Category: Duels Ratings

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.

Draft

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

Constructed

Tier 7

Raxxa’s Curse, Siren’s Song, War Machine, if your opponent has any of these (and they are all ultra-high picks) this card is terrible. However, that is only 3 cards of some 300+, so they probably won’t, in limited (Raxxa’s Curse is quite common in constructed). Ignoring those cases, this card is fine, and as long as you don’t play it until you have 6 or 7 cards in hand it’s probably still fine, in limited. 9/7 is a great stat-line for bullying the 6/8s out there like Medusa, Palace Guard, Ice Drake, etc. It also hits for effectively a third of your opponent’s health, assuming it doesn’t get blocked.

In constructed, it fills one of your precious 0-cost slots in exchange for a non-evasive champion (bad against control) that is smaller than the most played Wild Champions (Raging T-rex, Brachiosaurus, Kong/Scarros). The only reason it isn’t lower for me in my constructed ratings is because of the potential with Jungle Queen and the upcoming 0-cost ambush champion that does the same thing.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Slow Champions
Category: Establishing Draw (C-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: E-Tier

Spreadsheet: Card Draw
Category: Slow Champion 1-Draw (C-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: E-Tier

Constructed

Tier 5

Finding time to play a slow, 1-cost, 5/5 champion, whose board presence relies on having other Wild champions in play (especially a lot of Wild champions and/or Breakthrough champions) seems effectively impossible to me, even with the card draw attached. Further, even if you were able to play it, your opponent can immediately end the effect by removing this card, primarily with Scarros or Smash and Burn trigger (also potentially Lightning Strike, Draka’s Fire, Whirlwind, Hurricane, Kong, other re-establishing cards). That being said, since it doesn’t need to attack, it is effectively immune to combat removal and Spike Trap-esque effects. While it might be slightly harder to get rid of than I was originally thinking, it seems so hard to fit it into a required Wild shell.

The fact that this and most 0-cost Wild champions (wolf tokens) gets swept up by Scarros, Draka + 0-cost 2-damage effect, Draka’s Fire, etc. is devastating. You invest a bunch of time an resources into setting this up, and then your opponent incidentally stomps it all out doing what they want to be doing anyway, brutal. Further, against fast Wild decks, if you spend a turn doing nothing immediately impactful like this, you’re dead. Against control, they’ll usually be able to board clear you before you can gain significant value, although the card draw effect helps offset this, against Kark and eventually Scara’s Gift, you still don’t have the time to waste. Finally, Wild just doesn’t have other synergistic tools for extending the game long enough to potentially extract value from this. For instance, all of its in alignment board clears clear this too. Great with Hunting Pack though.

All of this being said, this has been played against me multiple times, and it has felt oppressive and terrifying. But, I won all of those games. … (I think. Correct me if I’m misremembering.)

Okay, so after I finished this and wrote up my rating for Howl dismissing the idea of a wolf deck, you can probably guess what happened. I made a new wolf deck. Got to say, deck has some legs (about 258). But in all serious, deck might have potential (if I could find more human opponents to test it against). I finally caved and put it in a Raging T-Rex, Brach, Smash and Burn shell, and the deck as a whole has felt solid so far. Boosted constructed tier from 7 to 5.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Other
Category: Burn (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier

Constructed

Tier 4

This is a Flame Strike that trades 1 damage for the 1-cost Fireball effect as an Or. Reasonable for clearing out non-demon tokens and other 3-health champions or finishing off the opponent. If I had to draft between this and Fireball, I’d take the Fireball because 0-cost removal is great as is 0-cost 3 damage on top of a 1-cost burn event to extend your reach. If you’re drafting an aggressive deck, this seems solid, reasonable in a midrange deck, underwhelming in a control deck, unless you think your opponent is going tokens.

For constructed, this actually would be a pretty decent choice for aggro Wild if you are afraid of aggro-combo human tokens. Human tokens are a terrible matchup for Wild generally speaking, so including another 1-cost card that can save you from an early assault is valuable, and unlike Hurricane etc., it can still go face for 7 instead. Is this better than Whirlwind for specifically that roll though? No, I’d say they are pretty equivalent, and Whirlwind has greater applications. However, against other aggro Wild decks, not taking 7 damage yourself might make this worth it. This card just doesn’t fit my preferred playstyle.

Apologies for missing my Tuesday/Thursday posts, but I have a solid chunk queued up after this one.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Slow Champions
Category: On-Turn Punisher (C-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Constructed

Tier 9

Worse Rampaging Wurm.

The literal only times this is inherently better than Rampaging Wurm

• Your opponent blocks with Brak, Fist of Lashnok
• You block Burrowing Wurm

Neither of those are real things that would feasibly happen.

The lower offense means this can’t break Kong/Sea Titan/Steel Golem/etc, it hits face for less, and it can’t block Brak/Steel Titan. The difference between 14 and 17 defense is also fairly trivial (outside of potential buffs) because no non-combat effect does more than 13 damage currently. It does protect the cyclops from 1-3 damage 0-cost effect + either Kong effect or attack which might be relevant at some point though.

A plain (vanilla) blitz champion with less than 15 offense is a card that I absolutely agree should be in a simplified Duel deck product. I also like that it is the biggest champion in Duels, with the ability to break and survive any other Duels champion in combat. That being said, it currently adds no value to Epic cardpool as a whole.

Draft

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

Constructed

Tier 2

This card is one of the best cards in Duels. It is a Draw 2 And ambush champion. The fact that it is a champion is enormous. It means that you can grab it with Tier 1 card Mist Guide Herald. You can also replay it if bounced, unlike Urgent Messengers or Flanking Maneuver. Finally, unlike the other Draw 2 And champions (The Gudgeon, Raging T-Rex, Garbage Golem) you can inherently play it off-turn to draw 2.

In draft it is a bit worse than some of the other Draw 2 Ands because its And is a bit less impactful.

Draft

Spreadsheet: Card Draw
Category: Board Clears (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: D-Tier

Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Tech [Draw 2] (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: Tech-Tier

Constructed

Tier 4

This is technically a board clear, but it can only be played on-turn and returns all of your opponent’s champions to hand. So, if they were swarming you with a bunch of 0-cost champions, they can just replay them. If they had strong Tribute/Loyalty or Blitz/Ambush champions, they can just replay them for value. Strictly as a board clear, it is pretty much only reasonable if your opponent has a bunch more 1-cost champions in play than you do, or they have a bunch of tokens. The reason why similar card Reset is so much better is because that one can be played off-turn to disrupt any 1-gold assault, especially token (Insurgency) or untargetable/unblockable assaults (Steel Titan).

However, you don’t bring this primarily to clear your opponent, even though it does tack a discard onto your opponent as well, you bring it because it lets you return your own champions to hand. For example, play a bunch of 0-cost champions with Blitz (Dark Knight) or Tribute/Loyalty effects (Javelin Thrower), attack with the blitzers, play this, replay your 0-cost champions, gain double value. Combine this with Time Walker and Reset for redundancy, and you have a base for a deck. The fact that this returns your opponent’s champions to hand is more of a bonus effect that buys you time against non-blitz, non-burn champions.

The discard frequently won’t be super relevant because bounce and discard effects generally have anti-synergy. If you are returning a bunch of non-token champions to your opponent’s hand, they probably will have plenty of cards that they don’t mind discarding one. They might even have a Markus, Soul Hunter, or Smash and Burn to gain value out of the discard effect.