I received this Pantheon card yesterday to do a spoil/review of it in anticipation of the ability to acquire the final two Pantheon packs at Origins this year, and it fried my circuits if you will.
It’s a funky, off-turn full-tempo-clear, with a positive/negative value backend.
General Implications
This is the first off-turn board clear that removes almost all competitive-viable champions and leaves nothing in play on resolution (unlike Wave of Transformation, Martial Law, etc.)
If played off-turn, your opponent gains +2 cards in hand, from your gold (unless they only have token champions in play)
If played on-turn, you get a clear board and gain +1 card in hand (assuming you have a non-token champion in play)
The – or – option is a slightly better version of the 0-cost card Second Wind
Control Implications
Off-turn board clear that doesn’t leave an opening for punishes from cards like Demonic Rising or the new card Rise of the Many, amazing
Give your opponent back their best champion in play with a bonus +1 card, absolutely horrendous
On-turn, Divine Judgement/Martial Law is generally better because your opponent gains nothing and you likely don’t have much of value in play anyway, mediocre
Lol (drawing 2 will almost always be better because you can get to your stronger non-card drawing cards)
To expand on the second implication, control decks generally try to run their opponent out of threats while they slowly kill them. Therefore, giving your opponent back a threat and replenishing their hand is the complete antithesis of control. This is particularly true if you are forced to do this while their gold is up when they have a blitz champion in play. Strafing Dragon is a beating; Silver Wing Savior is potentially worse.
Overall, I see this card being passed up by hard-control decks because the value given to the opponent is too high a cost for the excellent tempo removal, and the weaker -or- option isn’t doing it any favors. (1 card will almost always be better than 5 health for control.)
Combo Implications
Same as control, amazing
Unlike control, since you are just trying to survive until you can outright win, this is not that bad
The off-turn effect is so much stronger for combo, largely irrelevant
Draw 2 is better for finding your combo pieces, but for specifically combo Kark decks, +5 health is certainly relevant, as is the ability to potentially keep you alive for one more turn, acceptable
Combo decks win by assembling their combo pieces with an acceptable board state and not dying. Everything else is inevitably irrelevant. While giving your opponent more cards can make surviving more difficult, a highly-effective short-term solution is probably worthwhile, particularly if you can get your opponent’s gold down first.
Further, being able to return utility 0’s like Watchful Gargoyle or Muse before you wipe the board seems quite nice. Ambush the Gargoyle in front of an attacker, draw out your opponent’s Rage, then use this: -1 Rage, free recycle, remove at least one gold’s worth of tempo from your opponent, value.
Also, this can potentially be a strong answer to the Demon decks that gave Kark trouble. If all of their threats are powerful ambush champions without aggressive blitz effects, this prevents those threats from actually being able to attack, even though your opponent can keep replaying them. (Zannos would still be a problem though.)
Royal Intervention seems great for Combo.
Aggro Implications
This might be worth considering as an answer to an early all–in by your opponent that also gives you back direct damage with a Strafing Dragon, Fire Shaman, or Little Devil, possible tech choice?
If your opponent goes to 0, it doesn’t matter how many cards they have, and it only draws 1 actual card towards potential health gain, reasonable
Aggro go face on-turn, bad
No, against all decks except other aggressive decks, your health is essentially irrelevant. If it gets to the point where a non-aggressive deck can beat you, you’ve almost certainly already lost
Royal Intervention might see some tech play in aggro, but probably wouldn’t be more than a one or two-of.
Midrange
Potentially reasonable, if your opponent overcommits and spends their gold first on a turn
Since you are trying to apply consistent pressure to run your opponent out of answers, any card you draw them is a problem
Draw your self an extra card while also resetting a board that gets out of hand and return your most relevant champion to hand, powerful
If you are at 7+ cards in hand consistently and are against a deck where the board clear isn’t going to be relevant, +5 health could be worth more than a card, particularly if you would have had to discard it anyway, begrudgingly acceptable?
Midrange wants to play this on-turn, for the most part, and midrange decks can use niche board clears like this that they can exploit. Unfortunately, banish makes it harder to protect more of your champions, but there are some clever things that can be done with this card. It can also infinite loop with Silver Wing Savior. I look forward to experimenting with it.
Conclusion
I love the design of this card, not thrilled with the -or- effect though. On a side note, I will not be at Origins this year, but, if I can maintain my pace from last weekend, I’ll potentially be able to get the video that I’ve spent the last couple months working on finished.
Production is taking a while to complete for this video, but I am nearing the end (a few more weeks to go). At that time, I’ll also be making some more announcements and looking for feedback about what you all want to see next. (I have a decently long list already.)
Hey, it’s been awhile since my last post, and I just wanted to reassure everyone that more content is on the way. I’ve been working on my top tier constructed video for awhile, and I just keep deciding to push it further and further because it just wasn’t good enough yet. (Started recording it with only an outline, but the language wasn’t tight enough, it was too repetitive, and I kept leaving out points I wanted to touch on, [similar to how I felt about my first video on my Priest of Gold Dragon deck] so I started working on a script.)
While starting Monday I’ll have less hours I can commit to it, the script is really tightening up which is giving me the energy to get my momentum rolling again. Looking forward to getting it out, but it probably won’t be done before the end of next week, if not later, hence this post.
When finished, I’ll post about it in the usual places, but if you want to make sure you see every post (including ones like these that I don’t cross post), you can subscribe for updates by email. (It only sends emails when I publish something new.)
Pantheon specifically, blew me away. When I was opening my packs at Worlds I just kept gushing about how much I liked individual cards over and over again. On a whole the set is great, but I reached out to WWG to see if I could get the full resolution art for 10 of my subjective favorites (in addition to the clear objectively best one, Cast Out, at the top of the page). Every image can be clicked for its full resolution.
#10
My favorite part of this piece is the use of past champions’ art to clearly illustrate the mechanical effect of the card.
Poor Faithful Pegasus can’t catch a break. Even though Steed’s Loyalty 2 ability can’t target champions, this is still an effective piece at demonstrating the incredibly threatening nature of this Satanic Murder Horse. (Let me know in the comments who all remembers this reference.)
#8
Okay, so I’m biased on this one since it’s one of my favorite cards mechanically from the set, but the vanguard charge into the horde with the backup visibly framed by the champion works great.
While the artwork doesn’t directly depict the card’s mechanics, it is a fairly good representation of the Silver Wing Savior -> Resurrection loop charging headfirst into Evil’s unending removal.
#7
The mass gathering extending beyond the card boundaries, the detailed markings, and the ritual being cast create a haunting and intriguing scene.
I also like how the unarmored cultist seems dangerous enough to be a 6/5 0-cost champion, stronger than Knight of the Dawn and approaching Ankylosaurus range. I believe it.
