hyren – 3.5

Here’s a payoff card for those Naroom Weenie decks I’ve been mentioning. Play out a bunch of little guys, then use Serenity to get a big guy. Profit.

Grendile – 3

Snow Plow is powerful and can win you games. This thing is expensive and slow though. What I mean by that is it costs more energy than any Naroom magi’s energize rate and does nothing until the turn after it hits the board. It’s not bad, and if you can connect with it you’ll be happy, but it’s not great either.

Jip – 3.5

Tap Strength is one of the nuttier abilities out there. When combined with some other cards, you can actually break Tap Strength. Usually what you’re trying to do is add a bunch of energy to the opponent’s whole field, which the Jip sees all of. You can profit from this by using Vim and Vigor or other cards which make use of a giant guy. It requires finagling, but the reward on Jip is there.

K’teeb – 3.5

Speaking of combo cards, 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.

Leaf Chogo – 2

Too narrow and Leaf Storm isn’t even that insane. First, the Chogo has to survive the attack, then it discards itself, then the payoff is small.

Leaf Hyren – 3

Needs some kind of support to make work, but then it allows you to turn a small energy profit. Triggers all your grow power synergies as well.

Nodj – 2

Nodj’s as good as a wink to a blind man. This doesn’t do much, since they can probably kill it meaning it’s a 5-energy vanilla creature. Restore at least makes it so they have to kill it or leave it alone, so very occasionally it’ll come into play.

Plith – 2

Look! It draws cards! Unless you’re Evu (and why are you Evu?) this is below rate at 3 energy for a card. Plus they have to attack into it, which means often you don’t even get the card from Warning. Plus it’s a defensive ability in an aggressive region.

Rabbage – 3.5

Holy romaine lettuce Batman! This thing’ll kill ya. This is good in Weenie decks and in Flood of Energy decks, and 2 energize on a creature is actually really annoying. They have to kill this.

Rudwot – 2.5

Two words: Starting Tryn.

Sabertooth Jumbor – 3

What a weird card. Offensively, this is just a way worse Forest Jile. Defensively, you’re making them attack you and if you survive, you heal up a little. This is mostly a Weave card, since Naroom doesn’t really benefit from the opponent attacking their stuff. Also, 3 is my rating for “this does stuff that’s good but not incredible and I don’t understand why we’re doing it”.

Scout Bungaloo – 2.5

They’re never going to attack into it if they have any other options.

Snag Arboll – 2.5

Sure. Conditional magi damage is still magi damage.

Sneaky Weebo – 2.5

Incredibly narrow, very strong ability.

Stagadan – 3

Has to survive to attack the magi, but this can hit for a lot if you want it to.

Stagadan Charger – 3.5

Nocturne + Weebo doesn’t help so we’re looking at Warrior’s Boots to get this into play before the Attack Step. Syphon is a very good power though. Sometimes this can survive the round, but only if they let it.

Tillant – 2.5

Incredibly powerful, very narrow ability.

Timber Hyren – 1

Ugh. Why do I want to be so inefficient?

Tree Hinko – 4

This thing is a lot of value. Invigorate generates one automatically (unless they kill your magi first!), but they have to kill this. Amazing in Flood of Energy decks, good in Weenie decks, and even just good normally.

Twee – 2.5

It does stuff.

Twunk – 2.5

They can play into it, defensive power in aggressive region, yadda yadda. At least it’s alphabetically close and receives the same rating as Twee so the list reads Twee Twunk. That’s fun.

Vinoc – 2.5

Bad rate but it’s a body that can be as big as you want in a pinch.

Wandering Balamant – 3

This card is perfectly fine, but has to survive until the attack phase to generate value. Wander is strange but the card isn’t really high-impact enough for other regions to want to “splash” it.  

Wasperine – 4

Speed. Aggression. Kill things dead. You can’t pump this card pre-attack in any traditional ways, but you can make it bigger with Robe of Vines and anything that triggers “before energy is removed”. Even Wandering Balamant actually. Mostly, this card breaks the rules and lets you have more attackers than they thought you had.

Wasperine Stalker – 4

Same thing here. Aside from the obvious synergy with Woot!, this is a Wasperine that hits the magi’s face. Which is often where you want your normal Wasperine to go anyway.

