I just finished compiling a list of all of my currently reviewed/previewed games here. In addition, I’ve updated the welcome page with a link to it. Included below are a couple examples of my formatting.
Ages: 13+ (14+)
Players: 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p MSRP: $49.95 (~50, ~55, ~60) Advertised Play Time: 90 minutes (90m, 120m) Tags: rolling dice, worker placement, civilization builder
A game where players compete for favor with members of the court to build a civilization.
Ages: 13+ (14+)
Players: 2p, 3p, 4p MSRP: $14.99 (~15, ~20, ~25, ~30, ~35, ~40, ~45, ~50, ~55, ~60) Advertised Play Time: 20 min (20m, 30m, 45m, 60m, 90m, 120m) Tags: 2-player, great art, dueling card game, my favorite game (lots of articles), drafting, hand management
An incredibly deep, non-collectible card game of dueling gods. (I prefer this to Magic: the Gathering, Hearthstone, etc.)
This is a continuation of my ratings of all cards for Dark Draft.
A link to my full tier list may be found here. My reasoning for each card can be found here.
Important Concept
2 Defense vs 3 Defense: This is another important defense break point for champions and similarly damage effects. There are 8 effects in the game that deal 2 damage and 19 champions with 2 or less health + tokens. There are 13 additional champions with 3 health with an additional 18 effects that deal 3 or more damage. In other words, if you get an event that can deal 3 damage to a champion, there is a good chance you will be able to use it to remove a champion.
However, the break point is less important in Dark Draft than it is in Constructed. In constructed, 2 of the most popular cards are/were Thought Plucker and Muse (although the meta may be shifting away from them). Both of these have 2 or less defense which makes Wolf’s Bite (and to a much lesser extent Flame Spike) high-value answers. Therefore, since some decks (mine specifically) ran 2-damage small removal with recycle instead of 3-damage small removal, champions with 3 health like Winter Fairy became much more likely to survive than Thought Plucker.
0-cost 3 damage removal deals with a lot of champions especially with the addition of Pyrosaur and Winged Death. Gaining 3 health is also appreciated, but it would be playable without the 3 health gain too.
Corpse Monger Rating
Usually Desirable
This can either be used as a 0-cost blitz threat while both players have their gold, or it can banish pesky cards like Bodyguard while simultaneously gaining you health. In some games, especially where your opponent has burn, gaining 3 health a turn and removing champions from your opponent’s discard pile can be devastating. In addition, you can always banish your own discard pile champions if you need the health.
Demonic Rising Rating
Situationally Desirable
At first glance, this seems like a more dangerous and weaker Wave of Transformation. Clear all champions, leave behind tokens to replace them, but give them blitz!? It can work in this way though, especially if you have more champions in play or you use it on your turn.
But, it can also be used aggressively! If your opponent uses their gold on your turn while you have more champions in play (expended tokens for example) you can use this. Replace your board with blitzing 4/4 demons that can’t be broken by Flash Fire or Wither and attack (still stopped by Blind Faith though, since it removes blitz) .
In Evil and Good there are plenty of ways to get tokens to be used as fuel. Even replacing your demons with new demons to attack with can be worthwhile. (Plentiful Dead to get a 4/4 blitzing demon for only 1 life and 0 cards in hand, yes please.)
I put this into the same category of cards that punish my opponent for spending their gold first on my turn, alongside Rampaging Wurm. It can be better because it can draw 2 if needed, but it is worse because it requires other cards to work in that situation.
Grave Demon Rating
Always First Pick
Mass discard pile banish is critical. If you have it, use it against a big enough discard pile, and recycle it from your discard pile early (to be able to draw it before your opponent is able to possibly deck out again), your opponent essentially can’t draw out for victory. If your opponent has it and you don’t, they can play defensively and eventually draw out to victory.
8/8 ambush body is also pretty decent all by itself. Great card in Dark Draft.
In addition to its offensive threat, it gains you 5 health a turn (if your opponent doesn’t spend a gold to remove it). Even just getting the trigger once, the turn after you play it, is reasonable.
Avenger of Covenant
Always Acceptable
8/8 ambush body is always reasonable, especially when your opponent’s gold is down.
While it isn’t ideal to take a hit from a champion, using this to banish 0-cost cards like Little Devil seems reasonable. Especially since it leaves you with at least some protection with its body. So far, I haven’t been terribly impressed by it, but I feel like I, and a lot of other people I talk to, still undervalue it a bit.
It can also banish Pyrosaur, Strafing Dragon, Blue Dragon, etc. after you get hit by their Tribute/Loyalty abilities but before their attacks go through.
Bodyguard Rating
Situationally Desirable
With enough Good cards in your deck, this can do a lot of work. Chump block multiple champions without decreasing your hand size? Great stuff.
The biggest problems are:
You need 1-cost Good cards to recall it (the weakest alignment in Dark Draft)
If you use it to chump block, your opponent gets the first initiative after it breaks, so they can banish it before you can recall it
Unlike Plentiful Dead, you can’t just play it before every 1-cost Evil card you play, but it doesn’t cost life to recall
Still, it is a card I would be very happy to take if I had a reasonable amount of Good cards.
0-cost ambush 5/5 that reverts to a 2/5 but can gain 5 health if I’m in Good, meh. The +3 offense can be used on other champions which is nice (I traded a White Dragon for a Silver Dragon once), but I’m not terribly impressed by this card in Dark Draft.
Citadel Raven Rating
Situationally Desirable
I’m not a huge fan of 1-cost champions with 3 or less defense in Dark Draft, but it does bring back your most useful event in your discard pile guaranteed the turn you play it. If it can make a second attack, it provided reasonable value, even if it breaks in the second attack.
I am more interested in this if I have high value 0-cost cards like Fumble, Lightning Strike, or Wolf’s Bite. Haven’t had much chance to draft with it yet, but it is a card I want to experiment with more.
Citadel Scholar Rating
Always Acceptable +
A 0-cost tribute recycle champion is fine, but a 0-cost recycle champion that can grow to become a real threat that must be removed by spending a gold is solid.
By playing it, you get minimally farther behind (losing 2 cards in your discard pile for a 1/2), but you establish a threat without spending your gold or losing a card in hand. This can be even stronger in Dark Draft because you spend more time drawing 2 than in constructed. Even just playing this followed immediately by a draw 2 on your turn, when your opponent’s gold is down, is solid because it immediately puts it out of range of 3 damage effects.
Erratic Research Rating
Always First Pick
Mass discard pile banish is critical. If you have it, use it against a big enough discard pile, and recycle it from your discard pile early (to be able to draw it before your opponent is able to possibly deck out again), your opponent essentially can’t draw out for victory. If your opponent has it and you don’t, they can play defensively and eventually draw out to victory.
Draw 2 is also an effect you are going to need to use throughout a Dark Draft, so you lose almost nothing drafting and playing it.
Fairy Trickster Rating
Always Acceptable
Airborne, Ambush, Blitz is an interesting combination of abilities. Having both ambush and blitz makes this a reasonable play on your turn or your opponent’s turn after your opponent’s gold is down. Airborne gives it the evasion to make it hard to chump block. These abilities by themselves make this a fine card.
