Hey Guys! A couple of days ago, the GU team finally updated Trial of the Gods card set, and there have been some nice changes. We won't go over every single card that got minor changes like the name or just rarity (some exceptions) so that I don't bombard you with all the new info. If you are interested, go ahead and inspect the whole list. Here is a link to the document.
DISCLAIMER:
"All of this data is subject to change before and after the release of Trial of the Gods.
Many card names are placeholders. Many cards do not have tribes assigned, but will prior to release.
rarity of cards are not final. Some of these cards may be deleted. We may add cards prior to release."
- Card names in parentheses () are the old names if the name got changed
Death Cards:
Forbidden Experiment
A 2 mana spell that reads: Destroy a friendly creature to summon a 3/2 Experimental Outcome.
Changed from: Destroy a friendly creature that costs 3 or less to summon and summon a 3/2 Experimental Outcome.
The original text was limiting you to destroy only creatures that cost 3 mana or less, which didn't give an actual benefit to it, regarding eventual design space problems or anything but made the card strictly worse. I like that they decided to remove that.
Ataraxia
A 4 mana spell that reads: Both players unlock one mana lock for each 3 points of health their god is missing.
Changed from: Both players unlock 1 mana lock for each 2 points of health their god is missing.
Mana cost is still the same so the reward you are looking for with this card stays around 3 mana lock. This remains easily achievable so I guess the card is going to be strong anyway just a little bit more in line on the power curve. Another good decision from the team.
Return to the Cave
A 1 mana spell that reads: Add two mana locks. Heal your god for 12.
Changed from: Add 3 mana locks and heal your god for 12.
I think that was really needed for this card, even without the nerf of Ataraxia. I find it perfectly fitting for fighting against aggro more than anything else really, so having a smaller mana lock cost makes it a bit easier to use. One more or less mana lock won't make much difference in other, slower match-ups anyway.
Necronomics (Thananomics)
A 1 mana spell that reads: Deal 5 damage to your god and refresh 5 mana.
Changed from: 2 mana, Deal 10 damage to your god and refresh 7 mana.
Now I'm really confused about what are they trying to do with this card. Now we got a worse version of Death Pack Stalk? I'm mean, yeah you can use it to synergize with cards that benefit from having low health but it promotes the exact same way of playing we see in non-Control Nature now. This is so unimaginative and is going to help create this boring scenario when Tempo/Zoo-ish or something type of decks become more frequent, Death and Nature will feel too similar so the game will appear to have fewer viable options to choose from, and this is dumb in my opinion. Maybe this is an overreaction to just one card but I would really love to see something different rather than Pack Stalk v2.
Skull Scepter (Hades' Scepter)
A 1 mana relic that reads: After a friendly creature dies, deal 1 damage to the opponent's god.
Changed from: After any creature is destroyed, deal 1 damage to both gods.
I gotta say that this was an expected change. Still a weak one but now there is an actual use case for this relic. Instead of being and aggro accelerating tool now it is more in line with Zoo strategies where it gives you more benefits when you are trading your tokens to stay relevant on the board. Again, there is the same potential problem that we might be seeing a heavy relic meta when the expansion hits so having this in your deck could prove more as a waste of a draw rather than something that gives you an advantage.
Guardian of the Underworld
A 8 mana 13/17 creature with Frontline and Roar: Deal X damage to your god where X is the number of creatures in your opponent's void.
Changed from: Frontline and Roar: Deal X damage to your god where X is the number of cards in your opponent's void.
Just better on average, nothing else changes though.
Trial of the Underworld
A 8 mana spell that reads: Pull a random 5 mana creature from either void to your side of the board. Repeat this for 6, 7, 8, and 9 mana.
Changed from: Pull a random 6 mana creature from either void to your side of the board. Repeat this for 7, 8, and 9 mana.
I expected this card to be quite strong in the first edition as it expands Death's late-game options that are already vast even further. Now this card is playable earlier in the game (if you ramp up) and if saved for later creates an even more threatening win-condition that your opponent needs to deal with on the next turn or straight up lose the game. This change gives me the impression that the new meta might be faster than the current one so they are "bribing" us to play these super late-game bombs with even more value.
Soul Shatter
A 3 spell that reads: Destroy target creature with cost 3 or less. Deal 2 damage to each friendly character.
