Evaluating a Card: Spoilers!

By: Dimos Kaloupis

Spoiler season is done, and cards are out! Time to start thinking about what new decks can be made with cards, what old decks can benefit from new cards, and what new design spaces are being explored. There’s plenty of speculation about what is good and what is bad, what will be a staple and what will never see play. There are a couple important considerations that go into this thought process. Are you playing limited or constructed? Does this card lend itself to one deck type or does it fit into every archetype of a hero or class? I hope to walk you through these questions in this article.

The first consideration is to decide whether you are playing limited or constructed? Flesh and Blood lends itself excellently to both formats. The best cards in limited are often commons. Red Razor Reflex, red Pummel, red Sink Below, and red Scar for a Scar are some of the best cards in Welcome to Rather limited, and I would likely take those over half of the majestics in the set. Red Voltic Bolt can be lethal in a limited Wizard deck, since it’s uncommon for your opponent to get more than Arcane Barrier 2 or 3 among their equipment. The next consideration is to examine if a card fits well into one deck or many decks. And how well it fits into each deck. Pummel is an excellent card, and it can add some spice to Viserai’s Arknight Ascendancy. But it doesn’t synergize with his hero ability. Consider Sloggism as an alternative, even though most players would say Sloggism is “worse” of the two.. Even though it’s worse in general, it can be better in specific instances, such as activating Viserai’s ability and working with Bloodsheath Skeleta.

I will now go into my early evaluations of a couple of the spoiler cards that have been released in the run up to Monarch. This is fun speculation and I aim to point out what I consider are the important aspects of each card. Maybe some of the spoiled cards have a super potent combo that the meta will tell us about in a couple months.

On first glance, Dread Screamer is a dream card. It is a common, 6 attack Brute card that blocks for 3. It costs 2 resources and has a conditional but likely go again. It also has two elements that are currently difficult to evaluate until we can figure out how to tune Levia’s graveyard. Blood Debt is nominally a drawback, but is also an enabler for Levia’s strong Blashpoment token. Banishing three random cards from your graveyard is a requirement that will need conscious graveyard management, but also synergizes with Levia’s ability. The most immediate combot that springs to mind is Dread Screamer into a banished Ghostly Visit. Off of a two card hand, you can output 11 damage.

Dread Screamer’s most direct analogy (red brute card, block 3, attacks for 6, has go again) is Breakneck Battery, which requires the always-pricey discard from hand. Dread Screamer is a common rather than the rare Breakneck Battery, and therefore is much more accessible in draft. One key difference is that Breakneck Battery’s discard and go again work fantastically with Rhinar’s Intimidate ability. Overall, Intimidate is a mechanic at its strongest when you're throwing multiple attacks at an enemy, since they cannot block with their intimidated card during any of your attacks on the turn. Levia does not appear to have any native intimidate options.

Consequently, I think go again for Levia will be less powerful than it would be in Rhinar (who cannot use this Shadow Brute Action).It’s my belief that Dread Screamer is strong, but those alternative elements of Blood Debt and requiring cards to be banished from your grave are likely more pricey than they seem, especially since it cannot be played out of the banished zone while costing Blood Debt. In limited, where it is presumably more difficult for Levia to benefit from her Legendary-rarity card to summon Blasphomet, Blood Debt is a steep price for this go again. A Levia deck will need to choose its moment from playing to defensive to hitting the gas and making use of the graveyard that they have built up.

Shadow of Ursur is a fantastic enabling card. As a majestic, it will not be a staple of Chane’s decks in the limited formats, but it would be nice to include for its ease of use regardless. Any card that costs 0, has an option for go again, and blocks three is immediately fantastic. I am quite honestly surprised that this card is blue.The other elements of this card also combine fantastically with Chane. You don’t care if it gets blindly banished by Soul Shackles since it is so easy to play out of your banished zone with its 0 cost. In combination with Invert Existence, Chane is well on his way to summoning Ursur. I think Shadow of Ursur may be one of the lowest cost cards to play in the game. If it comes into your banished zone via Chane’s ability and Soul Shackle, it can be played out immediately if you so wish, with no cost of a card from your hand (unless you give it go again). If you do pay with a card from your hand, odds are that card will also be able to be played out of the banished zone, as many of Chane’s cards can be. In short, 2 damage, with go again, without netting a card out of your hand in most cases is amazingly close to free. I think this card is spiritually analogous to Glint the Quicksilver: it is blue, blocks 3, zero cost, and often does not cost a card to play.   

Footnotes and further thoughts: 

Ravenous Meataxe is not as good as you may think! On first blush, it hits for above its average cost curve, as 2 resources is commonly 4 damage for a two-handed weapon. In Levia, I see the appeal of filling your graveyard to pay her alternate “banish three random cards from your graveyard” costs. But it does not allow you to plan out your arsenal. If you want to end the turn and arsenal a strong non-attack action, such as Brute’s current favorite Barraging Beatdown, you have a 50/50 chance of getting what you want into your arsenal. Even in Rhinar, where this card is ideally hitting for 5 damage with an intimidate, it does not allow you to plan out your arsenal effectively. Some of Rhinar’s most desirable arsenal cards are things you don’t want to be discarding such as Bloodrush Bellow, Barraging Beatdown, and Alpha Rampage. And as it currently stands, any Brute deck still looks like it will have to run a lot of bad yellow attack cards to meet the resource requirements and populate the deck with adequate numbers of 6 attack cards. If I want to arsenal Barraging Beatdown, but also need to swing a weapon to keep a modicum of pressure up, I don’t want to take a 50/50 chance for this marginal benefit.

Rise Above is in a unique spot in Flesh and Blood. This card looks like it can work in limited formats, but is still quite expensive. Unless Chane uses it with a Soul Shackle active, it looks like a negative-one-card swing for only 4 defense. It is also a rare, so it will not be rearing its head in every draft or sealed deck like Sink Below and Fate Forseen did. Both previous draftable sets had 0-cost 4-block defense reactions with beneficial effects. Sink Below and Fate Forseen have become staples of both limited and constructed formats. Rise Above explores a unique space. Unlike the previous generic 4-block reacts, Rise Above comes with a noticeable price. It is my belief that each draftable set needs some form of defense reaction, but it is clear that giving too many options for generic defense reaction in constructed formats is a slippery slope. Dash can do interesting things by stocking her deck with defense reactions and abusing her Pistol suite, and Katsu can do the same with his Kodachi. Introducing a possible 7th, 8th, and 9th red, costless, 4-block defense reaction would make constructed control decks go from bothersome to oppressive. I find the alternative cost, which appears to work with the synergies of the set so far, is a nice workaround to this problem. Chane can put a card playable from his banished zone at the top of his deck and banish with Soul Shackles on the next turn, possibly even making it so that Rise Above does not cost him an additional card. Levia can use this to control which card is milled from the top of her deck with an axe swing. Are these options worth the price for a 4-cost defense reaction? Doubtful, but I’m glad it is costed such that it won’t be running around in Classic Constructed as additional copies of Sink Below.