Month: November 2020

Draft

Spreadsheet: Slow Champions
Category: Re-establishing, One-Sided, Multi-Targets Small (S-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: S-Tier

Constructed

Tier 5

Love getting this card in Dark Draft. In today’s meta, the Re-establishing, One-Sided, Multi-Targets Small category is my most valued category (at least at the start of the draft before other considerations start to potentially outweigh it). I would draft this card just as highly even if it didn’t have blitz because that 3 damage clear to only opponent’s champions on a 10/9 body is enormous. Frequently in Dark Draft, due to the strength and popularity of mass 0-cost cards, boards will slowly and incidentally fill up with a bunch of small champions, especially if neither player gets far enough behind that they feel forced into a board clear. Anguish Demon’s tribute hitting that 3 damage breakpoint clears the way for your attackers (including this because blitz), and it lessens the potential retaliatory attack on your opponent’s turn. Frequently this will remove multiple cards worth of value for your opponent and result in you getting damage through, with no alignment requirements.

However, the lack of evasion, the lack of direct damage, the lack of a repeatable clear, and the inability to hit bigger 0-cost cards like demon tokens destroys most of its constructed potential. When against a constructed token deck, even if you clear out all of their tokens, they can frequently get a new one into play to block this card the turn you play it and then get more tokens to swarm over it afterwards. Further, most successful constructed token decks are either demon token decks (tokens to big) or human token decks (too explosive with few to no openings to play this to clear, unless Surprise Attack). That being said, as an inherent blitz, big champion Lash, Rage, and Army of the Apocalypse makes this card a lot more interesting, but it would only be a tech card at best in those situations, and I just think it gets pushed out by so many other card choices and deck archetypes in the meta. I’ve tried including this card in multiple decks, but I’ve ended up cutting it in all of them.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Other
Category: Ambush Champions (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Constructed

Tier 7

It’s a slightly better off-turn Demon Breach, without recall, that is generally worse than Demon Breach on-turn. Three ambush bodies isn’t terrible though and making Demons and Zombies bigger than your opponent’s counterparts does have serious combat-value, more so for attacking since your opponent won’t initiate more bad attacks once this is in play. As a follow up to a Zombie Apocalypse, this is fairly reasonable in Draft, but in Constructed there are much better choices like Raxxa Demon Tyrant, Anguish Demon, Ascendant Pyromancer, etc.

In both Draft and Constructed, there is a massive list of cards I would pick over this one, but maybe it has a home in Evil token centered lists that benefit from having 1-cost champions (Zombie Apocalypse, Mist Guide Herald, anti-bounce). Also worth noting, in the September no-core Constructed monthly, I got destroyed on my Midrange-Combo Evil Token deck against a Control Evil token deck in large part because my opponent’s demons were consistently bigger than mine. That was due to constant Raxxas though and neither of us were playing this.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Draw 2
Category: Draw 2 Ands (S-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Spreadsheet: Draw 2
Category: Health Gain (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Constructed

Tier 4

It’s a “Draw 2 And” so it’s inherently a powerful card. Frequently other “Draw 2 Ands” will net save you more than 4 health though. For example, if you play Urgent Messengers and one of your human tokens blocks a 5 offense attack, Urgent Messengers effectively gained you 5 health, and you still have another blocker. Erase a Draka, Dragon Tyrant? You’ve effectively “gained” 9 health and gained back some tempo. If you would have played Absolve in either of those situations you would have net lost 1 health and net lost 5 health while a Draka remains in play.

That being said, as health gain, it can prevent your opponent from getting you into a health threshold from which they can burn you out. Since it costs 1 gold though, it can’t save you in the gap between your opponent playing a 1-cost burn card on your turn, after you spend your gold, and then playing a 1-cost burn card on their turn, before you can spend your gold. 4 health isn’t a ton either.

So, in Draft/limited, it will frequently be one of the best cards you can take in the pack, as a “Draw 2 And,” but in constructed, you will usually be better served by Urgent Messengers. However, if you’re overflowing with chump blockers already, if you’re just trying to survive one more turn against hard burn, if you want more 0-cost Good cards and you’ve already taken the rest of the strong splashable 1-cost cards, or maybe if you’re playing Chamberlain Kark, this isn’t an unreasonable card for Midrange, Control, or Combo.