Shadya vs Valentia
Gareth's Automaton - 1 cost Sage Champion
Sage ally trigger from discard pile - You may banish another card in your discard pile. If you do, Recall.
A decent statline that forces a block, although it has no evasion like flying or unbreakable. The tribute ability is a nice way of getting back any event, especially 0-cost events, which can be played immediately if needed. The recall ability is also nice. I think this card will fare better in Limited than in Constructed, but I could be missing some kind of event abuse.
Lycomancy - 1 cost Sage Event
Draw two cards or If it is your turn, transform up to two target champions into wolf tokens.
Awesome art to this card. Fairly generic card. On-turn removal is a dime a dozen but you at least can transform 2 big targets, although it isn't removing a board presence. I would rate this card fairly low. It will be used in Limited as removal but I can't imagine anything else.
Owl Familiar - 0 cost Sage Champion
1/1 - Airborne. Tribute - You may return target 1-cost event card form your discard pile to your hand.
A Kickstarter card brought back. This is exactly the same as the Kickstarter, which is nice if you want to use the "alternate art". This is a key component to the insta-win card drawing combo, but we still lack the Time Master from the Kickstarter. Still though, a 0-cost airborne champion is useful, especially with this pack in circulation with all of its flying champions. Gaining back 1-cost events is nice, especially since you could instantly use them if you haven't spent gold yet.
Ritual of Scara - 0 cost Evil Event
Target a champion. Each of your evil champions deal 1 damage to it. Or 1 gold: Draw two cards
I like this card. It is similar to Unquenchable Thirst with it's targeting damage. A 0-cost card that allows you to take out a 1-cost card is always nice. This will be a fun addition to a zombie deck, which will have no trouble getting lots of Evil champions out. Unlike Unquenchable Thirst, this gives you a card draw option, so it might edge out the latter. UT was nice, but I hated to lost my own Evil cards in my discard pile. The health gain with UT is nice, but Consume was more consistent. So Ritual of Scara gains the lead!
Runek, Dark Duelist - 1 cost Evil Champion
8/8 Ambush. Blitz. Break any champion damaged by this card. Unbreakable on your turn.
A solid statline with the very useful Ambush and Blitz keywords. It automatically kills anything it hits, although it probably would anyway doing to be so big. But it's still nice. The Unbreakable on your turn is awfully nice. This will be a very good Dark Draft pick and will be a big thorn in many a game.
Scarred Berserker - 1 cost Evil Champion
7/10 Blitz. Break any champion damaged by this card. When this card damages an opponent - draw a card.
It's sad this card comes right after Runek. I like Runek better than this in almost every way. The statline difference is fairly negligible. They both break champions damaged. This guy lets you draw a card if it gets through, but with no evasion and no blitz, I am thinking that will be difficult to pull off. I kind of wish it drew a card upon damaging another champion, but that would be too good, especially with Ritual of Scara existing. :). This guy being a human is a slight edge, since there are many cards that help humans and not vampires, but that is also pretty negligible.
Pelios, Storm Lord - 1 cost Wild Champion
14/14 Loyalty 2 - Draw a card. Tribute - Deal 3 damage to a target.
This guy came out of nowhere. He has some awesome pantheon-esque art, with a huge statline, the ability to draw a card with loyalty, and a little dainty tribute damage ability that can target anything. I doubt I'd see this guy in Constructed, considering all of the other good options, but in an all-Wild deck, you'd always get a card draw. He will be decent in Limited.
Wild Roc - 1 cost Wild Champion
8/9 Airborne. Ambush.
Let the waterfall of Airborne champions begin! This is an extremely simple champion. 8/9 with Airborne and Ambush. It trades well with most fliers and if your opponent cannot deal with it, it will cause trouble. This will be a solid pick in Limited. The lack of card draw, extra damage, and evasion makes it less likely to be used in Constructed, but maybe an all-airborne deck could find some room.