Weebo – 5

Simple little Weebo is an enormous workhorse. Mostly what it’s doing is pumping up Forest Hyren and Giant Carillion, but it also combines with Nocturne and anything else that’s big. Pumping it up first is the best, but even if you only get one Vitalize off, that’s worth it 9 times out of 10.

Creatures: TLDR

5

Flying Hinko

Forest Hyren

Weebo

4

Baby Furok

Ember Hyren

Flame Rudwot

Furok

Giant Carillion

Tree Hinko

Wasperine

Wasperine Stalker

3.5

Balamant Pup

Elder Weebo

Fird

Forest Jile

Furok Guardian

Glade Hyren

Jip

K’teeb

K’teeb Thumper

Rabbage

Stagadan Charger

3

Balamant

Bungaloo

Carillion

Eebit

Forest Wudge

Grendile

K’teeb Cub

Leaf Hyren

Sabertooth Jumbor

Stagadan

2.5

Alpine Xamf

Arboll

Bhatar

Carillion Titan

Garan

Rudwot

Scout Bungaloo

Snag Arboll

Sneaky Weebo

Tillant

Twee

Twunk

Vinoc

2

Bikneets

Leaf Chogo

Nodj

Plith

1

Furlosk

Timber Hyren

Relics

Blooming Bracelet – 2

This is a defensive relic that can be managed pretty easily, since you do not control when Blossom triggers. Most decks have some form of access to small removal, from the commonly played Zungg to the entire Cald region. This makes Blooming Bracelet a very poor investment in the short term and making plays like that can hurt your long-term game plan by putting you in an early energy deficit.

Book of Life – 2

Should say “to your hand”. It’s already costing you 3. Still, for the wacky combo player out there, this can be what you need.

Energy Band – 4

It’s never completely broken, but it is one of the better relics in Naroom. It’s also quite simple. Pump stuff. Attack with said stuff.

Essence of Naroom – 3.5

Against Naroom, Weave, or Paradwyn, this is probably the best card you can play. Stealing a creature is twice as good as killing one, and that’s not really obvious, especially to new players. But think about it: you remove it from their board and add it to yours. Against anything else, it’s useless.

Evu’s Jellybeans – 2.5

There’s a lot of text on this relic for something that doesn’t do much. In the specific case in which you are Evil Evu, Black Ones is pretty good. If you’re a different Naroom Shadow Magi, Black Ones is fine. In Naroom though, all you get really is Red Ones, which is an expensive, slow way to draw extra cards. However, they can kill it or your magi before the counters run out, in which case you’ve wasted a lot of energy not impacting the board.

Fird Stone – 3.5

Great defensive relic for specifically Furoks.

Hood of Hiding – 1

Right up there with Tryn Flame-Saver as one of my most hated cards in the game. Conceal costs your whole turn and doesn’t even stop direct damage effects. You could instead play a creature and make them lose some energy in the exchange. Here you’re just sitting and waiting. They could remove the “You may not use this Power on your next turn” text and this card still wouldn’t be good. It’d be too annoying for words, but it still wouldn’t be good.

Orwin’s Ring – 3.5

Here’s another payoff for your Weenie decks. The more creatures you have out, the bigger the impact on this Purity ring. I would only play it in those type of decks though, and as always with these, it does limit your deck building.

Orwin’s Staff – 3

This is for the crazy combo player who needs a specific card exactly and hasn’t drawn it yet. It doesn’t cost any energy, but it does cost three cards to find one so you better need that one card real bad.

Poad’s Secret Sauce – 4

This might be the most powerful relic effect Naroom has. It’s expensive to get into play, but basically turbo-charges most of your spells and powers. Just don’t put this in your Weenie decks that play lots of go-wide spells like Harvest Feast. It doesn’t help you there.

Pruitt’s Robe – 2.5

Unless you’re Pruitt, why bother? Even if you are Pruitt, you might not even want to bother. That said, if you’re Pruitt, Glimmer does provide 2 extra energy for your field. The only combo I’ve ever seen with this is The Dark Twins or Nagsis to make Pruitt a Shadow Magi, then combining it with Vrill, and that’s not even insane.

