Intro
At long last, we reach the end of this review cycle, finishing off with Toxic Terrors and the long-awaited return of (and proper card support for) poisons! It’s such a breath of fresh air to see some more variety in card support for different and, in the case of these two universal decks, mostly forgotten deck archetypes. I’m excited by some of the control tools presented in this deck, so let’s start talking. Once again, we have no plot card! Before we start, one last reminder that I’ve updated my scoring system for this review cycle and I’m looking for feedback!
Power Ceiling – Power output when drawn and/or played at the opportune moment(s) of a game
1 = Effect of card is minimal. Most other cards will provide more value in the same game state.
2 = Effect of card is average. Will provide decent utility, but it doesn’t do quite as much as the top dogs.
3 = Effect of card is significantly above average or even overpowered. Game state is significantly altered by its effect.
Consistency – Frequency with which a card is expected to provide value at or near its power ceiling
1 = Power level is highly dependent on game state and draw sequencing. Card will work infrequently and/or has a wide variety of expected outcomes.
2 = Power level is somewhat dependent on game state and draw sequencing. Card has a narrower range of expected outcomes, but is not a guarantee.
3 = Power level is relatively independent of game state and draw sequencing. Card will almost always work as desired.
Universality – General appeal and ubiquity
1 = Card is situational and designed to be played only by very specific playstyles/warband choices (if any).
2 = Card could potentially find its way into any deck, but returns more value on a handful of playstyles/warband choices.
3 = Card value is relatively independent of playstyle or warband choice.
Objectives
Capable Poisoners is a 2-glory end phase for making one or more successful attack actions in the preceding action phase and two or more friendly fighters having one or more poison upgrades. The first condition is obviously trivial for most warbands (unless you’re having a truly brutal game), but the second does require you to lean into the schtick of the deck. Cheating ahead a bit, the poison upgrades in the deck look usable enough that I could see it. For 2 glory, it’s definitely worth making a reliable score out of this. While it’ll be easier in the later rounds, the fact that it is still scoreable in the first is a big deal. Even better in Nemesis, where you will be forced to lean heavier into the mechanic.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Carve a Path is a surge for 1 glory after your leader makes their second or subsequent attack in the phase. If one of those was successful and in enemy territory, you gain an extra glory point. Rippa says hello… This surge is absolutely insane for them, but also very solid for big boys like Mollog or Hrothgorn, even Kainan due to his scything attack. Similarly, leaders with range like Thundrik and Ephilim can pull it off even if they’re less likely to see the full 2-glory payoff, while even accurate Range 2 fighters like Mannok or Slythael are good bets to score this. Obviously, the risk is that your leader simply dies before being able to score this, but the base condition not even requiring you to actually land an attack gives hit a relatively high floor.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Deluge of Toxins is a hybrid surge for either having 2 friendly persisting poison gambits or 3 friendly persisting gambits. While the second condition is pretty difficult, the first is not so bad. Cheating ahead again, there will be some hilarious instances where you drop Freezing Venom + Ill-prepared, totally neutering your opponent’s gameplan, and then score this card to rub salt in the wound. Similar to a card like [
Illusory Nemesis], I don’t think you take this unless you’re loaded up on poisons, but those games where your hand cycles just right, you’ll be laughing. That being said, only a few warbands will be leaning into poisons heavily enough to make it worth it.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Dual Contamination is a 1-glory end phase for having 2 or more poison gambits persisting or two or more friendly fighters each having one or more poison upgrades. I think the hybridization was really important for this objective. If it were just one condition or the other, it would be a lot more draw dependent with regard to which 5 power cards you happened to have in your hand (speaking mostly for round 1). Having the opportunity to cash in on either condition makes it more likely that, assuming you’ve packed enough poison cards in your deck to support this, you are able to score it in any round. The easiest method is likely to score it off the second condition later in the game, but really it depends on how hard you lean into the mechanic. Given the limited card pool, this should return more value in Nemesis (and of course, Rivals) than it is likely to in Championship, where more of your power deck is likely already spoken for. There are generally better 1-glory end phases, but I could see the right builds getting to the level of consistency to make this worth it. Maybe something like Soulraid, who already have some solid in-faction poisons.