Month: January 2021

Draft

Spreadsheet: Slow Champions
Category: Establishing, Other (C-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Constructed

Tier 8

A slow champion that puts a single token into play and has 9 or less health, why would I want this? I don’t.

That being said, 8/9 in the air is enormous stats when this sticks. It is hard to effectively block this and even harder to break it in combat, if it sticks. Drifting Terror and its token are also both Evil demons which opens up Raxxa’s Displeasure and Dark One’s Fury possibilities as well. Further, if you do use single target removal on the Terror (Drain Essence, etc.), the demon token is a considerable bonus left over too.

Overall, in Dark Draft, I don’t want to commit a precious slow champion slot for this because there are so many better/more impactful possibilities. If I’m late in the draft and low on slow champions or if I get passed four slow champions, there are still worse options than this. In constructed, same thing but even more so. It has been reasonable the few times my opponents have played it against me though.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Slow Champions
Category: Re-establishing Single-Target Big (S-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Constructed

Tier 2

Big airborne reestablishing champion. 8 damage is enough to break a lot of important champions and most airborne champions.

8/8 is also excellent stats in the air, since it wins in combat against all of the 6/8s on down. Only outright loses to two playable airborne champions: Draka and Sky Serpent. At 8 health it survives Whirlwind which is potentially a big deal for airborne champion fights. Finally, the airborne 8 offense threatens to kill your opponent very quickly while dodging more chump blocking.

This card was incredibly powerful in the no-core monthly tournament. At some point, I might make the argument that Hunting Wyvern is on the same level or better than Kong/Sea Titan in draft, but today is not that day. There are potential constructed metas where I would definitely make that argument.

Draft

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Ambush Champion (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: C-Tier

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Other (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: C-Tier

Constructed

Tier 7

Wolf Support! … … wait … sadness

This card is incredibly underwhelming. It does two average things averagely. Two ambush 2/2s is worse than a lot of similar effects, but two off-turn bodies for 0 is still okay. +5/+5 is reasonable damage + protection on an unblocked attacker or a solid combat trick, but there are a bunch of better ones. The best combination with this card is Hunting Pack to enable a 10 damage removal effect and gain 5 wolves, which is better value than a lot of two card combos, but that speaks much more to the value of Hunting Pack.

That being said, in constructed, you can combo this with Wolf’s Call, and by that I of course mean using the +5/+5 on one of your Wolf’s Call tokens since that is more damage than making the two wolves first and giving them blitz. Comboed with Keira, the two wolf tokens are slightly better and can be be played after Keira‘s two tokens attack as scouts, but *shrug*. In other words, this does not make wolf tokens constructed viable (and neither does Forest Dweller mainly because these wolf tokens don’t have blitz). [A potential way to push wolf decks hard could be a 0-cost event that puts a wolf token into play and gives all wolves (tokens) blitz this turn. Still almost certainly worse than Evil token combo decks though.]

So, I already went over this in my Forest Dweller rating, but after writing this review I immediately went and made a new wolf deck. The deck feels pretty reasonable so far, but I haven’t drawn/played Howl much yet. Tentatively boosting constructed tier from 7 to 6.

Draft

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Establishing Draw &&& (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Establishing Draw (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Constructed

Tier 3

Sage’s Raging T-Rex? No.

I do not like this card in limited for the same reason I don’t particularly like the non-Velden Loyalty-X’s in limited, except to a greater extreme. In order for this card to be actively strong as opposed to below average, it needs to draw 2. The only ways to guarantee that is for your deck to currently be 100% Sage or play this in deck 2 (when you know your next draw will be a recycled Sage card). Neither of those are practical restraints for inclusion. (If you draw both this and a Sage card in your opening hand, you could mulligan them in order to set yourself up, but that relies on you drawing Garbage Golem at the start of your turn and wanting to spend your gold on it, that turn.) Further, as an establishing card, it wants to be played as early as possible in a game. So the question becomes, at what Sage threshold are you willing to take the risk of it only drawing one card? 85% Sage – 51/60 or 26/30?

For constructed, even if you do get your deck to a Sage threshold you are comfortable with, 9/9 just isn’t big enough especially in Wild’s meta. Inherently losing in combat to Raging T-Rex, Scarros, Kong, and tieing Brachiosaurus just isn’t strong enough. It also gets removed by 9 damage effects Drain Essence/Hurricane. All of that being said, it is a potential “draw 2 and” champion you can get off of Mist Guide Herald, and that sentence alone is enough for it to be seriously worth considering.

Draft

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Blitz Champion (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Ambush Champion (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: C-Tier

Constructed

Tier 5

0-cost Blitzing 5/5, not bad. 0-cost ambush 5/5, a bit better (Demon token cannibalization). Reverting to a 4/4 at end of turn is not ideal because it trades with other demon tokens and gets cleared by Pyrosaur/Ascendant Pyromancer though.

This card gets significantly better when combined with other Evil champions, especially 0-cost Evil champions like Zombie tokens. For one thing, it breaks the symmetry of token trades. If you both have zombie tokens, for instance after a Zombie Apoc, Wake the Dead, etc., yours survive in what would otherwise be a 1-for-1 trade. Further, since this effect isn’t tied to a champion like Champion of the Wicked, your opponent can’t remove the +1/+1 buff this turn; however, it can’t carry over into future turns.

In constructed, this is potentially a solid card with token creators (Eager Necromancer) and/or 1-cost token blitz enablers (The Risen/Demonic Rising). Even just this + Infest is 15/15 worth of blitz which makes this a more flexible punisher than Champion of the Wicked. Whether or not this will earn/keep a spot in midrange-combo Evil is yet to be determined.

Draft

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Small Removal (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Burn (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Constructed

Tier 4

Break a Muse/Thought Plucker and deal 3 face damage as punishment, nice.

Also can be used to clear off 3 defense champions like Shadow Imp or a total of two small champions, potentially ambush chump blockers. Solid in limited. Tech choice in constructed for aggressive/midrange decks: Muse, Thought Plucker, Shadow Imp, Spore Beast, Mist Guide Herald, Fire Shaman, Guilt Demon, Juggernaut, Necromancer Lord, Pyrosaur, Watchful Gargoyle, Winged Death.