The first Tech-Tier card. This card still scares me. Best case scenarios are deal 7 damage for 0, stop up to 10 breakthrough damage potentially from Lash/Rage for 0, save a champion that would otherwise break for 0, or use it on an incidental champion in combat to trade with an actual threat. All of those are actually really powerful. The problem though is that they’re all also preventable. If you give an unblocked attacking champion +7 offense, that champion can still be removed before it can deal damage, same with all other scenarios for this card. In other words, this card is never guaranteed to give value and it can put you into a position where you get two-for-oned (opponent uses one card to remove two or more of yours). However, if it does give value, it gives serious value.
A couple ways you can mitigate the risk are to
Use it on a low value token, when you’ve had tokens remain in play, unremoved, for a while; if your opponent hadn’t removed them yet, there is a better chance they can’t now, especially if their gold is down.
Play this on a breakthrough or unbreakable champion and follow it up with Priest of Kalnor with Loyalty (or Angelic Protector) before attacking.
Use it on an unbreakable 0-cost unblocked champion, such as Dark Knight.
In general, I wouldn’t actively draft this card unless I am an aggressive deck and/or I haven’t been able to draft a mass-discard pile banish effect yet. In either of those situations, I would say this card is actually A edging on S-Tier. Otherwise, probably D-Tier.
I have used it in constructed with a “Draw 2 And” focused incidental-token deck, and it was pretty solid at pushing damage through when my opponents weren’t expecting it. Theoretically, if my opponents start to expect it, Arm could work as a pretty nice deterrent to my opponents actually using their 0-cost removal on my cards otherwise, due to the threat of Arm, even if I didn’t actually have it in … … hand (couldn’t quite think of a Good Arm pun).
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 cardslike 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.
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.
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.
Falling in love with Legends of Runeterra, spending $100 on it, and then just no longer playing it, with about half my purchased coins and 40,000 gems unspent (in a non-predatory monetization system with a lot of free-to-play benefits where I never felt like I had to spend money) — even though the client looks and feels great, they keep putting out fresh content, the development team is open/active in their communities/responsive to critiques, there are 10k tournaments every two months, there’s an excellent limited format where you rogue-like upgrade your deck between games with elimination being two consecutive loses and an entry consisting of two runs, there’s actual interesting lore-based champions that pull me deeper into the game and the surrounding universe, they pay for survey feedback ($5), and there are desirable cosmetics (another thing I never particularly cared about before Runeterra) — just served to illustrate how much more I enjoy Epic’s gameplay.
Similarly, since Hearthstone came out with battlegrounds I’ve played 302 hours, but I haven’t played a single game of “Hearthstone” since, and I haven’t missed it once (although Duels intrigues me). Tried to get into Magic Arena, one skipped weekend due to a vacation, and I effectively forgot about Arena for a while, and when I remembered, I had no desire to go back. Tried to get into Eternal with Pluck U to chase the 50K world championship, game just wasn’t particularly fun to me.
In general, I’ve just come to the conclusion that I actively dislike the standard resource model for most 2-player dueling card games and their implications (missed resource drops, playing on a curve especially for midrange, exponential power differentials between resource-costs, etc.). Runeterra is far and away the best of these because they address a bunch of these issues, but some of those core issues remain.
I vastly prefer Epic’s resource system where every card costs 1 or 0, each of those is largely balanced against the other cards of that cost (with some outliers), and the only thing determining what cards I want to play is the game state not the game turn. I can manipulate the game state much more easily than the game turn, and I love setting up decks and plays that manipulate the game into a state where this one card is better than all other cards, even though they all cost the same. Games are able to play out with so much more variation because of this. Dark Draft as a heads up draft format is phenomenal as well.
Further, the spoilers for the new kickstarter sets look awesome, and they got me super excited, as well as the fact that Pantheon is going to start to be added on the app on Tuesday Nov 3. Therefore,
Weekly Streamed Saturday Twitch Challenges
Every Saturday at 1pm CST/CDT I want to play at least a best of three against someone in any epic format on the app (excluding on the day of a Monthly which I’ll stream starting at 11am ET). I will also stream it on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming (if you would like to remain anonymous, I will cover your Epic username.)
During the best of three, I can either do my usual talking through all of my plays by myself or we could hop into a discord/skype call that I’d broadcast. I can also actively focus on providing feedback or refrain from it as much as possible while still explaining my plays. (While also interacting with chat of course!)
