Card Spotlight – Horrors of War

Hello friends, this is Jared Saramago from the HEX R&D team. Today I have the privilege of spoiling the latest Herofall card preview. I’m super excited to share one of my absolute favorite new card designs, Horrors of War.

Let’s not waste any time and get right to the card image! Here it is:

It’s such an impressive card with an overwhelming theme. The name, the flavor text, the artwork—they all tell an epic story that really fits the mechanics of this card. The war between the Ardent and Underworld has a steep cost that affects both sides greatly.

From the moment I first saw this design I was drawn to it. Each line in this card’s text box is powerful in its own right, and this card lets you do all 3 of those things at the same time! Due to the card’s scaling cost, it’s potential is limited only by the resources you can afford to pay into it. You can play it as low cost utility action to take away your opponent’s last troop or card in hand, or you can pump lots of resources into it to really obliterate everything. It’s the type of open-ended card design that really excites my inner deck-builder. So let’s theorycraft some decks, shall we?

WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOULTELY… SOME THINGS!

Playing with Horrors of War has an obvious drawback: your troops, hand, and resources are also victim to the toll of war. When I first sat down to build a deck with this card, it was this mostly this drawback that I wanted to focus on. If you can find a way to break the card’s inherent symmetry and come out ahead in the exchange, you could swing the game’s outcome in your favor. Here is an example deck designed to try and do just that:

RAMP OF WAR

Champion: Mightsinger Alyndra



The goal of this deck is to get far ahead on resources by using cards like Chlorophyllia and Wellspring. Then, we use those resources to ramp into either a powerful early troop like Crocosaur or Uruunaz… OR to resolve an expensive Horrors of War. Playing Horrors of War for X=3 (which costs 7 resources total) will likely leave you with 3 or 4 permanent resources but leave your opponent with only 1 resource. Not to mention, you simultaneously remove their threats on the board and strip their hand of cards that could be used to recover. Talk about a backbreaking play!

A key feature of this deck is the inclusion of cards that survive the board clearing effects of Horrors of War and Extinction. Both Wrathwood Master Moss and Servo Servant allow you to keep threats on the board even after a full board wipe. Since constants are unaffected, you can use Pact of Pain to rebuild your hand after it has been devastated by the Horrors of War.

After playing around with that deck idea for a bit, I started to ponder what else I could do with Horrors of War. What if, instead of focusing on the loss of resources, the deck focused more on the loss of troops? Much like with Master Moss, what if all my troops had less downside to being killed? That spark lead me to this deck:

DYING TO DIE

Champion: Kranok



Opponents will have a tough time keeping an army on the board against this deck as it boasts an impressive 8 mass removal cards between the 4 Extinctions and 4 Horrors of War. The impact of wipes to your own troops is often minimized by the presence of a tunneled Monsuun, a returning Tezozo, or the effects of your dying Darkspire troops.

Hideous Conversion is another great card in this deck. It allows you to convert all of your troops into extra resources and thereby fuel a much larger Horrors of War that would have sacrificed those troops anyways. Another card that stands out as powerful in this deck is the Minion of Yazukan. It can come back to put pressure on your opponent as an inevitable win condition, or it can continuously feed your Hideous Conversion every few turns to produce extra resources.

Those are just a couple of the ways that you can build a deck around Horrors of War, but with a card this versatile the possibilities are nearly endless! Don’t forget that there are also many other cards and mechanics in Herofall that will allow for all new interactions and deck concepts, so keep an eye on future card previews for more ideas on how to maximize your Horrors.

That’s all for now. Let me know what you think about this card and how YOU plan on using it by clicking the forum link below to share your thoughts. Until next time!

Jared Saramago, HEX R&D

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