The expend ability is weird. Frequently, it will do nothing when you ambush this in on your opponent’s turn, use it, and turn up a 1-cost card. However, with the growing popularity of greater than 50% 0-cost cards in Dark Draft decks, it becomes more likely that you will hit a 0-cost card. Also, since this lets you play non-ambush 0-cost champions off turn, you can potentially hit Citadel Scholars, Little Devils, etc. If you do, that is very strong. Even hitting a generic recycle card like Blind Faith or Second Wind can be strong, turning this into a 5/5, airborne, ambush, tribute -> recycle.
Also, if you use it on your own deck (you do give your opponent some information), but if you don’t turn up a 0-cost card, since you banish it if you don’t play it, you move yourself closer to drawing a 0-cost card.
Generally I wouldn’t want to use this ability on my turn regardless of whether Fairy Trickster started my turn in play. Not only do you give up a chance to deal 5 damage in the air/draw out your opponent’s gold on your turn, but you also aren’t guaranteed to turn up a card you want to play.
If you have nothing better to do (your opponent has a bigger airborne champion already in play for example), you can use this ability on your turn to essentially draw a card, if you play the revealed card. But, I still don’t want to take that risk.
Den Mother Rating
Always Desirable
12/12 worth of stats spread out over 4 bodies is pretty nice. It is especially nice that on your next turn you can attack with the wolf tokens first, and if your opponent breaks them, they only buff up your 8/8, 11/11, 14/14, 17/17+ breakthrough champion. You could even use your own Flash Fire to buff the Den Mother, if desired.
Entangling Vines Rating
Always Acceptable +
9/8 ambush is always reasonable. The tribute -> expend can also be great. Your opponent plays a slow champion like Kong, Soul Hunter, or Triceratops? You can play this, expend their champion, and then have an open path to attack your opponent’s face. Then, on future turns you can expend more potential attackers or blockers if you have more 1-cost Wild cards.
I’ve had success with this card.
Fires of Rebellion Rating
Always First Pickable
7 direct damage is the easiest way to finish off an opponent. Get them down to 7 life and then you can just win. In addition, 7 damage breaks a reasonable amount of champions and drawing a card is always appreciated. This + Flame Strike and you only have to deal 15 other damage including mulligans to win.
Also, when your opponent knows you have this card in your deck, they will frequently play like you have it in your hand. This can make them make non-ideal plays because they are afraid of reaching the burnout threshold. While this is frequently correct, it also might make your opponent play to not lose instead of to win. For example, this can lead to overly defensive chump blocking that removes their threats while only delaying yours.
Flame Spike Rating
Always First Pickable –
Most of the time this is a weaker Wolf’s Bite, but it can deal damage directly to an opponent too. The fact that I’m comparing this to one of the strongest cards in the game should show how much I value this card.
0-cost recycle removal is great, and there are plenty of 2 or less defense champions to use it on. Not to mention the fact that it can finish off damaged champions too if needed.
Let me know in the comments below if you disagree with any of my decisions, or if you would like to know my reasoning behind any specific cards’ tier changes.
I am also working on updating my card by card analysis. Which will include my Uprising Ratings. Since I have already talked a bit about the other cards, I’ll start with the Uprising cards.
Epic Cube Draft is one of the 3 formats used on the first day of Worlds. I, and many other players, did not have a chance to practice the full 8-person format much before worlds. But, after doing 6 or so practice drafts on the Friday/Saturday before the tournament, I was able to draft probably my best limited format deck ever. I convincingly won all 4 games of the first 2 rounds.
Format Rules
Epic Cube is an 8-player format. To form the card pool, take 1 copy of every red gem card and 3 copies of every white gem card. Deal out 3 packs of 12 random cards from this pool to each player. To start, each player picks up a 12 card pack in front of them.
From the cards in your hand: choose one card, place it face down in front of you, and pass the remaining cards to your left. Everyone repeats this until each player has 12 cards in front of them and no cards in hand. Once all cards in a pack have been picked, each player may review their drafted cards.
Repeat this process 2 more times with your remaining packs. Except, pass cards in your second pack to your right. (Pass cards in your third pack to your left.)
After all 3 packs are finished, each player will have 36 cards. 6 cards must be cut so each player will have a 30 card deck.
Pre-Worlds Thoughts
As I mentioned, I didn’t have much time to practice for this format, but I did layout all of the non-uprising cards divided by faction and rarity beforehand. Mainly I just wanted to see how important the rares where to the strength of each alignment.
Initially, I was thinking I might want to draft Good because I figured it would be the least drafted color (since it is generally the weakest color). I figured I would get passed some high-quality cards late in the draft, and, with the addition of the 3-copies of common cards, I figured I could draft a high-synergy deck.
Looking at the rare breakdowns, Angel of Mercy is the biggest loss because it is one of Good’s strongest cards. Courageous Soul and Secret Legion also decreased the consistency of potential human token decks. I was worried, but Good did still have 3 copies of: White Knight, Noble Unicorn, and High King.
I felt like Sage didn’t lose a lot from its rares, but the addition of extra copies of commons didn’t seem that important either. The difference between 1 and 2 Juggernauts and/or Steel Golems isn’t as big as the difference between 1 and 2 Medusas for instance.
Wild
Worlds Drafts
Below are pictures from 4 rapid fire cube drafts that I participated in with, I believe, all qualified players on Saturday.
I also did 2 cube drafts on Friday.
Forcing Good
In these 6 drafts I tried to force Good multiple times. I had minimal success. In one of those drafts I was able to get double The People’s Champion and double Rabble Rouser with an Insurgency and a Revolt, but I had to pass up on my 1 chance to get mass discard banish to pick up the Revolt. The deck came close to going off and overwhelming my opponent’s with tokens, but in both matches, I lost when my opponent decked out.
Human Tokens
In every draft I went for human tokens, at least one other person went for it as well. This caused us to split important cards between the two of us, and both our decks were weaker for it. In addition, strong token decks need very specific cards like Revolt, Courageous Soul, and Insurgency. Due to this, I had to choose between critical cards in general and cards critical for my strategy. It didn’t work out well for me.
Overall, Good was incredibly underwhelming for me at Worlds.
Evil
I fell into Evil twice in the above 4 drafts. Both times, I took an incredibly powerful card like Medusa a few picks into a pack, and then just kept getting strong Evil cards throughout. With both of these decks, I was able to continue to pickup some of the strongest generic cards while improving my Evil core as well. In other words, there were no must-have cards that overly restricted my ability to take cards like Erratic Research.
Evil dramatically overperformed my expectations.
Sage
Sage was nothing special. My first draft I went Sage/Wild (even though I went in wanting to force Good), and I had a 2-1 match record with it. Sage has a lot of powerful generic cards. This means that achieving a high-density of incredible Sage can be difficult since everyone will be taking cards of that alignment.
Average.
Wild
Wild burn is real in Cube Draft. There is a lot of Wild burn available and for people who focus on it, they can get a critical mass. I got crushed by it in my first practice draft on Friday, and I saw a deck packed with it later too. In addition, I also saw someone pick up all 3 Draka’s Enforcers.
Overall, seemed pretty solid.
My (approximate) Worlds Draft
I didn’t think to take a picture of it at the time, but I recreated it to the best of my ability below. It was sick.
When drafting, I saw a Medusa about 3rd pick in the first pack. After my results testing, I took it, went Evil, and didn’t look back. Oh man, I was so happy the rest of the draft.
