beyond-the-gates

The deck The last time I played this deck. I’m pretty happy with the build overall, but I’m considering whether my crusade against situational cards may have caused me to overlook strong spells for the deck. In particular, I wanted to test one copy of Twinkle Twinkle (C). Cost reduction abilities are deceptively powerful, so I’m not unhappy if this gets resupplied. Even if it can’t win me a critical expedition, playing it to sleep my own character in a losing expedition gives it enough utility that I’m happy including it. ...

The deck This is a midrange dice-rolling deck that aims to line up multiple rolls for mid-game tempo turns with cards like Kadigiran Mage-Dancer (F). To close out the game, it attempts to go All In! (C) on either an anchored character or an already large character to make an expedition difficult to contest. Martengale (R) feels like the most important card in the deck. Preventing the failure case of Nevenka & Blotch’s hero ability enables you to use it on turns you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. It’s great as an unsuspecting All In! target. ...

The deck There are two ways that I considered building Auraq. One was a more control-oriented build that runs expensive spells and tries to time your unevenly statted characters to block optimally. In some matchups, this deck will only get one ability activation, so you have to make it count. I opted instead for an aggressive build that aims to activate the hero ability as quickly and as many times as possible (usually twice). Sometimes you’ll hit a 1-drop, but it’s fine: at least you’ll get to try again in a turn or two. ...

One of my local game stores ran its first constructed event today. I felt a little guilty bringing a tested deck for a strong hero tricked out with uniques, but I was really curious to see how the deck would run after making the changes from last time. The deck The last time I played this deck. My updates to the deck are all in line with the Fen philosophy that I want every card to be something I’m happy to see at any point in the game, whether it’s in my hand or in reserve. ...

Since Altered’s release, every game I’ve lost has been to Sigismar & Wingspan, across draft, sealed, and constructed. I’ve internalized a lot of what makes the hero feel so powerful from the opposite side of the table and so went into the draft biasing pretty heavily towards Ordis. The draft Note: this draft was run with Kickstarter boosters. I started with a Bravos Bladedancer (F) as a cheap, on-rate play that would get a lot better if I ended up in a boost-heavy deck. I followed this up with an Ordis Cadets (R), a premium go-wide card that leaned towards Ordis. ...

Today I attended my first Altered constructed event. I decided to bring the strongest-looking Lyra deck I could come up with, which had me looking at Fen & Crowbar. The deck I think the most broken thing that Fen & Crowbar have access to is that their hero ability can get characters with the “anchor target character with hand cost 3 or less” support ability directly into your reserve. Whenever you resupply one of these, it’s as though your hero ability were Arjun & Spike’s minus the cost of a card from reserve, or (optimistically) “At Noon - Create a 4/4/4 in target expedition”. ...

It’s not every day you pull two Robin Hoods alongside three other solid bureaucrats in a sealed pool. I’m going to try not to play a ton of Waru & Mack in constructed, so I figured this might be my best chance to test them out! Uniques My rating system Ganesha - 3/7 While the cost of a card from your hand limits some of the more fun combos you can achieve with Mechanical Training (F), Parvati (R), and another Ganesha (F), the reduction in cost by from 7 to 5 makes it substantially easier to fairly reanchor your characters. Despite its mostly intact stats, the average rating is probably due to me thinking Ganesha (F) already requires too much mana and/or setup to get enough value out of the trigger. ...

After my first draft, I can confirm that even without any of its headline-grabbing innovations, Altered would still deserve to be a hit: the core gameplay is phenomenal. Where Altered exceeded my expectations was in just how tense some of the decisions were. I went into the tank on several occasions as to whether this was the target I needed to spend my one removal spell on. Do I need to advance this turn, or would I be better off saving my resources to make a push later? Deciding which cards to keep in your opening hand requires extra foresight due to the reserve system. ...

Today’s the day I’ve been waiting for since January! It’s been seven months since the Altered Kickstarter launched, and it felt amazing to finally hold the pledge rewards in my hands. ...

I opened another display today that ended up being a great one all-around. It had an above-average seven uniques, including a strong Red for Afanas & Senka, a stunning alt-art Shenlong in foil, and a Gulrang & Tocsin 2023 promo (not pictured since I’m leaving it unscanned for now). The only thing it was missing is Lyra uniques! I’ve looked over cards from the set more closely since my last writeup, so hopefully that helps with my evaluation of uniques: ...