Ratings Scale:

5 – All-star. You’ll never be sad to open a deck with this. This card is good without any support.

4- Good/Great. Works in the vast majority of decks, provides good value and requires low support.

3- Okay. This card provides either low value or inconsistent high value. They need support but their high swings are important

2-Situational. This card requires a lot of setup, requires specific things to fire that are unlikely, or just isn’t very good.

1-Trash/Dead card. Also a 5 star card in Reversal.

*Note I am not reviewing reprinted cards

Who’s excited for dinosaur’s in togas? Hope you like stumbling over pronouncing Roman names. Let’s jump in!

Axion of Grisk: 5

There’s a fair amount of capture in WC but even with that the caveat of this board wipe that creatures with amber on them don’t die is very minor and mostly helpful to the rest of your dinos. On top of it you get to save one thing that would be destroyed with a ward at the low low cost of 2 chains.

Brutodon Auxiliary: 3

Six strength with hazardous 2 and taunt. He’s just a solid creature but that doesn’t do very much.

Chant of Hubris: 4

There’s a lot of capture / exalt in Saurian and when you have a capture or exalted amber this becomes a effectively a steal one. Pretty slow but you can always Chant and then kill the creature the ambers captured on.

Imperial Scutum: 3

I’m kinda back and forth on whether this is a 2 or 3. I think the +2 armor really helps this card not be completely dead even if you cant make much use off of the destroyed ability. I don’t think it will be very hard in practice to get some value off of this card and it has huge potential upsides.

Imperium: 5

The ‘friendly’ part of this is important as it means you can play it even just to ward 1 creature or worst case scenario for the amber. Pretty decent utility action.

Legatus Raptor: 2

Going to require specific board states to be decent but can some really powerful turns. You basically pay your opponent one delayed amber to have a “John Smyth” effect.

Odac the Patrician:4

Steal is popular and Odac is a pretty sizable road block stopping it’s effect. Sometimes they just remove him and then steal but a lot of times a 5 strength creature is pretty tough to deal with. I’m glad to see more cards the interact with the steal mechanic and I think it’s very healthy for the meta.

Phalanx Strike: 4

There are scenarios where P strike only gains you an amber but Saurian’s have a lot of sticky minions so it’s not that unlikely to stick a couple. I think because you can optionally repeat the effect any amount of creatures 3+ with this card becomes really threating and even with only two it’s decent.

Praefectus Ludo: 3

His value is really dependent on board state. If you have board and Saurian’s ready his ability can prove quite useful. If you play him onto an empty board or one in which there’s no capture amber he’s just a 5 strength creature.

Questor Jarta: 3

He’s probably most comparable to Xanthyx Harvester in that he’s a guy who can reap for 2 a turn at a cost. It’s really nice that he’s elusive but the exalt can be really dangerous if you don’t have some way to interact with your exalted/captured amber.

Rhetor Gallim: 3

This is a powerful effect and it’s really nice that the exalt is optional. So you only exalt RG if the +3 cost on keys is going to matter. That said your opponent probably just deals with this guy before going to check.

Senator Shrix: 5

A very powerful threat making use of all the ‘exalt’ going on in Saurian. This is basically a taunt but that’s exactly what we want a creature that our opponent has to respond to and doesn’t cost us anything to play.

The Golden Spiral: 3

Like Dominator Bauble Golden Spiral is better when you have at least some Saurians on board to pile on the advantage. Golden Spiral is slightly better than bauble because it readies the creature but it comes at the cost of exalt so I think it evens out.

Thero Centurion: 4

Thero is the love child of Raiding Knight and Champion Tabris in the birthing process he lost an armor. The Play/Fight capture 1 is significant and Thero ends up being very adequate but not over the top powerful.

Tribute: 5

This is not the best card in the world it is just a tribute. If you don’t make use of the exalt it’s effect is Terms of Redress a very reasonable amber control card. If you do the exalt you get to capture 4 which is pretty sizable chunk of amber. There’s a lot of cards that can interact with the amber you have captured so I don’t think its to far a leap to say this card will be a very powerful card. I’m looking forward to combo-ing this card with Exile or even better Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus.

Tricerian Legionary:4

I like this guy a lot. Saurians have a big need to protect their creatures as they like to exalt them and Tricerian is doing double duty by taunting and warding your vulnerable creature.

Ancient Power: 3

A situational card that ends up being pretty reasonable. I count 17 cards that exalt or capture amber in Saurian house alone so its quite likely this card will be able to ward something.

