The Lost Glitches is my current new favorite digital TCG in the Web3 world. I know that is a lot of qualifiers but trust me it is just a genuinely good game and even in physical form I would probably dig it. The game from what I can tell does not have any mechanics you could not do in a tabletop match, so no over the top randomness, so it honestly could exist as a physical game, though far more convenient in digital form.
They just released a limited drop of 40 (maybe 41? unsure) Genesis cards. I have a really good amount of winnings from the open beta (The in game token is called $LOST) and I grabbed enough and got lucky enough that I now have just short of a playset for when the game properly launches. I went hard with Gold packs to get the collectors editions of the cards, which are the top end cosmetic versions of them, because why wouldn't I.
Wanted to give a set review of some of the more stand out and polarized cards, as I do think there are quite a few gems in here. I'll not talk about the stuff that was in the beta, we know how that all works. I may touch on the rest of the lot in another write up when I have more time, but I think these are the best or the best hot takes on a lot of the stuff in the set.
AristoCat
Going to start with a fairly hot take, I think this is one of the best cards in the set. In case you have not played the game the little symbol at the bottom of the card represents a talent, or basically a keyword Macro ability. This one is extraction, or in Magic parlance Lifelink. Most 1 drop creatures sort of exist on a spectrum from 1/1 to 2/2, in general 4 points spread around with a few more obnoxious ones. A lot of the early game is just trading 1 drops for marginal advantage, with the king of that being Seafoam Oracle which is a 1/1 for 1 that draws you a card on death. While this card is not replacing Seafoam as the king of 1 drops, that card is 11/10 right now and likely needs a nerf, this card gives a lot of reach to midrange decks and is a good way to tip the scales in a race. Your opponent attacks you turn one, you take it and now you have an answer that gains back your life and tempo. I played a 2 drop 1/2 with extraction and the TLG version of flying all season long and even that 1 point swing was massive in many games, I expect this to also have a similar effect of shoring up the early game for less aggressive decks and winning races for the aggressive ones.
I do not think this card is going to be absolutely must play like Seafoam, nor as format defining, but it is a very good role players for what it does.
7/10
Big Mouth
This card raised some eyebrows when it was revealed because 8/5 is very large, but hopefully people came to their senses after thinking about it. 5 cost is a LOT in glitches when you consider how it can be countered by so very many cheaper cards, and the reality is most players can drop a healthy amount of power into play pretty quickly and really reduce this guy down to a below rate unit. There are better cards that cost 5, and while there are scenarios where this is good, they will be pretty hard to orchestrate and absolutely not worth it.
2/10
Daring Prophet
So remember all the stuff I said about Seafoam Oracle? This is like a fixed version of it and is very close to the nerfs I recommended in my previous article. There are a TON of decks of every sort that are going to want to run 6 oracles, and while costing 2 is substantially worse, it is the next best option and still a very strong card. 2 power means it trades with more but I am not even sure that is why you want to run it.
The drawing from the bottom thing is cute and may have other interactions, but at the end of the day a card is a card and if you are running it as Seafoam 4-6 you really don't care. I'm glad I have my fancy playset of this and I expect to play it a lot.
7/10
Fire Crackers
This card is a trap. I can think of many scenarios where instead of playing this card you would be better off burning 2 energy at the end of your opponents turn bluffing some sort of counter than playing this card. If it cost 1 or was Plug and Play speed (that would be instant speed for you magic players out there) I could maybe come up with a reason to use it, but this is trash.
I do want to acknowledge that this is the type of card where it very quickly slides from trash to soul crushingly broken with any changes, with very little daylight in between, so I would much rather have this be on the trash side than the alternative. Don't play this card.
1/10
Fire Fae
A LOT of players like this card for the potential of it coming down on like turn 3 and being huge, but I am here to tell you right now that is not going to happen most of the time. Early games in TLG are often just trade fests and keeping bodies on board is not easy. Use anything but heavily defensive drops and you open yourself up to a board wipe like judgement.
No in reality where this card is going to shine is with the Shroom Spawning commander power, and it will not be early game. You put mushrooms in play midgame without expending energy, maybe you have some other body on the table like the pretty durable minotaur, and then you play this as your 5th Glitch for 3. You now have a full and very aggressive board and can hold up an energy for bodyshield to protect it by sacking one of the shrooms. That is a pretty strong and winning scenario and far more realistic that thinking you are going to lucksack into playing this on turn 3 and not get countered. Good card, not exceptional, but a solid role player in a real deck.
