Glory in Navori Reveals: Day 6 – Variety Pack
Hey all it’s Trevor “Shugo” Yung here to cover Day 6 of the Glory in Navori reveals!
The past two days have covered the insanity that is Samira, while today we get to explore multiple regions with this variety batch of cards.
Today’s variety pack includes additions to Demacia, Freljord, Shadow Isles, and Targon.
Stay tuned for more reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
Form Up!
After seeing Noxus get All Out, which is essentially a power crept version of pre-nerf Sharpsight, it’s only fair that Demacia gets a little boost as well. They are the combat region after all.
It’s been a long time since we’ve had +2/+2 Sharpsight, and Demacia will be thrilled to have it back. Of course, Form Up doesn’t help block elusives, but that’s a fair trade to get one of the region’s best spells back into its card pool. This will help a lot both on offence and defence, and open up potential for the various Demacia midrange decks to make a come back.
Search Warrant
Detain has never been a particularly good card. The capture mechanic isn’t awful, but it’s always been just too expensive and situational to rely on. There’s nothing worse than having an ally capture an enemy, only to have it die immediately. Funny enough, it may even be worse if it does survive a turn or two, because then the threat comes back later on to bite you at the worst moment.
Now Search Warrant is nice in that it can hit landmarks, but more importantly, it’s only four mana. This is right in the range of being playable, but it can still suffer some serious punishments in the same way Detain can. Do note that it’s only when capturing a unit that requires your ally to have 4+ power, as any unit can capture a landmark. But this drawback is a real cost, as there are situations where it’s nice to have a weak back-row unit hold the detainee so that stronger units can still attack.
Overall, there’s a chance Search Warrant could be a decent one or two-of in certain metas, as it does provide Demacia access to a “catch-all” removal spell.
Thrall Bulwark
A three mana 3/4 is always a solid base for a card, but it historically hasn’t been enough on its own to push cards into being playable. However, Thrall Bulwark may just make the cut.
This is a really cool design in that it allows slower Freljord decks to develop a 3-drop while still threatening board wipes like Avalanche. It’s always felt awkward to play units into your own Avalanche, but if you don’t play anything, it’s too easy to get run over. We’ve always made due with the likes of Kindly Tavernkeeper or Lissandra, as they are strong enough to take a hit, while presenting a relevant blocker.
All that said, slower Freljord decks can’t always afford to play a unit on three, especially when it doesn’t contribute to their overall game plan. Thrall Bulwark could be worth the inclusion, but we’ll have to see how decks come together after the patch.
Frostcoat Cub / Frostcoat Mother
This card has a cute design, yes aesthetically, but also in the way that it plays. Either summon the cub, or wait for her to grow up.
While neither half of this card is particularly exciting, the flexibility aspect makes it a respectable considering if a deck needs ways to fill the two and six slots on the curve. After all, a 2/3 is still passable early on, and nobody can scoff at a 7/5 with overwhelm later!
Likely not good enough to make the cut, but it does look like a solid card for the future draft/limited format.
Soul Harvest
Slow speed “follower” Culling Strike for two mana, or slow speed “champion” Culling Strike for four mana. Yuck.
Culling Strike has always been a tough card to play. Unless you were capitalizing on Ashe synergies, or playing versus a very specific metagame, the card is borderline unplayable. There’s just too many combat tricks that severely punish the player who casts it. Soul Harvest is a slow speed version, and can’t even hit champions without greatly overpaying for it. The only thing going for it is that two mana hits a follower, but we already have Quietus for most of those cases. Shadow Isles has so many superior options, assuming the bulk of them don’t get rotated..
Hard pass on this card. Unless Spooky Ashe suddenly takes over, this card won’t make it past the first week of experimenting.
Eradication
If it’s not obvious already how much I despise the “kill unit with X or less power” type effects, you can probably guess where I stand on Eradication. Well on the contrary, I think this card is a reasonable consideration. It’s not by any means amazing, but this is a board wipe at only six mana.
Eradication is similar to Reckoning. While it may not be able to hit as many units, unlike Reckoning, there are no strict requirements to cast it. If a Shadow Isles control deck goes turn one pass, turn two pass, they’ll have the mana to cast it by turn three. Eradication will absolutely destroy aggressive decks that like to flood the board wide as fast as possible. Simply knowing this card exists in the pool could change how they play the matchup. Avalanche was the only real card to watch for previously, but if you had a bunch of x/3’s, you were fine. Eradication changes the equation.
It’s still going to be rough against combat tricks, but the same goes for any damage-based removal. Eradication is definitely somewhat narrow, but I do expect it will make an appearance when the meta calls for it.
Cosmic Youngling
A two mana 1/4 is normally pretty underwhelming, but look at the text, this card heals itself! While this stat-line obviously punishes the 2/1’s, it’s not great into the 2/2’s, 2/3’s, or 3/2’s. The fact that Cosmic Youngling heals itself on round start allows this to actually block a 2/2 twice and survive. Plus when blocking a 3/2 would leave it at one health, it’s able to heal outside of ping range on the following turn.
Then once we factor in the nexus healing, Cosmic Youngling looks like a pretty solid anti-aggro card. Where it will really shine is alongside the Tahm Soraka/Star Spring archetype, but knowing how niche and un-interactive that strategy can be, I’m not relying on it existing post-Rotation.
Falling Star
So this is straight up Paddle Star for one less mana, but one less damage. While five damage is certainly nice, four is often the sweet spot when it comes to removal. And four damage for two mana? Very, very, good.
Of course, Falling Star is still situational, and its slow speed definitely holds it back. Paddle Star may not have had a chance to shine, but the card was actually closer to playable than most people give it credit for. The difference between two and three mana is huge, especially when it comes to removal. Falling Star is not terrible.
If we do ever see a Targon stun deck emerge, Falling Star is an obvious inclusion. But having to play it on an enemy that attacked can be tricky, as often that means either taking nexus damage, or making a poor block and then finishing it off.
Two for four is sweet, but it’s still clunky and situational. That, and slow speed removal will always be far weaker by default. It’s close, but I’m guessing it’s not quite there.
Stay tuned for more reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
