Card Review - Illusion of Grandeur

The Adventure Pouch is on the summer horizon but before its release we have six brand new cards for you to enjoy. The meta-game has been in a consistent state with Blue Jump, Yellow Events and Green Red Crackthorn at the top of the tier list. These new cards hope to bring a shift in power and influence new and exciting decks.

In this series of card reviews I will analyse each card individually and what they offer decks, old and new. These are my first impressions and written before the cards were released.

Illusion of Grandeur

Illusion of Grandeur is the final card of this review. I’ve saved this card for last because it has tremendous potential. Whenever you play a creature that costs one or less, all Illusions of Grandeur in your deck with gain its attack and life. This triggers every time you summon a creature at the required cost, allowing Illusion to grow into powerful threats.

One thing to note is that a reduced cost Illusion will still power up other Illusions in your deck. This makes Aurora’s Dream very powerful and can extended the stats of your creature to ridiculous numbers. Getting to this stage is no easy feat but insanely fun when pulled off.

Illusion of Grandeur has one major counter, Voice of Truth. When Illusion is restored to its original attack and life, it becomes a 0/0. This will destroy Illusion on the spot. Keep this in mind when playing against Green decks.

Aurora’s Dream

Aurora’s Dream has a powerful interaction with Illusion of Grandeur. By reducing your cards to zero you can play creatures that will power up the Illusion. The “Blue Sevens” model is a good starting point because it gives you good early game creatures. Blue Sevens uses the Gabrian creatures and builds around seven cost cards to activate their abilities. This works well with Dream because you can use Windfall to accelerate Faeria and empower your creatures.

The Gabrian Archon and Commander are necessary for surviving against the fast decks of the current meta. Blue Jump and Green Red Crackthorn don’t give you the time to sit back and stock pile Faeria. Both these cards benefit from Windfall which is key in getting enough Faeria to pull off the dream. Once you’ve pulled off an Aurora’s Dream you can flood the board with creatures and then develop massive Illusions of Grandeur!

Bargain

Red’s ‘Bargain’ cards have strong synergies with the Illusions. Most of the common creatures found in Bargain decks will become zero or one cost creatures. This strategy is a bit more consistent than Dream but it doesn’t get the same amount of power.

Other strategies

Community member OmicronBob came up with the idea of using a Gabrian Enchantment strategy with Illusion of Grandeur.

You play Sturdy Shell and Living Willow after they are cost reduced by Ancient Herald and Tale of the Old Turtle. This gives Illusion a huge life gain and then you can use Gabrian Enchantment to make their attack become equal to their life. I tested this idea as well and we both came to the conclusion that Apex Predator would fit this deck better.

Another suggestion was using Aurora’s Creation and Failed Experiment. The deck would play a lot of five and six cost creatures that you can copy with Creation. The copied versions would power up the Illusions. Failed Experiment can add small amounts of power to the Illusion as well.

These two strategies are quite niche but the fact that they can interact with Illusion opens up exciting prospects for the card in the future.

Potential Decks

These are two decks I’ve been experimenting with. Illusion of Grandeur is a tough card to build around and I feel both these decks need heavy refining. I’d recommend using them as a starting point and trying out different variations of the build.

In the Dream list I learned that drawing Aurora’s Dream is incredibly important. I had to cut all the other legendary cards to make sure Time of Legend could search it for me.

Conclusion

Illusion of Grandeur is a card that can only get better in the future. In the games current meta I feel it is quite weak but who knows how it will interact with future cards. Regardless this card is really fun and could become incredibly powerful once someone discovers the right deck.

That wraps up my card review series of the six new epics. I hope you enjoy the new cards and they’ve offered new and fun ways to play Faeria!