I remember being a bit worried about my number of off-turn threats (hence keeping Entangling Vines), and I was a bit worried about my card draw. I loved my powerful Evil cards and 0-cost champions though.
Match 1
So, while I was drafting, I had the unfortunate pleasure of knowing who my first round opponent was going to be. Great player, nice guy. I had faced him in 3 or 4 matches in the past, and I had lost every game to him, convincingly so. He was also the only person to beat me in a match on the first day of the Origins Limited event, and he did it to me twice (once in rounds and once in top 4). Needless to say, I was not ecstatic about facing him round 1.
0-Cost Blitzers
Little Devil, Dark Knight, Guilt Demon(?) were absolute beasts. These games were textbook cases of Get Ahead – Stay Ahead, where these little guys were my main establishing champions. I would play one, attack, get a bit of damage through, and then pass. If he played a champion on my turn, I’d use my gold to break it. If he drew, I’d either draw myself or hit him with my White Knights while also drawing. Aside from that, my tokens from Murderous Necromancer, Plentiful Dead, Raxxa, and Spawning Demon(?), where able to reestablish and keep the pressure on after wipes. I was able to stay ahead for largely the entirety of both games.
Blind Faith
I’ve gone back and forth on Blind Faith. From saying it is one of the best cards in constructed to not valuing it too highly in draft. When I saw it in the Cube, I thought about it for a bit, and then decided I wanted to be the only one in the draft to have it. It was incredible. In both games of my first match it allowed absolute blowout plays. Game 2 it was part of my own personal play of the tournament.
Blind Faith, great card. Helped me beat one of the strongest players I know. (He also ended the tournament with a better record than me.)
Match 2
Remember when I said you could draft an absolutely sick burn deck, yeah that happened. My opponent had all 3 Fires of Rebellion in addition to even more burn, such as Strafing Dragon. Thankfully, I had my 36th draft pick, Inner Peace, and I drew it.
In both games, he Fires of Rebellioned my face when my gold was up and I was about 1 or 2 more burn cards away from death. In both cases, I was able to answer by Inner Peacing and returning it to hand with my next gold. By then, I was already far enough ahead that I was able to win.
Importance of Card Reveals
In game 2, I had seen that my opponent had a Zombie Apocalypse in hand (either by revealing it for loyalty or accidentally dropping it, don’t remember which). At one point on my turn, my opponent’s gold was down, I was at around 15 health, I had multiple champions in play, and I had both Inner Peace and Erratic Research in hand (and some other cards).
My first instinct was to use this opportunity to Inner Peace. I was far ahead on the board, but I could lose to back-to-back burn if I were to use my gold before my opponent on a future turn of mine. (He Fires of Rebellions while my gold is down on my turn, and then immediately Fires of Rebellion + Flash Fires me on his turn before I can play anything.) So, by Inner Peacing now, I remove that possible path to victory for my opponent.
However, I also realize I am in a a dominant position on the board, and the only way my opponent can stabilize is to use a board clear against me. Since I know he has Zombie Apocalypse, I decide to forgo the opportunity to heal and instead banish his discard pile and draw 2 with Erratic Research. Sure enough, on his next turn he plays his Zombie Apocalypse, but instead of him having around 4-7 zombies to my 5 or so, he passes his turn with 10/10 worth of stats-disadvantage, while my gold is up. In other words, I was able to get him behind, and keep him behind.
If I hadn’t considered the card I knew was in his hand, I wouldn’t have been able to as effectively maintain my advantage.
Post Worlds Cube Draft Thoughts
Evil
Evil in Cube Draft is incredibly powerful, and I love it.
Should you always force Evil though? No, no you should not. If everyone or even 3+ people chase Evil, it’s possible none of them will hit the critical mass of Evil cards to be truly worth it. In addition, it opens other alignments, like Wild, to be easy-pickings for other players.
As you draft, you need to pay attention to the power of cards you see passed to you and at what stage in the pack you see them. If you see a Raging T-Rex 4th pick or later, there are decent odds the players on your right haven’t committed to Wild. 6th pick Medusa, enjoy your Evil, etc.
Until you reach a point you feel comfortable committing to an alignment, I recommend prioritizing key, generically-powerful cards. Once you see a signal that an alignment might be open (or you draft a really powerful loyalty/ally card of an alignment), you can start prioritizing alignment cards over duplicates of key cards. For example, already have a Grave Demon when your going Wild, take that Spore Beast over the Erratic Research.
However, it can occasionally be correct to shift your focus in a draft. If you start picking up Evil cards and then get passed (and pick) strong Wild cards on picks 8, 9, and 10, it might be forth pursuing the Wild more heavily than the Evil.
0-Cost Cards
Aside from Chamberlain Kark, the big, overlooked story of Worlds was the importance and high-valuation of 0-cost cards, specifically 0-cost champions. Even Darwin Kastle, Epic co-creator, discussed on stream how he hadn’t been valuing 0-cost cards as highly as some of the competitors, and how he thought he had possibly been proven wrong to have done so. For many players, 10 0-cost cards was the absolute minimum with up to 18 or so (in a 30 card deck) being better. I also lost, pretty convincingly, to a player in the second round of Dark Drafts who valued 0-cost cards higher than me (even though we drafted a similar number). He made it to top 8. I did not. (I’ll specifically discuss the high-valuation of 0-cost cards in a future article.)
Due to this high valuation, 0-cost cards were frequently very hard to come by in Cube Drafts. Many players would focus on taking those first, and for myself who didn’t/doesn’t value 0-cost cards quite as highly, if you didn’t prioritize taking some early and throughout, you wouldn’t get that many. For example, in multiple test drafts, I found myself going into pack three with only around 3 0-cost cards. Personally, I want around 10, so in the final packs I was forced to draft 0-cost cards over almost everything else. Due to this, I was able to claw myself back into a reasonable range, but the caliber of my 0-cost cards wasn’t always as strong as some of the other players.
In the actual tournament cube draft, the players at my draft table did not seem to value 0-cost cards as highly as I had been experiencing in testing though. This let me get an 8th or so pick Little Devil, and it was a major contributor in both my matches. I was also able to get Rescue Griffin a lot later in the draft than I was expecting too. (It has been performing great for me ever since I was talked into how strong it is.)
Overall, even if you are not the player who wants to draft 18 0-cost cards (and you and I might be wrong not to be those people), make sure you prioritize at least key 0-cost cards. If you don’t, others will.
When I first saw Kark, I was happy. I had no intention of playing it, but I thought it would help to address the never-ending nature of some prominent control decks. Also, I was hoping it would become popular because I thought my style of decks would crush it.
The Sage/Wild tempo discard deck and its variants have consistently been the most popular decks in constructed Epic. Thought Plucker, Knight of Shadows, Muse, Sea Titan, Kong, Flame Strike, etc. These decks generally try to play the most high-value champions and supplement them with discard and/or burn. Some decks focus very heavily on Wild generally and burn specifically.
Derek Arnold’s Control Deck
Derek Arnold’s deck (his write up can be found on his blog here) effectively broke the format at the first major constructed qualifier at Origins. I got to watch it and be amazed as it played opposite to all of my assumptions of Epic at the time. It was able to survive the Sage/Wild tempo discard decks by constantly wiping their board, outdrawing their forced discard, and gaining enough health with Inner Peace to blank their burn. This was also the first deck to exploit the Lesson Learned -> Ancient Chant combo to draw 4 cards, and it had Drinker of Blood combo in it too.