#6
While I liked the original art on the promo version of this card, the new artwork is even better.
Einiosaurus just breaking through nine human tokens as if they weren’t even there. One soldier realizes the futility as the dinosaur doesn’t even bother to look at them.
#4
The artwork exceeds the expectation of the card’s name.
If I saw a dragon silently phase through a mountain to attack me, I’d probably react like middle soldier. Front soldier doesn’t even have a clue they’re about to die. Dragon just looks sick too.
While I initially thought this would work better for an unblockable champion, the idea of a dragon that is literally untargetable as it kills you is pretty terrifying. It also fits well with how the card plays; the threat of this as a surprise blocker turned attacker is real.
#2
I initially thought this was my favorite card art in the set before I looked through them all again for this. The pose, the spear, the clouds.
Wow. The hails of arrows. The trebuchets. The purple magical discharge. That massive punch windup. It’ll take an Apocalypse to stop that titan smash.
Afterword
These are my 10 (technically 11) favorite pieces from Epic Pantheon. Let me know your favorites either from this set or Epic as a whole. (Yes Cast Out is based on me.) Also not all of the Pantheon art is spectacular **cough**ScrapGolem**cough**.
In the meantime, I have started filming my Epic Constructed Tiered Card Ratings. I am also contemplating starting a massive scale project to work on concurrently. If I go through with it, it’ll probably take weeks to months but would be awesome (hopefully).
Now that my Constructed Card Ratings are up (except for the card by card analysis videos), I’m more determined than ever to use/break low rated cards. Erwin here we come.
The potentially underrated cards that formed the core of what I wanted to do were Erwin, Time Walker, and Scarred Cultist. (Cultist got an incognito tier bump partially because of this). Erwin could theoretically let me hit loyalty in two different alignments which is interesting. Cultist seems like it could be quite powerful, but I wasn’t able to find a deck for it. Time Walker works with both, and it’s the card that keeps making me want to build a 30/30 Evil/Sage 0-cost champion deck. So, that’s where I started.
I’ve built 0-cost blitzer decks in the past (bounce-based and Banishment/No Escape-based), and the biggest hurdle is always Raxxa’s Curse. If I play Little Devil, attack, and it gets Cursed, I fall so far behind. Therefore, instead of focusing on blitzing 0’s for my bounce deck, I wanted to focus on value 0’s, namely Scarred Cultist, Hunting Pterosaur, and Forcemage Apprentice. All of these give immediate value when they enter play, are worthwhile threats if not removed, and are great to get back to hand. If one of these gets Cursed after I’ve already retrieved a card or broken a Muse/Plucker, I’m okay with that.
Next, I worked out which Loyalty 2 champions I wanted to pursue, since Erwin needs a justification for inclusion (beyond playing it before Time Walker/Reset for a free recycle). Obviously I needed to be able to hit Evil loyalty for Cultist, I always want Medusa if possible, Angel of Death is amazing, and Necromancer Lord has some nice tricks in this deck (Final Task, Time Walker, Scarred Cultist). For Sage though, the only particularly interesting one was Time Walker. Therefore, since it is impossible to get 33 of 60 cards in both alignments, I decided to focus on Evil (since I want to hit Evil Loyalty early and often) and drop my Sage count to 24, making room for the Hunting Pterosaurs.
While I seriously dislike including Loyalty 2 cards in factions with less than 33 cards of that alignment or 55% (see my Epic Constructed Process article), in theory, this deck has some tricks to subvert that soft-restriction. First, I only have 3 cards that need loyalty outside of my main faction. Second, these are cards I believe I’ll generally want to wait until a bit later in the game to use. Third, Erwin, once drawn, will spend most of the rest of the game in my hand, meaning I only need 1 more card to activate Walker. Fourth, Ancient Chant Recall off-turn can potentially provide that second Loyalty card, so can Scarred Cultist (although I cut most of my other 1-cost Sage champions…). I’ll be curious to see how well this works. I don’t want to play it safe and go down to 2 Walkers because it is one of the strongest cards in the deck. On the plus side, if I do draw all 3 Walkers, at least I’ll have loyalty for them.
So, the goal of this deck is to win by chipping down the opponent with 0-cost champions while outvaluing them by repeatedly playing incredibly powerful loyalty 2 champions. While less of a focus as in the past, playing a 0-cost champion and attacking or passing is a strong option for this deck. Where similar decks falter, however, is that they don’t have strong on-turn gold punishers to follow up. This is particularly true because Evil has historically had little to no worthwhile on-turn gold punishers. Steed of Zaltessa changes that. If your opponent spends their gold first on your turn, you get to hit them for 11 and leave a 7 defense airborne champion in play, incredible. (I think I want space for 3.) The fact that Evil now has a powerful on-turn gold punisher is a huge deal, and it is one of the reasons why a 6/5 version of Corpse Taker (Cultist) can actually be a powerful card, more on this in the constructed ratings videos. Winged Death is also a strong board-control gold-punisher.
Fairy Trickster is the final interesting piece of this build. Ideally, I’ll ambush it in off-turn, expend it to target my deck, and flip any of my 0-cost champions, effectively drawing and playing that card, not bad. I’ve used it in the past in similar decks, and it’s been okay, but I’m curious about experimenting with it in this deck. One interesting note is that if you use this off-turn and/or during combat and you turn up a slow champion, you can actually play that champion (effectively as if it had ambush). Surprise Attack on a body could be interesting, particularly with Winged Death, Necromancer Lord, Time Walker, Mist Guide Herald, and Winged Death. We’ll see.
Current Concerns
Right now, I’m a bit lighter on card draw than I like to be, especially since I’m being overly generous and counting Fairy Trickster as card draw. Theoretically, the AoE bounces from Time Walker and Reset could keep me stocked with cards, but I won’t know until testing. Due to this lack of card draw concern, I shifted a bit away from Mist Guide Herald, which can in theory be pretty strong when it hits Time Walker. Due to the decreased MGH count, Final Task becomes worse, as does Teleport.
If I continue with this deck, I would probably end up cutting the Tricksters, MGH, Teleport, and decreasing the Final Task count. The 2-2 Little DevilCorpsemonger ratio might shift too. Hopefully the final two as of yet unspoiled Pantheon packs will give the final cards needed for these slots.
Below are the 264 currently-legal cards for Epic constructed divided into 9 tiers (Core, Tyrants, Uprising, and 4 of 6 Pantheon packs [not yet available for retail]). In constructed, the power level of each card is heavily influenced by the other cards that are being played, the “meta.” For example, if everyone is playing untargetable champions, non-targeted removal (Scara’s Will and Winged Death) are effectively better while targeted removal (Erase and Drain Essence) are effectively worthless.
