Hey guys! Today we gonna finish up on the revision of Trial of the Gods set. We are left with Nature, War, and Neutral cards. War and Nature actually have only a few changes so I decided to fit in the Neutrals as well. In case you missed parts 1 and 2, follow these links: Death & Deception, Light & Magic.
As always, here is a link to the full list of cards.
DISCLAIMER:
"All of this data is subject to change before and after the release of Trial of the Gods.
Many card names are placeholders. Many cards do not have tribes assigned, but will prior to release.
rarity of cards are not final. Some of these cards may be deleted. We may add cards prior to release."
- Card names in parentheses () are the old names if the name got changed
Nature Cards:
Selena's Bow
Changed from: A 2 mana 0/3 legendary relic that reads: After you play a Nature card, add 1 durability to this relic. Ability: Deal 2 damage to a random enemy creature, then remove 2 durability from this relic.
Honestly, kinda expected this one. This was arguably the strongest relic of all legendary ones and even now, after the nerf I think it will remain the best one. Even though now on 3 mana the relic is fairer, the extra durability compensates really well and maybe even makes this card stronger (not really), but it is kinda more "foolproof". For the next expansion, I have a strong feeling that the Iron-tooth Goblin will be the most used relic destruction card as it is only a 2 mana creature that removes 3 durability from a relic, which is a lot. This is pure speculation of course but at least, now you can't "bait" yourself into playing this card on turn two or bag of tricks it out on turn 1 just to run into this pesky tech card. Other than that, this card is as solid as it was and this change won't affect much the way you are going to use this card.
Jaguar Staff (Den-Mother's Staff)
Changed from: A 6 mana 1/4 relic with Blitz and Twin Strike that reads: After you attack summon a Black Jaguar.
This one went through a decent overhaul. I like that they stuck to the big potential value this card can give you but at the same time, they really got rid of a lot of clunkiness problems it had in the earlier version. As it stands you still get a decent value/tempo on the turn you play this card and hit a creature. You can look at it as a really bad Carthaginian Marine that makes you take damage from the creature you damage but then you are left with a 2/3 relic that can produce up to 9/9 worth of stats! I'm not sure what to say, I mean it sounds strong but it does depend on the meta and the amount of relic destruction cards. That said, it will definitely contest a lot of other cards in the 5 mana slot, it brings a lot of reward versus the risk you are taking including this card on a decklist.
Wandering Scout
Changed from: A 3 mana 1/3 Amazon creature with Roar: If you control two or more other creatures, gain +3/+2. If you don't, gain frontline instead
Now this card make a lot more sense. If you include it into an Amazon deck, you will have an easier time to meet the requirement to trigger this roar effect and if you do, this card is a 3 mana 4-drop with the Amazon tribe tag. It doesn't need more than that. Gaining frontline if you don't meet this requirement was something that minimized the risk you are taking by including this card and it was a good decision to remove this to emphasize the reason to play, or not to play this card in your deck.
Arkmonian Hydra
Changed from: A 7 mana 8/8 Wild creature with Can't attack and Roar: Summon a 2/2 Hydra Head with regen 1. After a Hydra Head dies, summon two of them. At the end of your turn, if you control 5 Hydra Heads, give each of them +5/+5.
A lot of changes on this one also. Going down to a 6/6 is "compensated" with the ability to attack. This by itself is a straight out nerf as even though it couldn't attack the larger body had other benefits. It could stay alive longer and more importantly Nature has access to cards that force the creature to attack so having an 8/8 to soak up hits was too strong I'd imagine. Hydra Heads got an extra strength and that is a nice buff since its possible to spread them really fast, for that same reason they removed the bonus buff on Hydra Heads when you have 5 of them and as it turns out that was too easy to accomplish so they removed it.
On the surface, it feels like this card is a lot weaker than it was before but being able to attack will change this card's dynamic a lot so it is hard to compare it with the first version as though it is the same card. Hydra will remain a decent option for Midrange/Control decks that need some heavy hitters/threats to provoke out the removals from the opponent. Now it even threats more damage faster so there is a lot more pressure to remove it than before.
