Greetings fellow contenders! Today we will be taking a look at the final batch of universal cards from Direchasm - cards provided with Elathain’s Soulraid expansion. How’s this batch looking like? Did fish-elves provide some interesting options to wrap the season up?
If you're interested in my opinion about warband itself - you can check it out here.
While rating the cards I will be following the system as below:
1 - a very powerful card. You should take it in nearly every deck. A staple.
2 - a very strong card that you should consider taking. Might not always make the cut, but should usually contend with other options.
3 - a situational card that might prove to be good in certain situations or with proper card support
4 - a weak card. You might find a use for it, but in general, most often you’ll be better off with other picks.
Universal Objectives
Avatar of Famine - stacking 5 counters on a single fighter takes a significant investment. It is however pretty decent objective for hunger stacking builds. Overall though I’m not sure it is good enough to be played - even in a hunger-stacking build getting up to 5 counters might be a 3rd end phase thing.
Rating: 3
Everything To Prove - this card is excellent. It’s a hybrid card where the first option is a reversed Surge of Aggression. If your opponent would have a Primacy token you score this one. Alternatively, you could score it if you have the Primacy token and at least one of your fighters is alive and is a quarry. Many strong offensive upgrades make your fighter a quarry, so this is a super flexible and a fairly easy objective for both offensive and defensive warbands.
Rating: 1
Hunger For Supremacy - hold objective based support for hunger builds. I could see this work well in passive hungry vampire builds. Outside of that, I can’t say it would be that useful. Hold warbands typically will take push tech rather than hunger tech.
Rating: 3
Inedible Prize - the first condition of this objective is very difficult to achieve. And most likely outside of your control. The second one is also fairly difficult and outside of your span of control. If your opponent will choose to stack upgrades on a single fighter you’re out of luck.
Rating: 4
Nearing Hunt’s End - the first option of this objective is not bad at all. Meeting an enemy quarry is nothing uncommon these days. So you only have to ensure you’ve got two or more hunters in the same territory as that fighter. Not too bad. Stacking 3 wounds on enemy fighters is more difficult, although it’s also doable. My feeling is that the first option is much easier and goes well with warbands with fast hunters like Rippa. I don’t believe they would take it now, but this might be an interesting choice after seasonal rotation.
Rating: 3
Primal Escalation - an excellent card for all the warbands where you’re voltroning a strong fighter. Those fighters often are strong providers of Primacy Tokens. So this card is a very good option for those builds.
Rating: 2
Prize Beyond Measure - this is not great, but also not terrible. You could use it similarly to Bold Conquest - upgrade your strong fighter and charge him in such a way that he ends his move on an objective - objective scored. It does require setup, as you have to have 3 glory for the upgrades in the first place. So this is not that good, as won’t be able to help you kickstart your glory train. For warbands focusing on holding 2+ objectives, this is not good either as all fighters holding an objective would need to have 3+ upgrades.
Rating: 3
Silent Sentinel - I’m not going to lie - this card is probably the greatest disappointment of the entire season. When I’ve first seen silent relic pieces I’ve got excited that maybe they’ll do something cool with them objective-wise. Something that would make it worth building a deck around. Well… Silent Sentinel is not that thing. I loved playing Tome decks. They were fun. Silent Relics are great and offer very cool synergies. But overall they are not worth stacking and this objective is not worth taking either. Getting single glory for fishing up two relic objectives is not great - especially when it’s not very likely to see more than two of those relics in the deck.
Rating: 4
Silver Lining - this is not bad at all for draw-heavy decks. Chances for getting 4 upgrades on your hand are fairly high then. Sure, you’re losing the advantage of keeping the contents of your hand hidden, but in some more passive decks, this might not be that big deal, while it would provide easy glory. For other decks - it’s probably not that great. It’s nice insurance for a bad draw, but overall I don’t think it’s reliable enough without an extra draw.