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Expunged is a surge that scores immediately after a poison gambit affecting an enemy fighter is discarded and you have three or more poison gambits in your discard (presumably including that one). Even so, I really feel like this should’ve been two gambits, not three. As written, the odds you can achieve this in round 1 are pretty low even on a heavily poison-invested deck. Even if you could, it’s more than likely that you’re in a spot where you’re revealing after the end phase (since all of the “end of round” poisons will discard then), so you’re not getting the glory until Round 2 anyway. Could definitely be trivial if you draw it in the third round, but timing may still be an issue, depending on what poisons you have left. I think you probably pass on this one.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Lone Claim is a 1-glory end phase for holding one or more objectives in your or no one’s territory and your opponent holding no objectives. It’s pretty rare that you look at a dual where one condition is this much harder than the other. The first condition is pretty trivial, even if you have few other plans to hold, but your opponent holding no objectives in this meta is absurd. If it at least said that your opponent holds no objectives in your territory, that might’ve been a fair compromise, but this is just crazy as-written, especially considering [
Ferocious Rampage] has a hybrid condition that is comparably easy but for a 2-glory payoff.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Lurk in Wait is another 1-glory end phase, this time for having one or more friendly fighters in enemy territory without any Move or Charge tokens. This time, Spinefin says hello… Outside of Soulraid, the best candidates for this are probably warbands that can resurrect fighters in enemy territory: Eyes, Grymwatch, Spiteclaw’s Swarm. Simply resurrect a fighter in enemy territory in your last activation and you’ve got your glory. While less efficient, warbands with push actions/reactions, such as Blackpowder’s Buccaneers or Thorns could certainly pull this off as well. I don’t think there’s a particularly wide swath of warbands interested, but should be fairly consistent on the ones that do take it.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3, Universality: 1
Mass Poisoning is a 2-glory surge for a friendly fighter with one or more poison upgrades making their second or subsequent successful attack in the round. Is it greedy? Sure. But it is actually doable and for 2-glory, that can be a backbreaker for your opponent. It’s definitely not for everyone, as not many warbands tend to focus on activating a single fighter multiple times. However, big boys like Mollog and Hrothgorn have to do enough heavy lifting for their warbands that not making 2 successful attacks with them in a round basically means you’re losing anyway. In that context, one poison upgrade on them is small potatoes, assuming you have enough of them in your deck. Scything is also a big factor in scoring something like this, which Mollog has of course, Kainan too. Something else you might not have thought of would be combo or other out-of-sequence attack. This potentially opens the door for the Arenai to make use of this or Hexbane with the [
Retractable Pistol]. Ranged fighters in general might also have the option to pew-pew a couple times in the round, so there’s even an angle for somebody like Thundrik. Like most 2-glory cards, there is a good amount of risk involved, but I think it’s more doable than a lot of surges in this grouping and it doesn’t even necessarily require a kill. The “boom” potential here definitely makes this worth considering.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Superiority Confirmed scores 2 glory in the end phase for your leader being in enemy territory and enemy fighters totaling a Wounds characteristic of 4 or more are out of action. This seems like a very good aggro objective for warbands with survivable leaders. While Mollog, Kainan, and Hrothgorn come to mind most immediately, there are also some fast and durable/difficult to kill leaders out there such as Slythael and Slynk. Really, neither condition here is particularly difficult to manage, so long as your leader is alive, I think a good number of warbands should show interest here, and it will be almost trivial on some.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Taking Advantage is a surge scored immediately after an activation if there are at least as many friendly fighters in enemy territory as there are enemy fighters. Furthermore, if you manage to pull this off in the first round, you gain an additional glory point! For warbands who were playing [