Remember Ring – 4

This is a tad expensive, but it lets you re-buy giant things … like Forest Hyren and Giant Carillion, then hit ‘em with a Weebo. It is obviously better later in the game when you have things in the discard pile to target, and this fact makes it a dead draw much less often than Hyren’s Call and Nocturne.

Robe of Vines – 4

The more creatures you play, the more energy you get off of Strengthen. On a magi flip, on a magi you can keep in play for many turns, or in a Weenie deck, this card will be worth the slot.

Tomes of the Great Library – 4

You get to play their removal spells so you can kill them faster or their card draw spells if you’re running low on resources. It’s not quite as good as it is in Core, because your magi have lower energize rates on average and because you’re more aggressive than controlling and this is at its best in control strategies. All that said, a repeatable removal spell is great.

Weeblit – 2.5

Only ever played as a one-of because Tiller starts with it and it’s a relic. Can kill enemy Weebos.

Wence’s Travelog – 3

Difficult for Wence Was Here to trigger, since the creatures have to survive your opponent’s turn. Good effect when you get it.

Yaki’s Gauntlets – 3.5

Both versions of Yaki should always have access to this, as it can turn up the aggression at the right time to finish off the opponent from a position they thought they could survive. Outside of Yaki decks you don’t see this being played much. Though, even in Tiller decks without Yaki it’s worth a slot since you can just Scrounge it if you don’t want it.

Relics: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Energy Band

Poad’s Secret Sauce

Remember Ring

Robe of Vines

Tomes of the Great Library

3.5

Essence of Naroom

Fird Stone

Orwin’s Ring

Yaki’s Gauntlets

3

Orwin’s Staff

Wence’s Travelog

2.5

Evu’s Jellybeans

Pruitt’s Robe

Weeblit

2

Blooming Bracelet

Book of Life

1

Hood of Hiding

Spells

Bythan’s Gift – 4

The power level of a Gift spell is all about minimizing the downside of bouncing your own creature. In this case, we have the ability to re-buy a creature who has spent most of its energy using a power. Something like Giant Carillion or Tree Hinko. We also have Fird, which is just kind-of always around. Those creatures are common enough to make Bythan’s Gift a nice one. 

Crushing Roots – 4

Look, it’s a Crushing spell and those are good. This one will trigger your normal synergy cards and is an option for removal in an aggressive region, so it’s no exception to the rule.

Deadfall – 3

This is a weird one. They can play around this (kind of) and it’s really a controlling spell that does almost nothing against Weenie decks like Bograth. I’ve yet to find a home for Deadfall, but it’s certainly unique and can be strong as well.

Flood of Energy – 3.5

Sadly, Naroom Shadow decks use this better, since they have Chaos Sphere and higher energize rates on average. However, Flood of Energy decks are called that for a reason, and Naroom can do it too. You have to build your entire deck around this card, but it can pay off.

Forest Blessing – 2.5

This is mostly way too expensive. Some people use it for crazy combo shenanigans though.

Gilded Cage – 3

It doesn’t cost much for a situational spell against hard to deal with creatures. There are lots of them out there. Anything that can’t be specifically discarded from play (like Colossus) spring to mind.

Grow – 3

I’ve never had more swings in a game of MND than when using this card. You’re not packing dice rolling synergies to make this work, because it’s the only dice rolling card in Naroom, so mostly you’re playing it because your magi start(s) with it.

Hyren’s Call – 3.5

Look: A cheaper Forest Hyren! This card is sometimes played in non-Naroom hyren theme decks, but you need to be creating an energy advantage for this to be useful there. In Naroom, you just get a tutor plus 3-energy discount on your biggest threat. That’s a good card. You do have to have one in the deck though, so this is much better early on, as late in the game it becomes a dead card.

Nocturne – 3.5

This is very similar to Hyren’s Call in many ways, except you can also get your Giant Carillion or K’teeb (or Carillion Titan I suppose) and it requires Weebo/T’Dek to make really good.

Orwin’s Gaze – 2

A one-use Book of Life that can hit any card. Still only for crazy combo players.

Overgrowth – 3

This card has obvious uses in Flood of Energy decks and is also quite good on a Cawh. Its issue, like many other cards, is that you need to wait a full round to see the benefit.

