Hello everyone, it's our boy Yangzera back with a review for the cards that were released on both Friday and Saturday! As we reach closer to the end of the season and on the card reveal season, my prediction is that we'll see the next champion released tomorrow! To prepare and hype up for that, I bring you the reviews so far!
Tufted Webspinner
This little guy looks quite strong, but we need to see what we'll pair him up with. Off the top of my head, I don't recall any different subtype being used in an aggressive SI/NOX shell after Stygian Onlooker
rotated out of standard. The fact that it can benefit from its own effect is pretty big and makes the card much more appealing, but we have to see what subtypes it can be paired with to be effective, and so far I don't see it seeing much play, despite being a good card i my opinion.
Rating: 2/5
Deck Hunter
This card kind of reminds me of Coral Creatures
, a decent blocking body that can generate a slightly above average card. I don't know if it locks itself out of manifesting cards, but I'm assuming it does for this review. There are a lot – and I mean a lot – of subtypes in LoR which makes this card pretty unreliable, but the fact that you manifest it makes the effect much more appealing to me. I think that if you manifest one of 3 cards from the same subtype, this card is pretty good. If you have to pick randomly selected cards from all subtypes, then I think the range of options gets way too wild. Assuming the first option to be true, I think Deck Hunter is pretty good!
Rating: 3/5
Siren Song
This card is interesting because it supports a lot of obscure archetypes while being not too strong by itself. It fits really well in Evelynn
Viego
and also helps Aatrox
bilgewater have some extra oomph. There have been some 1-drop synergy decks in the past, and it is also a reason for Poros to come to Bilgewater! With all that in mind, Siren Song is a very funny card that could make some archetypes see the light of day again(or for the first time).
Rating: 3/5
The Swindler's Den
I've got mixed feelings on this card. On one hand I see the potential of "infinite gas" on an aggressive deck. On the other hand, I read "6 UNIT mana do nothing" on an aggressive deck. I won't even get started on different archetypes as this card basically discards your whole hand on turn 6 and then you're playing with only your top deck cards and you have to play them immediately.
No, this is not "broken with TF". Please. If we're even considering adding this to TF Pirates, remember that you're doing it because it's Pirates, not because it's TF.
Anyway, I don't see this card ever being good and I'm down to be wrong on this but I firmly believe this card is unplayable.
Rating: 1/5
Sacred Shears
This card can be insane on Gwen
Sejuani
, because it enables you to gain twice as much hallowed value on overwhelm units. You really want to put this card on a unit that has evasion when you already have another unit with an evasive keyword to generate attack off of. That being said, I haven't seen many Gwen decks utilize lots of overwhelm units, but the ones who do benefit greatly from Shears. Looking at Gwen/Sejuani and Gwen/Fizz as potential homes for this deck, it looks like a very promising card.
Rating: 4/5
Necrotic Arachnoid
I only dislike this card because it itself has no fearsome keyword. As a glorified Neverglade Collector
, Necrotic Arachnoid is just that, a Neverglade Collector. I could see this card being used in a Evelynn Viego type of deck as an extra threat that can come around and start threatening the opposing nexus, but in my opinion the loss of atrocity was way too much for that playstyle to handle. Necrotic Arachnoid lacks some oomph as an 8 mana unit play that could impact the game state a bit more. Maybe if the Nestlings were 3/2s? Probably. Right now, not a fan.
Rating: 2/5
All-Seeing Oracle
This card has to be insane. I am assuming it works just like pranks, because the wording is the same and rating the card based on it prioritizing cards in hand before deck. This effect is infinitely better then discarding a spell because when you discard something from your opponent's hand, that card is gone and can't be used. All-Seeing Oracle leaves the card in the opponent's hand, consuming hand space, and if the opponent casts the card, you got to make then waste that mana on top of losing the effect.
All of this on top of a mediocre body for the cost, which is more then you could ask for given such a strong effect.
I predict this to become an Ionian staple card right out of the bat and remain relevant as long as the meta has a bunch of relevant Slow and Fast speed spells
Rating: 5/5
Rejuvenating Breeze
I've seen a lot of people hype this card up, but I don't think it will be very good in standard. Even though it may look appetizing for you as a fellow Karma
enjoyer, this is not anywhere near as good as Health Potion
and has a real 5 mana cost attached to itself. You'd rather play Place Your Bets
every time as the Karma player, and for this reason I don't see Rejuvenating Breeze ever seeing more play then a tech one-of.
It is a very good card for Ryze
, though, but the Ryze deck sadly still has 15+ slots to be filled in standard due to the massive hit it took from the rotation.
