Dead of Winter – Champions and Updates

Hey all! Corey Burkhart here to show off the Dead of Winter champions and cover some updates to champions you know and love from Frostheart. First, let’s start with the part everyone is really waiting for—the new champions! As this is the second set of a chapter, we only have 5 new champions joining us this time, but they leave us with lot to talk about! Going in shard order:

Venoma is exceptionally powerful. Her ability to buff up multiple troop’s attack plays perfectly into the Ruby – Blood theme of having high attack troops. Her ability to spread the attack around is also quite important, as many Ruby and Blood decks play multiple troops which boast powerful effects like Swiftstrike or Speed. She can often be the perfect bit of reach to close out a close game before your opponent can stabilize.

This is something you can come to expect–when we make a new keyword, we’re going to do what we can to make sure we have a champion who does something fun with it. Verdict is no different, and I believe Zeddek will be an exciting choice for Verdict style decks in Dead of Winter. Being able to Verdict on command can be quite potent.

Entity Unknown is to Portals what Zeddek is to Verdicts. This power is exceptionally flexible, as you get a card that will transform between different commons each turn. Using this card at the right time is the key to using Entity Unknown!

We wanted a champion that was a bit crazier than the others, one who would play well with the Heartsworn troops that are a major part of Lixil’s storyline. The Heartsworn use charges in interesting ways, so giving Gorkrog the ability to gain extra charges made sense. He really helps ensure you have the charges to pay for the Heartsworn powers and that you are rewarded for running many necrotic. Then, when you’ve gained enough charges, you also get a copy of the best troop you have to boot!

A Momentum champion who gives you the ability to accelerate play multiple resources in a turn, now that’s momentus! Lady Avalanche is everything a Momentum deck dreams of. Playing multiple resources in the same turn stacks phenomenally well with Momentum cards, so using Lady Avalanche not only lets you play your large cards faster, but she also helps make your smaller drops pack a big punch in the warzone.

Frostheart Changes:

As we did with our Herofall champions, we will be adjusting Frostheart champions to help balance the draft format when Dead of Winter arrives. Here are all of the changes to expect when set 8 comes out:

Puff the Rainbow – 5 charges to use

Tork Slamstyx – 5 charges to use

Runecarver Darcon – 4 charges to use

Yarna of Lost Voices – Plus 2 health

Soaring Talon – Plus 2 health

Grish’xal the Profane – Plus 2 health

Bar’dak the Butcher – Plus 2 health

We wanted to buff a number of champions as well as tone a few back to make them less linear and less all in on their mechanics. As such, Puff and Tork have moved up in charge cost from 4 to 5. They are still strong, but now there is now more room for these other cool champions from Frostheart that were seeing a bit less play.

Merry Butterfly – Cost 4

This change is to balance more with what’s on the horizon. We really enjoy the Merry Caravan theme, but we want to make sure that the combo offered by Puff the Rainbow won’t be too potent. As a result, we’ve moved the cost of Merry Butterfly down from 5 to 4. This still allows Puff to be powerful, but not excessively so when combined with some new cards you’ll be seeing in Dead of Winter.

We’re excited to see everyone play with these new champions! We’ve been working on them for a while now, and cannot wait to see what you, the players, come up with after Dead of Winter releases.

I’ll see you in the battlegrounds!

~HEXPureforce | Corey Burkhart

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