Changed from: Destroy target creature with cost 3 or less. Deal 1 damage to each friendly character.
WHY? I don't get this card. It was bad, and now it's... bad. Is this on purpose? Am I the only one missing the point of this one?
Blessing of Death
A 3 (now 2) mana spell that reads: Your relic gains: “Whenever a creature without soulless dies, gain 2 favor.”
I read this card wrong when I did the first review on it and thought that it only gives favor when a creature WITH soulless dies so it looked really weak to me. Now, with the addition of reduced mana cost my stance on it changes, but only slightly because you still need to: Draw the relic, play the relic, play this card, have creatures and be able to trade them; to get something out of this card, even though it cost only 2 mana. Meanwhile, the Sanctum cards doubled in cost and as you will see many other favor generating cards got increased figures to compensate for it, this one didn't so I guess there will be better options to choose from so this card won't see much play.
Princess of Takhat
A 1 mana 2/2 Anubian creature that reads: Whenever another Anubian dies, deal 1 damage to your opponent’s god.
Changed from: A 1 mana 1/1 Anubian creature that reads: Whenever this creature or another Anubian dies, deal 1 damage to your opponent’s god.
Well, 2/2 is definitely a lot better. The "trade-off" is that now it doesn't guarantee 1 damage when it dies itself but this is nothing compared to 2 extra points of stats. Now, this looks like it might be something that starts the Anubian archetype for Death decks. Still, it feels like we lack Anubian diversity to create a cohesive strategy but that will change over time so we might see this card being played more and more.
Anubian Rejectionist (got removed)
A 6 mana 5/6 Anubian creature with Ward and reads: At the end of your turn, if your god has 15 health or less, summon a 3/2 Experimental Outcome.
This card got replaced by a new one that's up next.
Deathwatch Overseer
A 3 mana 3/4 Aether creature that reads: At the end of your turn, if your god has 15 health or less, summon a 1/1 Impling.
Basically a cheaper version of Anubian Rejectionist. 3 mana 3/4 is already a premium body on top of it you get a 1/1 every turn if your health is low. It seems that they wanted to push this "low health" archetype in a more aggressive direction with this change, and if that's so they've done it right. 3 mana options were really lacking for this style of play so it will find a spot in many aggressive Death lists that want premium body creatures. I'd like to point out that this creature is an Aether and it spawns Nether creatures. This gives an interesting use case for Fallen Aether that we didn't have before. I don't think we have enough to see it get used consistently but it might hint something about the future of Death synergies.
Deception Cards:
Mounting Tensions
A 3 mana spell that reads: Target creature goes to sleep. Draw a card for each sleeping enemy creature.
Changed from: A 2 mana spell that reads: For each sleeping enemy creature you draw a card.
This card went from meh, to quite strong with this change. Now that the problem of depending on another card or god power has been addressed, not only is it going to be better in sleep heavy decks but it could be used in other decks too because it recycles itself so you aren't losing on card advantage while using it. I suspect we might even see its cost going to 4 at some point if it ends up being too easy to draw a bunch of cards with it.
Dream Stalker (Corrupt Infiltrator)
A 4 (now 5) mana 2/3 Nether creature with Roar: Destroy all sleeping creatures.
I guess, 4 mana was a bit low for this type of effect. At 5 mana it is still a powerful combo piece that can destroy 2+ creatures easy, as I mentioned before it combos really well with Spellbound that costs only 1 mana. Even though now you can't use it with Exorcise for a full board wipe on 9 mana without a bag of tricks, there is a lot of potential so nerfing this card was a good choice.
Satyr Hypnotist (Hypnos Corruptor)
A 2 mana 2/2 Mystic creature that reads: At the end of your turn, sleep a random enemy creature.
Changed from:
A 2 mana 2/3 Nether creature that reads: At the start of your turn, sleep a random enemy creature.
We got a couple of changes here. Mystic tribe tag doesn't appear to be significant in Deception, at least for now. 2/2 health is a much fairer stat line for this card as it prevents this card from trading up with almost anything which it would be able to do quite consistently at 3 health. And finally, the effect now triggers at the end of the turn so now you are able to play it into a single enemy creature and use it to control that creature. Also, because now the creature is not going to be asleep on your next turn, it loses some synergies, for example, Darkdream Hex and Dream Stalker, and probably it is a good thing that a 2-cost creature doesn't have so much power tied to it. Still a good card but not crazy good as it was in the first version.