Centurion Stenopius: 3

He’s a situational big guy. If your opponent only has damage based direct removal he’s likely to stick around. Pretty good target for Tribute.

City-State Interest: 5

It’s a one sided Pandemonium and that’s a really good deal for you. If you have even 3 creatures out the amount of amber captured is very impactful. On top of that it synergizes will all the captured amber lovers that live in Saurian.

Draco Praeco: 4

First stop and say his name out loud 3 times….go on….im waiting….see wasn’t that fun? DP has a pretty impactful ability. There are a lot of situations where your opponent will have to spend time killing him for fear of their house of squishes will be forced to suicide themselves against your dinos.

Exile: 3

I will say the high end outcomes of this card are very high. There’s some huge swings that exile can provide. I think that most of the time this card will provide at least some minimal value. Even though it’s a 3 based on how valuable it is most of the time it’s definitely a 5 in overall impact to the set.

Gargantadon: 3

When going up against a heavy steal deck Gargantadon’s ability is very relevant but against a lot of other decks it wont make much of a splash. Still as with Odoc im really glad there is steal-hate in the set. His high strength is very relevant for things like Tribute and Power of Fire on top of just making him such a pain to remove.

Library of Polliasaurus: 3

This card is very likely to fire in a house with so much amber being placed onto creatures but just provides a consistent low value. I would guess in many cases you would be able to activate this ability almost every time you called Saurian.

Orator Hissaro: 4

I don’t think an effect this powerful can be ignored. Even at the cost of exalting getting to make two off house creatures usable on the turn he is played or ready and use a Saurian creature you just played is has huge value.

Paraguardian: 3

I big dino with a fairly impactful ability. I’m pretty favorable of the ward mechanic so I think that Paraguardian ends up being pretty decent. Your opponent does not want to spend time dealing with PG but it puts removing a high value neighbor way up on the priority list.

Philophosaurus: 5

Even though it’s a reap ability the value gained from this card is immense. You get to filter your draw plus have you have a decent possibility to get to play an extra card There’s quite a few abilities in Saurian that would make him able to reap the turn he comes out on top of being a 4 strength creature which is reasonably hard to deal with.

Regrettable Meteor: 2

If your playing mirror match with Saurians this card or against Brobnar this card has a decent potential to hit something for all other cases this is probably just an amber. In a lot of situations it might not even be that because hey it hits your stuff too.

Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus: 2

I think of this card as a combo piece. If you open a deck that assembles the combo (big creatures + tribute + SST) then your happy with this card. If you don’t have the combo your hope is probably to get to use this as removal.

Stomp: 3

Stomp is probably to fair to be really good. You get paid up front and get to destroy a creature and then your opponent gets paid a delayed amber. The deal’s slightly in your favor but only slightly. Hey sometimes in Keyforge ‘slightly in your favor’ is enough though so don’t count Stomp out.

Terrordactyl: 3

He’s slow is the biggest problem I see with Terrordactyl but like Zorg once he is unstunned your threat of blowing their board could be very problematic for your opponent.

The Callipygian Ideal: 3

This is a pretty decent upgrade. It paints a target on whatever you put it on which is can be really nice if you can throw it on something of decently high strength. I think of this more as a card that I play making my opponent answer rather than really hoping to use it’s ability. You probably don’t get to use the amber off of the creature it’s on very often but that’s okay.

Tribune Pompitus: 3

Just for sheer amount of exalt and capture in Saurian Pompitus gets a 4. His ability can cause some really out of control board states.

Auto-Legionary: 2

This is another combo piece card. In very specific deck compositions that care about having creatures of all houses (we’re looking at you Forging an Alliance) this card is pretty decent. In most other cases this a very slow 5 strength creature with a scary risk that your opponent will be able to make use of your Legionary’s ability more than you will.

Cincinnatus Rex: 4

This feels like a very Mars-y effect to me. If you have a bunch of Saurian stuff out this exalt is very worth it. Like geez. What’s nice is if Rex got put out a turn earlier you can use it to make your Saurian creatures enter play ready essentially.

City Gates: 2

This just feels too slow. The nice part is you can probably regularly capture 2 the hard part is it’s better if your calling Saurian repeatedly. I will say it’s better than Skeleton Key but that’s not saying much.

Crassosaurus: 1

What a weird card. If multiplayer KF ever got released this card would actually become pretty decent. In all other cases his ability is WAY too situational.