This deck was dominant, but it was slow. He made top 8 with a record of 3-0-2 winning the first game of the first 3 matches and drawing the rest. In other words, he made it to top 8 by winning only 3 games. Once in the untimed rounds of top 8, he grinded out all of his opponents to win his spot. With this deck, the control deck was introduced to competitive Epic. Variants of it would continue to earn spots at worlds: Tom Dixon’s control deck (mislabeled in Foundry) that heavily targeted the Sage/Wild meta and other decks that focused on Drinker Combo. I believe there was a deck at one of the World’s LCQs that even qualified without “winning” a single game. It just went to time every round and had more health than its opponents to win the tiebreaker.
The major problem with the control focused decks was that, with the inclusion of mass-discard banish and recurring health gain, games could theoretically never end, especially in the mirror matchup where both players were playing control. Life totals easily surpassed 60 health and games could and did go on for hours. With the introduction of Chamberlain Kark, this deck gained a way to end the game after reaching a high enough health threshold. In other words, Kark did not create the stall + health gain deck, it just gave it a win condition and shifted it more heavily into Good and health gain.
Honorable Mentions
Aside from these 2 core decks, a Sage/Evil deck focusing on blitzing zeroes saw success and my Combative Humans deck appeared in at least a couple top 8/top 4s.
Analysis
From what I gathered by attending Origins/Gen Con and by listening to other members in the community, Sage/Wild variants were the go-to strong decks for people relatively new to Epic. They were/are straight forward and effective.
Control was the next logical answer to this. These decks out-valued the Sage/Wild decks. In addition to outright nullifying the deck’s tempo and burn, these decks also leaned on discard-hate cards: Soul Hunter and ally -> recall cards like Inner Peace or Plentiful Dead. So, while Sage/Wild decks floundered, control decks could kill them over time with incremental advantage and incidental tokens.
These decks were incredibly difficult for most decks to defeat, but I had stumbled upon a potential answer with my Combative Humans deck. Instead of relying on high-impact champions, discard, and burn, this deck relied on a lot of mid-range champions with tribute -> draw a card in addition to blitz. Unlike the Sage/Wild decks that had to choose between applying pressure with champions and drawing, this deck did both at the same time.
Due to this, my deck forced the control deck to keep playing answers to my never-ending flood of threats. In this way, I ran them out of cards because I gave them no windows to safely draw, unlike their matches against Sage/Wild. If they board cleared me on their turn, I dropped Angel of Mercy, Noble Unicorn, or Angel of Light and forced them to deal with a new threat on my turn. Then, if they board cleared on my turn, I played a blitz threat like Lord of the Arena (possibly with Faithful Pegasus) or Avenging Angel, forced damage through, and left another threat they needed to answer in play. In this way, I was able to force the control deck to use their gold first, punish them when they did, and out resource them. Since my meta was fairly heavily control based, I constantly developed this deck idea. (The first iteration got crushed by a Sage/Wild deck largely because it had no way to effectively answer Muse.)
Chamberlain Kark Decks
Chamberlain Kark decks are built around the idea of reaching close to 60 health to play Kark and immediately win. In order to do this, not only do they have to gain health, but they also have to prevent themselves from taking damage.
One version of this deck is the Turbo Kark deck or ‘Burn’ Kark deck. This deck focuses on racing to 60 as fast as possible and winning in a couple turns. It is less concerned with generating value.
The more popular version is Kark Control or Kark Prison as Finalist Will Morgen describes it in his Worlds Tournament Report. This version focuses on shutting down any aggression, board clearing for significant value, and gaining health steadily throughout.
Results
John Tatian won the tournament and $25,000 with his version, Gabriel Costa-Giomi and Jason Smith both made it to top 8 with their version, and Tom Dixon won the first 2017 Worlds Constructed Qualifier with his version.
In my testing, I ran across 3 or 4 test Kark lists run by different players, and I either beat them or came close enough in game one to feel confident in the matchup. Admittedly, my testing was not thorough, and I neither played against the lists nor the players running it at Worlds, but I felt like my decks of preference matched up well against what Kark was trying to do. It all ties back to my Epic: Limited – Get Ahead, Stay Ahead playstyle and my genesis decks: Combative Humans and 4-Color Army.
Kark decks lose to consistent, unrelenting pressure, just like the control decks before it. The most important aspects to applying this pressure, in my preferred style of decks, are Ambush Champions, Blitz Champions, and Maintaining a consistently adequate Handsize. (Incidental damage, discard pile hate, and possibly forced discard could be helpful too.)
Every time a Kark deck is forced to board clear, they lose a card in hand and don’t gain health. Their removal is primarily board clears. So, if you can get a threatening champion into play that they can’t neutralize by chump blocking with Bodyguard/Brand/Rescue Griffin/Blind Faith, Fumbling, or Hasty Retreating, they either take damage or need to use their gold. If they take damage, they are farther away from winning with Kark, and you are closer to killing them; you can also pass with your gold up. If they use their gold on your turn, you respond by playing a blitz threat that can hopefully push damage through anyway (airborne blitz champions and/or blitz champions with breakthrough or direct damage are ideal because they are a lot harder to fully neutralize). Then, if they use their gold on their turn, you play an ambush champion to keep the pressure on. Once you get ahead of them by forcing them to spend their gold first, if you can keep establishing immediate threats (ambush/blitz), it can be hard for them to dig their way out.
Ceasefire is one of Kark‘s most important cards. It draws 2, prevents you from punishing them for spending their gold first on your turn, and turns off a multi attack turn. In addition, it can bait players into over-extending. Generally, if you have overwhelming force in play that your Kark opponent can’t deal with, it is usually better to just draw cards after getting Ceasefired. Since your opponent is already in a position where they can’t win unless they answer your threats, adding more non-immediately threatening threats achieves little, especially if they get caught up in a board clear. Drawing 2 lets you maintain your aggression longer.
Bodyguard is another important card for Kark decks because it can completely lock out certain decks. Instead of drawing out resources with every attack you make, Bodyguard can keep you locked out on the ground without decreasing your opponent’s hand size or depleting their gold. If you rely on non-airborne/non-breakthrough champions, Bodyguard is a high priority target for discard pile banish.
Ancient Chant is another critical card for your opponent. If they can get it in their discard pile by either playing or discarding it to max hand size, they are able to recycle it with a 0-cost card to draw, or even worse, draw 4 by targeting it with their Lesson Learned. A lot of pressure can be alleviated by a 1 gold draw 4, so the best way to deal with this card is prevent them from having an opportunity to play it. If you keep enough pressure on them, you can hopefully prevent their hand size from reaching 8 at the end of their turn so they can’t discard it. You can also force them to choose between playing it to draw 2 and either taking damage or leaving you a free opportunity to establish an ambush champion on their turn. If you are running forced discard (Thought Plucker), this card is particularly nasty against you. Or, if your opponent has Frantic Digging, they can bypass the need to ever actually play it to get it into their discard pile. However, if it does hit their discard pile, you want to banish it before they can Lesson Learned or recycle it (particularly before they can 0-cost recycle it into 7+ reveal Kark to win the game).