War Cards:
Bladesworn Warrior (Burrialist Helot)
Changed from: A 4 mana 4/3 creature with Roar: If you have a relic equipped, give this creature godblitz
Minus one strength. Well, for the only creature in the game that will have godblitz and with such an easy requirement this is actually nice to see. Even though a 4 mana for a 3/3 is pretty weak, you can't be too careful with the effect like this. War has so many ways to buff creature, even in hand so crippling its potential from the start is a decision I really appreciate. For Aggro decks, this will still be a good way to deal extra damage "from hand" so 3 instead of 4 isn't such a big deal.
Tartessian Mob
Changed from: A 6 mana 1/1 Olympian creature with Roar: Summon 2 copies of this creature. Afterlife: Deal damage equal to this creature's strength, split randomly among all enemy creatures.
Yeah, 6 mana was a bit too early for something so powerful. 7 mana has much more sense for a card that can easily pack around 5/5 per body for a massive 15/15 in stats for just one card. This won't be a huge issue for Control decks that prefer clearing the board over developing their own creatures, but versus decks that focus their strategy around getting the control over the board with their creatures, this is going to stop their plan in an instant and if they can't push for lethal now they have to deal with this Mob that can be tricky to get rid of without heavy losses. This card is obviously still gonna remain strong but the timing will be delayed for two turns, making it more manageable to play around or just apply enough pressure to prevent you from playing it in the first place, which will be the only way for Aggro/Midrange decks to deal with this amount of value.
Valka's Discovery
Changed from: A 5 mana spell that reads: Remove protected, hidden, sleep and backline from each creature, then deal 1 damage to each creature.
No, your browser isn't broken, I couldn't find an image for this card so this is what you get. At a two mana discount, this is now, of course, a much stronger card and it isn't that situational as it was at 5 mana. Control decks will have "more space" to fit this card into their lists because now even if you don't need it to remove specific keywords from creatures, dealing 1 damage to all of them will be still useful versus Aggro since now you can play it in the early game. Removing keywords now becomes sort of a bonus and gives more applicability across all matchups, helping a lot versus Deceptions sneaky Hidden creatures and countering those annoying Sleep effects to ruin their strategy. Now I think we will be seeing this card a lot more.
Neutral Cards:
I just need to point out that there are no legendary creatures on the list anymore, at least they aren't marked correctly I would assume. But I'm not going into that as it won't actually matter for the cards we are gonna see next.
Desert Mercenary
Changed from: A 3 mana 3/2 Guild creature with the Roar: Reduce the cost of each Guild creature in your hand, that costs 4 or less, by 2.
I guess, being able to dump your whole hand in a single turn after playing this card wasn't something the GU team originally wanted to happen but that something unavoidable if the card that discounts your cards doesn't have the floor to hit with the costs. Even now in this version of the card, you will be able to get a lot of tempo advantage but in a more reasonable manner. The biggest "hit" this nerf did is that now you can't discount your Frumentarii Instigator to draw an insane amount of cards right after you dumped your whole hand on the same turn. Overall a healthier card that still serves the same purpose of enabling you to combo your Guild creatures but without going over the top. Nice change!
Diligent Architect (Aquaduct Architect)
Changed from: A 3 mana 1/2 creature with the Roar: Delve a structure, add it to your hand, and give it +1/+1
They are really trying to make us at least play some Structures but I think they are fighting the lost battle with this one. I'll give it that +2 health is much better than +1/+1 because now it will be harder to remove a Structure with removal spells so defending it with your creatures will give you some value in the long run. That said, Structures just really suck and that didn't change so the same problem remains for this card to see play. Maybe I'm wrong and we will see this card used a lot, at least in Guild centered decks but including better Guild creatures just seems like a much better option. We'll see.
