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Competitive Armies Discussion Discuss, critique, and build ideas for tournament-caliber armies.


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  #13  
Old October 21st, 2023, 06:17 PM
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Re: AotP Power Rankings: Army and Spell cards

I'm seeing some disconnect in logic here:

Hope Against Hope (20) (SOI) A. Basically +2 health for a hero

Healing Salve (10) (MS) B+. A little healing and a card if it’s early enough in the game


Healing Salve costs half as much, can heal 2 from ANY friendly squad or hero creature on demand when you play it, AND it draws you another card! It's objectively better than Hope Against Hope. HAH being a hidden enchant is generally detrimental to your ability to use its effect, too, since it is nearly always delayed from actually doing it's healing by at least one turn from when you put it face down on your hero. Draw into HAH too late, and you may have to roll the dice on your damaged hero surviving one more turn; that hero dies, and HAH gets you zilch for value.

The only remotely redeeming factor is that HAH is technically "played/preloaded" when you put it face down on your hero, so when it is eventually flipped, on one of your proceeding turns you can play 3 spells on your turn along with destroying HAH to heal 2 from your hero, giving you more space to pump your hero with Inspired Charge, Chaplain's Blessing, Swift Justice, and/or Tenacity. That's still minor compared to what HS brings. (Regarding your ranking of Tenacity: Tenacity + HS combined are basically equivalent to Chaplain's Blessing, just split into two 10-point cards instead of one 20-point card. Tenacity should be no less than B+ simply for enchanting a white range 1 hero and effectively giving it +1 power, without even considering that squads can also now nuke **** that engages the enchanted hero.)

I agree with most of your tier lists, though. Seems to me that, at least when this tier list was written, you had a good understanding of the game. My own tier lists mostly align with these rankings here.
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  #14  
Old December 18th, 2023, 02:16 PM
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Re: AotP Power Rankings: Army and Spell cards

I'm back for more, I find this list intriguing to review. Couple more thoughts from me:

Nahiri, Fury in Stone (345): C. She can put together some decent squads, but you won’t be taking many turns with her army card active.

Ngl I'm quite shocked you labeled Nahiri even lower than Gideon. Gideon is, IMO, the absolute worst PW in the game. I even have the balls to say that I think most of Nahiri's various armies can consistently beat most of Gideon's. Hell, I think Nahiri puts up a reasonable fight against Sorin, and I think she is almost Sorin-caliber. When Nahiri has the biggest range on the map (which often happens against white, black, and somewhat with red; her 4 range is useful, as all these colors have no range other than Hookers, Lily, Chandra, and Arlinn,) she is an absolute pain to deal with when she can claim a glyph AND build her own high ground on it, often giving her and her army massive staying power.

Speaking of Nahiri being annoying, here's a card that I think can contribute to that, especially for those low range colors:

Not Forgotten (15) (SOI) C+. Good in theory, but you really have to luck out for it to work. And “luck out” in this case means someone on your team dies

I don't necessarily agree with the text excerpt, although I think the ranking is close enough. In my experience, if Nahiri has Not Forgotten on her AND she is the highest range figure on the map, guess what; I'm dropping all of Nahiri's creatures next to her and ranging down my opponent until they fight my creatures. And when they inevitably do that, Nahiri becomes even more powerful. Not Forgotten SEVERELY punishes opposing armies if you have bigger range than they do, since you can cuddle everything around your walker and passively buff them when your creatures die. It is much worse against high range colors (green & blue) because they can somewhat kite you and force you out of formation, losing Not Forgotten's benefits when your core has split up.

I think you are using a common misinterpretation for this:

Skyreaping (5) (MS) C-. It’s cheap, but so rare that it’s even playable

How is the condition of "choose a green creature you control" rarely playable? Unless you only use this in dual-color walker builds where you have maybe a single green creature army card in your army (at that point I'd suggest just taking one of the other color's 5 pt cards, frankly.) Skyreaping is by no means groundbreaking, but I'd personally give it a B to B+ simply for "Choose a green creature you control. Draw a card." If there happens to be any flying figures next to said green creature, then yeah Skyreaping is hella good, easily into the rank A range. For mono-green, I basically look at Skyreaping as "turn your deck into 11 cards/195 pts" which is helpful if you make it a point to assassinate the enemy walker quickly.

Next:

Twinflame (15) (MS) A. Easy A+ if it applied to heroes

Easy A+, full stop. Best spell in the game, IMO. Red actually doesn't do hero buffs/support very well, they are FAR better at stacking buffs on squads (Firebreathing, Power of Fire, Seize the Day.) Combine Twinflame with any one of those 3 for a high chance of devastation. Combine with any 2 of them, and you basically win the game, given you can reach the enemy walker with your buffed squaddie. Also, Arlinn effectively wins every match off the back of: Kessig Ranger double attack + Twinflame + Titanic Growth. Imagine if Zetacron had double attack and base 6 attack to go along with his deadly shot; that's the caliber of power you are dealing with. It's absolutely obscene and extremely hard to prevent as any color other than blue.

And while we're on the topic of red, let's go from the most busted spell down to the absolute worst spell:

Harness The Storm (20) (SOI) C+. It’s pretty strong, but the stars have to align and it wastes 2 cards

It is pretty strong. At helping your opponent kick your heinie. This spell is so bad it deserves to have a tier named after it at the very bottom of the entire spells repertoire.

1. It has the condition of creature dying in combat this turn, which tends to mean that you expended your "normal" move and attack (action 3+4) before playing this card. Since this card checks the position of your walker, generally you'd want to move your walker for optimal Harness the Storm (HtS) potential. Throwing your Planeswalker deep into enemy hands is almost never going to end well for you; your walker is, 90% of the time, the most crucial figure to keep alive.

2. You discard two cards. Lul? Red has no inherent way to generate extra draw outside of the standard action 1 draw. You severely gimp your future turn potential by doing this, and if you are discarding anything more expensive than 5-10 pt spells you are REALLY shooting yourself in the foot. Honestly this condition could completely disappear and HtS is still a pretty bad card, but man, discarding 2 bites so badly and destroys any chance that this card had to be relevant.

3. It indiscriminately deals 1 damage to all creatures within 3 spaces of your walker (this includes damaging any you control and/or your teammates'.) This somewhat goes with #1; basically, an ideal HtS play asks you to put your walker in a spot that is isolated from all friendly creatures while also being swamped by enemy creatures. That's a big no-no.

Unless you can setup a scenario where ~4 enemy creatures each 1 life left and they are all within a 3 spaces of the same central spot that your walker can get to (AND there are no friendlies in that same range,) this card shoots WAY below what it asks of you. Even if you do manage this miracle, was it worth the gamble of having to roll attack dice for a kill first, followed by playing this 20-point scam, followed by discarding 2 more cards from your hand?!? Yuck

Last edited by Unhinged Manchild; December 21st, 2023 at 08:49 AM.
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