Lengthening Shadows] anyway, this seems like a pretty good fit. It’s also a nice way to punish elite warbands (particularly those who are aggro-focused), as you’ll have to dump fewer fighters into their territory to pull this off. Exiled Dead certainly come to mind here, as a couple of multi-moves could easily see 4 or 5 fighters in enemy territory within the first couple of activations. Of course, when you hit matchups like Gitz, you just have to throw the card in the trash. Definitely some serious boom or bust potential, but I could see a number of more aggro warbands considering this.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Toxic Demise is a kill surge for taking an enemy fighter out of action who is afflicted by one or more poison gambits. Notably, it does not have to be an attack action that takes them out of action, out-of-sequence ping damage can certainly do it instead. It’s not horrendous, but there are better kill surges out there. This actually seems like it might become more consistent the more restricted the deckbuilding format, as you probably depend less and less on spamming poisons the more options you have at your disposal.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Venom-Gorged scores for 2 glory in the end phase if one or more friendly fighters with one or more poison upgrades holds an objective in enemy territory. I like this one quite a bit. Even without going totally insane on poison upgrades, this is once again pretty scoreable for warbands who can resurrect fighters. Even failing that, simply warbands with fast fighters who want to be going into enemy territory can make use of this, which applies to a variety of aggro-oriented/invading aggro teams. There are a number of very powerful poison upgrades in this set, so there’s really not much disincentive for trying to satisfy what’s actually a pretty easy positional condition.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Our Favorites:
- Mark: Superiority Confirmed
- Aman: Carve a Path
- Zach: Taking Advantage
Gambits
Quite fittingly, our first gambit is a poison! Bleeding Out allows you to choose one enemy fighter (no range limitation) with one or more wound counters, slapping them with -1 Move and -1 Defence until the end of the round. My first thought here was using it for Clawpack to better immobilize a leader and leave them vulnerable to the stab-stab. However, the requirement to have them already be wounded is a tough starting point given that the upside isn’t that high. There’s decent synergy scoring-wise with the “play poisons” objectives and power cards that interact with poisoned enemies, but it’s hard to clear out that 10th gambit slot for something that doesn’t directly deal damage and is highly conditional, especially since plenty of fighters only have one defence die anyway.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Choking Venom is another poison card, although it’s one you apply to a friendly fighter instead of an enemy. In this case, the chosen fighter gains grievous on their Range 1 and 2 attack actions until the end of the round or until their next successful attack action. This is fine, but a number of warbands have access to gambits that just give +1 Damage. The neat wrinkle here is that it persists through failed attack actions. However, if you’re making a charge, odds are that you probably won’t be making more than one attack with this active anyway. Ok in situations where you’ll be rolling a lot of dice, but ping cards should provide more consistent damage output.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Talk about a meta-defining card, next up we’ve got Freezing Venom. Choose one enemy fighter, no superactions! You also get ensnare when targeting them with your own attack actions but that is a very minor aspect of this card Sure, it goes away at the end of the round, after they take damage, or after they make an action, but even throwing your opponent’s plan off by a single turn can be a huge deal. As a Clawpack enjoyer, I’ve seen the effect that cards like [
Skittering Blur] can have at the end of a round, where your opponent’s options are more limited and you can better understand what their plans are. I feel like this card almost shouldn’t be able to be played later in the round. You obviously need to be sensible about which fighters you elect to use this on and when you use it, but shutting down your opponent’s biggest threat right before they are about to use them is a backbreaker and maybe also a bit of an NPE factory. The inefficiency of burning an action on a fighter you want to charge with (or not activating with them at all) is a strong enough effect, but if my opponent’s 4-fighter warband hasn’t charged their last fighter yet, guess what they probably want to do in their last activation! I feel like this definitely needed a range limitation, maybe adjacency of a friendly fighter or 2-hex proximity. At least [
Final Say] finally has something to actually work against… In terms of other more generally usable counterplay, cards which ping yourself take on some added value, the most notable of which would probably be [
Corrupted Companion]. It also low-key increases the value of cards like [
Murderous Tides] that persist until you can figure out how to make use of them (assuming you can do so before the end of the round). In any case, I feel like this card is going to be just about everywhere, so get ready to start playing around it!