Rating: 3
Unassailable Primacy - If you can get hold of the Primacy token reliably, then this card is your version of Dug In. It could work well - especially thanks to cards like Proud Runner. Trouble is that once disrupted it’s likely dead for the rest of the game. Right now most of the aggro warbands have decent 2 glory end phase options, but I could see this work well for guys like Mollog or Headkrakka. For them, it’s probably more of a rating of 2.
Rating: 3
Universal Gambits
Desperate Caution - giving guard token is sort of okay. It’s not as good as Buried Instinct, but it’s just fine. The fact that this also works as a Sidestep for a Quarry makes this more interesting. Universally it’s not that good, but it’s pretty cool tech to help score Absolute Stillness. Guarding and pushing Hrothgorn or Kainan can be a bit of an overkill as well. If played on something that is not a quarry, this card loses a lot of value.
Rating: 2
Endurance Hunter - it’s a solid tool for aggro warbands to get their fighters into charge range. Getting pushed by 2 hexes might not happen too often unless you’re Hrothgorn though. Still - with this card and some aggressive deployment you could bring Hrothgorn into a melee range without having to make a move. And that could spell a lot of problems for your opponent.
Rating: 2
Hunger Pangs - so this is ping damage that works on fighters who have hunger counters. Alternatively, it can give a hunger counter to target enemy fighters. I don’t think it’s good - not only you’d need to meet a hunger build on your path (or vampires), but also your target would have to have a move or a charge token. And if you’re facing off inspire-build for vampires, you’d help them inspire if you went for ping. Hunger removal in this card could be devastating for hunger stacking builds, but in general, this card has too many requirements to make it worth including in your deck.
Rating: 4
Hunter’s Helper - another ping damage card. It could work if you wanted to soften up enemy fighters in a melee with one of your hunters. I don’t like it. I would prefer to soften the target before an attack, not after it. And I would like to soften up the target of an attack instead of the other guy, who happened to be standing there.
Rating: 4
Lifeblood Draught - heal as a reaction to killing an adjacent fighter? It’s not that great in a form of an upgrade, where you could use it multiple times. So as a single-use gambit it’s even less interesting. And if you would like healing - there are other options available, that don’t require your fighter to kill anyone.
Rating: 4
More Muscle - this is an interesting one. It’s especially good for swarms that don’t shy away from attacking. But can also work for defensive balls of fighters. It’s also very good for Kainan - move your fighters in. If your mortek’s will happen to stand near some poor soul - or your attack has failed - you can get a Primacy token out of it. Even faster elite warbands could use it.
Rating: 2
Puffed Up - it’s a pretty smart defensive card. Steal the Primacy from your aggressive opponent and play this. All your guys will get a +1 wound until the end of the phase. Don’t attack to not lose the token and you’re good. Just be careful - some of your fighters may die at the end of the phase if they were left at 1HP. It’s a clever card, I like it.
Rating: 2
Silence Descends - No one’s territory isn’t exactly the most populated area of the board. In some corner cases, this card could be super painful if played at the correct moment. But overall it’s very unlikely you’ll get it in time to get some decent results out of it.
Rating: 4
Souljaws - 50% chance to un-inspire a fighter until the end of the round. It’s not that bad - because this is a reaction you could for example shut down an Inspired Mollog for a round. Or reduce the accuracy of an attack (or even disable a particular one) made during the charge. Overall it’s a fun card. But that 50% chance is what bothers me. I don’t like gambits that can fail on a dice roll. But still - the effect is cool. It can ruin your opponent’s round if played at the correct moment.
Rating: 3
Whetted Hunger - a lot is happening on that card. If a fighter is killed by a lethal hex you could flip a feature token. And if someone was standing in that token, he will get 1 point of damage. I mean… the effect is good, but the trigger is not that great. It’s not that easy to consistently make this happen.
Rating: 3
Universal Upgrades
Experienced Eye - this is a strange one. It’s a reversed Savage Visage. It works on Quarry and it is the target, who has to have the Quarry keyword. That’s pretty situational. There’s a fair amount of quarries around these days, but you might not get the rerolls you want on a fighter you’d like to attack… A big plus is the lack of range limitation on the rerolls. Overall it’s okay, but very meta dependant.
