Not even a few hours have passed since the posting of my previous card reveal article, and there’s already multiple new cards to take a gander at. I guess this is to be expected though, as there’s only about three weeks left until the Verdant Conflict releases. But no worries, I still hope to keep my twice-weekly schedule of posts for the reveals as they come. Let’s keep up the pace.

Lubelle, Necrofamily // Necrofauna

With this unveiling of Shadowcraft’s Natura Legendary, we can see that this class intends to utilize Naterran Great Tree in a fashion similar to Dragoncraft. This makes a lot of sense, as Shadowcraft is a swarm-heavy class when Nephthys or Hades, Father of Purgatory aren’t the centerpiece of the strategy.

In the most Tree-abundant scenario, one would play Lubella on 7 play points and with a Tree already on board. Then the player would spend the remaining 2 play points on two copies of Tree to not only draw 2 cards, but also to have Lubella summon 2 additional Necrofauna. This would result in a full board consisting of Naterran Great Tree, Lubella, and three Necrofauna. This play requires two initial copies of the Tree to be accessible, with Lubella providing the third with her Fanfare. Sounds unlikely at first, but when you account for Shadowcraft’s powerful draw engine through Soul Conversion, Demon Eater, and Andrealphus, gathering those multiple copies shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

That play, while costing multiple cards and 7 play points, allows her to reach similar levels of value to Dragon Empress Otohime, Omnis, Prime Okami, Arthur, Knight King, and most notably Demonlord Eachtar. However, these cards accomplish their board fills with only one Fanfare ability, and they also come with their class-exclusive synergies to make them stronger than their rules text alone suggests. Ramp Dragon lets Otohime enter the field faster, Arthur thins the deck out, Omnis is a bounce outlet and a Storm finisher, etc. On the other hand, Lubella requires the player to commit not just board space, but also deck space on Tree to fully function. And to add even more salt to the wound, Eachtar summons Zombies twice the size of Necrofauna without needing any Trees and exists in the same class as Lubella.

But I’m not saying she’s a bad card with all this put on the table. She still provides several benefits that cannot be found with her fellow 7-cost board fillers, all of which propel her from being outclassed to being nice to have:

She can be played at lower than 7 play points. Even at 6 play points and only the one Tree on the field available, Lubella can still draw 1 card and summon 2 Necrofauna with her Fanfare alone. This is likely the most efficient way to use her.

on the field available, can still draw 1 card and summon 2 with her Fanfare alone. This is likely the most efficient way to use her. Each Necrofauna she summons carries a “random” Last Words ability to further extend value. The random is in quotes because the outcomes actually have a fair amount of overlap with each other. You can liken the Necrofauna to an evolved Cerberus, Hound of Hades in terms of the kind of board presence she commands.

she summons carries a “random” Last Words ability to further extend value. The random is in quotes because the outcomes actually have a fair amount of overlap with each other. You can liken the to an evolved in terms of the kind of board presence she commands. Unlike Demonlord Eachtar, she doesn’t drain your shadow stock to fill board. In fact, the curve of turn 5 Cerberus, Hound of Hades, turn 6 Lubella plus Tree, turn 7 Eachtar is very self-sufficient. This pretty much means board-spam Midrange Shadow may very much be back in business.

And speaking of Midrange Shadow, that deck will likely be the only deck I’ll talk about here for Lubella usage. The majority Shadowcraft’s pool of decks have strayed away from the board control playstyle in favor of utilizing combos that cheat the cost curve and ignore “fair” gameplay entirely (looking at you, Crow, Regent of Darkness and Lara, Soul Taker). This pretty much leaves MidShadow as the only notable deck that Lubella can potentially fit in.

So if MidShadow wants to use Lubella, the deck first has to overcome the hurdles that come with using Tree-based content. Fortunately, I don’t see this to be much of an issue, thanks to Desert Pathfinder and another new reveal I’ll get into later, but this is still additional deck space spent to enable a single Legendary that the deck didn’t have to commit to before. Not only that, but MidShadow needs to account for Tree permanently taking up a board spot, which most notably leads to Eachtar summoning 1 less Zombie than usual. The deck ran into this problem all the time when it used to run Deadly Dreamer and the Deep Dream amulet her Last Words ability creates. This proved to be a large enough issue for the deck to eventually cut all copies of her and return to ol’ reliable Belenus in the end. But if MidShadow can adapt to these downsides and fully integrate the Tree package into their gameplan without missing the fifth board slot too much, we are looking at a very promising evolution of this iconic archetype.