Therefore, since I want this first rating to be relevant for as long as possible, I have tried to keep it as meta-agnostic as reasonable. Instead of rating the cards based on their power level at this exact moment, I have grouped them by relative power level that can fluctuate based on the meta. From these tier groupings, I plan on making around 9 videos (about 1 per tier) to explain the cards’ strengths and weaknesses and my rationale for their placements [edit: first video is up going over all of the top tier cards, future videos will be broken up into small packages of similar cards]. The videos also go over community terminology and key Epic concepts. I recommend focusing on tiers 1-5 when building decks. (I might also write a meta-based ranking to accompany this article that I can update as the meta shifts.)
If you disagree or want clarification on any of the cards’ positions below, let me know in the comments. I’ll plan on spending a bit more time talking about those cards in my videos. Also, I know this clashes with most players’ views on at least a few cards, so tell me why I’m wrong!
Tier Name (# of cards in tier / # of cards total legal cards)
Brief description of tier
Alignment (# of cards in alignment in tier / # of legal cards of that alignment total) [# of cards in the alignment for this and all previous tiers]
Individual cards are searchable with ctrl + f / cmd + f. Clicking on a card name will currently open the card’s linked image in a new tab. Once the videos are up I’ll, ideally, switch the link to the timestamped video where I discuss it (this has begun).
I am a better limited player than a constructed player. I tried to factor out my personal biases for these rankings as much as possible, but doing so completely is impossible and ultimately undesirable.
**Update 10/21/20: I am a much better constructed player now**
These changes are based off of my experiences with constructed on the app up through Uprising and Duels (no Pantheon). I avoided demoting cards except for egregious cases. I also avoided changing most Pantheon cards.
Promoted Cards
Angel of Death: up from Tier 2 to Tier 1 (One of the best defensive cards in the game, that 6/5 airborne body is such a frustrating blocker and a reasonable threat too)
Angel of the Gate: up from Tier 5 to Tier 4 (Excellent tech card in my anti-Wild Untargetable deck)
Bruger, the Pathfinder: up from Tier 8 to Tier 7 (As more wolves get added to Wild the potential for this rises)
Burrowing Wurm: up from Tier 9 to Tier 7 (Lost to it in a Mist Guide Herald, Surprise Attack deck, new Surprise Attack 0-cost coming in next sets)
Corpse Taker: up from Tier 7 to Tier 6 (Maybe it fits into a Time Walker deck or something similar, great art though)
Courageous Soul: up from Tier 5 to Tier 4 (Lynchpin in Human Tokens which is a real deck now)
Crystal Golem: up from Tier 4 to Tier 3 (Staple for Mist Guide Herald decks and pretty reasonable as a draw 2 and on its own, Army of the Apocalypse potential as well)
Demonic Rising: up from Tier 3 to Tier 1 (One of the most powerful cards in the game, gives token decks an absurd finisher and defensive option)
Draka, Dragon Tyrant: up from Tier 2 to Tier 1 (9/9 airborne evasive gold-punisher that sweeps 3 defense champions such as tokens, all of those things are consistently highly valuable, it will practically never be a bad card and it’s an absolute backbreaker in some matchups)
Entangling Vines: up from Tier 8 to Tier 5 (Was pretty devestating in a Wild deck against me, the meta has to look a very specific way for it to be reliably powerful though)
Fireball: up from Tier 8 to Tier 6 (With tokens becoming more and more powerful, having another off-turn clear for non-demon tokens seems possibly valuable)
Force Field: up from Tier 8 to Tier 5 (Seemed amazing in theory crafting an airborne deck for no-core constructed)
Hands from Below: up from Tier 6 to Tier 3 (Powerful token filler that also removes Thought Plucker and the currently popular Knight of Shadows while supporting Demonic Rising)
Ice Drake: up from Tier 3 to Tier 2 (Almost a Tier 1, amazing pay-off for playing Sage, great defensively against board-centric decks, especially tokens, and great offensively to negate potential blockers, returning it to your own hand for multiple plays is great too, Tier 2 because there are too many situations where I feel forced to just play it as a 6/8 airborne)
Inner Peace: up from Tier 5 to Tier 2 (Very strong card in Kark decks and control decks in general)
Mist Guide Herald: up from Tier 2 to Tier 1 (This card makes most 1-cost champion based decks better, it lets you find your most nescessary cards for the matchup, and/or more establishing cards while also providing an airborne chump blocker [it can attack too] If running this, I recommend at minimum 20 other 1-cost champions [with Crystal Golem and Street Swindler being excellent filler], but I’ve been trying for ~25 recently)
Necrovirus: up from Tier 5 to Tier 4 (This is another “over-draw” card similar to Soul Hunter but for token decks with Evil, also reasonable as off-turn removal against no-core airborne decks)
Noble Martyr: up from Tier 6 to Tier 4 (This is another “over-draw” card similar to Soul Hunter but for token decks with Good)
Scarros, Hound of Draka: up from Tier 3 to Tier 2 (Excellent finisher, board-clearer, bounce-resistant threat for heavy Wild decks)
Second Wind: up from Tier 5 to Tier 2 (Excellent anti-aggro tech card that I put into a ton of decks currently, also absurd in Kark)
Secret Legion: up from Tier 5 to Tier 3 (Excellent card I would never leave out of human tokens and can fit into some Good decks with incidental humans)
Shadow Imp: up from Tier 4 to Tier 3 (Excellent in aggressive to midrange Sage-heavy decks, assuming it isn’t your only 3 or less defense champions/0-cost champions)
Spore Beast: up from Tier 3 to Tier 2 (Absurdly powerful against decks that rely on 1-cost champions to attack or block breakthrough champions [fairly garbage against decks that don’t], another card that effectively forces decks to run small removal [Muse/Thought Plucker/Spore Beast answers])
Standard Bearer: up from Tier 8 to Tier 7 (Okay card in human token lists)
Steel Golem: up from Tier 5 to Tier 4 (Excellent tech card in my anti-Wild Untargetable deck)
The Gudgeon: up from Tier 4 to Tier 3 (Just a solid “draw 2 and” champion, reasonably in generic Evil or Mist Guide Herald decks)
The Risen: up from Tier 8 to Tier 7 (Introduction of Eager Necromancer and other aggressive 0-cost Evil token cards)
Thundarus: up from Tier 8 to Tier 7 (1 ofs of this have been cropping up in competitive decks here and there as bounce [Erase] has been falling out of favor)
Warrior Golem: up from Tier 5 to Tier 3 (I’ve been impressed by it in aggressive-midrange Sage decks as a bit more added pressure that frequently recycles)
Watchful Gargoyle: up from Tier 4 to Tier 3 (Effectively a Fumble in a lot of situations, sometimes better, but it can be reacted to, critical to Kark)
Wolf’s Call: up from Tier 9 to Tier 5 (An okay part of my human tokens list I brought to Origins 2019 and other token decks, partner with Hunting Pack)