For formats, the default would be Dark Draft, but I will happily work with the challenger on any format they would want to do including but not limited to: Random 30, Beginner, full Constructed, Constructed using only some sets, singleton Constructed (30, 45, or 60), Burn/Health Gain lessConstructed, other custom ban lists, we each start with the same 33 cards from an alignment and then finish building from there but can’t add any more of that initial alignment, anything we can think of.
First match will be against Atlanta, Dark Draft on November 7, 2020. I will then break out those games into individual videos which I’ll post on my
New YouTube Channel
I wasn’t able to get back into my original Youtube channel after Youtube changed stuff, so I finally gave up and just created a new one: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeqfbtXRAGMdm8e06tvS9-w/videos. I am planning on posting a single-game video every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm CST/CDT. I have preloaded it with the January 2020 Constructed Monthly, and my tutorial campaign run through. I plan on adding all of my highlighted games from Twitch so far. Including the Saturday streams, I will also be putting out content on the blog the rest of the week.
Card Ratings Finally Continued
I recently updated my Constructed Tiered Card Ratings as well as completely overhauled my Dark Draft Card Ratings. Going forward, I will be posting one new card review every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 7pm CST/CDT. To see them you can either subscribe to the blog or check out my most recent posts page: Game Reviews, Strategy Articles, and More. Seeing as how I’ll be flooding out a lot of smaller content, I do not plan on cross-posting to the Epic pages on Facebook (Fan Page, Digital), Reddit, or Board Game Geek as I have in the past, outside of potential major articles. (Feel free to post to any of those if you would like to discuss anything here with that particular community.) Also, I do not plan on actually posting anymore big articles on here for awhile, aside from one which will go up before November 20th, unless a massive wave of motivation hits. I might do some stub articles on stuff I want to put out there but don’t have the energy/full-understanding to do as thoroughly as I’d like though (Aggro-combo human token decks).
Here’s the first rating in the new style (I have a couple more written out going in alphabetical order, but I found this one was particularly interesting):
Images used with permission from White Wizard Games. These are not the final card files and are subject to change.
I actually think this card is quite powerful, and I’ve been consistently impressed by it. It’s a “boring, vanilla,” airborne/ambush champion, but those stats are actually terrifying. Aerial Assassin at minimum trades with all playable airborne champions (except Sky Serpent), and it survives all of the 7 or less attack ones like Draka’s Enforcer, Angel of the Gate, Ice Drake, Strafing Dragon, Little Devil, etc. It also survives all 0-cost removal (barring bounce: Hasty Retreat, Vanishing, Disappearing Act which are all devastating), in addition to 7 damage removal which is getting to be a more important break point (Fires of Rebellion, Whirlwind, Flames of Furios). On the attack, that 9 airborne offense effectively demands a 1-cost answer as there are not many 0’s that can effectively mitigate it, since there aren’t airborne tokens to chump block (thankfully).
Further, in Dark Draft, I’ll frequently attempt to plop this down in front of a turn 1 Little Devil, Guilt Demon, or blitzing 1-cost airborne champion with 7/8 stats or lower to go for the block. This is especially true because on-turn fast targeted-removal is not valued particularly highly right now, so while they may have a slow reestablishing follow up, which isn’t ideal for me, the odds that they can remove my blocker before I eat their 0-cost champion is fairly low. Even if they do, it will frequently force them down to 3 cards in hand turn 1. If I’m holding a 0-cost buff, to counter a potential buff from my opponent, I’m even more likely to try for this play. (Erase and Banishment are the utter fail cases for this though so be aware.)
In constructed, this was a solid and necessary addition to my Sage, Kark-Hunting list. A lot of the other ambush champions that I could use for off-turn gold-punishers were either just too small and unimpactful or didn’t have reliable, in-built evasion, making them too bad/inconsistent. Against Kark, you have to push big damage early, to prevent the turbo Kark win, and you need to apply constant champion-based persistent pressure to prevent them from stabilizing into card draw. This did both, as an off-turn gold-punisher. However, if you can’t reliably play it as an off-turn gold punisher, you can’t draw enough cards to maintain a reasonable hand-size, or you need either more immediate or long term value to win, this probably isn’t your card. If Alignment doesn’t matter and burn is super prevalent, Angel of the Gate is probably better, but Angel’s 7 health is definitely a liability so if your deck is more aggressive than midrange/control, Aerial Assassin might still be better.