So with all that said, I don’t think this is quite enough for Midrange Shadow to return to top tier glory, especially not with Artifact Portal and Whirlwind Rhinoceroach bullying the deck left and right. Lubella is still a decently potent card, but all she really provides is more of what MidShadow is already strong at. Redundancy can be looked at as consistency, however, and perhaps that is what MidShadow needs to rise from their graves and compete alongside their combo brethren.

Necromantic Aether

Looks like with this reveal, Verdant Conflict intends to create a full cycle of these Tree Aether spells. That’s actually quite awesome, and this should make running unique Tree-based engines become a reality. But since we have the Shadowcraft version here, let’s talk about that first.

While Shadowcraft doesn’t have access to the same kinds of shenanigans Forestcraft does with their Tree Aether spell, the card still ups your shadow stock by one at no play point cost past turn 5. This can make the difference on how many Zombies you want Eachtar to summon, among other things. On turn 10 and beyond, notable followers this can summon for free include Ceres of the Night, Aisha, Underworld Sovereign, Corpselord of Woe, and Osiris if you can evolve him. The speed of the current Unlimited metagame will still prevent this from occurring often, but Shadowcraft is one of the better classes at dragging games out to longer lengths if not going for a combo deck. That doesn’t mean those decks should always keep Necromantic Aether back until turn 10 all the time, of course, but it’s still an option worth considering when available.

As a small draw and board presence engine, three copies of this and Lubella should be enough to consistently summon all the Necrofauna you need to while leaving adequate remaining deck space to commit to the rest of your MidShadow deck. But if more upcoming Tree-based support ends up being strong enough, no reason not to expand the engine further, especially if it means access to more copies of Tree.

You can probably tell from this and my glowing review of Fertile Aether in the previous article that I really like this spell cycle. Not only are they all extremely efficiently costed, but the mechanics of the spells themselves allow them to function well beyond what their text boxes tell you. I’m very excited to see the rest of them.

Mirror Image

Ah, if only Ta-G, Katana Unsheathed were to be featured in this artwork. But that’s okay, I just need to target her with this card in a match. With that, I’ll get to have TWO Ta-G, Katana Unsheathed! And if the Mirror Image happens to be an animated version, the Ta-G copy will be animated too!

(Fun fact: it is currently impossible to actually own animated copies of Ta-G. You can’t even use Seer’s Globes on her. The only way to see her animated is to perform these shenanigans during a match. Very unfortunate.)

Jokes aside, Mirror Image gives me a lot of Godsent Stride and Illusionist vibes. Both cards require a follower already existing on the field, and both are designed to clear away larger chunks of your opponent’s field without investing a higher amount of resources. You can also target a follower with Storm and pretty much create a DIY Enhanced Albert, Levin Saber. Another neat thing you to consider too is that you can copy a follower with Last Words and have it be destroyed the same turn. This would let you trigger that Last Words ability without losing the original follower. Some fun candidates for this play include Barbarossa and Honored Frontguard General.

The not-so-hidden bonus with this card, however, is that the copy you summon lasts until your next turn, exactly how Illusionist works with her summoned follower. This, for the most part, allows you to temporarily double up on big wards like Honored Frontguard General. If you choose to use this card, keeping this in mind may come in handy against Storm Dragon and Whirlwind Rhinoceroach.

But sadly, this card still runs into the same issues as Godsent Stride in the fact that if there’s no follower on your field, it’s a dead card. Followers in the current state of the Unlimited metagame tend to not last past the turn they enter the field. Because of that, there won’t be many opportunities to use Mirror Image unless you use it on a follower played on the same turn. It is a much more versatile card than Godsent Stride is though, so I can see this being tried out in more niche routes of play. The potential is definitely there!

Featherfolk Punisher

Geez, I thought we’ve already seen the full extent of Havencraft burn damage with the likes of Holy Bowman Kel. Now City of Gold decks get to have a taste of it too? What a bully of a class.

In comparison though, this one comes with half the potency of Kel and triggers on an event that wont occur nearly as often as healing. The main reason the Kel burn route is so effective in Elana Haven and Tenko’s Shrine Haven is not only because he burns for 2 damage every trigger, but also because you can stack multiple free healing triggers in a single turn so you don’t have to invest additional play points to go in for the burn finish. Whitefang Temple and De La Fille, Gem Princess are both as powerful as ever, after all. Featherfolk Punisher, on the other hand, won’t be able to take advantage of this in the same fashion with playing fully costed amulets.

