At the end of the month GU players are about to get hit with the 3rd mini set release in a row. It has yet another new distribution model that is different from the previous sets, and somehow it is still a limited time release while Mortal Judgement is on it's 15th year of being the active expansion set. There is a lot of talk about the distribution model and the crafting system that comes with it, but I just want to talk about how these cards are going to affect our decks and the meta which really exists in a space outside of finance and release structure.

So without belaboring that point, let's review some cards. I'll start with the legends as while they may not have the most impact, some of them are going to lead to entirely new archetypes.

LEGENDS

Eiko, Undaunted Duelist

I think this is the most generically powerful card in the set and I do not think it's really close. There are other cards in the set that will be the hingepoint for entire archetypes, but they will be limited in scope. This is a neutral card that really gives off Blade of Whiteplain vibes to me, outside of the fact that I think it may wind up being slightly more accessible than Blades.

There are very few decks that could not get value from this. The roar is generically good against a lot of the field and people were already running Iron Tooth Goblin, Sword Breaker Sage, and Ironborne Disruptor. This costs slightly more than those options but to be protected and then have the ability to either go through frontlines to the face or just start picking off dudes on the table is a lot of value. Even if all it does is come down, remove a relic, and then eat a piece of removal it was a 2 for 1.

This card is so strong I suspect it may get nerfed to 4 power, and even if it did I still think it is of a higher caliber than most other cards. Players all need to prioritize getting a copy of this card, it will be a staple for a long time to come and you will regret not having it later on. 9/10 and the only reason it is not a 10 is for lack of tribe synergy in a soon to be coming tribal meta and the fact that I am certain it will be nerfed.

Hortuk, Fallen Commander

The other pack obtainable generic legend in this set, Hortuk here is a far cry from Eiko. I believe this guy was meant to be a versatile control piece because of his modal nature. For 7 mana the card does put a lot of Power and Health on to the table. He can clear the board, provide a blocker, gain some life, basically a swiss army knife for a control deck.

The issue I have with him is that it feels like he has high replacement value (or is it low? I don't know I'm saying he is replaceable). He is an army in a can type of card and we have seen them before in cards like General Orythia or Thaeirel, they sometimes see play but really only ever in control decks. The thing I'm trying to get at here is for 7 mana is he better than Demogorgon? Better than City Planner? Helmna? All of these cards kinda do the same thing as Hortuk. Some are better in different situations but I do not think you can plan your deck for that for the most part as it is very reliant on what opponent you get matched against.

I suspect Hortuks appeal is luke warm for many players and decks. Because he summons Neithers that may be something that makes tribal decks want him over something else, but I'll not be shocked if they do not simply because 7 mana comes with a very high pedigree. 5/10 - It is going to do the thing that it does well, I just do not imagine this card is the thing you may want over the plethora of other options that we all have.

Giramonte, Boon Tinkerer

So this dude is high on my list of cards that will create an entire archtype. He is not alone in this as there are other cards in the set that support him by providing redundancy, in fact most of magics stuff plays into this guy, but this card is deceptively powerful. On first read of this card you see it gives you a 1 mana 1/1 copy of the structure you just summoned, which seems neat, gives you double value on some cards. Then you realize, unless they did something that is not listed on the card, that the copies also make copies of themselves, and suddenly this looks REALLY scary. A single Automabunn turns into 5 of them with 0/1/2/3/4 armor. A single frontline structure provides you unlimited protection. Enchanted Chariot will basically draw you a hand full of cards until you cannot draw anymore.

There are some fun ways to play this. I especially like the idea of chaining The Academy of Mystic Arts over and over until your whole hand is just 0 mana kill spells, or trying to get 5 Fortified Acropolis out and see if you can do do 5x7 damage next turn, but those have meme decks written all over them. The way I see it though there are probably only a handful of decks you can play with this competitively, or at least seem like they could be.

