Another mini expansion is upon us, will the cards shake up the meta, or will it be completely memeworthy?
Bma's initial impressions? The gloves are off. This mini is here to play.
Board locking is no longer possible against Artifact. Followers with ambush will no longer be effective. In addition, he is a reasonable tempo tool in the mid-game, dealing 5 damage to enemy leader and followers, while in the late game, he is an alternative win condition that does 10 AOE damage for only 6 mana. Overall, for a deck that has had issues with finishers, this card helps bridge some of the deck's problems. I foresee it being a little bricky, but the upside seems strong enough to consider the card and possibly bring Artifact up a tier. Great in Take Two.
7.7/10 Rotation
8.8/10 in Take Two, probably.
Cost reduction cards always have potential and become a nightmare to balance in the long run. This card having both Bane and Rush is way too strong, most cards will benefit from having -1 to cost, so in a sense, you're paying a single mana for a 3/2 rush bane. It EVEN HAS STORM in overflow.
9.6/10 card in Rotation
8.5/10 card in Take Two (preliminary rating)
This card is designed to be played with Ramp Dragon, specifically with Degenerate Dragon. Has its place as a tech in the meta, as it banishes amulets as well, making it pretty difficult for Transmute Shadow to deal with in particular. Not that useful vs other classes (except the new Roland heh), since the bigger dragon followers usually clear enemy followers already. Great in Take Two, as you'd expect.
7/10 in Rotation, depends on metagame
8.55/10 in Take Two, good reset card, but a little too high cost.
Durandal: Amulet. While this card is in play, all allies and allied followers that come into play have the following effect: can't be targetted by enemy effects
Great card in evolve sword. The amulet is extremely annoying for the opponent to deal with and will shut down decks that rely on targetting (imagine Dirt Rune trying to beat this last expansion). Synergises well with cards like Weiss and Galdr. Definitely the type of card everyone will want to start experimenting with on Day 1.
That said, it's probably best in Neutral Sword, where evolves can be easily stacked and then this card can be used for massive tempo gain and card draw.
Thankfully, it's a card which can be easily outed by Neutrals like Lucius, so there's plenty of counterplay even if it does end up good. With all that being said, some of the strongest decks in the current rotation format don't really care about the amulet, so every non-neutral sword list is unlikely to be a tier 1 deck in the current environment... But that won't stop the chefs in the kitchen...
7.9/10 Rotation
7.7/10 Take Two
Special investigation: 1 cost spell. Put an Evyn, Earnest Agent into your hand. Evolve a random unevolved allied Dei, Master Spy.
Evyn, Earnest Agent. 0pp officer. 2/2 Rush. Fanfare, give another allied follower +1/1
Wow, this card is really interesting. It does so many different things and is perfect for aggressive openers. You can play this card in various different ways. While your first thought might be to slam it on turn 3, you can also wait until turn 4, attack for 2, then play special investigation to evolve it into ambush state, then play or save the free Evyn Earnest Agent.
I am not sure exactly what deck this goes into, but it seems like a high potential card in a vacuum for both aggro and evolve decks, which can even scale into late game due to being able to draw a card.
7.8/10 Rotation
8.2/10 Take Two
Drop of kindness - 1pp spell, restore 3 defence to leader
Flowing Mercy - Destroy an enemy follower with 5 defence or less
NEUTRAL SWORD POGGERS! Seriously great card with a lot of versatility. can be used in any deck honestly, with obvious evolve synergies.
Both the spells seem great to me, especially given that they only cost a single mana. You can curve this early, and in the mid game it's a 4/4 rush due to freevo. Evolve decks are going to be very happy with this card. Any deck without an OTK is going to struggle to deal lasting leader damage to evolve synergy decks (looking at Roland + Oceanus in particular).
Rotation: 9/10
Take Two: 8.5/10
This seems like a very strong tempo card that is extremely hard for some decks to answer, while very trivial for others (Crystallia Lily, anyone?).
It works with Aether of the Whitewing, which allows it to be played for 4 play points. Overall, seems like a meta dependent card, but has the potential to define the next haven decks.
8.5/10 Rotation
9/10 Take Two
Closing Thoughts
For once, almost every single card seems good. If the remaining cards in the mini expansion follow a similar trend, we're going to see a pretty big meta shake-up. The big winner definitely seems to be Neutral Sword though! For now.