Recycling and other discard pile recursion like Soul Hunter and Lesson Learned are also important to some Kark decks. John and Gabriel/Jason’s decks in particular relied heavily on recycling to maintain handsize, dig to Kark, and neutralize attacks at the same time. As can be seen in the finals between John Tatian and Will Morgen, if you can prevent recycling, you significantly weaken Second Wind, Fumble, Watchful Gargoyle, etc. However, this is much easier said then done because Kark plays a lot of events that fill their discard pile.
Noble Unicorn is another strong card in Kark because it allows for multiple draws if not immediately answered. Angel of Light and Drain Essence are also strong cards because they disrupt Kark‘s opponents and gain a significant amount of life. Inner Peace is actually a fairly weak card in this specific matchup because it neither relieves them of any of your pressure nor draws them closer to Kark. It can be strong to get that final burst of health to win though.
Reasonable Decks Against Kark
I’ve done well against various test versions of Kark decks with all of these decks below.
Going into Worlds, I believed that my Pyrosaur deck had the best matchups with the rest of the field, hence why I ran it. The rest of the decks, while potentially strong against Kark, did not match up great with other decks I tested against.
This deck went wide with tokens by continually spawning them out. Plentiful Dead was nice, especially into a Rift Summoner for 17/17 worth of stats off turn spread over 4 bodies. Ceasefires were particularly nasty against my hordes, but I largely blanked Inheritance of the Meeks and mitigated the effectiveness of Bodyguard.
This is the first posting of this deck. It was my pre-uprising anti-control deck.
This deck was built around the idea of including no Drain Essence targets. In addition, it includes 3x Lightning Strike, 3x Wolf’s Bite, 3x Flash Fire, 3x Rage, 1x Wither, and 1x Flame Spike to pick off any potential blockers before they could be assigned to block, especially against my blitz champions played while my opponent’s gold was down. Arcane Research, Amnesia, and Surprise Attack also helped to thin my deck to reach my threats + 0 cost removal. Bodyguard could be a problem for this deck because of the value generated over multiple replays which forced me to hold Amnesia specifically for that card.
This deck was strong against Kark (even though The People’s Champion, Village Protector, and Bodyguard weren’t great cards in the matchup) because it was able to consistently fly over Kark‘s defenders and keep my opponent’s health reasonable. At the same time, my Gold Dragons, Angel of the Gates, and Justice Prevails were easily able to get my health well above 60 which would have let me win with my own anti-KarkKark, assuming I hadn’t mulliganed it before knowing I was against Kark (4 cards away from drawing through the deck to reach it).
Unfortunately, this deck had other terrible matchups making it non-viable for Worlds.
Admittedly, Kark is stronger than I initially expected, but I’m still not overly scared by it. If you disagree with my analysis of Kark and how to beat it, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Or, if you try one of these decks against Kark and get trounced, let me know as well: Pyrosaurand Uprising Demons will probably do the best for you, but don’t expect short games.
In addition, I continue to build decks that exploit undervalued cards that might show promise. I have my own version of discard + discard pile-hate that shows promise, and I am liking my Blue Dragon/Hunting Pack deck although it still needs work.
This deck is dedicated to James Damore for beating every other deck I threw at him with that one deck of his. I created this deck the morning I left for Worlds, drawing on some of my earlier concepts. It significantly outperformed my expectations during testing, I went 2-1 with it, and it is a lot of fun to play.
Thought Plucker and Muse are two of the strongest cards in a vacuum. Both must be answered immediately or they can generate significant card advantage. Card advantage involves utilizing your cards more efficiently than your opponent to have an advantage in hand size and/or champions in play. It is important, and it is rightfully highly-valued by players coming from other card games like Magic: The Gathering.
Muse is strong because it puts a card advantage threat into play without spending a gold. Thought Plucker is strong because it immediately generates you positive card advantage (you draw and your opponent discards), and it threatens to compound this effect each turn. Both of these can also be played on an opponents’ turn when their gold is down, which makes them more likely to generate significant benefit.
The best answers for these cards are 0-cost small removal cards like Wolf’s Bite, Wither, Flash Fire, Forcemage Apprentice (held in reserve), etc. Due to the strength and popularity of Muse and Thought Plucker, many decks include at least some 0-cost small removal cards to answer them. Because of this, any champions with 3 or less defense (Pyrosaur, Winged Death, etc.) become effectively weaker, since most decks will have answers to them inherently. However, these decks only have so many of these answers.
Guiding Principle (Wither Targets)
The guiding principle of this deck is to pack it with tons of champions that break to Wither. By doing this, I overload a deck’s 0-cost removal answers which allows my high impact, low defense champions to survive (2x Winged Death, 3x Guilt Demon, 2x Muse, 2x Pyrosaur, 3x Cave Troll, 3x Fire Shaman, and 3x Spore Beast).
Against most decks, my Muses are my least valuable of these cards because they advance my deck’s goals the least. Due to this, I can throw them out early as lightning rods for small removal. If they get removed, great, that is one less removal card for Pyrosaur, Winged Death, etc. If they survive, even better, I draw a card at the start of my turn, and I can be fairly confident they do not have a 0-cost answer for my more important cards.
Citadel Raven Deck
I’ve been messing around with this Wither Targets idea for awhile largely trying to make Citadel Raven work. Initially I tried to be very greedy by making it a 27 Sage/33 Wild deck with tons of loyalty triggers in both factions. When that deck got up to 7 cards in hand and consistently hit its loyalties, it crushed, but too many bad draws forced me to scrap it. This is what naturally followed, and I love it. I also made a Sage Wither Targets deck after Worlds that actually runs Thought Plucker, Muse, Knight of Shadows, Psionic Assault, etc., and that has been working fairly well for me too. In other words, don’t underestimate the 3 defense champions.
While it may initially seem odd to think of midrange decks in a game with no accumulating resources, Epic does have advancing game states progressing from early (establishing champions/drawing up to 7 cards in hand or stopping an opponent from doing so), mid (exploiting resources in play and hand to push damage through/set up your combo/approach 60 health), and late game (making the final push to finish a game). Almost all of my decks focus on quickly entering and dominating the mid game by emphasizing value and my Get Ahead, Stay Ahead playstyle.
The goals of this deck are fairly straight forward: put big champions into play to pressure the board, maintain a 7 card hand size, and punish my opponent for spending their gold before me.
Early Game (Establishing Champions, Draw, or Pass)
Going First
In the early game, when having to go first, you ideally want to open with Raging T-Rex, Fire Spirit, Brachiosaurus, or Cave Troll and then pass. All of these put a threat into play that either gives immediate value, or leaves you open to exploit your opponent spending their gold first on your turn. T-Rex and Fire Spirit draw card(s) and leave behind big bodies. Fire Spirit also leaves an ability allowing you to pick off small champions your opponent might play. Both Brachiosaurus and Cave Troll put solid bodies into play while leaving your gold available to react to an opponent spending their gold first on your turn. 8 times out of 10, when you play Brachiosaurus, you do not want to immediately spend the gold you get off it for this reason. If you can get an 8/12 breakthrough body into play and force your opponent not to spend their gold on your turn, you’re in great shape.
If you don’t have any of the above cards (and I recommend mulliganing aggressively to get one) I recommend either passing or playing a “draw 2 and” card: Smash and Burn or Ancient Chant. If you have a lot of reactive cards like Kong or you’re afraid of your opponent spending their gold while yours is down, pass. If not afraid of your opponent, the “draw 2 and” card helps further the deck’s goals without leaving you too vulnerable. Most of the time in this latter situation your opponent will just draw 2 too.