Word of Summoning: up from Tier 7 to Tier 5 (We’re reaching critical mass for aggressive Evil token decks and this can fit into that deck)
Cards I Felt Needed Justification for No Change
Noble Unicorn/Silver Wing Savior: No Change (I still want to believe [Pantheon does give Savior a lot of excellent toys, shhhhh though])
Zombie Apocalypse: No Change (While an incredibly powerful card, it doesn’t seem meta-shaping nor broadly applicable in my experience, not as powerful as Demonic Rising but that is a tough comparison, control decks are frequently light on champions and mass discard pile banishment remains popular, by the time in a game where you’ve survived an opponent’s opening rush and their mass discard pile removal, you’ve generally already won, it is another off-turn board clear which absolutely matters, but I don’t think it is necessarily that much better than the others, especially since it doesn’t banish the cleared champions like Wave or Martial Law)
Demoted Cards
Angel of Mercy: down from Tier 4 to Tier 6 (Due to its stats being too bad and its effect being too slow, just too easy to counter its gold expenditure [frequently for 0] before gaining value)
Dark Assassin: down from Tier 7 to Tier 8 (I can’t imagine this ever having a home in competitive constructed)
Gold Dragon: down from Tier 2 to Tier 3 (It hurts my heart, but 1-cost champion-based Good just consistently hasn’t been strong enough, maybe this goes back up later, but it relies too much on maintaining a board of Good champions which is impractical)
Herald of Scara: down from Tier 6 to Tier 7 (It seems unlikely this will ever have a home in competitive constructed, but maybe)
Palace Guard: down from Tier 2 to Tier 5 (Body too small to be relevant in a lot of situations, no evasion, and the slow 1-cost slot is too valuable, in a world of Kark, Brachiosaurus, and tokens this just doesn’t cut it)
Teleport: down from Tier 4 to Tier 6 (Defensively – Tribute and Loyalty 2 champions are too popular to get great value, Offensively seems like too much of a “win-more” card when ahead)
The Risen: up from Tier 5 to Tier 4
I was very impressed by the card in my deck for the November constructed monthly. It is now a solid tech card (at least).
Herald of Scara: up from Tier 7 to Tier 5
I was pretty impressed by the card in my deck for the November constructed monthly. A 9/7 airborne champion that selectively draws a card in heavy Evil decks and can trade with Draka is not bad at all.
“Draw 2 ands” are amazing, particularly off-turn ones. Eventually you’ll need to spend a gold to draw 2, and if you can remove a Thought Plucker, Muse, Winged Death, etc. with that draw 2, amazing. If nothing else, it’s a free 3 damage to your opponent.
And of course, the 6 damage can always hit your opponent, which is quite powerful if they’re at 6 health, if they have no health gain, or if they are relying on bounce effects for removal (Erase, Sea Titan, etc.). To reiterate though, when I draft this, I will almost always want to use it to remove an opponent’s champion because reestablishing champions are gods in limited. Would not draft a 12/10 Burrowing Wurm outside of Wild though.
All of that makes this an Always First Pickable card by itself, but preventing your opponent from gaining health also has value. If your opponent can’t remove this (you’re probably winning anyways but), they can’t effectively use Second Wind, Righteous is turned off, and Inner Peace becomes a dead card.
This can also help setup a burnout kill. Normally, spending your gold on your turn to get your opponent in range of an off-turn burn effect (like Flame Strike), is a risky move, even if their gold is down. This is because they can always go to their turn and immediately spend their gold to gain health before you get initiative to play your burn effect. However, if you play Kalani on your turn, after your opponent’s spends their gold, and don’t attack, they need exactly Raxxa’s Curse, Lightning Strike, Vanishing, or Siren’s Song otherwise all of their 1-cost health gain is worthless. (If they don’t have a 1-cost answer to Kalani, all of their 0-cost health gain is worthless too.)
Rules Interaction: If you play Drain Essence targeting an opponent’s Kalani, you will gain 9 health. This is because Kalani immediately breaks after taking 9 damage, and it is therefore not in play when Drain Essence tries to gain you 9 health. This also applies to blocking and breaking Kalani with a righteous champion, since Righteous is a triggered effect, it waits to resolve until after champions break to combat damage.
Herald of Angeline Rating
Rarely Playable
Worst Herald (so far). In addition to generically not liking the Herald effect in Dark Draft, Herald of Angeline is in the worst Dark Draft alignment, Good. Therefore, in order to get enough cards for me to feel comfortable successfully drawing a card off this Herald, I need to draft about 19 other Good cards, not going to happen. (On the plus side, since Good is so weak in Dark Draft, you’re more likely to get Good cards passed to you enabling you to get closer to my arbitrary 19.) Then, once you have your 20 Good card Dark Draft deck, this card asks you to play a 1-cost, slow, 5 defense champion without blitz; I really dislike 5 or less defense 1-cost champions because of 0-cost cards like Lightning Strike and Spike Trap.
Further, even if you draw a card from Herald and even if it isn’t removed before it can attack, it still breaks for nothing but 7 health gain against powerful 6/8 airborne champions like Ice Drake and Ethereal Dragon. It also only trades with most other 1-cost airborne champions. Although, when put that way, draw a card, gain 7 health, and break an airborne champion like Angel of the Gate, that doesn’t sound too bad. If it manages to live through that first attack it might gain 14+ health. However, that is a lot of easily preventable if’s.
Angeline’s Will Rating
Situationally Acceptable +
As mentioned, I don’t value the “Will” effect highly in Dark Draft, and the fact that this doesn’t even have an “Or Draw 2” option really plummets my evaluation of the card. While 10 health gain could be strong against an opponent who heavily drafts burn, and I do highly value Inner Peace, spending a gold and a card just to gain 10 health feels weak.
Further, unlike Scara’s Will, the removal effect doesn’t deal with untargetable champions (which are hard to deal with already), it can’t remove an ambush champion before it blocks, and it requires the champion to be expended to even be used. It does banish though, which is almost always better than break. Also, Good has better on-turn gold-punishers than Evil, for example Silver Wing Savior (which could get this back), Silver Wing Lancer, and Gold Dragon. Hmmmm, that actually seems fairly strong, if I’ve already drafted 2+ on-turn, 1-cost, Good, gold-punishers, I’ll value this higher going forward. Otherwise, no thank you. (As a side note, Two Time World Champion John Tatian does like this card “quite a lot.”)
Knight of the Dawn Rating
Always First Pickable
Another 0-cost blitz champion. Can banish a demon when played too, so it is a nice answer to your opponent Raxxa’s Cursing your first 0-cost blitz champion. It’s also a human so it can ride Faithful Pegasus.