However, he can still provide a potent source of inevitability for the Storm and Holy Mage versions of the City of Gold deck. Let the birds summoned from Divine Birdsong and Sacred Teachings do their usual job of taking large chunks out of your opponent’s life total, all the while Featherfolk Punisher extends the damage from the background by just standing there watching your Countdown amulets come and go at the City of Gold‘s whim. Overall a very scary scenario to both wield and face against when he arrives.

As for the Natura and Tree-based part of his effects, there’s not nearly as much to say about them for now. For one, there are currently much fewer ways to access multiple copies of Tree than Countdown 1 amulets like Heretical Inquiry and Fount of Angels. And combined with the safe assumption that other cards in Havencraft want you to throw down multiple copies of Tree with them around as well, this makes the play of letting this card ping down your opponent’s board all in one spurt quite unlikely. The ability is still solid and efficient for his low cost of 2 play points, but I would like to consider that part of his abilities the bonus rather than the main course.

Dragon Chef

Yes, I absolutely agree with the artwork’s message that it’s sending me here. There is indeed no better source of fire to use for cooking the perfect dish than the very fire that you can spew out of your own mouth. Just think of how much we could all save on our heat and power bills if we could do that!

As a card though, Dragon Chef has a few neat things going for him, but only for the most niche archetypes of Dragoncraft’s arsenal. Phoenix Roost may be the most popular amulet used for that craft, but any play points spent on this card could been spent on searchers to grab Wind Reader Zell or Dagon, Lord of the Seas instead. So that deck would likely politely decline the chef’s special and suggest to let these other amulets decks enjoy it instead.

Dragon’s Nest users would most likely benefit quite a bit from Dragon Chef. Heal 3 from his Fanfare, then heal another 2 off of Dragon’s Nest a couple turns after. This is a decent enough route to take for the slower Dragoncraft decks that focus a bit less on ramping. Combine this with the premium 3-cost 3/3 statline it hold, and you can be confident that Dragon Chef will hold back the Aggro Sword menace.

Unfortunately, that’s the most direct form of synergy we have going here, and Dragon’s Nest is becoming more and more scarce to see in Dragoncraft decks in general. In more aggressive environments, I can see this pair of cards being teched in traditional lists, but Dragon Chef himself isn’t going to be a core card in any notable Dragoncraft decks due to a lack of a central role he can work for them.

Dragonewt Needler

The 5-cost slot is a greatly monopolized one in Dragoncraft as a whole. Sibyl of the Waterwyrm and Draconic Fervor fill it with no real competition in Ramp Dragon, while Galmieux, Omen of Disdain takes it for herself in Aggro/Tempo Dragon. And frankly, this card is pretty much an extreme diet version of Galmieux. These kinds of Fanfare abilities do play pretty nice with Mjerrabaine, Omen of One‘s leader effect though, so there is still that niche to fill should the player find that they need it. But overall, the card isn’t very impressionable, and should really only be considered as a budget option for newer players.

Sweet-Tooth Sleuth

Now, I must get out of the way first that I absolutely love both the naming and theming of this card. “Candytective” is the more obvious pun to go for with this card, but this rendition rolls off the tongue so much better. I’m a big fan.

But before I look at it as a functional card, a quick reminder on Investigation can be found by clicking that card name in bold in this sentence.

Honestly, this card isn’t as bad as other people may think. I wouldn’t call him good at this current time of day, but he’s still worth breaking down a bit. He’s designed under the same intentions as Clarke, Knowledge Seeker is in that it’s basically a 4-cost card, but split into two different cards, allowing the player to divvy up how and when to use the full package how they like. This overall leads to a much more flexible card as a whole and allows both halves to be fitted into the cost curve quite smoothly.

Unfortunately, cost flexibility is all this guy has. Going back to the Clarke comparison earlier, with him, you are spending 4 play points in total to draw 1 card and deal 3 damage to any enemy target you like, including the opponent’s face. Both halves of the card are treated as spells as well, meaning your hand gets Spellboosted twice. Sweet-Tooth Sleuth, on the other hand, only offers you the card draw with a mediocre 1/3 body, which prevents him from performing regular trades against 2/2s properly. If he had a 2/2 statline himself, he’d be a significantly better card and would possibly see play in all sorts of stuff.

