Good Day Scions! As I’m sure you know, we are approaching the third expansion for Eternal in The Dusk Road. We’ve seen the three new mechanics, three faction cards, new versions of old characters, and some quite hype cards. But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Yes, I too have a preview card to show all of you and no expense was spared.

For those of you who have followed along for a while you may know my proclivity towards aggressive cards and this card has aggression in spades. It’s not a Fire card, but when you are given a card to preview you don’t get picky. Plus there are a lot of things we should consider when evaluating this card so, without further ado, here is Sandspitter

Yup, Dennis Nedry didn’t stand a chance. For those who don’t know, I love dinosaurs. Like, a ton. When I was younger I wanted to be a paleontologist. So much so I even went to career day in 1st grade as a paleontologist! Also it’s a lot of fun to say dinosaur names that even the teachers couldn’t pronounce, like Parasaurolophus. But enough about the past, let’s talk about Sandspitter!

Sandspitter is a quite aggressive 5/2 for 4 power. Its able to attack through, or trade with, many units in Eternal. And if it gets through anyways, that’s 20% of your opponent’s life total you didn’t have to worry about before! Another boon for Sandspitter is its influence requirement of a single Time influence. That allows Sandspitter to be splashable in Draft, or potentially Ranked depending on how things shake out. But the real juice is in its DNA…err…I mean textbox.

The summon ability to tax all your opponent’s spells in their hand is not to be overlooked. A quick downside that is readily apparent is that as a 5/2 Sandspitter dies to a LOT of removal. Torch, Vanquish, Annihilate, Lightning Storm, the list goes on. However, these are all spells which now get taxed. Torch doesn’t look so hot as a 2F spell than a 1F one. Vanquish and Annihilate both look pedestrian at 3J and 3S respectively. And Lightning Storm becomes a much more fair card at 3P than 2P, although I’m pretty sure the Dilophosaurus did pretty well for itself in the rain…anyways. Almost more importantly, Sandspitter jumps Harsh Rule and Obliterate from 5 to 6 power cost! Sure taxing the spot removal is nice, but delaying the sweeper or big burn spell is crucial when you’re dealing with tribal decks.

Oh, did I forget to mention the fact Sandspitter is a Dinosaur? This has much stronger consequences once you take that into account. Most tribal decks rely on their units surviving and dealing damage. This usually plays out with the Tribal player emptying their hand and the Control/Midrange player sweeping the board to stabilize. Sandspitter gives that deck a big question: Can you survive one more turn than you thought? As we’ve seen with decks like Burn Queen or Skycrag the answer isn’t always yes. We also can’t discount the fact that Sandspitter is a 5 strength unit, which can be very relevant for any Bond Dinosaurs we may see in the future. As of writing we haven’t seen any, but don’t leave your Sandspitters in your Collection tab when the Big Bond Brontosaurus gets previewed! (Full Disclosure: I have no idea if there is such a card as Big Bond Brontosaurus)

So what are your thoughts on Sandspitter? It’s certainly a sweet card and has a lot going on. One might say it’s a “Clever Girl.” What? What do you mean wrong dinosaur species? Anyways, you can always send me comments/questions below or on Reddit, the Discord, and Twitter @jwiley129. Thanks so much for following along and I’ll see y’all next time!

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