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Hidden Lair is a control tool that allows you to make an objective containing an enemy fighter “un-holdable” until the end of the round or until the token is flipped. Unless your opponent happens to have guard or flip tech, odds are that this will straight up stop them from holding that objective this round. It’s crazy to me that this has no range limitation, you can disrupt even your opponent’s most protect objective. This is great support for Lone Claim (not that I think you should take it anyway), but can also be used to support [Ferocious Rampage], which is definitely the better option of the two. Gorechosen even have [
Consecrated in Blood], which this could be neat for. Given some of the new cards cropping up in the meta, I think there’s definitely potential that HO is back on the menu, and this is just a big middle finger to it, I love it. It reminds me a bit of back when aggro used to take [
Mischievous Spirits] just to disrupt HO players. While the archetype is not at the level it was back in Beastgrave, the ability to totally derail a rounds-worth of plans with a single power card is pretty juicy. Still, there is the obvious problem that you might not be facing someone who cares to hold and then you’ve effectively wasted a gambit slot. Depends how much bandwidth you have to take on a boom or bust card like this. I’ve been workshopping a disruptive Clawpack build similar to what I was running in Nethermaze, and you can bet this card is making its way in.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Ill-prepared is another poison gambit (again, surprisingly range-unrestricted) which gives a Move token to an enemy fighter on a starting hex and prevents them from making attack actions while on starting hexes. This is potentially a pretty wild control tool to shut down a dangerous charge from a fighter like Brydget or Slythael. As long as you give sufficient space to prevent your opponent from pushing the afflicted fighter into range of an attack, you can effectively ignore that fighter for the whole round. Can definitely have a similar impact to Freezing Venom, although definitely with more expected variability in performance. Another very nice control piece though.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
You knew there had to be a ping card! Insect Swarm increases in value the more poison gambits you take in the deck. A theme in many of the Rivals decks released to date definitely seems to be this idea of designing cards that provide more significant reward the more you lean into the deck, which is my preferred design space for limiting the overall power of cards in Championship rather than just locking them behind the plot deck restriction. To get to the level of reliability you want out of this card, I’d say you probably want to already have 2-3 poisons in your discard. In Rivals or Nemesis, that’s not likely to be an issue, but it is definitely a taller task in Championship, as I’m not sure you’ll have so much gambit space to burn on poisons. Soulraid once again come to mind as a warband that could abuse this due to having some good in-faction poisons. The fact that it can spike to 2 damage as well is definitely enough to overcome the downside of the positional requirement. Like a lot of the set, seems like a high-risk, high-reward option. Neat design space.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Keep The Forest at Bay is your classic aggro double-[
Sidestep], although it may be even better than some iterations we’ve seen like [
Swarming Advance]. There are too many warbands that could make excellent use of this card to name them all, but I will point out it’s a coveted “Choose 2” for Spiteclaw’s Swarm. There will be edge cases where your opponent will have fully evacuated their territory, but it is otherwise perfectly reliable, especially for warbands who tend to scare opponents into playing keepaway like Reapers, Hexbane’s Hunters, or Clawpack, to name a few of the highlights.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
No Safe Ground is a distraction that also staggers a fighter standing within 1 hex of a feature token or hazard hex if they are not holding an objective (if they are, you only get the stagger). The positional limitation is, by necessity, pretty tight on this card, but it is still very good. Additionally, if you and/or your opponent have the ability to place available feature tokens, the covered area here can actually become most of the board. Once again, we have pretty obvious Clawpack synergy due to the stagger, while the push potential can be a nice way to dunk a leader in a lethal or expose them to a charge. That being said, I generally prefer if my enemy pushes are capable of knocking fighters off of tokens, so it may be tough to open up a space. While I still think the card will generally be quite useful, that, to me, is probably the best value that an enemy push can provide you. I wouldn’t have minded a friendly positioning requirement (within 2 hexes, for example) if the card could achieve that for me. Still, I think it probably makes most of your Nemesis decks and maybe slots into a Champ build here and there. Not a bad card by any means.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Spit Venom is, oddly enough, one of the few cards in the deck that actually cares about friendly fighter proximity to be able to use, which I suppose is on theme for the physical act depicted in the card. If you want to make the new barge action useful, this is definitely one way to do it. Stagger a fighter, spit in their face, then proceed to wail on them for the rest of the round. Not to be too biased in the review, but another solid Clawpack option here to follow up on the leader after you make your aggressive early charge with a fighter like Krowch’t. I definitely prefer this to “-1 Defence” modifiers like Bleeding Out, since it at least will also do something to fighters who defend on 1 Shield. As funny as it would be to screw over a 2-Shield or 3-Dodge fighter with this, I think that it will generally be better to just take +Dice gambits instead.