The threat of this card is so-high that I try to do everything I can to avoid spending my gold first on my turn if I know my opponent has it in hand and I don’t have an effective answer, similar to (but not quite as much as) Rift Summoner and Thought Plucker.
Conclusion
I feel pretty good about this schedule, but I’d be happy to hear any comments, concerns, hype, etc. if anything comes to mind. Nothing is set in stone so it can be adjusted if there is a reasonable reason.
When I went to update my Dark Draft Card Ratings, to get ready to start posting my Duels ratings, I realized that the way I evaluate cards in Dark Draft has evolved so far that I could no longer in good conscience keep and expand my old ratings system. So, I completely overhauled it.
Tiers Within Tiers and Multi-Entry Cards
Card evaluations in Dark Draft are not constant. They change based on what you have drafted so far, what you have passed so far, the other cards in the pack (if picking first from a pack), and how many packs are left to draft. Generally speaking, the most powerful cards are Re-establishing Cards, 0-Cost Cards, and Card Draw. I’ve explained these three pillars of Dark Draft in my Dark Draft Simplified article, and if you have not read that yet, I suggest starting there before continuing here.
My goal for my overhauled rating system was to make something fairly modular that I could use to explain the shifting in card evaluations during a draft.
To do this, I broke all cards I’ve rated so far into four spreadsheets: Slow Champions, 0-Cost Cards, Card Draw, and Other. From there I’ve separated them into between 10 and 14 internal categories and assigned a tier to each category. Finally, all of the cards in each category have an internal category-tier.
Some cards appear in multiple categories/spreadsheets because they can fill multiple roles. In addition, I have different evaluations for Loyalty/Ally cards when you
Have drafted no other cards of that alignment in your deck: ~,
Are on track to get around 10 cards of that alignment in your deck (my target minimum for reliably triggering ally effects in limited): &,
Have already drafted an overwhelming number of 1-cost cards in that alignment (for Ally triggers) or an overwhelming number in general (for Loyalty X triggers). This happens incredibly infrequently and shouldn’t be relied on almost ever: &&
Each spreadsheet has a different distribution you are aiming for in each draft and each category fluctuates in tier score depending on the draft.
Some of the most powerful cards in the game are Slow Champions. So are most of the worst. Further, drafting too many slow champions is the most surefire way to have a weak deck.
Draft Approximately 5 Total
The only time the Re-establishing cards aren’t insanely powerful is when you already have 6+ Slow Champions. If you get passed them in this situation, burning them for other distributions can be the right play; however, if you open them, not taking them gives your opponent the chance to draft them, which is painful. If you are ever in a situation where you need to pick between them, having a mix of the types is valuable. Further, if you have a ton of small removal, the Multi-Target Small Re-establishers get a tiny bit worse, same with big removal and the Single Target Big Re-establishers.
Slow Tech cards defy objective overall rating. Most of these cards can range from S-Tier to F-Tier depending on specific circumstances. I outline those in my Card by Card Analyses (or I’ll at least make sure I do as I update them).
Establishing Slow champions are cards that are powerful to play while your opponent’s gold is up on your turn. This is because they guarantee you at least some value when you play them, either Card Draw or Other (mostly token spawning) effects. Some of these cards are inherently incredibly powerful, but they are almost never as strong as Re-establishing champions. I’ll generally avoid these until later in the draft when I’m under my quota of Slow champions.
On-Turn Gold-Punishers are cards that excel when played while your opponent’s gold is down. This is generally because they aren’t difficult to remove if your opponent can spend a gold but are devastating if not interacted with for a turn. I value them similar to Establishing champions, and I prefer to have a mix of both instead of all of one type, assuming my Slow Champion quota isn’t full of Re-establishing champions. However, if you are drafting a more aggressive deck, especially if you don’t have a Mass-Discard Pile Removal effect, these become more desirable.
I don’t want to commit my Slow Champions slots to Health Gain or Burn unless I’m desperate. However, if you’re an aggressive deck, burn becomes better, and if you think your opponent is building aggressive, Health Gain becomes better.
Just Bad cards are just bad. You basically only want to draft them if all of your options are just bad.
