Glory in Navori Reveals: Day 8 – Jack
We’ve finally reached the end of the reveal season for Glory in Navori, but you know what that means?
It’s time for the biggest patch in LoR history!
It’s Trevor “Shugo” Yung here to bring you our final new champion, Jack!
To see the rest of our thoughts, check out our previous reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
Jack
Right off the bat Jack boasts some excellent stats. He’s an Elnuk with upside. A four mana 4/5 is very strong on-curve, but on top of that, has the new Brash keyword AND a strike effect. It’s as if he has a built-in Barknuckles.
Note: Barknuckles is better than I gave it credit for yesterday.. But in my defence, I didn’t realize it also came with the Brash keyword!
What makes Jack so powerful is this combination of stats, keyword, and ability. Strike effects are at their best when we’re able to activate them more than once. Brash gives Jack a form of evasion, making it possible to avoid blockers entirely. Even at worst, a 4/5 is still likely to survive at least one combat, and thanks to this being a strike trigger instead of an attack trigger, it can really deter the opponent from making certain attacks.
It’ll be really cool to see how players interact with the Brash keyword. I think Fearsome creates some really fun play patterns, such as timing a unit after a -1/-0 effect triggers, or using a combat trick to push a 2/1 into 3/2 and blocking. We often default to blocking a unit when it results in keeping ours alive at 1-2 health, while killing theirs. That may not be the best play when facing down an army of Brash units.
Leveling Jack turns him from a strong beater into a nexus pounder. Overwhelm and Brash is a funny keyword combination, since blocking with a low health unit won’t really accomplish much anyway. Level two Jack gets the Mad ol’ Babs treatment, except this time it’s relevant thanks to overwhelm. Striking for two Coins also amplifies this, ensuring that the game will end shortly afterwards if Jack sticks around.
While I’m generally not a fan of champion releases feeling “pre-built”, I’ve gotta hand it to Riot, they’ve really created an elegant release that’s perfectly wrapped up thanks to Jack. They first teased the Coin mechanic with Sett and Ionia. Next we get the new Plunder package with Samira, showcasing Noxus. Yesterday brought us Bilgewater Coin support, which leads right to today. We’ve got Jack, a Bilgewater champion that looks like the ideal pair with both Sett AND Samira. It’s exciting to see immediate potential with two totally different archetypes, and since Jack is just generically powerful, I’m sure he’ll see success outside of them as well!
Risky Venture / Jack’s Risky Venture
Three mana deal twos are typically unplayable. Death’s Hand and Undergrowth are right on the border, but can feel pretty underwhelming most of the time. Also, those are both at fast speed unlike Risky Venture, and that’s a big deal.
Bouncing Bomb is a slow speed comparison, and even has the flexibility to ping two enemies for one instead. Also unplayable.
The name is definitely fitting for the card, because if you can’t kill the unit, you’ve payed three mana for two damage at slow speed. Yuck. However, assuming you’re able to pull this off, it’s essentially a slow speed one mana deal two, if you can utilize the Coin support effectively.
Unfortunately, I think the negatives outweigh the potential positives. It’s just not reliable. However, as Jack’s champion spell it could be useful. Even if the enemy survives, there’s a good chance you’ve lowered its health enough to make it unable to block Brash units. It isn’t much, but it is something that will come up from time to time.
Prize Fight
Okay this card is sweet. It’s a one mana Single Combat in Bilgewater, well, sort of..
While it can’t actually remove a unit on its own, it’ll still have a lot of the same applications. We’d often cast Single Combat during combat to strike down one enemy before trading into another. It’s notable that it won’t remove it to keep the unit in front of it safe, but it can set it up for a kill.
The other common application is in response to enemy removal. Again, it won’t outright kill them, but it’ll get very close, and would allow any other spells on the stack to finish the job.
Prize Fight is also really cool with Brash as it can effectively remove a blocker. The opponent will have to be careful to cast a spell pre-combat. When they give you a chance to respond, you can Prize Fight to put their unit at one health, then swing in afterwards while they have one less blocker.
Lastly, we already know Bilgewater is a great region for pings, so this card fits naturally alongside staples like Make it Rain.
Five-Punch Pablo
Whoever is naming the cards in this expansion deserves a raise.
Five-Punch Pablo has pretty awful stats, but its combination of summon effect and Attune makes it a real contender. It’s somewhat comparable to Thorn of the Rose. When the metagame is more unit based and combat focused, these cards can really shine as they trade favorably into the field. However, they really pale against spells, especially pings.
What’s nice about this card is Attune really helps save the poor-stat body, while also ensuring we can cast the fleeting Prize Fight that turn. This makes Five-Punch Pablo actually feel more like a spell, as we’ll want to be playing it when we can take advantage of the effect. Compared to Thorn of the Rose, I believe this is generally much more powerful, albeit more situational since the spell is fleeting.
While Five-Punch Pablo is the perfect target for Prize Fight, we will have to be cautious not to 2-for-1 ourselves. A single ping in response would unfortunately be the death of him. Thankfully, we have the flexibility to choose our targets.
Angel
It’s Trifarian Shieldbreaker’s long lost cousin, and a future draft/limited contender. That’s about it.
The King’s Court
It’s unfortunate to receive a boat, that doesn’t actually function as a “boat”, but oh well.
This card certainly does a lot for seven mana. It’s a 7/5 with both Brash and Attune, it creates fleeting Prize Fights, and grants survivors Brash. Is it good enough? I’m not 100% sure, but I’m leaning towards no.
There are very few 7-drops that actually make the cut in Runeterra. A few notable ones are Albus Ferros, Invasive Hydravine, The Leviathan, and The Rekindler. Honorable mention to The Winding Light, but unfortunately post-nerf it’s been pretty underwhelming. So let’s evaluate these.
Albus threatens obscene amounts of damage on attack while also drawing Jayce. Hydravine creates value on summon, and incrementally more advantage every turn after. The Leviathan combos with a leveled Swain to stunlock and win the following turns. Lastly, The Rekindler resummons your game winning champion, on top of being a 4/4.
The King’s Court does have a lot of text on it, and can create Prize Fights which will really mess with the opponent. However, you don’t get one until summoning an ally AFTER it’s already in play. I think if a Prize Fight was generated immediately this card would be pretty strong, as the Attune would also allow it to interact the turn it comes down.
It’s possible in a post-Rotation format that things are slower now, and there’s reasonable time to play this card. But looking at how aggressive and powerful these new cards are, I’m not convinced.
To see the rest of our thoughts, check out our previous reveal articles! To build your own deck, head to our Deck Builder.