Scara’s Gift Rating
Situationally Acceptable +
This card is a beast in constructed, as The Flock demonstrated by putting John Tatian and James Moreland into top 8 with it. If you can repeatedly trigger this, it can gain a ridiculous amount of incidental health and do a ridiculous amount of incidental damage, which is great if you are using a bunch of Evil 1-cost cards to control the board.
However, in Dark Draft I generally don’t draft that many 1-cost cards that could trigger this. Even though I go Evil frequently, that is usually off the back of multiple powerful 0-cost cards and just a couple key 1-cost cards. (As a reminder, spending a gold on a 0-cost card’s Draw 2 ability does not trigger ally abilities.) So, when you take into consideration the fact that I probably won’t cast this more than a few times a game, and the fact that it doesn’t impact the board at all, I am not convinced that this is a consistently worthwhile Dark Draft card.
Krieg, Dark One’s Chosen Rating
Situationally Acceptable
I didn’t think much of this card when I saw it, but then I realized how it’s ally trigger interacts. Now it is my favorite card of the set (even if it isn’t consistently that strong). Setting aside the ally trigger for now, an 8/8 that produces two 2/2 zombie tokens isn’t all that impressive, but at least it’s a human for Pegasus and Cast Out. Not a great start though.
However, the Ally ability is sick. In Epic, any effects triggered by another effect “triggered effects” (denoted by a trigger and an arrow such as Ally -> , Tribute -> , Loyalty 2 -> , and When this attacks -> ) are put into a heap until that “triggering effect” is finished resolving. Then, you choose the order in which those heaped triggers resolve.
Example 1 (Event)
Say I have Krieg in play and Necrovirus in my discard pile. If I play Apocalypse, both Krieg’s triggered Ally ability and Necrovirus‘ triggered Ally ability are put into a heap, then I fully resolve Apocalypse and break all champions. Now that Apocalypse has fully resolved, I choose to resolve Necrovirus‘ triggered Ally ability first to put 3 zombie tokens into play. Then, I resolve Krieg’s triggered Ally ability, put 1 zombie token into play and give all of my zombie tokens +1/+1 and blitz. This leaves me with 4 3/3 blitzing zombies after I cleared the board, good stuff.
Example 2 (Champion)
Say I have Krieg in play. If I play Zannos Corpse Lord, both Krieg’s triggered Ally ability and Zannos‘ triggered Loyalty X ability are put into a heap. I choose to resolve Zannos‘ triggered Loyalty X ability first, reveal 5 cards, drain my opponent for 5 health, and make 5 zombie tokens. Then I resolve Krieg’s triggered Ally ability, put 1 zombie token into play and give all of my zombie tokens +1/+1 and blitz. This leaves me with 6 3/3 blitzing zombies, in addition to Krieg’s 8/8 body and Zannos‘ 9/9 body. I like it, I like it a lot.
If you have a Krieg in play and you play a second Krieg, you would end up with 3 3/3 blitzing zombies.
I love this interaction because it is cool, and it rewards a deep understanding of how cards actually resolve in Epic. It also works quite nicely with Forbidden Research (make the zombie first then break the zombie to recall) and Scarred Priestess (use the made zombie as fodder to break an opponent’s champion every time you play a 1-cost Evil card). The problem though, is getting Krieg into play.
As we mentioned, playing Krieg for an 8/8 and two 2/2s isn’t that strong, but at least it isn’t horrible. Further, to get great use out of it’s triggered ally ability we need cards that aren’t great in Dark Draft: Scarred Priestess, Zannos Corpse Lord, Necrovirus etc. (Necrovirus is actually the best of the 3 in limited, and Murderous Necromancer is actually quite strong.) Therefore, the odds of both this being strong in your deck and finding a time to play it are low, and I’d usually much rather draft an always acceptable card in its spot. I will try long and hard to break it in constructed though, but it won’t be easy.
Dark One’s Fury Rating
Frequently Desirable
I value Draws 2s. I frequently draft Evil. One-sided board clears are amazing. Even if your opponent is going Evil and you aren’t, counter drafting this to keep it out of their hands is still strong, especially since it’s always at least a draw 2.
Erwin, Architect of War Rating
Always Acceptable +
I’ve hit loyalty in 3 different alignments in one game because of this card. When focusing on 0-cost cards and “best cards in pack” over drafting “In Alignment,” this can be quite nice to help hit loyalty effects in your secondary, possibly tertiary, and even just primary alignment that you naturally fell into. For the most part, you just want to keep this in your hand to help hit loyalty for much of the game. But, if you need to find a new card, you can always just play it and recycle. 5 defense is not irrelevant either, since it survives a demon attack each turn.
Solid card, I’d pick actively strong cards over it, but I’m always up for drafting it if there’s nothing else crazy in the pack.
Ethereal Dragon Rating
Always Desirable
Ambush, Airborne champions are powerful. 8 defense makes it hard to kill in the air, and it even survives Flames of Furios. 6 offense is a real threat. Untargetable is incredible, and it lets you ambush this in while your opponent’s gold is up to use as a hard to punish blocker. Big fan.
Scrap Golem Rating
Situationally ????
(Scrap Tokens are token versions of this without Recall or Loyalty 2 -> blitz)
I was in love with this card when I first saw it as a promo (because my favorite card in Magic is Chronozoa), but now that I have it, it just doesn’t seem strong enough (even though they buffed it by giving it a recall ability).
Obviously, without loyalty this card is awful because it’s just a slow 6/6. With loyalty, it’s two slow 6/6s, meh? However, if at least one of them survives both the turn you play it and your opponent’s turn (which is reasonably likely because two 6/6 bodies aren’t easy to remove without a board clear), you can produce even moar 6/6 bodies! Then, theoretically, as long as any of these 6/6s survive until your next turn, you can continue to pump out 6/6s for just that one initial gold. Ignoring the fact that this also gets shut down by Amnesia effects or just running out of cards in your discard pile, is this even worth it? If yes, is it still worth it when you do consider those restrictions? I honestly don’t know yet.
Right now I’m leaning towards no. First off, unlike cards like Murderous Necromancer, Pack Alpha, and Helena’s Chosen, you don’t gain multiple bodies that can freely attack or chump block. Instead, you get 1 prepared 6/6 the turn you play it (and the expended 6/6). If you use the prepared 6/6 to block, it can’t generate more on its next turn, and you are left with your one expended 6/6. On the other hand, if both 6/6s survive until your next turn, you can either make more 6/6s and not attack, attack and not make more 6/6s, or attack with one and make another 6/6 with the other. None of these scenarios particularly interest me because they’re all really slow.