Rating: 2/5
Ferocious Fluff
I really like this card but I have a problem with its cost. Granted most units with subtypes I see in the Bandle City pool aren't great or don't have evasive keywords, I really think Ferocious Fluffs could get away with costing 6 mana without being too oppressive – unless Neeko says otherwise! I wouldn't get my hopes up for this card to be super competitive since the 7 mana curve is kind of late for this small effect, but let's see if Neeko can help the archetype and then maybe the Fluff will see play.
Other then that, we have better cards that have a better effect that fits the theme of this card.
Rating: 2/5
Return-O Wrench
Another small point of synergy for Bandle City discard aggro! I really like the design of this card and think it fits well in a small Bandle Swarmy deck. The only issue is that the equip goes to a random unit, so you could end up equipping a 0-attack Flame Chompers!
and not getting full use of the impact keyword, but just being extra(and recurring) discard fodder for things like Blowback
and Electric harpoon is enough of a big deal that could enable bandle city swarm back into the meta. I really like this playstyle of Bandle so I'm all for it. Return-o Wrench isn't the best card ever nor is it the best card in the archetype, but it is a solid addition that will help those strategies.
Rating: 3/5
Portal Scholar
Am I too crazy for thinking this card is reeeeally good? To me it just screams "Leveled Tristana at home", and leveled Tristana
has a really decent effect. The 4 mana 3/4 statline gives me a lot of pre-nerf Aloof Travelers
vibe and the extra Portal is the cherry on top. Not much to say because this is a pretty generic card, but it is a generically good card.
Rating: 4/5
Star-Crossed Lovers
Maybe I'm just not getting this card but this sounds like some weird Elusive support? You're getting double the value on a hand buff in the sense that you can buff this card in your hand to also buff a card on the field, but going into the Standard card pool, we lost Zoe
. I don't know how this deck would build itself out, but to me this card looks like it's average. It's a blocker and also a buff but it requires you to repay the unit's mana cost which is something you might not be able to if your pool of elusive 1-drops is small. This card feels like it could have terrorized eternal in the current patch, but won't really do much to standard. I could be completely wrong here, but that's how I feel about it right now.
Rating: 3/5
Sump Monument
The talk of town! It's pretty easy to miss the point of this card, but once you realize it, you'll see how much potential it has. This is not a round three slam by any means. This card is supposed to be kept for a later round, when you're assembling combo pieces or reaching a winning game state. When played right before a combo round or a later stage of the game, Sump Monument brings all the survivability your deck needs to "do the thing" without having to worry about some non-sense.
BUT, you need to keep in mind that you have to do your thing fast, or you will eventually die to shrooms. If you're playing a deck that doesn't care about nexus health, that is. Strategies with heavy amounts of healing can lock opponents in the game and simply grind them out of resources or burn them out of health. Cards that shuffle other cards into the deck can also buy extra rounds for the Sump Monument player, and there are a lot of variables to be considered.
With that being said, this card will be in the meta for at least the first week of the expansion when players will try to break it, and we will either realize it's terrible or keep on breaking the game with it until a nerf comes. Either way, to me, this card is VERY good.
Rating: 5/5
Age of Dragons
It's hard to think highly of this card when we have All-Seeing Oracle, especially because this is not Feel The Rush
. You can't make a deck entirely dedicated to ramp into this card and have it still be good. First, there are no dragons at all in Freljord. Second, Targon's got what, Aurelion Sol
, Eclipse Dragon
and Inviolus Vox
? You're kind of locked into Targon Demacia to make the most out of this effect, which means you ain't ramping. I can definitely see a Shyvana
Aurelion Sol deck running one or at most 2 of these as super top end cards, but I can't see this ever being a build-around card.
With that in mind and how bad of a deck Dragons is historically, things do not look good for Age of Dragons. I still have to give the card some credit because you will most likely win any game this effect is pulled of.
Rating: 2/5
Epic Scraptraption
My big issue with this card is that it can be silenced into a 1/1. The effect isn't very good and you're not getting much off of it, especially given that you have to fully tap out of mana to cast this card. Now a let's say, 3 mana 3/3 Brash unit isn't the end of the world, there's more powerful things to be done with the Piltover and Zaun deck slot then that. It could be a nice one-of in a deck where you have to cast a lot of differently named spells (looking at you, Plaza Guardian
), and this is what saves the card for me currently. A mediocre ball of stats that progresses your game plan isn't bad, especially when you have to fill a lot of deck slots when bringing the Seraphine
Samira
deck back to Standard and for that reason alone, I'm giving the card a good rating initially.
Rating: 3/5
Conclusion
And those were my takes for the recently announced cards! Agree with me? No? Want to tear me apart for saying your favorite card is bad? Call me out on social media or the Mastering Runeterra discord and change my mind! I really love new card talk and look forward to hearing your opinions on them. Thank you so much if you've made it this far into the article and I'll see you all very, very soon.