• Divine Coronet - Basically infinite Coronets. Probably slower than older versions of the deck with more redundancy, not sure if this is better or worse than the straight combo version but like I said this set basically every magic card is support for this deck.
• Automabun/Pallas Wanderwagon/Spawn of Callaryn - Finally a way to play garbage. The general idea is you get 4 Automanbuns out and then play the wagon which gives you a 3/6 armor 4 creature that you can make 6/3 instead, or the spawn which is a 4/7 double striker with armor 4 whos drawback is negated.
• Wall of Lighting/Monolith of storms - Summon 5 +1 spell damage guys and unload 1 mana burn spells. As a backup you have monolith which takes an extra turn but can also OTKO someone you are going face against with just 2 spells.
• School teacher - This probably fits in a bunch of these lists or maybe is a deck in its own right. My biggest issue with school teacher is the teacher and then Giramonte take up a lot of space on the board for you to try and combo off without a way to remove it.

I am not sure that even with all those options listed above that any of them will be as efficient as Dralamar or Magic Inks combo already is, but I suspect it is more fun to play and less toxic. 6/10, maybe 7/10 if I am being generous. I think he does what he needs to do well and is cheap enough to see some play, but I think his appeal is really just limited to Giramonte.Deck. 

Chira, The Spiritspeaker

I think this card is either incredibly medium, or one of the most devastating control pieces in a long time and possibly too good, it can go either way. Let's get this out of the way first. Ally only triggers during your start of turn and main phases. Card's that will not work with this are Cursed Obelisk and Necroscepter which you certainly would want in a nether deck. So to trigger this you need to hard summon stuff or use spells that summon stuff. The GU team posted the definition of ally here.

Stuff that does work with this include Wicked Fae which by its wording is possibly a 3 for 1, Voracious Fiends afterlife trigger, Cruel Overseer, even Jailbeast (do not run Jailbeast). Most notably this thing can remove 8 creatures, so 6 + 2 ward or something like that, in combination with a 4 mana card in this very set, Perseverance, and gain you life and leave you with 3 zombies for good measure.

So Chira here on the turn she comes down can plausibly be a boardwipe and then some, including extra triggers against the same targets to zap ward. That sounds too good to be true on a 3 mana drop.... Until you look at the life costs. You are paying life equal to toughness each time you remove something. That can be a god damn ton of life in a deck that has symmetrical lifeloss effects. This is really good with Fickle Cambion but only if you do not die in the process, which may very well happen. Nothing about the wording of Ally says optional, so you may even find yourself in matchups against aggro decks where you cannot even summon a creature less you die from it. I'm not sure how the game resolves multiple triggers at once, so if I play Perseverance against my opponents lone guild enforcer do I just take 30 damage upon resolution? I have to believe not but I could imagine the GU rules team implementing it that way.

In small doses I think this card is fantastic, being able to pay 3 and drop it and then drop a Wicked Fae on turn 5 is often going to swing a midrange game wildly back to your favor. I expect to see this in decks that are more aggressive control with a combo finish, probably using corpse explosion but maybe over the line sees some play here as well. I would really want to run it in a practical setting to see how much I can mitigate the lifeloss and how much of it may be overkill, but as with most of the legends in this set I think this leads to it's own deck archetype, or at least a revision of the standard zombies lists. 7/10 with the assumption that the scenario I laid out with guild enforcer is not the case.

Reios, The Old Wolf

This is probably the least flashy of all the legends in the set, and honestly probably one of the best at what it does. It reminds me a little of another limited set war legendary card, Sleigh Master Valka. When that set came out I thought it was probably the best card in the set, and statistically I was pretty close to the money with only Kadmos and Thawed Heart having higher win rates over the last 30 days in Mythic. SMV has WAY more deck inclusions though which means I have higher confidence in her stats than anything else.

So worst case scenario for this card is you do not have an Olympian in your hand when you cast this, either because you didn't include them or because the game played out that way. A 4/6 blitzer for 5 is honestly pretty good if lacking in flashiness. Orcish Elite is a staple card for war and while you give up double strike in exchange for a point of power, having 4 power can make Reios' attacks much more favorable in the current meta. Where as Orcish elite has to trade into Feral Shapeshifter with 2 attacks this takes it out in one cleanly. Likewise I think you can expect to see a lot of Olympian Guard with the next release who can be hard to take out early on but who caps at 4 toughness.