Three places where this could be strong is against a controlling style deck, a deck that relies on single target removal, or a heavy burn deck. Theoretically, your 6/6s can just grind out value while you use your gold to draw cards/force your opponent to discard cards, remove their threats/dodge their removal, or gain health. Even if they do board clear you, there aren’t any board clears that can clear your 6/6s and draw a card (although some can one-sided clear you like Dark One’s Fury). Therefore, if they board clear you on their turn, you can recall this, then replay it on your turn and force them to have another clear (or discard pile removal). Any of these options do rely on your 6/6s being enough to actually pressure your opponent into dealing with them though.
All of that being said, the fact that this relies on banishing cards from your discard pile for fuel is not great. First, this can limit your options for cards like Final Task or Lesson Learned. Second, it can limit your ability to recycle. Third, it basically blows up your ability to win by decking, so you better hope you have a mass-discard-pile-banish effect or can win through damage. Fourth, you can’t use this on turn 1 to establish to an empty board (although that probably wouldn’t be strong enough anyway). Fifth, as mentioned before, this is pretty awful against discard pile removal.
While I think this is an interesting card, I just need to play with it more to see if it’s even okay.
Overall
This pack has a lot of interesting cards, and it does come with a few particularly strong 0s. Kalani is probably the strongest card in the pack for Dark Draft (Scara’s Gift is the strongest for constructed), but Knight of the Dawn and Ethereal Dragon are up there too. Krieg is going to be one of my new pet cards (like Knight of Elara) that I constantly try (and probably fail) to build decks around. Looking forward to it.
If you are going tokens, particularly human tokens, this card can be quite strong. Not only does it threaten 9 damage by itself and draw a card (the addition of a card draw is a huge deal), but it can also combo with other champions you have in play. Like Secret Legion, it gives all humans blitz meaning you can play Courageous Soul first, then play this to give it blitz and attack for 21. (Scarred Cultist appreciates this card too). This card is everything the human token deck wants (except unbreakable tokens).
Off-turn though, this is generally a worse Urgent Messengers. It sacrifices 1 card for 1 token and a frequently irrelevant +2 offense buff. However, it can allow you to trigger the expend abilities of Murderous Necromancer and Gladius the Defender early.
Outside of a human token deck, 9 blitzing damage with a card draw is a reasonable gold punisher, although it is weak to Flash Fire/Wither, and 3 chump blockers off turn with a card draw isn’t terrible either. While a significant portion of the time I’d rather have the extra card from a draw 2, if your opponent can’t answer the tokens, you can get multiple blocks or multiple attacks through.
Cast Out Rating
Always First Pickable
Yes, that is me in the art. No, that is not John Tatian. And yes, this card is actually incredibly powerful.
Ignoring all of that, this is also one of only three 0-cost Good cards with an or draw 2 option (Revolt and Angeline’s Favor being the other 2). Like Raxxa’s Curse, this is an incredibly high pick for me, regardless of what else I’ve drafted.
I am a fan of Tribute -> Draw a card. In addition, putting that on a champion that needs to be removed otherwise it will generate two 3/1 tokens every turn is quite a real threat. However, the loyalty ability is tied to Good which remains the worst overall Dark Draft faction, since it relies so much on specific synergies which are hard to come by in limited. In addition, the 5 defense means 0-cost cards can remove it, like Lightning Strike (but not Spike Trap since this usually won’t attack).
Generally, if I’m already in Good, I’ll take this, otherwise I’ll pick it over 1-cost cards that don’t have ambush, draw a card, blitz, or untargetable.
Alchemist Assassin Rating
Frequently Desirable –
0-cost blitz champions are strong. Play this while your gold is up and attack. If they spend their gold, you spend yours. Otherwise you probably get 3 unblockable damage through and pass. The 1 defense makes it so everything breaks it, which makes it worse than some other 0-cost blitzers, but unblockable is a big bonus.
This can also be strong with unbreakable effects such as Brave Squire, Force Lance, or Mighty Blow. If your opponent’s gold is down, and you have an unbreakable effect, or possibly just a defense buff like Go Wild, the gold ability can be relevant. Otherwise, I wouldn’t use it unless you’ve seen every card in your opponent’s deck, and you know they won’t have a way to remove this after you pump it; Spending a gold to pump this just for it to get removed by Lash, Wolf’s Bite, or Cast Out would be a huge loss and could easily cost you the game.
Gareth’s Will Rating
Always Acceptable +
As I explained in my first Pantheon review, I don’t value the Will effect highly in Dark Draft. I also delved into this card’s potential, with a comparison of it to Vanishing, in my visual spoiler for it.
Overall, the only-on-your-turn (fast-combat) bounce effect isn’t quite worth a gold, particularly when compared to Erase, Temporal Shift, or even Helion’s Fury (not to mention Sea Titan and Velden). However, Sage does have great on-turn gold punishers that this can bait your opponent into playing into, such as Velden, Steel Golem, War Machine, etc.
In general, I’d rather draft something that is always strong even if I don’t have another worthwhile Sage 1-cost effect in hand, but if I’m in Sage or there aren’t any better draw 2s in the pack, I’ll draft this.
Mystic Researcher Rating
Situationally Diserable
This just seems like a worse, Sage-Loyalty dependent Winter Fairy. If in Sage, it draws 2 cards immediately, then threatens to draw an extra card each turn. Hmmmm, getting a guaranteed 2 cards does make this better against removal effects, particularly bounce and banish, but it doesn’t threaten 4 airborne damage each turn.
In general, this card is pretty awful to play when behind because it doesn’t do anything to impact the board by itself; however, with a lot of 0-cost cards in your deck, since this is Dark Draft, it could draw you into some reasonable plays…It is quite strong to play when your opponent’s gold is down when you are either at parity or ahead though.
I need to experiment more with this card, but only when I’m in Sage. (A slow 3/2 champion that draws 1 card and doesn’t threaten to do anything else until your next turn is terrible.)
Bruger, the Pathfinder Rating
Always Acceptable –
Ambush, unblockable, 6 defense, reasonable off-turn gold-punisher. If you can play this when your opponent’s gold is down on their turn, they need to spend a gold, Smash and Burn, or multiple cards to remove it (since it survives Spike Trap, Lightning Strike, etc.). In addition, the turn you play it, it is an 8/9 body, so it can block some non-airborne champions favorably. Aside from that, I don’t see the tribute/when this damages an opponent effect being too relevant, unless you have the highly valuable card Hunting Pack and/or Den Mother.
I’d generally rather have my 1-cost cards affect the board and/or draw me cards, but off-turn gold-punishers are important too.
