Welcome to day three of card reveals for the upcoming Magic Misadventures expansion! As you may have guessed based on yesterday's reveals, today we get our first look at Kennen!
Kennen & Lightning Rush
As an aggressively statted one-mana, Ionia/Bandle City dual region champion Kennen is immediately playable! We don't even have to read the card text to determine this, his stats and the fact that The Bandle Tree
wants a more accessible Ionian unit all but guarantees we will see lots of Kennen in the early patch days! As for his text, on summon, Kennen will create a Mark Of The Storm. This is a fleeting 0 mana token card that you cannot main-deck and it incentivizes you to play towards Kennen's level up condition, summoning the same unit 5+ times this game. Kennen wants to be played alongside some existing recall cards like Retreat
, yesterday's newly revealed Quicken
or his champ spell Lightning Rush
. This new 3 mana recall card is an insane tempo card, at fast speed, you will be able to save your unit while damaging or removing an opponent's.
Once you've levelled him up, Kennen will generate a Mark Of The Storm any time he enters the field, or combat! Generating multiple copies in a turn will let you maintain control of the board and punish your opponent for every action they want to take!
Recalls may not be the only way to level up Kennen, play him alongside Azir
or Blade Dance units to cheat out the level up requirement and let you rain lighting down upon your enemy's board.
Outside of the obvious Recall deck, Kennen is versatile enough to potentially see play as a fodder generator in a discard deck. Perhaps we will see an Ionia/PnZ deck pop up!
Overall Kennen is a very interesting card that doesn't exactly fit into any existing archetype but is versatile enough that could be the reason for new archetypes to come together or cause old archetypes to change to include him!
Ember Monk
Ember Monk is another potential pay-off card for recalls. If you're returning units to your hand, you will be able to replay them and buff them up. In the preview video, we saw Ember Monk being used alongside Dawn and Dusk
as a finisher. While that is potentially very powerful, it's a bit slow and more likely we will see this card be played alongside something like Emperor`s Dais or Azir. At four mana Ember Monk
is a bit under-statted but its card text should force your opponent to chump block or take a big hit.
Being in Bandle City is a massive benefit for this card as the region loves to swarm out and flood the board. Despite this Ember Monk will likely struggle to find a home in an existing Bandle archetype as the four mana slot is hotly contested by Lecturing Yordle
. Still, it has some potential; any card that grows should not be underestimated!
Rissu, The Silent Storm & Stormcloud
This card is a bit difficult to judge. Impact is a relatively powerful keyword and 8/4 worth of stats is a LOT for five mana (the distribution isn't necessarily a bad thing either) but at this point in the game, stats start to matter a lot less. It's one turn too slow to contest a Poppy
on board but it is also one of (if not THE) best recall target we currently have access to. I think it will find its way into Kennen decks as a way to build threat in the end game but I'm not convinced Rissu will be impactful enough to stick around in refined lists.
That's all for today! Continue checking back throughout the rest of the week to see our thoughts on all the new cards being released in the Magic Misadventures expansion!