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Venomous Blood allows you to stagger and ping an enemy fighter during a Range 1 or 2 attack action after they deal damage to a friendly fighter with one or more poison upgrades. Stagger and ping is a pretty nice surprise to drop on someone, but I do find that I often sit around waiting on these types of cards to actually do something. Sometimes my enemy misses, or maybe they attack from too far away for me to react, or maybe they just don’t attack me with a fighter that I really care to apply this effect to. In this case, you add the extra downside that you need to wait until you put some poison upgrades down. Still, to give you a niche case, I think one of the most fun (although not necessarily most competitive) applications here would be to drop this, then follow up after the attack with Opportunistic Reprisal to further punish the target. I can see some uses for the card, it’s just not generally the type of effect I like to clear out space for in my decks, personally.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Our Favorites:
- Mark: Hidden Lair
- Aman: Keep the Forest at Bay
- Zach: Venomous Blood
Upgrades
Blighted Aura is some conditional damage negation that you cannot give to a Large fighter. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first time I can remember seeing a damage negation upgrade that works specifically on Range 1 and 2. Previous iterations have either been Range 1, only adjacent, or just any range. However, to push down the ceiling, they made sure big boys could not take advantage while also locking the effect behind heavy use of poison gambits. While this does make your choices matter more as far as your poison distributions amongst enemy fighters, I think it requires a bit more setup than I’d like. So many upgrades just instantly allow you to access the effect that it’s hard to see taking this one, especially when your opponent can just target your other fighters instead, or use an unafflicted attacker to target the equipped fighter.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Similar to the previous entry, Blighted Touch works only when the attacker is affected by one or more poison gambits, preventing cleave, ensnare, knockback, and stagger on Range 1 and 2 attack actions. Similar to our previous entry, the setup is just too difficult here and easily circumvented by your opponent. I think the previous was also the more powerful effect of the two.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Callous is a poison upgrade that gives your Range 1 and 2 attack actions +1 Damage either if the target is afflicted with a poison gambit or the equipped fighter has two or more poison upgrades (presumably including this as one of them. It kind of gives me vibes of [
Weapons Master], but I think you can actually access this effect much earlier in the game, if not immediately. It’s no [
Great Strength], but I think it’s actually better than a wide swath of conditional +Damage upgrades that are out there. Definitely looking at this as a potential option for my Clawpack, but who couldn’t use another +1 Damage upgrade! Soulraid should like this card too. The potential downside, of course, is that maybe you don’t want to pack all that many poisons in your deck, but you may as well take the step here to include it if you planned to run those poisons anyway.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Grim Trophies is one of those “hand out free upgrades if…” cards. Even in Nemesis, I personally find that these types of upgrades are really not necessary in most cases, as you’ll typically have more unspent glory than you do upgrades anyway. While there is some synergy in the deck just for having multiple poison upgrades, this is just not worth it, especially since you might not even have a poison upgrade in hand at the time you’d be able to actually access the effect.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Poisonmaster once again cannot be given to a Large fighter, but allows you to draw 2 cards if you take an enemy fighter afflicted with a poison gambit out of action. Note, however, that the reaction step is actually after the deal damage step, not after the attack or after the activation, which means you can combo this effect with other end of action reactions you might have available to you. Being able to sequence multiple reactions like this is pretty valuable, especially given how powerful draw is as an effect in the first place. It does require that you lean into the poisons thing of course, but the effect is pretty solid. I wonder why they decided to preclude Large fighters from using it, doesn’t seem like it’s especially more powerful on them.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Poisonwarp Metalith is another upgrade restricted to use by non-Large fighters (they really leaned into that restriction this go around). This one allows you to make an action where you drag each poison-afflicted fighter 1 hex closer to the equipped fighter. Interestingly enough, this works on friendly fighters too, so you can potentially move quite a few fighters with this (depending on how many poison gambits you actually use). Since it is an action, this definitely has the markings of a strictly control tool, but my issue is always comparing activation efficiency with attacks and charges. While this might help you make more of those, it is, of course, going to eat up one of those valuable 12 activations. The potential to really screw up positional scoring in the last activation of the round is at least intriguing, but the fact that it only really spikes with several persisting poisons as well makes it a bit too situational to me, but I like the design space of adding more potential actions to the game.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Sneaky Weasel is a directionally-limited version of [