Going Second
If going second (drawing first), the best card to play is Draka’s Enforcer, potentially even if your opponent still has their gold available. This card puts an evasive (airborne) threat into play that can attack on your turn and draws you a card. If they answer it on their turn without drawing, Divine Judgement for instance, you start your turn with 6 cards in hand while they have only 4. If it survives until your turn, you start with a 7/7 airborne champion in play that requires a gold to answer.
One way to enter the midgame is for 1 player to start their turn with a board advantage. In our case, this most commonly occurs from our Brachiosaurus pass play or our off-turn Draka’s Enforcer play.
You’re Ahead
From this position, the person who is behind is forced to act or start taking damage. For example, if you start your turn with Draka’s Enforcer in play, attack while both players’ have their gold available. If they do nothing and take 7 damage, great, pass and force them to play something or go to their turn. If they spend their gold to remove it with a Drain Essence/Zombie Apocalypse/etc., that’s fine. You just answer by playing a blitz threat like Draka, Dragon Tyrant/Strafing Dragon/Pyrosaur and attack, usually dealing damage and leaving that new threat in play for next turn. If they take the damage from the attack and then draw after passing, you could either play that blitz threat or draw as well to maintain your advantageous position without overextending.
You’re Behind (Spore Beast + Worlds Example)
When you, or anyone, is behind on the board on an opponent’s turn, frequently the best response is a 0-cost card that can negate an attack while leaving your gold available. Many decks run Fumble for this role, this deck runs Spore Beast. Spore Beast is a dramatically underrated card. The simplest use of it is to completely negate an attack without spending a gold, but unlike Fumble, your opponent is forced to deal with it or it can continue to lock down an attacker each turn. If they have targeted 0-cost removal, then you stopped an attack and decreased your hand size by 1 and decreased your opponent’s hand size by 1 as well, which is a similar net effect to Fumble‘s recycle.
Spore Beast can be better than Fumble because it negates the entirety of one champion’s attack (not just a max of 10 damage), and it can punish buffs like Lash or Rage. For example, if you chump block a Raging T-Rex with a Cave Troll and then an opponent Rages their T-Rex, before damage you can respond with Spore Beast to remove the Raged, breakthrough T-Rex and take no damage. Spore Beast can also remove your own champions from combat to protect them if your opponent ambushes in a champion or plays an unexpected combat trick.
While this is how I primarily use my Spore Beasts, the most devious trick is to remove a champion blocking your breakthrough champion. In game 3 of the final round of Worlds the turn after time was called, I had Scarros and Brachiosaurus in play while my opponent had Sea Titan and his own Brachiosaurus. Both our golds were down, but I had dealt 2 damage to his Brachiosaurus when I used Wolf’s Bite to try to dig to some burn, my opponent was at 5 health. After considering for a long time, I attack first with my Scarros; my opponent takes the bait and blocks with his untargetable Sea Titan, breaking my Scarros in the process. I then follow up by attacking with my Brachiosaurus. He blocks with his Brachiosaurus whose 12 current defense would prevent all 8 of my breakthrough offense (since breakthrough damage, unlike Magic’s trample does not care about damage on the champion). Once blockers are declared, I play my Spore Beast from hand, remove his Brachiosaurus from combat, and kill him with my Brach‘s breakthrough damage since there is no longer any defending defense. It felt great. Spore Beast, strong card.
You’re Behind (Reestablishing Plays + Deck Synergy)
The simplest way for this deck to regain control of a game on your turn is to play Kong. It breaks most champions, puts a 13/14 body in play, and is in faction, excellent. Scarros can also function similarly if your hand is full of Wild cards, and Drain Essence is the best off turn removal card in the game, even if it doesn’t leave a threat behind. (Hunting Pack is currently on my radar for other decks.) Aside from those answers, the damage synergy in this deck is truly nasty. And as I was once taught by Tom Dixon, all decks should be strong when they are ahead, but the best decks can come back from behind too. The damage synergy in this deck makes that possible, and it keeps this deck almost perpetually ahead on the board.
Having Fire Spirit, Fire Shaman, and/or Smash and Burn in play/discard amplifies the effectiveness of Pyrosaur, Draka Dragon Tyrant, Scarros Hound of Draka, and Rain of Fire dramatically. 9 times out of 10, I play Smash and Burn just to draw 2, possibly trigger an ally ability, and put it in my discard pile. The +5/+5 is rarely relevant, and it is still an incredible card. Smash and Burn can break 6 defense champions with any 1-cost Wild card trigger. A Smash and Burn triggered off of a Pyrosaur or Draka can hit one target for 10 or 9 respectively. Throw in a Fire Spirit or Fire Shaman trigger and that single target damage can reach 14, which breaks all targetable champions that see play.
Rain of Fire functions similarly, and I have used it to kill cards like Muse and T-Rex with Smash and Burn, while also dealing 5 damage to the face on multiple occasions. The damage synergy gets even more devastating with the 3 Feeding Frenzys. Any damaging ally trigger become break target champion, and any AoE damage, like from Pyrosaur or Draka, can break even the most buff champions. Wolf’s Bite is another great enabler for Feeding Frenzy.
Feeding Frenzy is great because small to mid-size champions are easily cleared off with my damage, but big guys can be a bit harder for damage alone. My other answer for big or untargetable guys is Winged Death. This card fits into my Wither Targets design goal, which makes its 3 defense less of an issue. Also, the massive amounts of incidental damage is great to keep the board clear of small champions that can be chump broken to its ability. And, this is amazing for punishing an opponent for spending their gold on your turn before you. On multiple occasions I have killed two high impact champions (like Steel Golem and Sea Titan) on the same turn. This card is even solid to play while an opponent’s gold is up. Break their only champion, and then pass. They can’t play a non-airborne ambush champion in this case because Winged Death can also attack after to force them to break that too. If they draw, you can still swing in for that 4 airborne damage. I love this card in this deck.
Mid Game Periphery Support
Guilt Demon is solid in this deck. Not only does it help you reach a critical mass of 3 or less defense champions, but it can also pick apart the most critical cards in your opponent’s discard pile. It even hits for 3 in the air with blitz. This guy helps keep the pressure on your opponent, and it can be really nasty against heavy recycle decks, like some Kark iterations. Definitely upping this to 3-of since it has performed so well. Grave Demon is taking the place of Heinous Feast to provide me with 1 mass discard banish.
Ancient Chant has been excellent to help maintain my 7-card hand size. Even without the Lesson Learned draw 4 cards trick, it still works great to play and recycle to draw 3, discard to Thought Plucker, or even recall to net +2 cards in hand for 1 gold. Great card. Wave of Transformation was thrown in as a 4th card to enable my second copy of Muse, but I’ve really liked having exactly 1 in my deck. It’s rare that this deck reaches a point where it needs to wrath, but it does occasionally happen and this is a great way to do it. Nothing survives Wave of Transformation, it deals with Soul Hunters, and I can clear up the 2/2 wolves left behind quite easily.
I’m not a huge fan of running Drain Essence in this deck, especially 3 copies. It is an incredible card, and I’m not sure what else I would want in place of it to enable the 3 Guilt Demons (probably more Grave Demons and/or Winged Death), but this deck doesn’t need off-turn removal as badly as some other decks. It is always great blowing out a greedy opponent who just tries to Draka me while my gold is up though. However, due to the prevalence of burn, and the effectiveness it has in bursting me down 1 turn before I can kill it, it appears to be a necessary Evil (see what I did there?).
