Rise of bahamut 1st impressions : Havencraft

Previous review :

Swordcraft

Time for another review. This time for havencraft.

But before just few things to know.

Each cards will have a mark from 1 to 5. It’s based on the Luis Scott Vargas set review scale (a well-known mtg hall of famer player).

5.0: The best of the best. Meta defining. Eg : Ancient Elf
4.0: Staple. Eg : Crystalia Tia
3.5: Good in multiple archetypes, but not a staple. Eg : Elf girl Liza
3.0: Archetype staple. Eg : Elf Knight Cynthia
2.5: Role-player in some decks, but not quite a staple. Eg : Grand archer, Selwyn
2.0: Niche card. In an unknown archetype. Eg : Underbrush beast girl
1.0: It has seen play once or never. Eg : Elven archery

There are two new mechanics in ROB, enhance and clash.

Enhance (x) : If you have x mana available you pay x instead of the original cost of the card (it’s mandatory) to have a more powerful or a new effect.

Clash : the clash ability triggers, when the follower with the ability attack a follower or is attacked by a follower.

My evaluations are my own, and it’s possible that I’m wrong. Feel free to share your point of wiew if you disagree with something.

Evaluations

Eidolon of Madness

• Unevolved

  Can’t attack or be attacked.
  At the start of your turn, evolve this follower.

• Evolved

  Can’t attack or be attacked.
  At the end of your turn, destroy all allied amulets.

Last expansion increased the power level of countdown amulet with aria and seraph. This new expansion tries to push more in a countdown deck with an interesting legendary. You lose a slot and a turn but after that the power level is huge. Lots of countdown amulet followers are just big size creatures. Having lots of big bodies for a low investment on play point is a gain of tempo and board presence. Now the question is, will this card be enough to make the countdown haven viable ? The answer in one week. Anyway it will be a staple in the countdown amulet deck.

Mark : 3

Tribunal of Good and Evil

Countdown (3)
Fanfare: Destroy a random enemy follower.
Last Words: Destroy a random enemy follower.

The random destruction could be a disadvantage as well as an upside. You can kill hexproof followers. Now there are not so much hexproof followers so I guess that the randomness will be more a problem than an advantage. I don’t think also that this card will compete with death’s sentence. Death’s sentence is more a tempo card. You play this and you expect that your opponent don’t play too much valuable creature or skip the turn to play around death’s sentence. if the opponent overextend in order to lose less valuable followers he could be punish in few turns by themis. Tribunal is more a removal card than a tempo card. The 1st use is to remove an opponent follower. And the last word effect, if you manage to control it, could be use like a 2nd removal. I think that the card could find a place in some haven deck who have lots of countdow reduction, tough I’m not really sure if this card can make the cut.

Mark : 2 ?????

Valhallan General

• Unevolved

Fanfare: Give an allied follower +3/+3 and Rush.

Cygames gives us card for a midrange rush haven. The effect is pretty straightforward. One of the problem of countdown amulet follower is that you skip x turn to do nothing and when your follower is available you can’t attack with it unless you spend an evo point. With this card you can solve the problem and power up your follower. Now in the 6 slot there are garuda and moon and thess two cards are far more better in my opinion. The countdown reduction and the reach which brings garuda is really important. Moon is a card who works alone and can be really annoying to deal with. Moreover another card like our general was already released and have seen no play (sky sprite). The body is not really exciting too. So even if the concept is interesting, I’m not sure that this card will be played.

Mark : 2

Luxhorn Sarissa

• Unevolved

  Rush.
  Cannot receive more than 3 damage at a time.

• Evolved

  Rush.
  Cannot receive more than 3 damage at a time.

Another card for the midrange rush deck that Cygames decides to push in this expansion. The card is more appealing than Vallhan General. It’s good alone, it can trade some amount of cards without evolution. And it has a relevant ability. « Cannot receive more than 3 damage at a time » is a really annoying ability for your opponent. Like Moon your opponent will mostly like used an expensive hard removal (something like dance of death), used an evolution point to kill her or ignore her. It can’t go face but it has 2 more attack point and one more PP than Moon. I like the idea to play her like an end-game threat in the new storm deck who looks like a real midrange value deck and not just a midrange-aggro deck.

Mark : 2.5

Luxwing Reno

• Unevolved

  Clash: Deal 1 damage to the enemy leader.