0-Cost Cards
0-cost cards let you manipulate the game to dodge your opponent’s 1-gold cards and maximize your own. While 1-cost cards have stronger effects, 0’s can be more impactful by either forcing your opponent to spend their gold first or giving you plays after you commit yours.
Draft At Least 10 (but don’t take terrible ones to fill your quota)
No Upper Limit Except Other Distributions
Having a Mass Discard Pile Removal card effectively means your opponent can’t win by decking out (winning by having an empty deck when they’re required to draw a card), as long as you recycle it as soon as possible after playing it. If you don’t recycle it early, it is possible your opponent could draw all the way through their deck and win while your card is either still in your discard pile or deck. Generically, this is arguably the most importantcategory in Dark Draft both to get one for yourself and to deny one to your opponent. That being said, if you are already drafting a fairly aggressive deck that can win through damage, other S-Tier cards can eclipse these.
0-cost Re-establishing cards do effectively the same thing as their 1-cost counterparts. They remove a small threat and give you a small threat. These are particularly powerful early in the game and when there are practically no champions in play. The left over bodies can also make excellent chump blockers. Only in the most excruciatingly powerful packs would I pass these cards.
Muse is an S-Tier card that doesn’t fit the other S-Tier categories.
Having a good mix of 0-cost Blitz champions, Ambush champions, and Small Removal is valuable for fighting the 0-cost war that is the current Dark Draft meta (10/25/2020). Blitz champions give you an immediate threat while both players’ golds are available. Ambush champions give you either chump blockers without needing a gold or an off-turn threat when both golds are spent and the board is empty. Small Removal lets you get rid of those Blitz and Ambush champions before they can have an impact, in addition to functioning as high gold-tempo answers to low health threats like Thought Plucker or Pyrosaur.
All of the Other 0-cost cards are just solid cards that don’t belong to any necessary-to-split-out categories. You don’t need any of them, and there is no limit to them. So, take as many as you can get, while still focusing on satisfying your deck requirements.
0-cost Tech cards once again defy objective overall ranking. Most of these cards can range from S-Tier to F-Tier depending on specific circumstances. I outline those in my Card by Card Analyses (or I’ll at least make sure I do as I update them).
Targeted Discard Pile Removal, Health Gain, and Burn are all secondary considerations based on how the draft is unfolding. If you haven’t been able to pick up a Mass Discard Pile Removal effect, the targeted version cards get a bit better. If your opponent seems to be drafting an aggressive deck, Health Gain gets better; If you’re drafting the aggressive deck, Burn gets better. Using your unlimited 0-cost slots to gain an edge in these categories is better than using your limited Slow Champion slots.
Finally, we have the Mediocre 0-cost cards. Still better than some 1-cost cards though.
Card Draw
The primary function of Card Draw is to enable you to spend your gold every turn your opponent spends theirs, at minimum. It also gets you to your most powerful/situational cards sooner, in addition to finding you more 0’s.
Draft At Least 15
Be Careful not to Over-draft Draw and Under-draft Threats though, especially if you don’t have Mass Discard Pile Removal
Re-establishing Cards with “Or Draw 2” effects are absurdly strong and now reliably versatile.
Cards that “Draw 2 And” give you another effect are phenomenal since you’re going to have to draw anyway, might as well get more when you do. (Also while Thought Plucker isn’t technically a Draw 2 And, you do net gain 1 card in hand on your opponent and have something left over. Mainly, it is an S-Tier card I didn’t feel like creating its own S-Tier Category for. And I’m tired of it.)
See 0-cost Mass Discard Pile Removal section above for my explanation of why these are critical (opponent effectively can’t deck out).
“Or Draw 2” Board Clears are excellent because they give you a necessary effect you need in all games (draw 2), attached to a highly-situational game-saving effect (board clear when you fall too far behind your opponent). Off-turn board clears are especially valuable because they can deal with most shenanigans your opponent might try to throw at you. Further, quite a few board clears don’t affect certain champions, which you can actively set up to exploit for a one-sided clear. Having a couple board clears, especially off-turn ones, just in case, is a wise move. If you have an overwhelming amount of Re-establishing cards, they become less valuable, but they’re always at least Card Draw.