Late Game (Finish with Small Burn)
Late game isn’t too much different from mid game for this deck. However, cards like Fire Shaman, Rain of Fire, Strafing Dragon, Pyrosaur, and Scarros become a lot more valuable because they can finish off an opponent without giving them a chance to respond/react.
Strafing Dragon and Scarros are particularly nice for pushing damage because your opponent can’t bounce them without getting hit by the direct damage a second time when you replay it. While Erase has been falling out of favor due to the prevalence of strong Tribute/Loyalty triggers, it still sees occasional play, as does Sea Titan.
Post Worlds Conclusion
I absolutely love playing this deck. I’ve played it against multiple decks, and it has an extremely high win-rate against some with only a few even or bad matchups. Direct burn in testing is its worst match up by far.
I lost to the Sage Kark list on foundry because I didn’t pressure as aggressively as I should have in the first game in certain moments. Then, I didn’t have enough time left in the round to win the next game let alone next 2 games. However, I might still have lost because my opponent played quite well even though he probably hadn’t seen a Wild list quite as value-based as this before. Post Worlds, I’m also adding a slight bit more discard hate as well to improve my Kark matchup. I plan on talking more about Kark in future articles.
Immediately following that Kark matchup, I played a non-conventional Kark deck with Noble Martyrs and Justice Prevails; it was really cool, and it was the most interesting constructed deck I played against during the entirety of Worlds. I did manage to beat that list 2-1, but I do want to experiment with it because it intrigued me.
Overall, this deck is great because the damage synergy can lead to some real blowouts, it is easy to get ahead with this deck/hard for opponents to come back from behind, and it runs underrated or at least underplayed cards like Spore Beast, Pyrosaur, Winged Death, and Fire Spirit. I really, really enjoy winning with undervalued/underplayed cards.
Got back from Worlds on Tuesday after finishing with a 4-3 record for 22nd place and $1,000. (2-0 Cube Draft, 0-2 Dark Draft, 2-1 Constructed)
I had a great time at the convention. While I did worse in Dark Draft than I was expecting, I did better in constructed. I also had plenty of people to talk and play Epic with constantly. Overall I had a great time, and I look forward to continuing to interact with the community and competing in Worlds next year.
Epic App
White Wizard Games has officially announced that they have an Epic Card Game app in Alpha testing as we speak. They plan on having a Kickstarter soon, but it probably won’t be up until early 2017.
While I didn’t get a chance to play it, I have heard great things from those who did. It sounds like it has a fairly intuitive interface. I can also say it looks quite pretty from the small amount I saw. Once it comes out, hopefully it will draw in many more players. I do plan on streaming once it is out as well.
Future Content
Starting next week, I plan on getting back into producing Epic content. Below are some of the topics I plan on discussing in no particular order:
Below are 4 pictures of my practice Epic Cube drafts.
Forgot to get name, but will update as soon as I have it.
Gabriel Costa-Giomi
Abdul Majid
Bill Anderson
James Kandziolka
Anthony Lowry
Derek Arnold
I did not write down his name, but he had the most interesting deck I played against at Worlds. It was a Kark deck with tokens (Noble Martyr) and Justice Prevails. I plan on making my own version of that because it intrigued me.
Worlds Last Chance Qualifiers start in two days (11/18), and the tournament starts Sunday 11/20. I will be arriving 11/17 night and staying in the Sheraton. While I do have a few people I hope to test with in that time, if you see me feel free to come up, say hi, ask me anything (I’ll answer most questions), and if I have time, potentially even play some games.
Pictures
I am going to try to keep my camera with me at all times, and I want to get as many pictures as possible for this blog. At minimum, I’ll ask all of my opponents to take a picture with me, but I would love to take a picture with as many people at the event as I can. So, if I don’t remember to ask for your picture, remind me. But, if you do not want your picture taken, no worries.
Blog Updates
Unfortunately since I am flying instead of making the 20+ hour drive, I will not have my desktop with me and will not be able to update the blog each night. There will probably be Facebook updates though.
Good Luck
Good luck to everyone competing in the LCQs, and good luck to all of my opponents during the tournament. It will be crazy.
I’ve been given the opportunity to spoil one of the Epic Uprising cards: No Escape. I received this image this afternoon, and I am still figuring out just how crazy it is.
My first impression Dark Draft tier rating for this card is Always Desirable. This has a similar effect to Banishment, remove a champion and the current player gains a card in hand, but it breaks instead of banishes, it has a draw 2 option, and the +1 card effect is both more powerful and more conditional/exploitable.
It can be more powerful because if you play it on your turn, you can get back your Sea Titan in your discard pile, instead of drawing a random card. However, this does mean that you aren’t getting any closer to drawing through your deck to win, and if you don’t have a worthwhile champion to return, this becomes weaker.
If you play it on your opponent’s turn, the same conditions apply. If they have a strong champion in their discard pile, they can take that champion back. If they don’t (for example if you Amnesia them beforehand), too bad for them. This is the aspect of the card that intrigues me the most. In a heavy-discard pile hate deck this can effectively function as a break target champion on your opponent’s turn with no draw back. If there isn’t a great time to do that, it can function as a strong break target champion and get a great champion back into your hand. If there isn’t a great time to do that, it can always just draw 2 cards. In other words, this card has 3 potentially solid to amazing applications. (Man playing this to break an ambushed in champion before it can be declared as a blocker, and, gaining back your most situationally valuable champion in your discard pile would be sick.)
Another cool part about this card is that if you target your own champion on your turn, you could break that champion and then immediately return it to your hand with the second half of this card’s resolution. You would pretty much never want to do this…But, if your opponent has 3 demons in play and casts Psionic Assault on you, you could use this on your expended Markus, Watch Captain to break it and return it to hand. Then, at the end of your turn when you are forced to discard, put him into play as a prepared 10/10, banish the 3 demons, and potentially draw a card from loyalty. Bam! (I’m fairly certain this is correct.)
This is definitely a card I will want to draft. I have not had a chance to decide if I’ll want to add it to any of my constructed decks, but I probably will.
**EDIT** It was pointed out to me that, in my excitement, I didn’t realize that your opponent could always, at minimum, return to hand their champion that was just broken. This makes the card significantly less appealing to me. My Dark Draft rating for it drops to Always Acceptable, but I still think it is viable in constructed decks: Crystal Golem.*
A 0-cost 5 offense blitzing unbreakable on your turn champion (with ambush too). Yeah, it’s great. The best way to use this is to play it on your turn before you spend your gold, especially when your opponent has no champions in play. Dark Knight is difficult to stop without your opponent using their gold. If they don’t, they take 5 damage. If they do spend their gold, you can respond with a big 1-cost blitzer like Ramping Wurm.
I do also love bouncing this after it hits my opponent. Play and attack with this, then Sea Titan it back to hand if they didn’t spend their gold. This way you can replay it and attack before spending your gold on a future turn.
It can also ambush in to block a champion if needed, but at 2 defense it is vulnerable to all 0-cost removal except Lash.
A 0-cost, blitz, 5 offense, unbreakable on your turn attacker is solid. In addition, it can ambush in as a blocker if absolutely necessary. This is more valuable if you have limited 0-cost cards and decent card draw.
