HUMOROUS TAKE ON THE WORST CARD IN GODS UNCHAINED. BY G-RASHER
Hi all.
This is my first posting, so bear with me. My name is G_Rasher. You might have seen me supporting and playing Gods Unchained. Or seen me cheering bits and dad jokes in GU Twitch streams. And I have a story for you.
Here's the scene.
I'm in my kitchen watching ClutchGU, from the phone sitting on the kitchen bench.
And someone asked Clutch what he thought the WORST CARD IN GODS UNCHAINED was. Naturally, he had an answer right away. "Without a doubt it's Jungle Shepard '' he proclaimed with all the confidence of a tournament first placed winner flashing GG, right before he killed you. So, end of story right?
Well, it turns out, no. Villibesti IMMEDIATELY chimed in with words in chat like “you're so wrong” and “pretty sure i’ve beaten you more”. I’m paraphrasing the chat here, and to save time on “fact checking” please watch Clutch’s video later to fact check each and every joke I make.
So then of course I want the cool kids to notice me, so I say Enduring Lemur. Which we all know was the wrong answer. Clutch straight away tells me I’m wrong. With all the chat silently thinking “NOOB”, I was saved at the last second by Aftermath coming to my rescue, with the equally terrible answer of Dense Fog, to which he was rebuked by Clutch and others for suggesting. Thank Goodness for Aftermaths deliberate act, taking a dive for me with his love of all things Nature. (Thank you sir)
This kicked off a lot of back and forth conversation of the highest cognitive and linguistic calibre, between some of the top GU players about what is the worst card in Gods Unchained, and why? Highlights included H Pain jumping in with very tempered support for Howling Berserker, alongside Villibesti’s friendly ridicule of Clutch’s deck piloting skills. Clutch at this point was wondering if he was being slipped crazy pills. “What is with you chat?” he remarked with a grin.
All this friendly banter got me thinking.
What is the worst GU card and why?
What makes a bad card and can this knowledge help players identify what makes a good card?
So I grabbed a pen and jotted down what cards people were supporting as the worst. Then I hit the Discord server and asked some of the other top Gods Unchained players for their thoughts. So that you the reader can trust the final answer is correct.
When deciding on the merits of a card in my decks, I think back on words given to me by the Wise One I met on my journey to the west, West New Jersey to be exact. The Mudman from TeamStreamTeam speaks of TEMPO and VALUE.
So with the qualifier of looking only at cards that can never be fixed, (locked sets) let the learning begin!
First, Let’s look at the card Clutch was shaming the heck out of, Jungle Shepard:
At 3 mana cost, we get a 1/1 body. Not a great start. But if you play a standard 1 mana creature with a 2/2 body from your hand to the board, you’ll get a random Anim added to your hand. Ok, looking better. Rock creatures are cool. This process of a card replacing its place in your hand is what I’ll call the Value. The creature size to mana spent ratio I’ll call the Tempo.
And what do these valuable Anim look like?
Normal looking 2 mana cost rock creatures as you can see. Not as cool as Atlantean rock creatures sadly. We also have the added sadness of these cards costing 1 extra mana.
We can play this 3 mana 1/1 Jungle Shepard body plus a standard 1 mana 2/2 body in one turn and get the Tempo play of 4 mana for 3/3 stats.
Then Jungle Shepard replaces the played creatures with a single, 3 mana, 2/3 average, no tribe, rock creature. In this situation you will get the Value of a replacement 3 mana cost card with poor stats.
Let’s compare this to playing another 3 mana card. As suggested by top player and everyone's besty, Villibesti.
We’ll play this 3 mana 3/3 Celestial Stag body plus a standard 1 mana 2/2 body from our hand in one turn and get the Tempo play of 4 mana for 5/5 stats.
Then it replaces the played creatures with a random card. In this situation you will get the Value of a replacement 1 to 9 mana cost card.
As you can see, the Tempo of our glow stick crown loving Celestial Stag is better than our glow stick loving Jungle Shepard. There must be a lot of rave parties in the jungle??? To quote jungle rave participant Clutch “Tempo is too important early in the game to waste a turn."
So Clutch has made a good case for the worst card in GU and I know he’s on the right track because GU legend CopperPitch said the exact same thing to me AGES ago. To quote Copper when told what Clutch said, “Haha it's been my answer forever, he stole my answer!” It’s true friends, Copper did say this first...
