In just over a month, we'll be saying goodbye to Celestial Dragonblade, an expansion of profound importance on the past year of Rotation. Between powerful neutrals, and some of the most dominant archetypes over the past 12 months, a new age awaits us on the other end.
Neutral
There are two cards which have shaped deckbuilding since their release last year. The first is Freyja, the powerful 2-cost neutral follower that has vastly increased consistency of many strategies. For example, decks like Magachiyo will cease to function without being able to bounce this card in the early and mid-game. It will also affect strategies like Evolve Portal, which utilise this card to search for Robotic Wing Engineer. Another important consideration is that the 1/3 statline has been very effective against followers with only 1 health, and will change the way early game plays out.
The second is Olivia, a card that has been used in many evolve strategies since its release. With its ability to recover evolve points and clear the enemy board with minimal play point investments, it will be very difficult to find a suitable replacement and represents a significant weakening of all evolve strategies.
Swordcraft
The main card rotating out is Opulent Strategist. Once again, a card that has seen play in practically every Swordcraft deck over the past year, its flexibility in recovering health, evolve points and answering boards is unmatched. Without this card, it will become much more difficult to answer large boards and heal from early aggression in the mid and late game alike.
Dragoncraft
Armed Dragon is an archetype that has occasionally found a position in Tier 1 across its lifetime. In addition, Discard Dragon will be be losing a number of key cards.
Buff Dragon is unaffected.
Bloodcraft
Blood is quite heavily hit by the upcoming rotation. Tevali has been a powerful consistency tool in Evolve Blood, as well as a strong burn and recovery option after reaching 5 evolves. This, combined with the loss of Olivia, will damage the strength of evolve blood in the upcoming expansion.
Also of note, Wrath Blood is weakened with the loss of Demonic Maestro, a strong resource tool that progresses the strategy significantly for only two play points. Howling Demon was also one of the original payoff options within the class, able to wipe the opposing board, heal for 5, and damage the enemy leader. Nevertheless, I believe that this archetype will continue to survive despite these changes.
Portalcraft
Notably, the class loses a little bit of everything.
Critically, Arc is a card that has seen play in all forms of control strategies since its release, with not many cards replicating its ability to add maximum health and provide infinite resources.
Despite the popularity of animal puppeteer, I do not believe this impacts Machina strategies by much.
However, I would certainly point at Sweeper Doll to be a significant nerf to Evolve Portal, as it single handedly fuels multiple fusions and clears the most troublesome early boards by itself.
While Artifacts and Puppets are not currently strong decks, both cards rotating out here would be powerful otherwise in such strategies.
Forest
The loss of Gerbera Bear will be felt across many archetypes, as it was a generically strong follower that replaced itself upon death. The loss of Floral Breeze is less painful, as many bounce cards have existed throughout history and it is certain that more will be printed in the future.
Although Cosmofang and Nobillis do not currently see play, they have been individually strong in various points over the previous year, and it will impact their archetypes for the foreseeable future.
As mentioned previously, Magachiyo also takes a major hit with the loss of Freyja, which has been a massive consistency tool for the archetype since release.
Rune
Astrological Sorcerer is one of the best 2 play point cards in its archetype. It is one of the strongest anti-OTK tools in the game in the late game, while accelerating the gameplan of the deck in the early game. The deck will undoubtedly become more vulnerable to a majority of decks in the metagame without this card, possible pushing the archetype below its current tier 1 status.
Also, fan favourite, Chess Rune will no longer exist after this expansion. Raise a glass to the guy that brought Chess to literally every tournament in 2023 and made it to West Contenders Cup. Notably, some of the Chess spells have seen play in other archetypes, such as Spellboost, which will impact deckbuilding across a range of different decks.
Shadow
Ghost Shadow's final dance ends this expansion. Without Masquerade Ghost, the deck will no longer exist. That said, the mini expansion has made the deck somewhat playable once again, so this is your last chance to try this deck before it goes away forever. Aside from that, a fairly uneventful expansion for Shadow, allowing new archetypes to flourish in upcoming expansions.
Haven
Heal Haven will be minorly impacted by the loss of Prayer Urn, which is currently used in 74.9% of Haven decks. However, the main talking point is the loss of the Crystallize archetype, which previously dominated multiple metagames. This will allow Cygames to focus on the new amulet archetype introduced in order Shift.
Conclusion
Overall, this expansion printed a large number of meta defining cards, some of which are relevant even today. For some of these archetypes, it wouldn't have been surprising if a few support cards could have pushed them to Tier 1 status, because of how strong they've been throughout their entire lifespan.
The repercussions of Olivia and Freyja's rotation will be felt for a long time, and signifies the beginning of a new world of Rotation. If Cygames wants to reduce power creep, now's a great time for them to redefine the power level of future expansions.