Zaltessa's Fire - 0 cost Wild Event
Deal 3 damage to target champion. Recall for 1 gold: When this card leaves your discard pile - deal 2 damage to each opponent.
If you missed my spoiler article for this card you can view it here. This is great to take our many other troublesome low-life champions such as Muse, Thought Plucker, or Guilt Demon. Its Recall ability is the best part of this card. It behaves similarly to Scara's Gift, except you don't need to have Evil cards to help get it back to your hand. I have found it to be a great card to help whittle down an opponent's life total, and an easy thing to do if I, for some reason, have found yself unable to play something off-turn. I think this card could possibly find its way into a control Evil/Wild deck with some direct damage finishers. This is a solid pick in Limited due to not needing any Loyalty requirements.
Royal Intervention - 1 cost Good Event
Gain 5 health. Draw a card. Or Each player returns one of their champions to its owner's hand. Banish all other champions. The player whose turn it is draws a card.
This psuedo-off-turn removal is interesting. It is one of those cards I think could be abused if I could just wrap my head around all of the interactions. It is similar to New Dawn, just maybe a little less hard-hitting and lets you save your favorite champion for later. The gain 5 health and draw a card is pretty generic, especially considering Second Win basically does it for free. This is great to play if you are really far behind on board presence, but giving your opponent their champion in their hand is risky. You can use this off-turn, which is hugely important, and it can deal with any single champion no matter what they have on them since the return-to-hand doesn't "target". Using it off-turn does give your opponent a card, which is never good. This is definitely an ok pick in Limited, and it could find its way into Constructed, especially with a ton of big champion decks being a popular deck archetype.
If you want a much better analysis, check out Tom Sorenson's blog as he spoils this card and does an awesome job: http://www.tomsepicgaming.com/pantheon_royal_intervention/
War Lion of Valentia - 1 cost Good Champion
7/7 Ambush. Loyalty 2 - Draw a card. This card gains Unbreakable this turn.
When this card blocks or is blocked - This card gets +7 power this turn.
I got really excited when I first saw this card. For one, the art is amazing, and to my knowledge we haven't had a lion in Epic before. But two, I thought this was something that could deal with the giant unblockable champions we have seen earlier in this Pantheon set. However, I was reminded that those big guys are unblockable by champions with power less than them, and this lion only gets stronger AFTER blocking. Oh well. It still gets really huge on offense though and is going to kill pretty much everything it blocks. The Ambush is really important, and statline is big enough to be a problem. If you can Rage or Lash the lion, he could get pretty scary on offense. The Loyalty is a really big boon, and this card gets very decent or alright depending on if you can hit it. Unbreakable off-turn is practically unheard of, and card draw is the best icing on the cake.
Warrior Angel - 1 cost Good Champion
9/9 Airborne. Blitz. When this card attacks - You may banish target evil token champion.
Lastly for this pack we have another Kickstarter exclusive. I think this is the first alternate art that switches the genders? Both pieces of art are very well done, I'm not sure which I like more. The new art is more dynamic and action-filled, but the weapons and armor I think are better on the original. We end on another huge flier. banishing a target evil token champion is thematic, but way too conditional to be counted on. Blitzing Airborne champions are nice, and this one is gigantic, trading positively with almost all the others, including the above Wild Roc. Definitely not my favorite angel, but I'm glad he/she finally becomes legal (that doesn't sound right).
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I think the MVP of the pack goes to Zaltessa's Fire, although it could be overshadowed by Royal Intervention if a really good combo is found. Well that is it for the first pack. Do you agree with my assessments? Do you have a favorite card? Let me know! And happy gaming!
As a side note, I love epic, but am almost always disappointed in the flavor text in epic. Most if not all of it are very generic. I would like they talked more about the world and lore in the cards, since most people, me included, are not going to read the lore.
ReplyDeleteA valid point. Thanks for sharing! I am with you there for sure. I would like a card game that uses flavor text similar to a Dark Souls thing. Archaeological flavor text and lore!
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