Let’s move quickly onto Value!
Jungle Shepard is also worse for it for its Value. The next turn is the 5 mana unlock. A random 5 mana Valewarden Minotaur you might get from the Celestial Stag is better for the next turn than a 3 mana 2/3 with frontline from Jungle Shepard.
So! Now we know WHY it’s a bad card.
Now everyone, it’s time to meet more contestants for the Biggest Loser, GU addition! Meet some of the cards nominated on Clutch’s stream by other great players.
As proposed by Aftermath, Dense Fog.
As proposed by Monsier, Mirror, Mirror.
Both these cards are only one mana in cost. So they affect your Tempo about as much as handsome and much loved top player Kargas reads tournament rules. Hardly at all...
Let’s move quickly on to Value!
Dense Fog makes your opponents creatures attacks into a 50/50 coin flip on the targets they aim them at. At best you create a misplay opportunity and at worse they all go where your opponent wants them to go. Or if your board is empty, it doesn't even matter as everything can just target you face. I can see why Aftermath picked this card. Its Value encapsulates everything the poor guy has been through with GU balance changes over the years. But the games balance is coming out of Another Round of rehab right now and the future is bright. In response to this card being called the worst, I'll point out that Dense Fog is not a wasted turn if you have any creatures on your side of the board against attacking creatures.
Mirror, Mirror Adds Value to your opponent! It has negative Value!!!
Now before you tell me “oh but G-Rasher. You can shuffle this card or that card into their deck” JUST STOP IT! You can not plan it with any consistency with any combo.
Don’t believe me? Fine! Here’s galaxy brain combo maker and GU player Giriguru, who told me: “Of all the cards ever printed Mirror, Mirror is one that I can say would never under any circumstance ever be desired to play. I pride myself on finding strange and interesting interactions in card games...and this one comes up empty every time.”
As far as I’m concerned, that's a SCIENTIFIC FACT. Because I know the amount of testing Giriguru does on combo decks. Spoilers, it’s more than the official GU play testers have… since 1998. Shout out to the lovable GU team!... Let’s move quickly on!
But are we any closer to what the worst card is? I had to do more research. So I asked some of my favorite GU top players, not already on record here, what they thought was the worst card in GU was.
First up, the name from the official website quote, the legend, Cautionfun!!!
Cautionfun: “Fill the Coffers. Impossibly bad. Will never see play ever. Ironically, I packed a gold one during the Genesis pack sale, so the Fill the Coffers card art has been my in game avatar for years.”
Press F in the comments for our friend and legend Caution and his game avatar.
And now from the man who knows only how to speak the truth. He’s going second in this section of the article…. and also in everything else. It’s Fakemews!!!
Fakemews:”*War, Incarnate *is my suggestion. It's 7 mana to make your Godpower worse. It's beyond pathetic.”
Harsh and I love it.
And now we come full circle. The Wise One from the west. TheMudMan.
TheMudMan: “ Amplification Machine is bad because it can’t attack. It does nothing the turn it’s played. (Tempo) Plus almost all of the creatures that have roar are bad. Amplification Machine is essentially a waste of 3 mana as your board can only have 5 other creatures and your hand gets more and more clogged each turn it’s around.”
WOW, I feel 6.9 % smarter when reading that. Thanks to TheMudMan.
It’s conclusion time!
Was Clutch right?? Was Copper also right but just earlier??? How is it that all these top players are so friendly and approachable for comments by a guy who interjects dad jokes into their streams and has the word RASH in his name???? Will all the people mentioned in this article come after me with a Makeshift Shiv because I forgot to get their permission before writing this?????
The Answer, as 8ball the sentient Twitch bot would say, is inside yourself. Just kidding, the answer is Mirror, Mirror.
Mirror, Mirror ADDS VALUE to your opponent. It has negative value!!! Did you see the subtle hints I gave you while reading? If you did, that means you have seen me putting Tempo and Value in bold. These are the two things that matter when it comes to choosing what makes a card good or bad, and you don’t get much worse than negative value. They are the words the best card game players use to describe if a card is the worst card in GU, and you can use them to fill your card decks with good cards knowing what these words mean.
Thank to every player who gave me their opinions and thanks to you for reading this, you're a legend. I hope you found this story humorous and educational.
Dream Big!