• Evolved

  Evolve: Deal 1 damage to the enemy leader.
  Clash: Deal 1 damage to the enemy leader.

It’s a really aggresive two drop. It can trade and deal some damage to the opponent leader. I’m pretty sure that no one want to spend a evolution point to just deal one damage to the opponent when you have cudgel and hamemr, so the evolution effect is not very relevant. The other two drops, mainyu, hound and aria seems a lot better than this. I don’t find any haven deck, who would like to play this card, even storm.

Mark : 2

Damus, Oracle of Iniquity

• Unevolved

  Whenever an enemy follower attacks, destroy that follower at the end of the opponent’s turn.

• Evolved

  Whenever an enemy follower attacks, destroy that follower at the end of the opponent’s turn.

A quite interesting ablity. However, haven has already lots of control tools. And this new one doesn’t seem great if you compare to what haven already has. Most two drops will trade with this so there is no real value. A way to play Damus is to have a ward alongside him. So it forces the opponent to have a removal spell before attacking. But it’s a very narrow use of the card, and themis is a better answer at the moment where you can play this « combo ».

Mark : 2

Pegasus Sculpture

Countdown (4)
At the end of your turn, restore 1 defense to all allies.

Just bad. Don’t play this. It works with elana is not a good argument when you have so much better heal than this. If at least it had a fanfare it could be good. But it hasn’t a fanfare effect. So just don’t play this.

Mark : 1 

Ancient Lion Spirit

• Evolved

Evolve: Deal 2 damage to all enemy followers.

A good evolve effect who will clear the opponent board most of the time. In lots of situation on the play, it will be a better evolve than cudgel. Hammer was already better than cudgel in most of situations on the play because you could play hammer + two drop on 5. So now, if you don’t care about the banish (read your opponent doesn’t have a last words follower) it will be the evolution of the choice on turn 5. All the control haven will be happy to include this and pretty sure than midrange too.

Mark : 3.5~4

Master Sage

• Unevolved

  At the end of your turn, subtract 1 from the Countdown of all allied amulets.

• Evolved

  At the end of your turn, subtract 1 from the Countdown of all allied amulets

Very slow card. Really weak body. Doesn’t have an immediate impact while sister initiate does. Which could have a really huge importance if you need an evo tiger for example. If you want to reduce the countdown of your amulet you have better choices.

Mark : 2

Frog Cleric

• Unevolved

Enhance (4): Restore 3 defense to an ally.

Haven has better two drops, and pay 4 to heal 3 is not really appealing when you have healing angel which has better stats for less PP even if it heal 2.

Mark : 2

Veteran Tamer

• Unevolved

Fanfare: Summon a Beastly Vow.

Most classes don’t have a good four drop on the play. For haven this time is gone. And if you feel like I said the same thing for sword in my previous article, it’s because I am saying the same thing. The body is not that great but giving us a free beastly vow is a huge deal. Now beastly vow appears on turn 6, so it’s a little bit tricky, the sixth turn is usually the themis turn. But you can clear the board before with Lion Spirit or use a countdow reduction on 5 to have fresh 4/4 on the board. Not sure either that control would like to play this, but countdown haven or midrange rush/storm would like to have this as another four drop alongside Cudgel.

Mark : 3

Manifestation of Faith

Randomly put 3 different Countdown amulets that cost 2 play points or less from your deck into play.

In the countdown amulet it basically said put 3 big creatures on the board. Outside of this deck this card will not see play. But in this deck it will be really great and maybe one of the card who can make countdown haven a really good archetype. It’s better than just drawing three cards and it has the potential to swing the board in our favor.

Mark : 3

Soul collector

Don’t have an official image yet 
Type: Follower
Cost: 7
Attack power: 4
Physical strength: 3
Ability: Fanfare: Put « Death Sentence » in play.

It’s really expensive. But it could see play to setup seraph next turn, even if it doesn’t have an immediate impact and it doesn’t prevent a lethal. Against slow midrange deck it could be a good card to fight for the board and gain some tempo.

Mark : 2

To conclude

Haven was a bottom tier class pre DE, a top tier class with DE, and for ROB ? I don’t know if haven will still top tier but for sure storm haven a some tools to be a more midrange deck and it seems that it will be the direction of the archetype for the future. Countdown amulet is probably a viable archetype. The future for haven is promising and I am exicted to see the new haven deck.

My Top 3

Ancient Lion Spirit

Eidolon of Madness

Veteran Tamer