Hello all, aReNGee here with another edition of Preconstruced Notions. As always, I’m going to do constructed reviews for every set 4 card as they’re being spoiled. Thus far, all of the spoilers can be viewed here and are generally posted to Reddit within minutes. This edition took a lot longer to come out than I expected, but we’ve built up a few spoilers during that time that we can go through. Below, we’ll cover the rating scale I’m going to use:

Constructed Rating

5

Faction staple, probably meta defining. Will see play or at least consideration across all decks of that color combination. Examples: Torch, Slay, Tavrod, Sandstorm Titan

4

Archetype staple. Sees play or at least consideration in the majority of decks of that archetype that can play it. Examples: Oni Ronin (in non hostile metagames), Champion of Cunning, Unseen Commando

3

Deck Staple. Will see play or at least consideration in one or more decks. A fairly broad catagory, but cards that rank 3 or above are always worth thinking about including. Examples: Wisdom of the Elders, Seek Power, In Cold Blood

2

Situational card. Could be a staple of a lesser played archetype, a sideboard card to help handle an archetype, or just a card you don’t want until you really want it. Examples: Sabotage, Devoted Theruge, Unseal

1 or less

This card is not going to be played in constructed.

Card Reviews (in order of spoiler gallery)

Constructed Rating: 1.5

This card may seem harmless at first glace (or more accurately, useless) but in the words of SirRhino, “0 costs a lotttttt less than 1”. This would not be worth a glance at 1 power, but being able to deploy it alongside another threat does make it a little more interesting. It’s card disadvantage long term, so you need to make use of the stun window, which relegates it to aggressive Justice based decks. This works best as an enabler for other cards that trigger off of it, which off the top of my head are Fencing Master (becomes a 3 power 5/5) and Rilgon (continues to disappoint). You can also build your own Slay in Hooru now, by combining this card with Icebreaker. If we get more cards that trigger off of spells or stuns, this card will go up in value, but at the moment does not seem likely to break into constructed.

Constructed Rating: 2

Dustblind on suicide watch. 1 is a lot more then zero, but for most of the game this card will do a good impression of a 1 cost Cloud of Ash, pushing all of your units through. This could be good enough for some aggressive decks, especially those all in aggro decks we’ve seen in the past that want the game to end on turn 4. This card is obviously useless if you don’t have a board or you’re on the defensive, so this card’s rating is dependent on there being an aggressive deck that wants this effect sometimes.

Constructed Rating: ?

A new monument! Monuments should be assessed based on whether you want the transform card that is a power sometimes, rather than if you want the power that is another card sometimes. Depleted power is bad, especially single influence depleted power, so this isn’t a card you want in your deck unless you can use the Clan Standards. Unfortunately, its difficult to accurately rate this card because all of its power is held in the card it transmutes into (Clan Tactic) and we don’t know what that does. What we do know is that Cobalt Monument gives you a 5 power 4/4 flyer and doesn’t see very much play, so at the Clan Tactic needs to be stronger than that to see play.

Constructed Rating: 2.5

Now this I can work with! This card will most likely see play in constructed by creating a new deck centered around cheating out units. The weapon part of the card is a secondary consideration, most of its power is contained in playing a random unit in the top 6. This card has some outside applications as a fair card – a deck like Argenport Midrange could use the refill that playing a Tavrod + weapon would give them. However, this card is more interesting when used to cheat in something more expensive – Scourge of Frosthome and Spirit of Resistance are the two most likely candidates at the moment. You only get to look at the top 6 to find these cards, but fortunately Eternal has some good top deck manipulation in Excavate and Second Sight. Playing a 10+ cost card for 7 or 8 power could end up being good enough, especially if more high cost threats or deck manipulation cards are released.

Constructed Rating: 0

This is a punisher card, which refers to any card where your opponent makes a choice. They’re called this because boy do you get punished for playing them. Any situation in which your opponent chooses an outcome guarantees the worst possible outcome for you, so punish cards always play at least two tiers below how good they look. Additionally, this card doesn’t even look that good to start with – my opponent needs to have two units, and this will kill one but make the other stronger. That’s not a great baseline, and once you factor in that your opponent will always choose the worse of the two units, this drops to “kill their second best unit and make their best unit stronger”. It won’t kill what you want it to kill, and it will punish you for casting it. Avoid this card.

That’s all for today! There’s an extra spoiler I didn’t cover, but it’s a generated card and I’m going to wait until we see the card that makes it since you can’t normally put it into your deck. Mostly nonsense this time around, although I look forward to seeing the Answer the Call/Divining Rod Charge Highroll deck.

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