Sap of Life – 2

A more expensive Weebo or a wimpy version of Forest Blessing. Neither makes me want to play it.

Spirit of Naroom – 2.5

Eternal Vigor is fine but not exciting.

Tap Roots – 3

Since I myself often have rules questions about Tap Roots, here’s the skinny: there must be two creatures to target (or two magi if you switch it with Abraxin’s Crown [only comes up b/c Flame-Saver]). You discard energy from one and add energy to the other. This means that any support cards that affect the amount of energy you discard or the amount of energy you add will apply to Tap Roots. You may choose zero, one, or two as the base amount for the discard and the add, independent of each other. Choosing zero makes this a very inefficient spell, but you have the option. After all that, what we have is a flexible, somewhat low-impact spell that mostly isn’t worth it but is just good enough to think about. Sadly, this is also probably the most interesting thing you can do with Tryn Flame-Saver.

Verdant Shield – 1

Takes up a card slot, costs an energy, only works for a turn during which your opponent can still do math.

Vim and Vigor – 3.5

This card can be very broken, which is why they had to errata the thing. When you could target your own creatures there were too many ways to gain a massive energy profit after casting this. Now, it’s mostly played in concert with Jip because you’re somehow making your opponent’s creature large or splashed in Cald spell decks as a way to deal with creatures that have been grown to epic proportions.

Vortex of Knowledge – 3

Typically this is only played on Tiller’s first turn. If he goes first, it’s insane. Here’s why: In MND, unlike most other TCGs, the player who goes second does not immediately draw their opening hand. Instead, they wait until they flip up their magi, get starting cards, and then draw the rest of their five. If Tiller goes first, before the opponent flips, Vortex of Knowledge will cause them to draw cards but when they flip they still don’t get to draw above their normal five unless they’re a magi like Yaki with access to more than three starting cards. The drawback of giving your opponent resources is completely removed in this case. If Tiller goes second, he’s still going to play it but your opponent will be happier about it. Also, this card is great in multiplayer because it makes lots of friends.

Spells: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Bythan’s Gift

Crushing Roots

3.5

Flood of Energy

Hyren’s Call

Nocturne

Vim and Vigor

3

Gilded Cage

Grow

Overgrowth

Tap Roots

Vortex of Knowledge

2.5

Forest Blessing

Spirit of Naroom

2

Orwin’s Gaze

Sap of Life

1

Verdant Shield

Find all the regional reviews on the Magi-Nation Duel hub page. Energize your dreams!

MND Regional Review: Weave

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

Magi-Nation Card Review

the Weave
by Kroodhaxthekrood

Rating Scale

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

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

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

2.5: A little better than “meh”.

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

    support or are at least decent or fun options.

3.5: Very strong with the required support.

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

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

Now, on with the show:

Magi

Ahdar – 4

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

Artyva – 3.5

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

Bo’Ahsa – 4

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

Empress Gia – 4

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

Gia – 3.5

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

Iyori – 2.5

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

Keru – 4

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

Kesia – 5

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

Kolte – 2

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

Marella – 3

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

Marella, Savant – 3.5

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

M’Lady Iyori – 3

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

Ninx – 5

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

Quirle – 3

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

Rehlya – 3.5

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

Scyalla – 4

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

Taisa – 3.5

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

Ushi – 3

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

Wence the Wanderer – 3.5

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

Yerthe – 2.5

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

Zaya – 3

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

Magi: TLDR

5

Kesia

Ninx

4

Ahdar

Bo’Ahsa

Empress Gia

Keru

Scyalla

3.5

Artyva

Gia

Marella, Savant

Rehlya

Taisa

Wence the Wanderer

3

Marella

M’Lady Iyori

Quirle

Ushi

Zaya

2.5

Iyori

Yerthe

2

Kolte

1

N/A

Creatures

Aritex – 5

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

Baby Furok – 4

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

Blade Hyren – 3.5

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

Blue Yajo – 3

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

Bungaloo – 3

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

Chasm Jile – 3.5

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

Dasia – 2

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

Drowl – 5

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

Flugg – 2.5

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

Frusk – 3

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

Grass Etiki – 3.5

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

Grass Hyren – 3

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

Heppeswip – 3.5

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

Jumbor – 3

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

Junjertrug – 3.5

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

Lascinth – 3.5

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

Nyrex – 3

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

Osatch – 2

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

Pagajack – 3

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

Pajick Pet – 2.5

Your opponent can just hit this first.

