Epic Dark Draft Decisions (2)

Welcome to my 2nd attempt at Dark Draft Decisions! For those of you unaware, here is what I'm doing:

I use a random card generator to generate a hand of 5 cards from a complete singleton set of Epic, which includes the Core, the Tyrants, and new Uprising sets. I will then analyze the hand and decide what I would tend to pick if I were to draw that hand in the Dark Draft format of play. I will decide which card to pick if I got that pack, as well as which 2 cards I'd pick if I got the remaining 4. For the sake of consistency, I will assume this is the first pack I open.

For your information and as a reminder, here are the Dark Draft rules from the official website:

Dark Draft (2 players)

• Shuffle a stack of at least 120 cards. Deal 5 to each player.
• Each player takes 1 card out of their hand of five cards and drafts it, then passes the other 4 to the other (at the same time).
• Each player takes 2 cards out of their new hand of four cards and drafts them, then discards the remaining two cards into a shared face-down discard pile.

Both players now have drafted three cards. Repeat nine times to get to a 30-card deck, shuffle and play.

This is a fun, fast, and skill-testing draft format for two players. Many of our competitive events use this format in the playoff rounds. This format is used in our World Championship. Source: http://www.epiccardgame.com/formats-draft/

So without further ado, let us open a pack!

 

 

Look at all that Good and new stuff! Yeesh. Considering those loyalty triggers, it would make me sad to open this pack first. Jungle Queen is a decent card in Limited because it replaces itself and makes champions like Kong have Ambush, which is insane. However, without the other Wild cards it's very subpar. Infernal Gatekeeper is a very slow but very big body that can spew out a ton of awesome Demon Tokens if left unchecked, but you need to have some more Evil in your deck to really help him reach his potential. Angel of Light is a great card, and amazing if you can hit the Loyalty trigger.

Kark is a new card and we are still waiting to see what kind of impact he will make in the tournament scene. I personally have worries that he will really narrow the deck options as a healthgain deck sounds like a real annoyance to play against, and one that many decks will not be able to handle. However, I hope that I'm wrong and he is just another player in a rock/paper/scissors meta. Rescue Griffin is another new card but one I think gets surpassed by other 0 cost cards, however I think is much better in Limited due to the uncertainty of champions.

Since it's nice and early in the Draft, I could grab Kark in the hopes I can continue to get a lot more Good and try to find a way to get that alternate win condition, but that sounds risky. He's not a bad card to just have around at 9/12, and there should be a decent chance that you can draft a few more Good cards to get at least 4 health when he's played, but I'm actually leaning towards Jungle Queen as my first pick.

Jungle Queen's replacement card and giving other Wild stuff Ambush can be huge. Suddenly Kong is able to attack sooner, as are any number of other Wild champions. And since Wild is often very good anyway in Limited, you should have no trouble with wanting to get more in future packs. The little stat boost is just icing on the cake. The Queen is also a decent body to leave behind for blocking.

Angel of Light has that highly desirable Ambush and Airborne feature, which is a saving grace on defense, and a great annoyance on offense. You will always get 5 health from her as well. Yes, 10 is much, much better, and I would be looking a little closer at other Good cards in the future, but I think she's a strong champion to pick in Limited.

I really could not fault someone who wanted to pick Angel of Light or even Infernal Gatekeeper as their first pick though. Angel of Light has that highly desirable Ambush and Airborne feature, which is a saving grace on defense and a great annoyance on offense. You will always get 5 health from her as well. Yes, 10 is much better, and I would be looking a little closer at other Good cards in the future, but I think she's a strong champion in Limited.

Infernal Gatekeeper is a decent choice as a stand alone too. You will most likely play him as an establishing champion who also gives you a Demon Token. Your opponent will either need a sweeper or will have to deal with them with 2 cards, and most likely spend some gold, so that's pretty desirable too.

After picking Jungle Queen, I would have to think that a lot of players would be grabbing at least 1 of the Good cards. They might not be tied down to it and draft more Good but I'd have to mentally prepare for that Angel or Kark at least I'd say.

If I got the remaining cards passed to me I think I might have to go with Angel of Light and Infernal Gatekeeper actually. I stated my reasons above why I like the cards. I don't like that they both require similar colored cards in order to be amazing, but they are fairly decent cards on their own, and since it's the first pack, I have plenty of time to fill in those colors should I choose to commit to them. It's possible that is a horrible choice though and I wouldn't be surprised if I regretted that choice either, lol. After all, I would say Good and Evil are the lesser of the 4 factions in Epic Limited.

This was a really tough pack, I would love to hear what people think. Chime in and let me know, and happy gaming!