I have been playing a fair amount of Champions (COOM) recently, though I must admit my time with the game has trailed off a bit as the meta started to get a bit stale. Set 3 really altered the meta in a way that could only be referred to as a paradigm shift, moving the game away from the play charge units and go face gameplay of the first 2 sets to a more midrange and control based playstyle. Value creatures and tempo were much more the name of the game with set 3, as charge units just could not deal with the constant influx of on table stats and removal we have. 

That being said, I have been tired of the Fuku meta. I think that one ability being so prominent and unfortunately necessary as a counter to itself has really wore on me because you have to be aware of it starting turn 1 and throughout the rest of the game. It's not specifically unfair, and it is not as if players cannot get their own suite of cosmic shift units, it's just not a playstyle I want to repeat ad nauseum.

With the announcement of set 4 and the release a few days away, the team over there has released a preview sheet and a few spoilers of all the new and changed abilities which has really charged up the hype around the game. Were talking 30+ new and altered abilities, new units, and even a new rarity, so it is inevitable that the meta will shift in a drastic way. I won't bore you with all of them, but let's talk about the ones I find most compelling or impactful.

Equip: (Ability)

Gives an ability to the targeted card.

Up until this point in the game, there really have only been broadly two types of cards. While everything has been a champion (creature if you like) there have been creatures who are intended to stay on the field and have a turn over turn impact on board presence like Incendistare, and other who are basically spells that have some sort of body attached to them. Examples of these have been Turbo, most things with Greed, Tearuk, and the afore mentioned Fuku. Sometimes you get something in the middle like a Spriggon that has some staying power but also an effect that can help out in combat. Once a creature is on the field, generally you use them for damage and trades with the supporting spell creatures to open up lanes and make for favorable trades.

Equip offers us a way to bestow abilities on to creatures on board, which means you can combine effects in a way you could no prior. In a recent tweet we got our first preview of what these type of Equips might look like with Runestone. For the cost of 2 mana you can now turn any creature on board into a surprise boardwipe, something that was much harder to accomplish in the past.

While we still do not know the scope of all these abilities such as if they can be played on their own and do they confer stats to the Champion they are attached to, what we do know is they can lead to plays that were simply not possible in the past. Mirri was probably the premier Retribution unit up until this point in the game, and while it was undeniably powerful and had the potential to turn the tide of an entire game, it came with the inherent risk of being stolen by Fuku or bounced with whirlwind. This card almost reads "Sacrifice a champion, do a 1 sided wrath to your opponent". Combined with anything sticky like Timberfaun or the new Smoldering ability, it gives decks a lot of recovery opportunity that previous was reserved for players who were holding multiple Cregs and Earthquakes.

While I suspect not all of the equip cards will rise to this level of power, the way it fundamentally changes the way the game is played cannot be overstated.

Wealth Tax

Each Player takes damage equal to the amount of cards in their hand.

One of the more predictable things about the current COOM meta is the prominence of Greed and Windseeker and how most games revolve around keeping a fully stocked hands. For the most part COOM has become a game of incremental trades, and players often do not do anything on turn one so they can play a greed champ on turn 2. Pukey and the Strawbash evolution line are basically the figureheads of this movement but Creampuff still sees some play as Greed 3-4 as well. It is rare to see a deck that works without those cards, and they are a large part of why the aggro meta has dissipated.

While I think the power of this ability is going to be heavily contingent on the creatures it get's printed on, it represents an insanely powerful method for burning out opponents. In the past you could play Vortex units for 3-5 damage, which was a more predictable but not always life changing amount of damage generally attached to an under-scale creature, or charge units who had more impact when played and more versatility but could be thwarted by a provoke unit. You are going to see games ended in tremendous fashion with this card by players who have turn sequences of Wealth Tax, Whirlwind, Wealth Tax, which may reward aggro builds for actually playing aggression on turn 1 and keeping their foot on the gas. I don't want to see aggro go back to being top dog, but having a presence is important none the less.

I think an honorable mention in this category is going to be the new Yeet ability as well, which when played discards a random card card to deal X face damage to an opponent. Besides being complimentary to wealthtax in that it reduces the damage you take, it also works pretty well with big units and Raise Dead.

