Glory in Navori Reveals: Day 4 – Brash
Hey all it’s Trevor “Shugo” Yung here and today we’ve got a whole new cast of Plunder cards!?
This definitely begs the question.. What cards are rotating next week? Now that Noxus is introduced to Plunder, and with Bilgewater getting more goodies, does that mean Freljord is out?
We’ll have to wait and see, but for now let’s dive into these spicy newcomers!
Stay tuned for more reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
Daring Demolisher
Noxus Plunder support is starting off strong. Daring Demolisher is a solid on-curve play that can provide the “Plunder trigger” for the turn, just like Tusk Speaker. Additionally, it also has the utility of activating another unit’s Plunder effect. These are both solid options that will make Daring Demolisher rarely feel like a dead card, and more than makes up for its below average 3/1 body.
Consistency has always been a struggle for Plunder. When the deck draws well, it feels unbeatable. But a single misstep can be a big deal, as every missed turn delays Gangplank’s and Sejuani’s level-up. While we don’t know whether they’ll still exist post-Rotation, if there is still a card that counts nexus damage turns, Daring Demolisher will be a fantastic role player to help ensure its consistency.
Father Fury
Wow, now this is a card. Assuming Plunder is triggered, this effectively becomes a one mana 2/1 with elusive that creates a random 1-cost spell, thanks to its pseudo-Attune. Burblefish anyone? We already know that elusives are good, but in a Plunder archetype they’re even better since it’s another way to reliably poke through damage.
The only real downside here is having another early one-health unit. Assuming Noxus as the second region, we’ll definitely be playing Daring Demolisher, and so we do have to be cautious of spells like Caustic Riff. Make it Rain would also be brutally punishing, but if I were to guess, I think the former has a better chance of survival than the latter.
Inferna
This card reminds me of The Lady of Blood, which has much better stats, and yet still sees no play. While drawing cards is generally better than making a copy of one in hand, Plunder is a tougher condition to meet than discarding cards. In an ideal world, Inferna can attack through as a 1/5 elusive to set up Plunder. Then we play a Plunder card, drawing one fleeting, then play that. If we have multiple 1-2 cost Plunder cards, perhaps we draw a couple more times. But how many of those cards can we actually play?
Fleeting is a really big downside. The Unending Wave is powerful draw on the surface, but really fails when the cards can’t be utilized. Drawing any higher-costed card or a situational spell is a complete whiff, and ends up costing you cards from your deck with no benefit. Fizz TF was the only real deck that could capitalize on fleeting cards because they could either be discarded or shuffled back into the deck for an even greater advantage. And well, it’s been a LONG time since those days.
Dame the Despoiler
Unless we see a bunch of cheaper Plunder units, namely 1-drops, I don’t expect a lot from this card. As a 3-drop, it’s pretty awful on-curve, as to activate Plunder on turn three AND still have played units on the turns prior is very difficult without the likes of Attune or Warning Shot. Even then, a +1 power buff is often pretty irrelevant when the opponent’s units would already trade anyway.
Dame the Despoiler isn’t half bad if we’re able to buff elusives, as their evasion can actually make the power buff more useful. Though we’ll have to see just how many elusives will even make up the deck, because outside of that, it’s pretty sub-par.
Barbed Chain
Well now we know why Twisted Fate is getting rotated. This is basically the Plunder Pick a Card, except this one doesn’t require you to shuffle in a card from hand! This is as close to a two mana draw two as we can get, and because the cards are drawn on the following round, we’ll more likely have the mana available to cast them.
As I mentioned earlier, fleeting is a real cost, but Barbed Chain has a really high ceiling if there’s a deck that can use it to its full potential. The Plunder text should keep it from being an auto-include, which makes this card very well designed overall. Lastly, don’t forget that these cards are delayed. If you weren’t around during the Fizz TF era, you may not know the pain of drawing this off the top when you’re desperate for immediate answers. Thankfully this time we don’t have to save a card in hand to make this a playable top-deck.
Pirouette
There aren’t a lot of cheap spells that can stop two units with a single action. Vile Feast was the best and only real option we had, as it can ping and remove a one-health enemy, while simultaneously providing a blocker. Pirouette can fill a similar role by pinging an enemy, and stunning another. While it doesn’t have the flexibility of being at fast speed, a stun can be far more valuable than chump blocking with a 1/1. You can stop challengers, attack triggers, overwhelm damage, and simply ensure a unit can’t get through. The Spider is great in the early game, but later on, it doesn’t stop them from removing it off the board before attacking.
Casting this for two can already be very powerful, but Plunder enabling it to be cast for one is ridiculous. It’s easy to hold one mana up, and Pirouette can really punish the opponent for not open-attacking.
To top it all off, this is still a way to damage the enemy nexus and enable Plunder. You can cast Pirouette, ping nexus, stun the enemy blocker, then play your Plunder unit and attack through. If Plunder becomes a mainstay, I expect we’ll see a lot of this card.
Brazen Buccaneer / Brash
Brazen Buccaneer introduces a brand new keyword to the game; Brash! How does it work? Well, it’s pretty simple. It’s Fearsome but for health, that’s basically it. What’s cool about this is how damaged units will be affected. Need to get past that 4/4? Mystic Shot it first, then it can’t block. Additionally, health buffs become more relevant in order to create Brash blockers in a pinch.
It’ll take some time to think through how relevant this will be compared to Fearsome. But at the end of the day, any form of evasion is typically pretty strong in LoR. It’s also worth noting that Brash should be a pretty powerful keyword for Plunder, as any form of evasion makes it much easier to get damage through.
Now for the Buccaneer itself, so long as we’re able to pull off Plunder, this card will be a real menace. Remember 3/2 Petty Officer? That was a heck of a card already. Now imagine that except both units are hard to block. Yikes! I think it’s really going to come down to how reliably we can activate Plunder on three. Assuming this is a likely reality, Brazen Buccaneer is a crazy unit that may even approach pre-nerf Wraithcaller levels of scary.
Stay tuned for more reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