Best case scenario for this card however is nuts. It is very possible that it has buffs already before it comes down because it is an Olympian from something like Ashen Child for instance. Just one buff like that turns this from a 4/6 threat into a 6/7 monster on turn 5. In that case it is also much more likely to then get a kill and confer an even bigger buff to something scary in your hand. If you thought Out of it's Misery could lead to blowouts wait until someone hits this and then next turn drops down and absolutely monstrous Ravenous Chimera, Aeneas, or Hyrtacus and just takes over the board. that being said, Out of it's Misery is looking real good right now.

So even though I do not think this leads to a new deck as much as a variation of an existing one (midrange) with a new tribe, I think this is a critical card to own and one of the best in the set. 8/10

Divya, The Deadly Serenade

Listen, I don't like to come down to hard on stuff but I think this card is outright bad. Amazons are a pretty linear deck and they are getting some decent stuff in this set in Beastfury Protege, Blighted Scion, and especially Fae Thoneblade. The damage pump on this guy is an overrun effect in a lot of ways, and it basically is +2 strength and +2 "Spell damage" for a small number of amazon effects, some of which are dead unplayable. But I'm not sure that is what they needed.

Really I think I have to compare this to Arkmonian Onslaught. Divya has a body but Arkmonian will either close out a game on turn 5 or reset the board while allowing for some non-trivial amount of damage though to the face. I would be curious to see results in this deck once the dust settles to see if I am right and in similarly structured decks Arkmonian had the higher winrate, or if perhaps both decks are inferior to the more low to the ground aggro version of the deck. I like Amazons and I think they are underrated right now, but the strength of Wild nature is that not only are the creatures generally bigger for the same cost they have Wildfire and Dagan, and this is not either of those. I'll call this a 4/10 because it's not like you can't play it for effect, it's just I think it is substandard to a card I already do not love most of the time.

Argus, The White Wal

THIS GUY RIGHT HERE. Argus is probably just ok, but I really love the card. He has a big 4 power for 3 mana which is not a ton but it is good. Surprisingly while doing a little research I found that there are actually a bunch of guys with a whole lot of power for 3 mana, they just do not see much play. Aether Battlescout, Benevolent Soul, Glass Cannon, Riled Ursine, Servant of Inti, and Strix Conscript are all cards that have 4+ power for 3. The one card out of that pile that has seen some play also happens to be the most like Argus, the Strix, so that bodes well.

So lets talk about what Argus does not do. Argus does not catch you up after a board wipe. Argus does not play well on the board by himself. Argus sucks against death where he dies to hero power, blight bomb, Curse of greed, Wicked Fae, and every board wipe ever. If we analyze him using quadrant theory (Good read if you don't know) he scores really poorly when you are losing. These are all things that Light is bad at and Argus does not really shore up that weakness. What my man Argus here does really well is drive your game when you have the advantage and provides a ridiculous body against decks that cannot handle him.

Argus can gain from like 4-20 health from a holy writ. He can get 10 or so from Protective Benediction or blind Martyr. He probably also get's a bunch when you use your Radiant Dawn. If you are someone who likes to mess around you can gain him ridiculous health with Anoint. As a reminder Aether Chest has 9 health for 3 mana, as the recently updated Firewall has 9 for 4. I'll admit those strategies are memes for the most part, but there are ample places you can steal pumps for this guy. The most likely are going to be Humble Benefactor, Empyrean Pacifist, Olympian Guard, and Lysanders spear, all of which will do double duty when this is on the table.

Argus is also somewhat tutorable with the new card Camaraderie. I could see a strategy where you only include Argus and 1-2 other creatures with the Olympian tag that fundamentally work well with him like Olympian guard and then non -light Olympians and Non-olympian light cards that also work well with them and know that you have a 4 mana spell that can put game ending threats on the table. It's not as if light has not done well in the past with Vicars, Pacifists, and Vespers.