Herald of Lashnok Rating
Situationally Acceptable
Best Herald (so far), but I’m still not a huge fan of them in Dark Draft. If you have a high density of Wild cards (I’d personally want around 19 others for this card), this can be an establishing/gold-punishing on-turn blitzer, similar to Juggernaut. Without a buff, this runs the risk of hitting an ambushed Lurking Giant (or even Bruger) if used as an establishing blitzer though. Otherwise, it forces your opponent to have an immediate answer or take up to 8 breakthrough damage (since you wouldn’t play and attack with this if your opponent already had a way to effectively block it in play). Also, unlike Juggernaut, it isn’t easily breakable off-turn with its 6 defense.
0-cost ambush, airborne champion that can break Muse, Thought Plucker, etc. Amazing. I’ve even just thrown it in front of Little Devil multiple times and been fairly happy.
Dirge of Scara Rating
Always Acceptable +
In Dark Draft you generally need to spend a gold to draw 2 multiple times. With this, you eventually get a demon too. I’ll take a free demon with an effect I wanted anyway. It can also be recalled to get another draw 2 to hand, in addition to the demon.
Similar to Ancient Chant, if you play Lesson Learned targeting this card, the “when this card leaves your discard pile” trigger will happen twice, so you’ll draw 2 cards and get 2 demons.
Necromancer Apprentice Rating
Frequently Desirable
0-cost cards are important, and this card has been surprisingly effective for me. Getting a free chump blocker every turn, while whittling away my opponent’s discard pile, has given me the time to get back into games I might have lost otherwise.
Steed of Zaltessa Rating
Situationally Desirable
6/7 airborne blitz is a strong on-turn gold-punisher stat line. At 7 defense it generally requires a gold to remove, and 6 airborne offense is a real threat. If in Evil, an extra 5 damage can be pretty devastating too, especially since 11 damage can be quite unexpected from an Evil deck. The ability to turn off health gain doesn’t seem that great, but if you do end up playing this while the opponent’s gold is up, at least they can’t gain health in response, requiring them to block/remove this or take 6 more damage. Also, if they bounce it, you can replay it for 5 more damage later. It’s even a demon for Raxxa’s Displeasure.
Overall
This is the pack to get if you want to play human tokens. Cast Out is insane and the best card in the pack. For Dark Draft, Hunting Pterosaur is a close second. The weakest card is Bruger, the Pathfinder.
Aside from human token constructed decks, Dirge of Scara will be a staple in Evil non-aggro decks as it is one of Evil’s few draw 2+ cards. I’m even experimenting with a sub 30 draw-effects constructed deck due to this and Forbidden Research. Herald of Lashnok is another solid threat/establishing champion for the Wild arsenal. Gareth’s Will is an incredibly intriguing card because it allows interesting Master Forcemage shenanigans, but I haven’t found a Sage deck for it yet that can compete with either the Wild or Evil Worlds decks.
Only 1 final pack to review. I plan to get it up before I head out on Friday.
Pantheon introduces a cycle of Herald cards: Herald of Scara, Herald of Angeline, Herald of Lashnok, and probably a Herald of Gareth in the final two unspoiled packs. They are 1-cost champions with a Tribute effect that lets you reveal the top 3 cards of your deck and chose a card of the same alignment to add to your hand. (Banish the other revealed cards.)
Just like the Will cards, these are weak for my draft strategy because I frequently don’t have much more than 10 to 12 cards of my dominant alignment. Therefore, my likelihood of revealing 3 non-alignment matching cards is greater than I am willing to accept. I’d much rather draft either a more reliable alignment-independent card or an alignment-dependent card that I can be sure will activate when I choose to play it.
That being said, if you have recycled through your entire deck and have been keeping track of the order of your banished cards, these can be great to get you to the card you need that you know is coming (assuming it is in your Herald’s alignment). It could even just burn you past 3 cards you didn’t want to draw. Also, if you are in the draft-as-much-of-1-alignment-as-possible camp, these cards becomes much better because you are more likely to get at least 1 alignment-matching card; you might even be able to choose between 2 alignment-matching cards.
Scara vs Angeline
Angeline’s Favor Rating
Always Acceptable
Draw 2, always acceptable. 0-cost, I’m listening. Jump with a +2/+2 attached, hmm. Best case scenario, you use this to give a Kong airborne and hit your opponent for 15 damage, past whatever non-airborne blockers they might have in play. 0-cost deal 15, seems strong. It also bypasses a potential ambush, non-airborne chump blocker, since you can use it in combat, before blockers are declared.
However, for a 0-cost card that can get damage through, I’d generally rather have breakthrough (Rage/Lash), chump blocker removal (Wither/Raxxa’s Curse/etc), or potential big removal (Vanishing/Feeding Frenzy). In all of these scenarios, not only do I still potentially get damage through (although possibly less damage), but I also remove the chump blocker so it can’t stop me next turn either. Granted, if you just kill your opponent with that one attack, removing a potential chump blocker doesn’t matter.
In addition, I’d draft 0-cost champions over this or high-value champions like Kong, but if I need card draw (and I usually do), this is a perfectly acceptable card that could potentially win me the game.
Ambush champions in Dark Draft are great. Airborne champions in Dark Draft are great. Health gain in Dark Draft is pretty strong. Put all that together and you have a solid card, especially since it doesn’t rely on Loyalty or Ally effects.
This is particularly strong with combat tricks, namely Brave Squire. Ambush this in on your opponent’s turn during an attack, gain 4 health, Brave Squire it and block with it (if opponent’s gold is up, Brave Squire before passing initiative, otherwise Brave Squire after blocking), break the opponent’s attacking champion, gain 11 more health, and have a 6/6 airborne righteous champion to attack with on your next turn. (Tom Dixon figured this one out and it was incredibly strong in constructed.)
The reason this isn’t always desirable or better is because it isn’t as absurdly powerful/game-swinging as other cards, it can’t draw cards, and it breaks to Smash and Burn Ally trigger.
Silver Wing Lancer Rating
Usually Desirable
Effectively the best on-turn punisher to play after your opponent spends their gold on your turn. Without a gold, the only way your opponent can prevent 10 damage to their face is Hasty Retreat, Spore Beast, Blind Faith, Fumble, or a combination of cards such as combattricks. After it his your opponent, at 8 defense, your opponent will be forced to use a gold (or multiple effects/Vanishing) to remove it, and since it is unbanishable, cards like Divine Judgement can’t sweep it up. It’s hard to appreciate just how strong this card is until you play with or against it.
Force Lance Rating
Frequently Desirable
This is the best enabling card for playing your gold first on your turn.
Most of the time, playing a 1-cost blitz champion and attacking with it while your opponent’s gold is up is a bad idea; your opponent can remove your champion with cards like Medusa, Drain Essence, Erase, Chomp!, etc. and you gain almost no value from them. However, if you Force Lance that champion before passing initiative when you attack, your opponent’s possible answers drop dramatically. Further, since you recycled when you played this, even if your opponent has that Erase, you don’t get completely screwed.