Blessing of Deception
A 3 (now 2) mana spell that reads: Your creatures without hidden gain “Hidden for 1 turn.” Gain 4 favor.
I thought that this card will be usable on 3 mana, it looks like it was too clunky to use in the internal testing so they decided to lower the cost. Now it's obviously much stronger and will be easier to fit into a turn while you are developing the board. I just don't want to see this being the main way Deception will be approaching Aggro strategies. I guess it is okay if Deception doesn't get more Ward creatures to use along with this card.
Pan Marauder (Corrupted Satyr)
A 6 mana 4/5 (now 4/6) Nether creature that reads: When this creature attacks & Roar: Reduce by 1 the cost of all non-Deception, non-Neutral cards in your hand.
With an extra health point, it still has a pretty weak body but at least now it has a bit higher chances to survive and land an attack to give additional discounts so justifying its cost will be much easier to achieve.
Elixir of the Snake (Concuction of the Snake)
A 6 mana spell that reads: All creatures get +3/-3.
Changed from: Target a god, each of their creatures get +3/-3.
Now, this one became much different. Targeting a god can be prevented if a god has Ward on it and this expansion features multiple cards that do that so it would be significantly harder to use this card and also Ward on creatures further complicate its proper use. Now all creatures on the board are affected and this changes the way we go about this card a bit. It can still be used to clear the board from small creatures even if they have Protected since it doesn't deal damage but you also need to build your deck around it with creatures with 4+ health so that they can survive this effect and even hit the opponent for an extra 3 damage per creature. Weird card, it will require a creative deck builder to use this card right.
Elixir of the Panther (Concuction of the Panther)
A 6 mana spell that reads: Pick One: Add a copy of all enemy creatures to your hand, or sleep all enemy creatures.
Changed from: A 5 mana spell that reads: Pick one: Add a copy of an enemy creature to your hand then reduce its cost by 3, or pull an enemy creature into their hand and increase its cost by 2.
This card got changed completely and I can't say that it got better. 6 mana for the most part of the game takes up your whole turn so using such a card should give you something that helps your current situation in the game or gives you a lot of value. In some way, this card does that but it just feels out of place. To choose the first effect, your opponent needs to have multiple creatures that are worth it or just a big one, like Echophon or something that you desperately need, also you need some sort of board control if you are going to use such an effect because "passing" your turn when your opponent is ahead usually is game over and no amount of value will help you. Putting to sleep all of their creatures is something we already have on a card called Exorcise that costs 5 and it draws a card which is clearly better. The question is now, is it worth running this card just because it has this flexibility of giving you a lot of value, or does running extra copies of cards that use the sleep mechanic is something that will be used in a certain archetype? I'm kinda skeptical this card will find its place on a decklist but at this point, it's hard to tell.
Figure in the Crowd
A 5 mana 6/3 creature with Backline. Flank. Hidden.
A 4 mana 3/3 creature with Roar: Draw a card then swap a random card from your hand with a random card in your opponent's hand.
Another reworked card. A 6/3 for 5 mana is alright in combination with Backline and Hidden since it won't be something your opponent will remove that easily via trading. Flank gives it a lot of power, in combination with Makeshift Shiv activating it will be easy so going around Frontline creatures and hitting face/important target will be easy as well. That said, 3 health is something that almost any removal can deal with so the timing of this card is really important but in some matchups, it will be next to impossible to keep him alive. Not a bad card but really depends on the meta.
Spymaster Silenus (Silenus, Corrupt Drunk)
A 4 (now 5) mana 3/1 legendary creature with Roar: Give all friendly creatures "Whenever this creature damages your opponent, copy the top card of your opponent's deck and add it to your hand."
If you can consistently give this effect to 3-4 creature this is still worth using. Now, of course, it all depends on what you get but I imagine it will be good in most cases no matter what card you get. And yeah, if your opponent can't get rid of all creatures that got this effect you can get even more value. Still a very good card.
That's it for today. There seems to be a lot of changes from the first look at this set. Overall I think it is going the good direction and cards are getting aligned better on the power curve. I still have some confusion with Necronomics place in Death. What do you guys think about that? And what's with that Soul Shard? I can't seem to comprehend what this card should be used for. Anyone that has an idea please let me know in the comments below.
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,z3ll