Overall my like for this card is disproportionate with his power level. He is not good when you are behind and can be ok when you are developing your board unless you have the right stuff at the right time. And while he sucks against death and probably war, he's gonna be great in the mirror, he is going to absolutely eat wild decks once he gets going (armor prevents the dart from killing him) and he may force deception to have to use the hero power on him every turn just to get through to other targets. Overall a 5/10, though I think there will be matches where he is closer to a 7.

Gama, Lord of Berries

I am about to make another hot take that is not going to go over well on the internet. Gama is heavily overrated. I have seen discussion about this card being the best in the set or that it make deception the clear winner of BotW, and I am here to tell you that is not correct.

First off all, 4/5 for 5 hidden is not great. For 4 mana we get Lokian Deciple, Avatar of Deception, Shade walker, Pietro, Feral Shapeshifter, and Arms dealer, all of which are threatening hidden cards with upside. At 5 mana you also have had access to Sneaky bruiser which does see a non-zero amount of play, but I would argue that in decks that want him the +2 strength is much more important than the extra point of health Gama sports. Most of these cards are generally seen in the top end for hidden aggro decks, but truthfully Lokian, Avatar, and Shapeshifter could also be considered midrange and control cards and show up there as well. When we are trying to min max just how fast we can win the game with hidden rush deception, generally playing slower cards that grind are not the answer.

"BUT THIS IS A CONTROL CARD" shouted some random on the internet. To that I say, is it? I will not say that drawing your opponents cards cannot be useful, both as fuel for you as well as to possibly deny win conditions to your opponent, but in order to do that you have to be playing nether creatures that either go face or can do chip damage, neither of which are things that control decks specifically want to do until it is time to win. The best options to do this are Shadow of Lethenon, Phase Crawler, maybe Larcenous Pan because of the favor denial, and Shadow Matriarch to make more cats. Outside of that most of the other Neither creatures seem lacking for a control deck. I'll also remind you that deception control generally does not actually play that many creatures because it needs answers and wants to reserve it's creature slots for high utility creatures that can remove threats and finishers. And again, like I said you need to go face with them to draw cards generally and that is not really what you want to do in this type of deck.

Now my biggest issue with this card however, is let's say you try and maximize it's potential, even though it is legendary and you only get one copy. You play the Shadows who can draw you 2 cards a turn. You use the new Shrike Moonligher because with all the other nether creatures you get ally triggers. Maybe you run the likes of Phase Crawler to have more hidden neither stuff to get in there. You set up a whole situation where your are just drawing your opponents deck like crazy. What are you going to do with those cards? It's not optional and if you want to keep drawing cards (Including your own) to presumably steal your opponents win conditions you have to play stuff. Probably you would rather play the stuff you put in your deck to support your own strategy instead of trying to suddenly switch over to what your opponents doing. You are invariably going to get dead cards in your hand like Land of the Dead with no anubians in the yard, and unlike magic you don't have a dragon that becomes free because you are holding a bunch of garbage.

Now what if I told you that instead of running Gama and forcing Nethers, you could just take those hidden creature and run Dark Knives and Assassin's aim and Armor Lurker and just win the game often before anything you drew from your opponents deck became relevant. Seems like a better deck to play if you ask me.

4/10. I want to say that I believe there could be a post rotation world where this card is good because the things that clearly outclass it do not exist anymore, but most of them are in core or Genesis so outside of a massive core revamp where they nerf Feral Shapeshifter. My raiting does not reflect that fact that I think people will play this card a lot because they like it and think it is cool, but from the perspective of a Spike who plays to wins, I think the card is subpar.

And that is all she wrote for today. I am going to be honest and tell you that writing up this much for 8 cards really does not bode well for me reviewing the rest of the set, but such is the path in life I have chosen. If you would like to encourage me to write more reviews in this set, giving me a like at the bottom of this article and going on reddit to tell me why I am wrong about Gama is a great way to do so.