6/10
Forest Clearing
You are going to look at this card and apply everything I just said about Fire Fae to it, but you are wrong and this card is completely the other side of the spectrum, another trap. The cheapest you can get this to is 3, and in a typical use case I think it is far more likely to be 4-5 to cast. Drawing 3 cards for 3 when you are ahead on board sounds good, but also playing a 4 energy overrun effect will likely win you the game at that point instead. There are a multitude of ways to draw cards in this game, most are more efficient or have better utility than this, many draw as much or more cards for less energy. Don't play this.
1/10
Gecko Boy
I really like this card, even if it is not the best. In the worst case scenario it is a 4/5 for 4, which is pretty reasonable though on the more boring side of things. The unwritten text on this is that it also gets the increase if it is your only glitch, which means this could be a pretty solid wincon in decks that want to run spell heavy. Hiding this behind a wall of defenders is also going to be viable, as at least Gentile Giant and the 1/3 flyer have proven themselves to be somewhat competitive in the beta.
Some things that do scare me a little about this is that if it takes 5 damage in it's big form you cannot play another non-defender body without it dying which can lead to some awkward scenarios, and it loses it's bonus if you play Defensive Assault which is a card I assume this type of deck would want to run.
Kudos on the design, playability is moderate and I want to see how it pans out
5/10
Memory Juggler
So let me say this first, I do not know how this works. There are not a ton of cards from the beta that gain you energy, the only 2 I can think of were the card you got if you went second and the Commander power. The commander power was permanent if I am remembering correctly, where as the other one was just for the turn cycle.
If this thing is permanent it is broken beyond reproach. I have trouble believing that would be the case so let's assume it is just for the turn cycle. As a temporary Energy booster it's still pretty good. You generally want it to die on your turn so you have energy open to play things on your opponents turn, and in the context of an aggro deck that leads to some pretty aggressive openings. Play this on turn one (if you are on the draw), crash into whatever defender your opponent played to block it and trade, and on their turn spend your energy on a Pretty Stars or playing another body. In decks like the Magus Strike "Boku" deck, there is probably some validity to playing this and then playing Reaper's Bounty, you cycle 2 cards for 1 Energy and start ticking up your spell count for your big turn. I am not sure if the boku deck actually needs that because they already have turns where they draw 12 cards for 3 Energy, but it may free up your ability points to bring back Magus Strikes instead of using them on Eternal Discovery to draw. Overall it is a neat card that has a lot of potential and rewards smart play, though how impactful it will be I am still on the fence about.
5/10
Memory is Power
If this works how I think it works I feel like it may be due for a nerf before the full games release. How I think it works is it considers your maximum energy, not the energy you have left when you play it. So on turn 4 it does 4 damage, turn 5 it does 5, etc. That is a ridiculous top end for aggro decks who are already playing things like Seafoam Oracle into Energy Swap for 4 Energy total just to go face, and this scales better than that into the late game. Now there are probably other applications for this, like in the Boku build for you to launch at 10 Energy followed by a few magus strikes, but it just seems like so much reach for aggro decks that I cannot see this being ok.
I will grant you that being Installation required speed keeps it from being literally perfect, and if it only hits for remaining energy I think it may actually be mostly useless, but given the choice between useless and ridiculous I am going to side with the latter based on how I think the other cards in the game are worded.
10/10 - Needs to be clarified and then possibly burned on a stake
Scouter
I think we are going to find out that this somewhat innocuous looking card is actually shockingly good. I ran a lot of Soul Catchers in my aggro builds in Beta and it was always a good card. Being card neutral is huge for a deck that wants to just play out a ton of stuff every turn and not lose tempo and this has all of that going for it with +1 health. Now the difference here is that this can get a card, not just a glitch, which actually opens up quite a few avenues for you to build around it.
With Soul Catcher, you generally could not rely on what glitch it would get you since aggro decks tend to run a high number of 1 drops, so there were times where you really wanted a Seafoam Oracle and it pulled you a Cracked Cricket. Scouter does not suffer that issue, since you can likely get away with only including copies of one 3 drop in your deck and guarantee your draw. Now there is currently no 3 drop that makes be go "it will always be that one" because 3 drops are all over the place, however just being able to guarantee your line of play on turn 3 with card advantage is very good. It is a solid tempo card and has the makings of a combo piece that just does not have the gas yet, maybe it's just going to be Energy Swap to close out the game quickly and even that is perfectly fine.
