A little-known fact is that the "A" in Bma stands for Artifact...

In other words, I'm EXTREMELY HYPED because Cygames usually messes up and accidentally makes my favourite archetype tier 0 for a few weeks until it goes crashing back down to nothing.

Is Artifact Back?

Portal Legend 9, 7/7

Crystallize 1; Countdown 10

During your turn, whenever an Artifact Followers comes into play, give it Rush and reduce the CD of this amulet by 1. Last words: Summon the main body of this card.

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Main body effect: Whenever an Artifact Follower comes into play, give it rush and ward.

Fanfare: Deal damage to your opponent's leader and followers equal to the amount of differently named Artifact followers that have been destroyed this match.

First thoughts: This card seems reasonably fair and essential given the rotation of Full Blast Gunner. This appears to be our new way of answering the enemy's board via Rush. While it doesn't have any PP-cheat effects in and of itself, it will likely be highly synergistic with Deus Ex Machina. This may also be Cygames wising up to the idea that Artifact cards are made to be broken, hence why they've been relatively conservative on what appears to be the new finisher. I see a world where the main play pattern is to full clear opponent's board while using artifacts to hide the 7/7 behind, but recent power levels have shown me that this is unlikely to be enough. Nevertheless, seems like a serviceable card, and that's all we really need until Cygames "accidentally" breaks Artifact again.

Portal Silver 2 2/2, Trait: Artifact

Fanfare: Add two Mystic Artifact to your deck and make them cost 1. If 6 or more differently named artifact followers have been destroyed this match, evolve this follower.

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Evolve: Ward. Last words: Give your leader the following effect: Make the next instance of damage your leader takes zero.

First Thoughts: 10/10, insanely strong Artifact Card that would see play even in older Artifact decks. What the heck, Cygames isn't supposed to print straight up good Artifact cards anymore... The fact that this card itself is an Artifact already makes up one of six names. In addition, the protection effect is incredibly strong. As its effect is tied to Last Words, it makes it even harder than usual for the opponent to pop your face shield first before going for lethal. We all saw what Judith did for Enhance Portal, and now it's back... in Artifact Form.

That's to say nothing of how a 1-cost Mystic Artifact is very strong. One of the biggest problems with Mystic Artifact has been its ability to be played after the early game, but that is no longer a problem now. In addition, I imagine that this iteration of Artifact will be played with Deus Ex Machina, and this makes the synergy completely perfect. Even if they print zero playable Artifact support, at least I can say that Cygames successfully imprinted the seeds of hopium into my veins.

⁠We All Saw It Coming - Evo Blood.

Blood Legend 2 2/2

Fanfare, Choose: Peckish Owlcat or Leoparion. Add one of the two to your hand and reduce its cost by 1.

Fanfare: If you have evolved 5 or more followers this match, evolve this follower.

Evolve effect: Whenever you play a Peckish Owlcat or Leoparion, evolve it.

First thoughts: You can't really expect much more than this for a 2-cost follower (we can't all be Vania, after all). At one play point, both the 2/1 storm and the Peckish Owlcat are very powerful tempo options in their own right. In addition, this card is easily two evolves on its own, if you want to save it for that. There's also some interesting plays where you open with multiple copies of this card and evolve three times on turn 4 while pushing 8 face damage. Very strong for what it is, in my opinion, and probably the only way they could really go after making Wrath/Vengeance so strong in recent expansions.

Evolve Blood looks fairly close to being good, and this card is a huge step towards that direction.

A New Breed Of Fairy Forest?

Aria 2 2/2 (evolve stats also 2/2)

Add a fairy to hand. Give that Fairy fanfare: evolve this follower and return this follower to your hand at the end of your turn.

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Evolve

Storm. When this card attacks, if you have evolved 7 times or more this game, give all your fairies storm.

First thoughts: Evolve 7 times seems like a meme at first glance, but then I remember how easy it is to evolve with 6 Fairy Funfacts in the deck, and that's not including any other evolve support. I can't imagine this card not getting any additional support - and it works reasonably well with existing Fairy support, so this already looks like it has pretty good potential as a finisher that helps control the board state early.

Forest Gold 1pp 1/2

When this card leaves play, add a fairy to your hand and recover one health to your leader.

Evolve: Draw a card and recover three health instead.

First thoughts: Goblin with no downside!!!!! Great stat line, replaces itself with a Fairy, works with bounce cards and even has healing to make it hard for the opponent to straight race you. There's only so much excitement one can have when looking at a 1 cost follower, but for what Forest seems to want to do, seems pretty nice to me.

Our New Neutral Draw 2 Card Is.... Super Follower Focused?

Neutral 3 3/3

Ward

Fanfare: Add a random follower from your deck to your hand.

On evolve: Add a random follower from your deck to your hand. Recover 2pp.

First thoughts: This card is super good in my opinion. The main talking point is that on evolve, it's a 1 play point 5/5 that tutors two followers from deck. It will allow for some creative deckbuilding (for example, you could probably run this in a deck like Seven Forces to tutor metatron and seven forces), but it's one of the most aggressive Neutral forms of "draw 2" that the game has seen in a while. This is almost the polar opposite of Angelic Blessing. It also doesn't feel bad to play on turn 3 considering how strong the statline is.

Oh, also, like they said on stream, it synergises pretty strongly with Blooming Dancer... I suppose.

But overall, I guess this card is what happens when there's no new trait like Condemned/Academy/Festive!

Conclusion

Seems like a pretty cool set so far. I think for us English speakers, we don't really care that much about Rage of Bahamut, but as far as the cards go, they seem fairly strong and they're pushing some new ideas. I remain cautiously optimistic (and give me more artifact cards please!)