Parthene Guardian
Changed from: A 2 mana 1/1 Olympian creature with Frontline and Roar: Summon a Parthene Guardian. Afterlife: Give all friendly Olympians protected.
Nice! Yeah, giving protected to potentially your whole board was just too much. Ward in many cases is like a weaker version of Protected unless you are playing versus Control Death so this was a good way to tone the card dive while its "identity" remains the same. You still need to create some board advantage to use this card properly but now instead of just steamrolling other board centric strategies that fell behind before you played this card, you need to play it more strategically so that your opponent can't get back in the game as easily as playing a board clear. It gives a higher skill cap to the way you can use this card and I think a lot of players will like this as much as I do.
Militant Extortionist & Foreign Diplomat
Added Guild tribe tag.
Nothing really changed with these cards in a sense of the way they are played. With the Guild tag, they can be further supported with this archetype so overall their use case is a bit wider. And why not?
Students of Favors
Student is also getting their favor generation adapted to the more costly Sanctum cards but their values aren't doubled but tripled instead. This makes all of the much more compelling to run in decks that can take advantage of the way they generate favor. Zoo decks might benefit the most from this change the most and that could be necessary with the introduction of a lot of new board clears that can easily generate a lot favor versus those same decks. I like these cards a lot more now, and maybe now we are going to see a decent amount of them used across different decklists.
Pious Giant (Giant Artificer)
Changed from: A 6 mana 6/6 creature with Roar: If you have 10 or more favor, lose all your favor and this creature gains +3/+3.
With all of the favor generating calibration, this change is following this doubling "rule" so it won't be that harder to pay the price for this buff. The good thing now is that you are actually paying a fixed price and you don't have to plan ahead to minimize your losses. I think this should've been the case from the start but hey, better late than never. Midrange decks and even Aggro might have a really big threat coming your way on turns 6/7+.
Divine Messenger
Changed from: a 7 mana 7/7 Aether creature with Roar: If you have 80 favor or more, each creature in your deck gets +5/+5, then lose your favor.
My favorite card just got even better! If you followed my first series on the Trial of the Gods expansion set reviews, you would know how crazy I'm about this card, and how much I wanna try it. Now, you don't even have to pay 80+ favor when you play him. Obviously that makes him a lot better because you can try and dig out some draw cards to accelerate drawing those extremely buffed creatures in your deck or just pick up some cards to help you stay alive long enough to overwhelm your opponent. I don't know if this was needed but I'm really not going to protest this change whatsoever.
Philosophic Warrior
A 3 mana 2/4 creature that reads: After this creature attacks, gain 2 favor.
This card got removed. No one is gonna miss this card, it was boring and pretty weak anyway.
Manticore Hulk
Nothing changed with this one and this is actually the reason I will bring this up again. My little rant if you will. Why does this exist? I know sets need pack fillers and vanilla cards that serve as some kind of stat power curve pointers or whatnot. Even useless cards can be pack filler. But why this. A card that is 90% the same as the Wetlands Ogre, the only difference being the tribe tag. I would understand this if we were in a review of like the 7th expansion set and there is almost every stat-line used up for vanilla cards so we need to get a repeat. But why now? At least make it a 5/4, just so that we can see this as a new card and maybe even use it for its unique stat-line on a 4 mana Neutral creature. It is not much to ask and it will not impact this expansion much, or at all but it will look better. This is only my opinion of course.
This is it for today! We revised the whole expansion set now, and I gotta say it improve significantly. Almost every problematic card got fixed, clunky cards aren't so clunky anymore and broken got, at least for the most part are now more in line with other cards in the set. The expansion day is closer every day, and I really can't wait to try it out any longer! Are there any particular decks you guys want to try out when the expansion hits? I really want to try out Divine Messanger and the Guild archetype.
Gods Unchained Official Roadmap:
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Useful tools for Gods Unchained statistics, meta, deckbuilding, leaderboards, etc. :
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Thank you for reading!
,z3ll