I haven’t worked out a general guideline on how much Recycle to put in a deck yet, but you don’t want to overly rely on Recycle for your card draw. If you already have a bunch, more Recycle will drop in value significantly.
Tech “Or Draw 2s” are particularly valuable because their floor is a Draw 2. Therefore, aside from overdrafting card draw in general, you’ll never be punished for taking one of these cards. The non-draw 2 effects, however, defy objective overall ranking. Most of these effects can range from S-Tier to F-Tier depending on specific circumstances. I outline those in my Card by Card Analyses (or I’ll at least make sure I do as I update them).
Health Gain and Burn that can also draw cards are some of the most valuable for these categories, since the card draw is always valuable.
Single Champion Removal isn’t a category you necessarily need to draft, but it is nice to have a little that can maintain your board while protecting you from your opponent’s.
All Other “Or Draw 2’s” are also A-Tier, but don’t fall into categories that need to be explicitly split out.
Ambush Champions that Draw 1 Card are frequently solid, but they usually aren’t quite as reliable at explicitly drawing cards.
Tech Cards that Draw 1 Card aren’t effective card draw although I do count them towards the 15 card minimum. Aside from that, defy objective overall ranking, range from S-Tier to F-Tier, Card by Card Analyses.
Slow Champions that Draw 1 Card are a bit less desirable because your slow champion slots are so precious. Getting into a position where you are forced to focus on getting card draw with those slots is not ideal.
Relying on Circumstantial Card Draw is only for the desperate. While not all of them are bad in their own right, you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to get their card draw.
Other
Only draft these if you either can’t get the above or have already met their distributions, with a few incredibly powerful exceptions.
Filler
Grab Some Ambush Threats Though
The S- and A-Tier cards are worth taking over a lot of cards in the previous 3 spreadsheets.
Having some Ambush Champions is excellent for those situations where you are able to get ahead with your Re-establishing champions on your turn, and then your opponent spends their gold first on their turn. Follow that up with an ambush threat and they’re back in trouble. If all you ever do when they spend their gold first on their turn is draw cards, you better hope you have a Mass Discard Pile Removal and they don’t, or you (probably) won’t win.
Non-“Or Draw 2” Board Clears, Burn, and Health Gain are all fine to pick up here, since you don’t have spreadsheet level mandatory quotas for Others.
Other Tech cards are gonna Tech card: take them if you have a specific reason why they fit well in your deck, avoid them if you don’t. See Card by Card Analyses.
Other Others are fine.
Just Bad cards are just bad.
Further Updates Coming
Seeing as I was not expecting to completely overhaul my Dark Draft ratings, my timeline for my next big updates for Tom’S Epic Gaming have been delayed a bit. I’m hoping to get them up before the Monthly Tournament (Dark Draft) this Saturday October 31 at 10am CDT which I will be streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming. The updates will address my timeline for getting out the Duels ratings (and finishing the Pantheon ratings) among other things.
In the meantime, I didn’t spend quite as much time as I probably should have fiddling with the specific tiers of all of the cards. So, if you see something that looks wrong/you don’t agree with, let me know and we can at minimum discuss it. If I don’t hear anything, I probably won’t make card tweaks until I notice something off while adding new cards. Similarly, there are a few more things I probably should have mentioned in this post that I didn’t, so call me out on them if you think of any, so I’ll feel compelled to address them in the comments and add them. Aside from that, have a nice week.
I still need to write up the actual update tomorrow, but here is a preview of one part of it (which I also have to finish tweaking and write out the explanation for).
I have updated my Epic Constructed Tiered Card Ratings article in anticipation for a big update I’ll hopefully get up by this Saturday 10/21/20. (I’ll also need to update my Dark Draft Card Ratings, at minimum boosting basically all draw 2s to Usually Desirable.)
The VoDs for my August Dark Draft Monthly run have been finished. The first game 6 attempt didn’t properly process on Twitch, so I just saved the unedited version. I’ve included it below, but I’ve left it out of the Twitch “collection.”
I have finished roughly editing the games from my best of 7 showmatch against John Tatian. Working on setting up the next one, and I’m hoping to get the VoDs from the August Monthly up this weekend.
Game 1 (VoD didn’t finish processing before I had to leave for work yesterday, nor when I re-edited it and tried again today. Hopefully I’ll be able to add it when I get home. I’ll also add all games to a Twitch collection then as well.)