Ocean's Wrath

At the start of each of your turns: summon a Dreadfin, Krakapus, or Abyssalysk

Off the bat, I have no idea how good this will be because I cannot imagine a world where this is printed on anything cheaper than 5, nor do I know if the summoning odds are evenly distributed, but this thing can summon 9/8 Vortex units for free every turn. It is going to be a decidedly Control deck ability I imagine, perhaps the top end of midrange decks if they have evolve bait, but units with this ability simply have to be answered or you are going to lose. Getting this turn 2 off an egg seems like the dream, and just cashing in incremental value turn over turn makes for a lot of potential power. Prior to this we did not have anything that could summon in this way, generally only one time summons like raise dead or death trigger like shatter, so I am excided to see if this plays out in such a way to actually let us have a true draw-go style control list with some top end value finishers.

Mud Flood

Shuffle (x) Turdies into the enemies decks

Earth get's a lot in this release, I think it is the only element that get's 3 fully new abilities, but this one has me more hype than anything else maybe in this set. I love the mechanic of poisonings your opponents deck in digital card games, because it is something that previously just could not be done practically in physical TCGs. Deadening a number of your opponents draws throughout the game is one of the most powerful things you can do, because regardless of how powerful your opponents list is it does not matter if they never get their cards. Turdie also just happens to be the worst card in the game, a 1/1 for 1 with a bad evolution and no abilities, it is maybe 1 step above just making your opponent not be able to draw for the turn.

There is a variance factor with this of course, because the ability does literally nothing if your opponent does not draw Turdie in the game, so it is not a strong recovery mechanic, but if you are able to play this ability early and often it is very likely you are going to get some free turns in the game. Combined with cheap whirlwinds it is not inconceivable you will win games just because your opponent cannot do anything for most of the game, though you should definitely plan on winning through face damage because you are not going to exhaust your opponents deck playing these.

Note that Ice does get an ability that prevents a draw for a turn (Deep Freeze), which is also very strong, but unlike this ability it cannot be stacked multiple times a turn which lowers the utility of having multiple.

Typhoon

Every enemy including enemy player takes 8 damage

I don't know what much I can say about this ability other than you damn well better kill any air eggs your opponent plays. You kinda already had to, but doubly so now. There is no way this is going to be printed on a cheap body but a 1 sided wrath that also damages is scary as hell.

Timewarp

Force a card to evolve (X) times.

Look at this card

3 mana for a 5/7 is already a good rate but that timewarp is really something. Presumably what this ability does is targets an evolvable creature and put's it to it's next evolution in the chain. Unsure if it draws you a card like normal evolving would (I imagine not, it would be too much value) or if the creature had to be on the field at the start of the turn, but even without that it is a big body for 3 that makes another big body as early as turn 2. Previously you could kinda do this with Strawbash, but Strawbash had 1 less health, you needed another mana to play the evolution, and you needed to play the card in your deck. Let's think of ways we can abuse this.

• Turn 2 Shadowgaze removing a threat or allowing you to clean it up next turn, Turn 3 this dude into an Incendistare
• Turn 1 Shadegeist into turn 2 Lilly, Bofa, 9/9 Reapergeist
• T1 Glowfruit into T2 Lilly, 8/8 Mystifruit giving your Bofa +3 power.
• Turn 2 Galac, Turn 3 swing into something with your aegis, play this dude into a 9/9 Galactoro giving both units Guard

This is just with a few known cards, I imagine there are even more ways to abuse this I am not even thinking of. Even outside of blowout value examples, just being able to attack in with a mid creature and buff it on curve is going to prove to be strong a lot of the time. A whole lot.

Get Hype

The new set will be here shortly and it will definitely reinvigorate the game on a whole. It may be the most impactful set release since the inception of the game, but even if it just supplements the set 3 meta it is sure to enhance what is already a great game.

Anyway, I hope all of this was useful to you or at least a good read. One last thing before I go. If you are wondering who I am and why I am qualified to even do an analysis on cards and abilities, know that I have done game design work on some physical TCGs in the past, but also WEB3 game balance and analysis is one of my jobs. I happen to work for a game balance consultancy called SUPERPOWER and we are hired to get into games, understand them completely, and then break the hell out of them to try to fix it. We are always looking for the best players to be game balance consultants and high end Data/ML/AI people, so if you are interested check out the website and shoot us an application, we would love to hear from you.

Oh and drop like or a comment, tell me why I am wrong or whatever, I like that too.