Rating: 3
Bottomless Appetite - hunger generation engine. Sadly it does require activation on the upgraded fighter to gain the counter. The self-damage component is also quite an annoyance if you do intend to stack a lot of those counters. If you’re playing some hunter stacking build and are desperate for counters you could consider this. But in general, I don’t think it is a good card.
Rating: 4
Impressive Bulk - that bulk is… not that impressive. It’s a worse version of Great Fortitude, but it could be useable for defensive fighters, who will gladly gain 1 wound and a Quarry, but don’t need to move as much. For them, it is a rating of 2. For everyone else, it is a 4.
Rating: 3
Mask of the Silent People - if you want to introduce Hrothgorn’s ability to your warband this is your card. The effect is powerful, but I don’t think most of the warbands will need it. Sometimes this could even help your opponent who has built a quarry-based deck.
Rating: 4
Master Commander - the cost to activate this is pretty high, as you need not only an action but also a Primacy token. But it might be worth it if you can get primacy without too many issues. For aggro, this is a nice option to inch closer, but hold objective warbands are where this shines the most. You can have a mini-Varclaw in your team who helps you score all your big HO surges.
Rating: 2
Master Duellist - it’s a similar one to Master Commander - spend make an action and spend the Primacy token to make range 1-2 attack with an extra benefit of having +2 dice. It is pretty cool for warbands who have an easy time gaining the Primacy and have tools to get in attack range without charging. Like Mollog. Its power diminishes for warbands who get most of the attacks via charge action though.
Rating: 3
Rampaging Killer - this is an interesting one. Put it on a fighter and he becomes a hunter and a quarry. On top of that, his range 1 attacks gain scything. The cost? After every single super action (and scything attacks are super actions) this fighter will be dealt 2 damage. You could build a kamikaze guy to run in and murder groups of enemies then die. Is it worth it? I would say no - just play Mighty Swing instead.
Rating: 3
Savage Hunger - this feels like mostly a vampire card, but even they often prefer to inspire rather than run around hungry. Ensnare is not that huge accuracy increase to make it worth it. The part that provides the Hunter keyword is wasted on vampires. This could work if you wanted to take a non-hunter warband focused on hunger, who would also like hunter tech. But that feels rather far-fetched and it's not very likely you'll use both hunter and hunger tech for a warband who has no access to both of those things natively.
Rating: 4
Silent Bracers - the last of Silent Relics. It allows your fighter to move through blocked and occupied hexes. If your move starts from no one’s territory you also get a +2 move. It’s not worth the slot. Extra movement bonus from having 2+ relics isn’t something to look for either. Overall a weak card.
Rating: 4
Soultooth Darts - Final Soultooth weapon. It’s a fairly weak ranged attack. Has not bad accuracy, but its damage is very low and not worth taking. If you would like to take it purely for gaining the Hunter keyword, then other Soultooth weapons are better choices.
Rating: 4
Closing Thoughts
Overall our final piece of universal cards is not overly strong. The best card in the pack is Everything to Prove. Few other cards could fit in some decks nicely, but overall there are no clear standouts. Gambits have a few very cleverly designed cards that I did like - Puffed Up, Desperate Caution, Endurance Hunter. What’s interesting is that this set has a few very strong upgrades. I think we’ve been spoiled by some other releases too much and this one suffers a bit from lack of quality.
This expansion is very disappointing to me personally because of the Silent Sentinel fiasco. I’ve been looking forward to building a silent relic deck if there was some objective for it released. But what has been done is a major disappointment to me. Especially because some of those relics do offer some pretty cool bonuses when combined.
Is this pack worth buying only for universals? Unless you’re hyper-competitive - probably not. But then again - even a weak card is better than none post rotation, so this is something to consider if you’re not convinced whether you want to get it or not. The cards in this release aren’t strong, but I have to give justice to the dev team - they do work on finding new, interesting effects and designs for the cards. Hopefully, they’ll manage to make them competitive with older staples in the future. Right now it’s a toolbox with a few decent tools, that are secondary or tertiary choices - not useless, but not great either.
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