Regardless, as he looks now, he’s only marginally better than Dragonewt Needler. However, if there’s any card that I can be proven wrong about, it’d be this guy. I hope I get proven wrong, as I really do enjoy this card.

Travelers’ Respite

And with this card, I can confidently say that players should have no problem accessing multiple copies of Naterran Great Tree throughout their matches. The upfront cost is a bit high, especially if chosen to be played early game, but as the matches progress and more Trees are found, this card basically ends up as a delayed Monastic Holy Water.

While the Tree costing 0 is a necessary benefit for this card to be efficiently costed, there is some potential levels of spookiness here. Now Old Roach Forest gets access to not just one, but two sources of 0-cost cards in this set, the first being Fertile Aether with its play point refund past turn 5. But since this card costs the same as Flower of Fairies and the the Tree doesn’t stay at 0-cost when bounced back to hand like Fairy Wisp does, it makes a somewhat awkward link in the combo route of Rhinoceroach. Yet if the deck opts to run both Fertile Aether and Travelers’ Respite in the same list, perhaps a fun little draw engine could be had with all the Trees being destroyed, and even more so if the game reaches turn 10 and beyond. Hmm…

Greatsword Sister

Oh, man, Uriel, what happened to you? You didn’t have to trade in your Neutral class and Gold rarity for 2 more defense and Bane on Evolve.

Some small credits are due for this card, though. Amazingly enough, this is the first truly generic Fanfare amulet searcher follower in Havencraft, with Prism Priestess being the only other comparison within the class (The Untrue God doesn’t count). Bane is also a very rare keyword to find on Havencraft cards in general too, with some of the few sources being Malevolent Al’miraj and the White Snakes summoned by Godscale’s Banquet. So basically, this card covers a couple bases that Havencraft didn’t occupy before, but these bases never really needed to be taken to begin with. It is nice to be thorough though!

Priest of Excess

Ah yes, as if the control package of City of Gold decks wasn’t obnoxious enough as it is. Now they get to run six effective copies of Heretical Inquiry, along with the three Moriae Encomium they had along with them. Now Barongs and Enstatued Seraphs will be more unopposed than ever. What a mean deck.

The full cost of 6 is sure to mess up more slower versions of City of Gold decks, though, especially as a topdeck. So for those Lapis-worshipping players, maybe try not to go all-in on devoting deck space for a set of this guy.

I don’t really have much else to say about this guy otherwise. Unlimited players know much too well the power of a 2-cost instant destroy from Heretical Inquiry combined with City of Gold, and this card is sure to be no different. It’s more up to the players using the card to decide how many copies to use on Priest of Excess, since the base cost of 6 will definitely get in the way of many routes of play. But one thing is for sure from all this: he ain’t replacing any copies of Heretical Inquiry in the slightest.

Riley, Hydroshaman

Runecraft can’t enough free Storm followers after Zealot of Truth and Twinblade Mage, huh? Well, unless Natura Rune can churn out Trees as fast as Daria, Dimensional Witch decks can Spellboost, Riley here won’t be making too big of waves in the Unlimited scene for the time being.

She also runs into the modern post-nerf Blazing Lion Admiral problem, where almost any time she ends up in your hand she will be pretty much a dead card. This is honestly much worse for her here, not just due to the monstrously high cost of 9, but also due to the variance each game of how many Trees you can safely play until she becomes live on turn 9 or later. Spellboosts work off any spell you play throughout the game, but for Riley the player would need to see a majority of their Tree gatherers, likely in the form of the Runecraft Aether spell, Travelers’ Respite, and other support cards the class will get later on.

Runecraft also has the best burst draw power among all the crafts, so regardless of how many copies of Riley you are intending to run, she will end up in your hand much more often than is preferable. And since that draw power is the essence and core strength of the class, deciding to decline on that draw power to keep her in your deck more often seems like a sub-optimal call.

Then if focusing on speedrunning the Tree-planting isn’t the way to go, perhaps slow-rolling her in a control-based Natura Rune could work out. I would likely go with this logic in building a deck around her rather than try to make her into Prophetess of Creation-lite, if only because it feels like the much more practical route to take with her at this point. Only time will tell whether that control route will come to fruition though, as these card reveals continue to pump out at breakneck speed.

Closing Thoughts

With this much Tree-based content getting shown this early, it’s likely that the reveal schedule wants to get this stuff out the gate first, leaving the more universally applicable cards after. That’s not a bad thing, as it lets people prepare for this upcoming mechanic with more immediate information at hand. I just hope these articles can keep up with this rate.