This can also be used on an ambush champion you played last turn, before either player spends their gold, if you think your opponent wants to Medusa it. As a reminder, this only gives unbreakable on your turn, not your opponent’s.
Steel Titan Rating Rating
First Pickable –
This card, if unanswered, can win you the game in two attacks (because 13 offense, effectively unblockable), and it is pretty hard to answer (because untargetable). If your opponent doesn’t have a boardclear, Scara’s Will, Winged Death, Lying in Wait, or Mythic Monster/Kong, you basically win. Assuming you can play this without dying since it doesn’t do much the turn it is played, aside from being a big untargetable blocker.
While there are still cards I would pick over this, I would only do so if I either A) already have ways to remove this or B) it’s early enough in the draft that I can pick ways to remove it. This card terrifies me, and I’ve already seen it almost single-handedly win multiple games. One benefit of first picking this card is that your opponent won’t know to prioritize answers for it.
I’m not a huge fan of this card, now that the card draw is conditional on expending the target champion. (This also means that if you Teleport a token, the token disappears before you can expend it, so you can’t draw a card. Also true if you play this with no legal targets.)
Best case scenario is that you use this on your turn on a Kong or Brak, get the Tribute effect and then attack with that champion a second time… Now that I think about it though, using this on your Kong off-turn to break a champion and draw a card (by expending Kong) seems pretty strong… Anyways though, my main problem with this card is that it requires you to already have a strong champion already in play to have a strong effect.
Using it defensively to stop an attacking champion feels weak since it triggers that champions tribute/loyalty effect again for your opponent. It can save you if desperate (even against a Force Lanced Silver Wing Lancer), but I would much rather have a card that is strong when behind, can always draw me cards, or can punish an opponent after they spend their gold when I have nothing else in play.
Herald of Scara Rating
Situationally Acceptable
I don’t like the Herald cards in draft as I explain above. Therefore, if you ignore the tribute ability, this is a slow 9/7 airborne champion, which I would not draft.
On the bright side though, at 7 defense, your opponent needs to use a gold to remove it, and it can survive in combat against better airborne champions like Ice Drake, Ethereal Dragon, Gold Dragon, Strafing Dragon, etc. It is also a demon, so it lives through Raxxa’s Displeasure (and Dark One’s Fury), which, as a 9/7 airborne champion, is not to be underestimated. Therefore, if you have either of those board clears (which will continue to be less likely as the card pool grows) or you have 15 to 20 other Evil cards, this is a perfectly reasonable 2nd/3rd pick. Otherwise, I’d avoid it.
Scara’s Will Rating
Always Desireable
Best Will. I would draft this card even if it didn’t give me an extra Evil gold the turn I play it.
A Fast, only-on-your-turn removal card that can hit Sea Titan/Steel Titan is incredibly valuable, especially since it’s a removal option that doesn’t involve breaking/banishing all your champions too. In addition, it can draw 2. The fact that I can play this and, at minimum, bluff that I could play another 1-cost Evil card makes this absurd. If playing against this, I would recommend practically always spending your gold if they pass while their Evil-locked gold is up though, especially since there aren’t a ton of amazing Evil on-turn gold-punishers.
Scarred Cultist Rating
Frequently Desirable
0-cost champions are inherently desirable, and a 6/5 stat line is no joke. If you are in Evil, this becomes amazing. A threatening 0-cost champion that can return your best 1-cost champion is fantastic. It can even jump onto a Faithful Pegasus (on offense or defense), and it can make Cast Out stronger (since it is a human).
Flames of Furios Rating
Situationally Desirable
I don’t know how to rate this card yet. It’s a draw 2 so its never bad. In addition, it can break practically all 0-cost champions, which is great if your opponent plays multiple. Further, any 8+ defense champions you have in play survive this, and it can be played off-turn as a one-sided board clear. Finally, in Dark Draft your opponent will almost certainly have at least 1 reasonable 7 or less defense champion.
Overall, I think it is worth spending a significant amount of time analyzing how powerful this card would be in any given draft in which you see this. If either player is going tokens, this is amazing. Or, as mentioned, if your opponent has strong 7- defense champions and/or you have strong 8+ defense champion, this could be powerful.
Keira, Wolf Caller Rating
Always Acceptable
Ambush 10/10 worth of stats, with blitz, not bad. In addition, it can’t be fully removed by a 0-cost card, namely Flash Fire/Wither or Hasty Retreat/Vanishing/Fumble/Lightning Strike. The dream will always be to use this after your opponent plays Wave of Transformation on your turn while your gold is up, but unlike Wolf’s Call, it is significantly harder to casually answer, and the +1/+1 buff means your opponent can’t trade wolves 1 for 1. (Lightning Strike would at least prevent any additional wolves from attacking that turn though.)
Stampeding Einiosaurus Rating
Frequently Desirable
The effective replacement for Rampaging Wurm. This is a fantastic on-turn gold-punisher because it hits for a lot of damage, and it can’t be effectively chump blocked. In addition, the permanent 11 defense means this can’t be broken by Drain Essence, without help, on your opponent’s next turn (which is a nice bonus over Great Horned Lizard, Gold Dragon, etc.).
There is one situation where this is worse than Rampaging Wurm though, if you play this while your opponent’s gold is up and they have Chomp! in hand…Dang you Tatian! (for reference)
Overall
Every card in this pack is exciting for Dark Draft. Silver Wing Guardian, Silver Wing Lancer, Keira Wolf Caller, and Einiosaurus are all solid gold-punishers. Steel Titan is a worthwhile slow champion which forcibly alters drafting when seen. Herald of Scara could theoretically be powerful, and it will be fun in the game where it works (or frustrating in the game where you drafted it anyway). Scarred Cultist is a solid 0-cost card. Angeline’s Favor, Force Lance, and Teleport can create interesting combat situations. Scara’s Will is sick removal, and Flames of Furios would feel great against a token deck. Of the 2 packs I’ve reviewed so far, if you were only to buy 1 for Dark Draft, I’d buy this one.
The weakest card for my Dark Draft style (even though Evil is currently my most drafted alignment) is definitely Herald of Scara. The most powerful card is probably Steel Titan, followed closely by Scara’s Will.
My first video about the deck I almost ran at Worlds this year is now up. It is a midrange Good deck titled Priest of Gold Dragon.
This first video gives a general overview of the deck and describes its powerful synergies. In the next video about it, I plan on going over how to play this deck in various matchups (particularly Wild Aggro and Evil Control), how the deck has evolved since its creation (a couple weeks before Pantheon was announced), and I’ll answer any additional questions that get asked about it in the meantime.
I received this Pantheon card yesterday to do a spoil/review of it in anticipation of the ability to acquire the final two Pantheon packs at Origins this year, and it fried my circuits if you will.
