Hello all, aReNGee here with another edition of Preconstruced Notions. We’ve had a whole new mechanic spoiled in this article to talk about but first, we have some holdover spoilers. Thus far, all of the spoilers can be viewed here and are generally posted to Reddit within minutes. 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 category, 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: 2.5

Vanilla units + 8 cost for the first wurm IS a tough sell, but 7/7 is big enough to brawl with every ground pounder in the game and this gives you two of them. Getting two copies for 1 card is strong in attrition matchups where you have enough time to absorb the extra cost and are looking more for extra value – mostly attrition based mirrors and control matchups. This is not going to be a good card against aggro, obviously, and its not really what you want in groundstall matchups since the 7/7 may block well, but they don’t actually break the stall for you. This will probably end up being closer to 2 than 2.5, but should be worth at least considering as a one of or two of in time based midrange decks.

Constructed Rating: 1.5

This is a weird card. In terms of a gameplay, its a 3SSS vanilla 5/5 with extra weaknesses. This basically forces you to play it in aggressive, nearly mono shadow deck in order to play it reliably. Now, shadow does have some good aggressive tools, but how good is a vanilla 5/5 going to be? That remains to be seen, and this 5/5 also randomly dies to relic removal (medium) and is extra vulnerable in multiples (bad) since if anything dies, everything dies. Overall the drawbacks, the currently nonexistant deck archetype, and the vanilla nature of the unit you end up with have me low on this to start, but its worth coming back to if monoshadow picks up some more aggro tools.

Constructed Rating: 0

This is a pretty good draft card, but we’re literal years from a vanilla 2/2 seeing play (you can get two relevant skills for the same price in 3 different factions) and the “option” to turn it into a 3 mana slow silence is barely upside on the deal.

Constructed Rating: 4

Okay, what the heck is going on here? Well, when you put a Merchant into your deck during deck construction, you also get to build a 5 card Market (still can’t go over 4 copies of a card between Deck and Market). When you play a Merchant, you can exchange a card from your hand (any card, even power) and exchange it for one of the cards in your Market that shares a color with the Merchant you just played. Multifaction cards count as both factions for this purpose and even power counts as the influence it gives. This does mean you cannot get neutral cards with the current set of Merchants, but just about anything else is fair game. Merchants trigger draw effects (like Fate and Crown) and the card you exchanged goes to the Market and can be exchanged for later with an appropriate Merchant.

Flexibility is very, very powerful. Merchants allow you to exchange cards for whatever you want – removal spells, finishers, flood insurance, whatever. They can get rid of an expensive card you can’t cast yet or an extra power, and they always draw gas – unless you put power in your market and want to draw power, in which case they do that too. They do require that you have an extra card in hand, but you can do whatever you want with them – grab a key card in your deck, a situational answer, whatever. We’ll need to actually play with them to be sure, but my baseline is that they’re extremely powerful tools and always worthy of consideration.

Constructed Rating: 4.5

Red aggro decks will like this guy. The three slot is pretty barren in non-Justice aggro. Cinder Yeti sees a reasonable amount of play off of Warp and a summon, and this guy lady has the Market ability instead. Being able to get that burn spell, or charge unit, or whatever tech card you need can be very powerful, especially in multifaction decks. Having the best body among the Merchants and the worst alternative options will push this one ahead of the pack.

Constructed Rating: 5

I’ll be so bold as to call this the best card in the set (unless the Market mechanic is WAY worse than it looks). It ramps, it blocks aggro, it can’t be Torched, and it draws upon the widest and deepest pool of playable cards in Eternal. I believe this card will be fantastic in both midrange and big Time decks – people are already dreaming of tutoring Vodakhans and Mystic Ascendants and Marisens (just me? okay then) as well as Hearts and YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHs and Desert Marshals and all the other overpowered nonsense Time players get to use. Card selection in the late game was sometimes a problem for time decks – good thing this card solves that handily. Against aggro you grab your Mystic Theruges and Lumen Defenders, against control you grab your Wurmcallings (lol). Slapping the Merchant ability on a card ramp decks might consider WITHOUT the Merchant ability seems like an easy winner to me.

Okay, we got trolled, no Berserk. But hey, Merchants are way better and definitely a gamechanger on how decks are built. Will the Market ability live up to its hype? You decide!

(feel free to make fun of me later for overvaluing Auralian Merchant)

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