Diplo-Macy: 2

Needs a fair amount of support to be good. Probably best in a lot of situations to play on a turn your not planning on fighting. Obviously combos well with captured amber lovers but this is definitely one of the less good combo pieces.

Favor of Rex: 3

I kind of see this card as the definition of a three rating. It’s play effect ranges from A-mazing, meh, and completely dead. Most of the time I think it will gain at least some value.

Good of the many: 1

There’s a lot of trait sharing amongst creatures in most houses at the moment. There just isn’t enough variations in traits in the game at this moment for this card to reliably kill very much.

Grimlocus Dux: 3

That’s a big boy. He exalt’s himself twice but is very sticky. Your gonna have to be very careful about playing him against creatures with bounce effects or non-damage based removal. Still barring those things he can be pretty tough to deal with.

Imperial Forge: 4

Saurians like to put amber on their creatures and this card is a really big payoff for that. It’s a combo card but it will find regular support in almost all Saurian lineups. This is a card to look out for.

Imperial Road: 5

Honestly I think this cards insane. A lot of Saurian creatures have play abilities not to mention you gain so much tempo by having this card the stun’s often will be fairly simple to remove all in one go when you finally call Saurian. I love omni artifacts and I hope they will continue introducing them as they add really interesting decision points.

Kompsos Haurspex: 5

You’ve probably gathered by now I really like static effects in Keyforge and Haurspex very much falls into that bucket. His ability proves quite useful in a set with many powerful play effects.

Livia the Elder: 2

Livia’s ability is much worse than Haruspex because you A) you have to reap to turn it on and exalt him. B) It makes Fight effects into reap effects only on a Saurian turn.

Primus Unguis: 4

I like this guy more than Tribune Pompitus because you get to center the exalting onto him and gain a benefit on all creatures. It’s much easier to pull off in practice.

Saurus Rex: 5

An amazing turn 1 play like most of the leaders. Your opponent kind of has to answer this 6 strength guy when he hits the battle field quickly because being able to search your deck for the exact Saurian card you need is VERY strong. Saurian does have some 2-3 card combos and Saurus Rex helps you assemble to pieces quickly.

Saury About That: 3

On average I would rate a creature in a vacuum as being worth about 1 amber. So with Saury About That you basically trade the average worth of a creature to remove it so that it wont get more than its average in value.

Senator Bracchus: 5

Senator Bracchus applies ‘Shrix’ effect to all of your creatures. I like this effect a lot because suddenly all that exalted amber becomes very scary for your opponent. He’s a must kill target and therefore very powerful.

Sow Salt: 1

The fact that this card is symmetrical makes it much worse. If your playing this from behind your not getting to reap and catch up. If your playing it from ahead your not pressing your advantage. WC like AOA is still pretty board focused so its unlikely this wont effect you at least somewhat.

Spartasaur: 3

I think you have to be pretty careful with Spartasaur. Your opponent can definitely make use of his ability just as much as you can. Fight: Gain 2 is really nice but man theres a high cost here.

Tertiate: 4

Always kill’s at least one thing on both sides. Better if you have something you want to kill on your side but even without that it’s pretty easy to make this fire in your favor. It might become dead if your too far ahead in board state but that’s fine because your probably able to remove what you need to in that situation anyways.

The Colosseum: 3

I think the effect of this card is too powerful to be ignored but in practice will most likely prove quite finicky to find the timing of. Really important that it’s OMNI or it would be pretty terrible.

Triumph: 4

Of keycheats that allow you to forge at no cost I actually think this is probably one of the easiest to pull off. If you compare this to Epic Quest it’s much better. Your probably saving this for final key or playing it early and trying to cycle back to it for final key.

House Saurian Final Rating: 4

There’s a lot to love here some really powerful creatures, artifacts and actions. I love the flavor of this house. I think one of the reasons Mars may have gotten the boot for them is mechanically the are covering much of the same ground. Saurians seem to be very centered around creating combos and much like COTA mars when your deck pulls the pieces together they are a force to be reckoned with.

However there will be a fair amount of decks opened that don’t have much way to make use of exalt and will just have to hope you can’t remove their hefty dinosaurs very easily. Probably even worse is opening all the captured amber lover cards without getting very much capture or exalt

Overall they are providing some of the best amber control and mechanics to produce a competitive deck. Look out for Saurian’s to become a solid piece of the competitive meta.

Later this week Proclamation 346E will be heading into the Shadows to see if our favorite Elf thieves will continue to dominate the meta.