Soundless Step]. Post-activation push reactions have historically been quite powerful and I like this one as well. This is particularly nice for big boy fighters that want to be able to make multiple activations in a round, especially since many of them are able to swing at Range 2. Since you can use this after any activation that fighter makes, it has a bit more flexibility than [
Duellist’s Speed] in terms of when you can use it, so I think it is actually pretty competitive there. You also remove the randomness element you’re relying upon for [
Dowsing Limb], so it’s going to be in a competitive space for making its way into decks. The price you pay, of course, is the directionality of the push, but still a very solid card.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 3
Venombite Shank is a 1R/4H/1D poison attack action upgrade with cleave and is probably the most accurate attack action upgrade in the game right now. This is clearly designed with cards like Callous and Choking Venom in mind to boost up your damage, but being a base damage of 1 is a bit suspect. If you are able to take lots of +Damage effects, I could see this potentially worming its way into your deck, but I think you generally prefer any number of 2-Damage attack action upgrades that are a tad less accurate. I do think Hungering Skaven could take advantage of this card with [
Black Hunger], but, again, trying to catch up can be difficult from a damage perspective.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 1
Venombite Weapons allows you to recycle poison gambits from your discard pile. In fact, assuming you keep having poisons to pull out of the pile, you can keep using the reaction to keep a permanent cycle of poisons floating into your hand. Imagine getting to use Freezing Venom again! And then again! And then again… Exaggerating a little bit, but even a second use of a powerful card like that can be game-altering. Soulraid can pull off a similar repeat with [
Spinefin Toxin], which would be quite potent upon repeated use. I like this design space of pulling stuff out of discard. There are only a handful of them in existence and this is one of the few that’s actually pretty solid. That being said, you do need to take quite a few poison gambits to really keep the cycle churning, otherwise it’s liable to break sequence. I’d say the magic number is around 3-4 to keep it going and/or make the effect actually dependable. I’m not sure, at least in Championship, that we have quite so many gambit slots available for this. When things cycle just right on this card though, it can definitely pop off pretty hard.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Our last upgrade is Wicked Hunter, which allows you to push the equipped fighter 1 hex each time you play a poison gambit, staggering enemy fighters you land adjacent to after the push. More payoff for leaning into the poisons, again very much in theme with the rest of the deck. It is obviously reminiscent of Arcane Sensitivity from Seismic Shock, and its nice to see sort of parallel design in that respect. Due to its similarity, I’ll say what I said for that one, which is that expecting this to be a [Sidestep] every time you play one of those cards is probably not going to match how you actually play it in reality. Once you’ve gotten your fighter into the position you want them, odds are you won’t need to push them quite so much anymore. The stagger, however, makes this a very intriguing option for setting up a reliable attack. Push, stagger, swing, seems quite powerful, especially if you lean into poisons hard enough to make the effect as dependable as you need it to be. Not to sound like a broken record, but Clawpack can once again take advantage of the stagger synergy with some of their objectives. This seems pretty solid to me, although I still maintain that you’re not necessarily going to want to use the effect as frequently in practice as you want to on paper.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Our Favorites:
- Mark: Sneaky Weasel
- Aman: Callous
- Zach: Poisonwarp Metalith
Conclusions
Once again, I’m super glad to see poisons get a revival, it was a sorely underused mechanic! I hope we get some errata to older warband cards to add the poison keyword to create some more obvious synergies. For example, it’s hard to reconcile that [
Poisoned Traps] is not a poison… In any case, I do feel like some of the cards in the deck maybe lean a bit too much into its own internal synergy, but that seems to be the design space they are going with to minimize the balloon effects in the Championship metagame while trying to ensure that Rivals and Nemesis meets a certain power threshold. Still, there are a few cards in here that have global appeal and will see a lot of play. I’m curious to see how the meta develops now that Championship has some actual flexibility to it. Now that I’m finished writing (for now), I’m excited to start crafting some new decks and I hope you are as well.
As always, thanks for reading and best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory.
