Month: June 2018

… … … Reboot Successful.

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

1. 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.)
2. If played off-turn, your opponent gains +2 cards in hand, from your gold (unless they only have token champions in play)
3. If played on-turn, you get a clear board and gain +1 card in hand (assuming you have a non-token champion in play)
4. The – or – option is a slightly better version of the 0-cost card Second Wind

Control Implications

1. 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
2. Give your opponent back their best champion in play with a bonus +1 card, absolutely horrendous
3. 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 
4. 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

1. Same as control, amazing
2. Unlike control, since you are just trying to survive until you can outright win, this is not that bad
3. The off-turn effect is so much stronger for combo, largely irrelevant
4. 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

1. 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?
2. 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
3. Aggro go face on-turn, bad
4. 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

1. Potentially reasonable, if your opponent overcommits and spends their gold first on a turn
2. Since you are trying to apply consistent pressure to run your opponent out of answers, any card you draw them is a problem
3. 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
4. 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.