6/10
The Pirate Queen
She is a legendary so I have to talk about her, but I kinda don't wanna because I do not have a ton to say other than I think she should be better than this. 3 energy 4 toughness is pretty on par with stuff like Firewall Tank, but if I am being honest I think I am taking the tank over her most of the time. She does not buff her strength by herself like firewall so there is less synergy with things like Judgement, and as opposed to removing someones power I think I would just rather kill them like firewall often does. The utility she provides in lowering peoples attack value is relevant for Warbloom Summoner, but I cannot see a world where I include both these cards in a deck just to take my opponents now lower powered glitch for a turn. 1 power is also not threating enough to want to block most of the time, so you are not walking into this thing or you are just blocking with Gentile Giant anyway.
I wish I could see upside for this other than the art is very cool, but the card is not good and you should not play it.
1/10
The Torturess
The other legend in the drop, I think this card is broken at it's core and will not remain this way because it will generally win you the game on turn 6 if you were on the draw. Here is the scenario:
- Play this at 6 energy
- Play the software you got for going second where you gain one energy for 0.
- Activate this thing 10 times
- Cast Magus Strike
- Activate this thing until your opponent is dead, your strikes start at 11, though maybe 20 if you just use the ability to gain 1 energy 20 times, not sure if that works though.
I really do want to stress that is ridiculous and cannot remain the way this works. Unless your opponent can remove an 8 health glitch from the table right then and there (unlikely) or has a counterspell up for your energy card (more likely) you win. Even if they can counter you out right then if this survives to your next turn it is very likely you can just magus strike your opponent 7 time in a row.
I think this card is very cool and feels very much like a legendary card, but she would still feel very cool with a limit of once per turn on her and I think that is the only way this can remain in the game. I'm of the mindset that the free energy card should not be a software and that Magus strike is way too good to stay at 1 energy, but making strike 2 energy does nothing to prevent this combo as long as the free energy card remains. Even if you remove those 2 cards from the equation, this card can turn a single Binary Blast into a boardwipe, Magus greed into a draw your entire deck, and turns your magus harvesters each into a lethal swing. Don't get too used to this card being as printed.
15/10
Snowfall Giant
I do not think this card functions in the way people think it does. Basically when you have a full board it becomes a 6/8 monster, and as has been displayed by some of the other transform cards in the past, "heals" to maximum. What is interesting is this is the first card that transforms back to it's original state, which would mean any damage it may have taken short of lethal will revert back to 6. It's not the way you would expect this card to function, and I have a feeling it will catch people off guard the first time they face it.
It is not easy to maintain a full board in TLG. You can get a full board, but it is very likely your opponent can do something to remove something on the table before you can get in with this guy. I don't think that makes him bad mind you, but I think it makes his function very different than being a big beat stick. It will force your opponent to make bad trades through the threat of his activation. Maybe they wanted to save their gut punch to combine with Pretty stars to kill a 4 toughness regenerator, but now have to use it to take out a shroom as to not have to deal with a 6/8. A 1/6 with psudeo-regenerate is not terrible in some strategies, so I think this guy may find a niche home. It is not going to be ubiquitous nor do I think it is nearly as good as some of the other transforming/growing cards, but I can imagine it seeing play.
4/10
Witchdoctor's Trade
The last card I want to talk about in this release is going to be another one of my hot takes. People were scared about just how powerful this looked on paper when they saw it. It is a 6 energy tactical nuke that will do 8-10 damage to close out of a game. The problem I have with it however is the spell targets. Which means if your opponent removes the "target ally" from the table the spell get's countered and fizzles, at least that is how the game logic has worked on every other card that targets. I really do not want to be the person who spends 6 Energy just to have my opponent gut punch my dude and waste my card and turn.
If you want to do face damage, a better plan is almost certainly going to be play Memory is Power for 4 energy on turn 6, and then have 2 more Energy to do stuff with and a board full of creatures to attack with. or play SkullPilot and make your opponent have an answer right there. Again this is one of those cards that goes from bad to busted without much in between, and the sacrifice synergy is there with stuff like Shadowfall Assassin, but a 6 energy card that can be countered by gut punch is not where I want to be. Having said that I know I am going to lose to this card, and the power if you pull it off is at the "I win the game" level, so I don't want to discount it completely.
3/10
With that I think I'll end my review here. I think a lot of these cards are really quite contextual so the next release may change my mind on some of them, but overall I am glad I bought the gold packs to get nearly a complete playset of everything in the release. I am actively looking forward to the next beta, the next drop, and the public release of the full game and hope to see you there.
One more thing before I go. If you are wondering who I am and why I am qualified to even do a set review, know that I placed top 10 in the last 2 seasons (twice in 0.1 since they broke it up) and have done design work on some physical TCGs in the past, but also game balance 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.