Paradar – 2

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

Pody – 4

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

Quallon – 3.5

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

Rock Yajo – 2.5

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

Sabertooth Jumbor – 3

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

Sagaweave – 2

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

Scout Bungaloo – 2.5

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

Scurrying Weggit – 2

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

Seaweed Lascinth – 4

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

Snag Hyren – 2.5

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

Speag – 3

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

Speag Sprouts – 2.5

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

Striped Korrit – 2.5

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

Stumbling Junjertrug – 4

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

Thresh – 2.5

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

Toasted Yajo – 2.5

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

Tropical Jumbor – 4

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

Tweave – 3.5

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

Uwamar – 3.5

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

Vuryip – 4

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

Weave Arboll – 3

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

Weave Hyren – 3

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

Weed Hyren – 2.5

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

Weggit – 3.5

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

Yajo – 4

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

Zassyfer – 2.5

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

Creatures: TLDR

5

Aritex

Drowl

4

Baby Furok

Pody

Seaweed Lascinth

Stumbling Junjertrug

Tropical Jumbor

Vuryip

Yajo

3.5

Blade Hyren

Chasm Jile

Grass Etiki

Heppeswip

Junjertrug

Lascinth

Quallon

Tweave

Uwamar

Weggit

3

Blue Yajo

Bungaloo

Frusk

Grass Hyren

Jumbor

Nyrex

Pagajack

Sabertooth Jumbor

Speag

Weave Arboll

Weave Hyren

2.5

Flugg

Pajick Pet

Rock Yajo

Scout Bungaloo

Snag Hyren

Speag Sprouts

Striped Korrit

Thresh

Toasted Yajo

Weed Hyren

Zassyfer

2

Dasia

Osatch

Paradar

Sagaweave

Scurrying Weggit

1

N/A

Relics

Bo’Ahsa’s Shield – 3.5

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

Everburning Wick – 3

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

Gia’s Tome – 4

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

Gift of the Weave – 3.5

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

Junjertrug Horn – 4

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

Kesia’s Flute – 4

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

Ritual Spear – 3.5

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

Sand Strands – 2.5

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

Three-Leaf Clover – 4

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

Tuk Berries – 4

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

Uwamar Beads – 3

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

Weave Hut – 3

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

Weave Mat – 4

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

Weave Maul – 2.5

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

Weave Powder – 5

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

Weave-woven Anklet – 1

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

Wence’s Travelog – 3.5

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

Zaya’s Bow – 3.5

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

Relics: TLDR

5

Weave Powder

4

Gia’s Tome

Junjertrug Horn

Kesia’s Flute

Three-Leaf Clover

Tuk Berries

Weave Mat

3.5

Bo’Ahsa’s Shield

Gift of the Weave

Ritual Spear

Wence’s Travelog

Zaya’s Bow

3

Everburning Wick

Uwamar Beads

Weave Hut

2.5

Sand Strands

Weave Maul

2

N/A

1

Weave-woven Anklet

Spells

Binding – 3

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

Brushfire – 4

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

Countless Blades – 2.5

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

Crushing Growth – 3.5

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

Drought – 3.5

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

Harmony – 3.5

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

Lifeweave – 3.5

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

Quallon’s Quest – 1

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

Sawgrass – 3.5

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

Sheath – 3

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

Spirit of the Weave – 3

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

Sprout – 2

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

The Hunt – 3.5

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

Weave Mind – 3.5

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

Weave Seed – 4

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

Weave Winds – 2.5

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

Spells: TLDR

5

N/A

4

Brushfire

Weave Seed

3.5

Crushing Growth

Drought

Harmony

Lifeweave

Sawgrass

The Hunt

Weave Mind

3

Binding

Sheath

Spirit of the Weave

2.5

Countless Blades

Weave Winds

2

Sprout

1

Quallon’s Quest

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