Dark Leader Rating: Practically Unplayable
This card is bad because it gives you so little for 1 gold. If you play it and immediately expend it, you got a 2/1 Evil/Good human token and an expended 4/4 champion that might put another 2/1 Evil/Good human tokens into play next turn. So the question is, how often would you want to spend your gold just to put a 2/1 token into play, that’s right, practically never.
To be fair, Dark Leader can provide 2 chump blockers in one turn. If you play it, don’t expend it, and have it survive to be declared as a blocker, you can then expend it to put the human token into play. Even though Dark Leader is now expended, the attacking champion is still considered “blocked” so the attacking champion won’t damage you.
This is generally thought to be one of the worst cards in the base set. This card will basically never be a threat and basically never win a game, but it does provide 2 potential chump blockers with ambush. If it survives, it does produce a free 2 offense chump blocker per turn unless your opponent uses removal on it. Only pick this if there is nothing better, but I personally think there are less valuable cards.
Ceasefire Rating: Always Desirable
Draw 2 is solid, but being able to draw 2 on your opponent’s turn while they still have their gold is incredible. Most of the time, if you spend your gold on your opponent’s turn before they do, they can respond by playing a blitzing champion and attacking face while your primary defense is down. This card prevents that from happening.
It also prevents all other attacks your opponent might want to make that turn. So, if they attack with a token before attacking with that Raging T-Rex in play, you can play this and that T-Rex can’t attack you that turn. This can also be a great way to set up for a board clear on your turn. If your opponent expands their lead on their turn even though they can’t attack, you can punish them by clearing everything on your turn.
Since your only windows to play cards on your opponent’s turn are:
– after they declare attackers
– after you declare blockers
– when your opponent tries to end your turn
You usually won’t be able to play this before your opponent attacks with at least one champion.
Draw 2 cards is a solid 3 by itself. Being able to stop all future attacks in one turn saves games.
If an opponent attacks on their turn, there is no way to play this before that first attack. The only exception, is if they try to end their turn before attacking, and you play it at that time. In that situation they would not be able to then attack after you spent your gold.
This is one of the 3 best “Draw 2 +” cards, and it requires no factioninvestment. My opinion of this card has risen dramatically as I have played. On a side note, it is another good way to potentially stop Courageous Soul + Secret Legion.
Courageous Soul Rating: Situationally Desirable
Human Tokens can do a lot of blitz damage in one turn. This + Secret Legion is a great way to get 22 worth of attacking, blitzing offense into play (since this is a human, it gets the blitz from Secret Legion). This also has ambush, so it can be played on your opponent’s turn and if it survives, your opponent won’t get a window to kill it on your turn before you can attack with it.
This can also work with non-Good champions, so it can help a heavy zombie and/or demon token deck (or Wolves technically). Theoretically, if you play a Dark Leader on your opponent’s turn and it survives, you could play this into The Risen and immediately attack with this, since Dark Leader makes this human an Evil champion. (Dark Leader is still a bad card though.)
By itself this card does very little. In a token based deck, this card is amazing. The quickest way to beat someone is Courageous Soul + Secret Legion + 1 more 0-cost card (Rally the People, Dark Knight, etc.). As you will see, I generally do not rate token producing cards very highly in base game Epic. So I generally would not recommend drafting a token based strategy, and would therefore not recommend Courageous Soul. If you or your opponent is going for a token strategy, make sure you get this card. In that very specific situation, this would be my overall number 1 draft pick.
Tyrants Updated Notes:
Tokens are a lot more viable now that the tyrants cards have been added. There are a lot more ways to get human and demon tokens, and this card can provide a devastating boost. Insurgency goes a long way to make human tokens worthwhile for attacking, and that indirectly buffs this as well. The rating does not change though because it is still highly situational.
Erase Rating: Always First Pickable +
Bounce in Epic is incredible because it frequently negates an opponent’s previously spent gold. If they play Rampaging Wurm and attack while you still have your gold up, you can play this to return the Wurm to hand and draw 2 cards. Assuming neither of you play anything else that turn, your opponent gained zero resources that turn, and you increased the number of cards in your hand by 1. It is not often that you gain more resources without losing board position on your opponent’s turn than they do.
This is also fast targeted removal which means it can remove an ambushed in blocker. You’re attacking with a Palace Guard and your opponent ambushes in Lurking Giant, great, Erase it before blockers are declared to net one card on your opponent this turn and get 6 damage through to their face. Excellent.
This card is easily one of the best cards in the base set. It is so strong that just existing makes other cards worse. This is the primary reason why I do not like cards that aren’t guaranteed to do something when they come into play. By now it should be clear that I like draw 2 cards, and the second part is amazing.
Returning a champion to hand (bounce) in Epic is incredible. Since you only get 1 gold per turn, and a lot of really powerful champions can only be played on your turn, returning one of those champions to your opponent’s hand effectively neutralizes their gold for that turn + you draw 2 cards. Playing this on your opponent’s turn is brutal, but you can also play it on your turn if they ambush in a blocker.
Further, only untargetable cards are completely immune to this card. This gets around unbreakable, unbanishable, high defense, and to a lesser extent blitz and ambush. This card is incredible, pick it. There are situationally better cards, and this can be situationally worse, but it is still amazing.
Kills Muse, direct damage, Sage, need I say more? Great card. You can either save this as removal for when your opponent eventually plays a 2 or 4 defense minion, or you can play it before playing a 1-cost Sage card to get 4 damage through to your opponent’s face. Both options are great. This also needs to be removed or it will chip down your opponent’s health until they are dead, thankfully almost every removal effect in the game can get rid of it (not the newly revealed Savage Uprising).
Since I love targeted removal, I really want to use this to break cards like Necromancer Lord etc., and in situations where your opponent has a lot of targets for this in their deck, it is probably a 4. This can also clear through tokens, and it is obviously a lot more powerful with Sage ally triggers.
This card also really excels at doing damage directly to the face. 2 damage per turn until removed (removed by literally everything) is solid, but 4 damage on your turn, and 2 damage on your opponent’s turn is a pretty quick clock.
Flame Strike Rating: Always First Pickable
8 damage to face, gg. Flame Strike is the finishing blow in a lot of games. It can also remove a decent amount of champions, if desperate.
8 damage to the face is a serious finisher. If possible, I always want to save this to win the game, but it is also decent fastremoval if needed.
Flash Fire Rating: Always First Pickable –
2 damage to all champions is relevant in most games. Kills Muse, kills non-demon tokens, etc. In the few games where the situation doesn’t occur that you don’t need a 2 damage board clear, you can always draw 2 cards instead. Always useful.
An excellent answer to non-demon tokens or low defense cards like Muse. As a side note, this is a great way to stop Courageous Soul + Secret Legion. I gave this a 5 rating because the primary effect can be so situationally devastating, decent, or terrible, but the “or draw 2” makes this a very powerful card overall.
Updates
I downgraded 3 blitz champions from Usually Desirable to Situationally Desirable in my tier list:
These cards can be great, but they have a very specific use (punishing your opponent for spending their gold on your turn before you, when your opponent doesn’t have a champion in play that can effectively block it). Single purpose blitz champions are also bad if you lack sufficient draw in your deck. In addition, you don’t want too many single purpose blitz champions in your deck: if you can’t use one of them in a situation, you likely can’t use the others either.
