Jele77 today revealed the seventh card for the FrostSpark Collection: Destruction Tutor. The 5-cost 3/5 High Elf reduces the cost of your actions that deal damage by 2 magicka. Another interesting effect that applies while Destruction Tutor is in play.

Let’s look at the card using Quadrant Theory.

Quadrant Theory

Opening

With a cost of 5, the card can only be played during the late part of the opening. When played at 4 or 5 magicka, you can potentially immediately play a 0-cost Firebolt or a 0-cost Sorcerer’s Negation from hand to also damage a creature on board. The stats of 3/5 also provide sufficient protection from hard removal: neither Lightning Bolt nor Reverberating Strike will destroy it, and it’s also not targetable by Fell the Mighty nor by Execute. Piercing Javelin, Cast into Time or Edict of Azura will however remove it of course. Nonetheless, the card is a serious threat during Opening and can keep your momentum to control the board.

Parity

If you draw her at Parity as a top deck, she can be a good option when you still have removal actions in hand or can get more action cards to hand. At this point in the game, she should obviously be surrounded with a strong card draw engine, as her special ability relies on a high number of actions flowing through your hand and dealing their damage.

Winning

Her special ability makes Destruction Tutor an interesting option to secure board control while you are on a 2- or 3-turn clock towards winning. She can help in securing your position by supporting creature removal through cheap actions, allowing you to continue to play creatures as well. A 1-cost Reverberating Strike can remove a Guard(s) or even multiple tokens on turn 5 or 6 to bring home your victory. Of course, a 2-cost Lightning Bolt for an additional reach of 4 will equally come in handy. She can definitely be a good card in this phase of a game.

Losing/ Turnaround

If your opponent is on a two turn clock, Destruction Tutor can do you good if you have action cards in hand, that help to remove creatures. With her in play you might be able to play two or even three of those actions from hand and even get a body on board that can maybe help in removing another creature. Whether this will be enough to stabilize the board enough really depends on the synergy cards you have on hand or can quickly draw to hand.

Synergies

Card Draw

Card draw options are key to get Destruction Tutor’s special ability to shine. One of the best choices in Battlemage or House Dagoth decks is Ash Berserker. Combined with a 5-cost creature he draws you a card consistently and with a him, another 5-cost creature, and the Destruction Tutor on board, your opponent might have a hard time in deciding which card to remove first, as such a trio can easily cause 12 damage or more in one turn.

Another awesome combination in Mage is Ayrenn. She also reduces the cost of (all) actions by 1 and lets you redraw an action from your discard pile when summoned. Definitely a strong pair of High Elves.

Another potentially interesting option that might be tried out is a Prophecy deck with Somerset Orrery, a card that currently sees very little play. There are several actions with Prophecy that deal damage and both Mage and Battlemage have been known to work nicely as Prophecy aggro decks.

Disciple of Namira in Sorcerer would potentially rely too heavily on creatures being available, while Destruction Tutor would love more actions to be available. Those might be conflicting with each other in your deck builds.

Therefore, Namira’s Shrine seems to be the most natural card draw engine that would go very well with Destruction Tutor. On top of this, the blue Intelligence attribute provides plenty of card draw options related to action cards, so it should be easy to keep actions flowing.

The Rise of Hit Hard Beatdown decks?

Crystal Tower Crafter Ice Spike Shimmerene Peddler Thalmor Embassy Lightning Bolt Ice Wraith Lillandril Haxmage Mages Guild Retreat Therana

Inspired by an article from Magic: The Gathering, tesl.blog recently looked at the different types of Beatdown Aggro deck (Being Aggro – Beatdown Decks in Detail). The Elder Scrolls Legends currently has no Tier 1-/ Tier 2-level Hit Hard beatdown aggro deck as maybe other CCGs do. The reason for this is a lack of face-hitting action cards. However, by combining Destruction Tutor now with cards like Ice Spike, Ice Wraith, Lillandril Hexmage, Crystal Tower Crafter, Lighting Bolt and Shimmerene Peddler and maybe additional support from Therana, this archetype will probably see some more play in the meta after the FrostSpark release. It will be interesting to see if the playerbase finds a strong enough deck or whether additional cards will be needed to support Hit Hard decks.

Summary

I think, this is definitely a card that is worthy of some experimenting and just another example of how well Sparkypants and Bethesda are making conscious design decisions to keep the meta of The Elder Scrolls Legends interesting. If you like the article, and want to support the blog please follow us on Twitter, subscribe here. I would also be interested in hearing your thoughts and comments on the card as well.

Counter-Play?!

Oh… before I forget. Some counterplay options for your consideration that could keep you some creature control on the board or prevent action damage. Maybe some interesting tech choices that might potentially see some more play than they do in the current meta.

Thalmor Embassy Mage Slayer Stampede Sentinel Shadowmaster Indomitable Ordinator Nahagliiv Iron Atronach

Like this: Like Loading...