Seismic Shock
The new Seismic Shock Rivals deck included in the Wyrdhollow core set! As always, thanks to GW for providing a copy for review purposes.
Toxic Terrors Universal Rivals Deck
First Impressions
[D]AVY & [P]HIL
The long hoped for magic oriented Rivals deck! Notice that there’s no plot card here. We were particularly excited about this one as this deck is likely to be the primary source of universal spell related options.
He’s an old man, give him a break.
P: Not sure it is reliable but I kinda like it. Play out all the cards, get a glory.
D: Should score in any deck in later rounds. It’ll play into passive builds fairly well. I typically wouldn’t want to score this until the last power step or so. Any earlier and you’re announcing that you’re out of tricks. That sort of makes it reliable, but slow, I guess? Also pairs nicely with heavy illusion decks.
P: Hmmm. So hold all but you have to hold at least two. Probably doable but maybe not in best of three because your opponent will likely put three or more objectives in your territory so you can't easily get enough tokens for this.
D: For three glory, I like this for sure. Easy to surprise with it in Best of One, and should create some interesting head games with objective placement in Best of Three.
First ya trace ‘em, then ya exploit ‘em.
P: Casting three spells in a single round with one wizard already feels a bit tough. Make them do it while holding an objective or standing on a different hex type and suddenly this is a pretty tough surge.
D: Concur. You’ll likely need a spell attack action to land and multiple easy gambits spells. Even then, one bad roll derails this.
P: Nice. Just move across the line and score for most warbands.
D: This feels okay for Stormcoven, but most warbands are one dead fighter away from bricking this. I think the list of level 2 casters that you’re willing to risk forwards is pretty short.
P: Interesting. If you lean into magic this should be a free score most of the time, but wizard duels could make for fun and or frustrating times trying to get this.
D: Definitely one of those where the record keeping on who cast how many things will occasionally get muddled. I don’t think magic will be common enough to worry about, so this almost certainly factors into some more passive casting decks.
P: Much better for elite warbands where fewer of them need to be in specific hexes. Still not sure I'd want it though, feels like it will be hard a decent amount of the time.
D: Not requiring you to be in enemy territory could make this worth considering for decks that want to force the enemy to come to them. You are just a single drive-back or push away from failing to score this.
Lookin’ pretty metal there Myari.
P: Until we got to objective in enemy territory I was feeling good. After that I'm less sure. Unless you started in that hex you are probably moving onto it then maybe you can make two attacks or go on guard or something? It's probably not a very efficient play that is for sure. But, surges for more than one glory can tend to be game swinging.
D: Feels like Kainan could pull it off? Or maybe Gorath? Not requiring it to be a level 2 like Magisterial Might certainly opens options up. Two glory surges should definitely be hard to pull off, but unless you use push tech, this is effectively three activations with the same fighter in early rounds.
P: So supremacy with an extra condition? Don't think I like that much.
D: I’d take it in something like Gitz if you want to double down on Supremacy. But another that most warbands that could take it are going to find it unscoreable if they can’t keep their caster safe.
P: This could be pretty solid. Voltroning a single wizard can be risky but if you are needing to build that way anyway you might as well be rewarded for it.
D: Now we’re talking. Love it for Stormcoven or Cursebreakers who have redundancy. Not requiring enemy territory positioning makes this a lot less risky than some of the other options.
P: The positioning requirement probably pushes this to being a pretty tough kill surge. There are better choices I think.
D: Allowing the caster or the target to be the one on a feature or hazard actually feels fairly lenient. For me, needing it to be a spell attack action feels like the more dangerous ask… again, because you’re one fighter deep in most cases.
P: Hold two get one glory is fine. It's not great but it can be serviceable.
D: This is one I scored a few times. Like some of the other objectives in this deck, this does seem to allow for a more passive “hang back” option.
P: Weird. Probably not really what you want right?? If you need three spells targeting the same fighter are you dedicating too many inefficient actions to that fighter?
D: Hard to say. If it was two, then a spell attack and a ping gets it done. Maybe if your meta read told you to expect a lot of Large fighters?
P: Nice. A utility piece for hold objectives or a ping. Like it. Note you won't want to actually pull a token under your own fighters or else you will hurt them.
D: I really like this one. Flexibility to use as a ping or to grab a feature. At the cost of a damage and a chance of miscasting this can have the Confusion effect where you deny a feature to the opponent while getting one yourself.
P: This might surprise someone every so often but I'm not sure getting extra range is good enough for a gambit slot.
D: Range 5 or 6 is crazy far… and this is a lot less punishing than Ephilim’s in-faction version. I’d consider it if I was trying to run this deck through a single caster, just to keep them safer for longer.
P: Rerolls to casting is decent. If you have multiple gambit spells and a spell attack to take advantage of this it can gain a ton of value.
D: If you’re getting multiple uses, like Phil says it definitely goes up in value. I found the positioning a little awkward in round 1. I wanted to use this on a caster before I activated them, but the caster wasn’t yet on the feature, so….
P: Strange that the reroll can apply to multiple spells but+1 dice is a one off and has a positioning restriction. Still not bad but I don't really get the difference.
D: Also won’t last through to an attack action, which is a bummer. This felt a little too limited in reward vs. set-up to make the cut most times.
P: +1 wizard level to the next spell is decent, getting to auto cast a spell might be a bigger deal honestly. There are a number of things that care about casting so this is a nice utility piece.
D: Cursebreakers or Stormcoven can use this to make Magisterial Might a little more flexible. Making your spells easier to cast isn’t bad, but I wonder if I’d rather use the slots for more “do something” cards than these casting aids.
P: I don't really like temporary wound boosts. This is a pass for me. These can leave a fighter essentially dead as soon as the round ends which isn't a great survival boost...
D: I don’t… totally get what scenario this is going to really come up big. In practice, I just cast this to get another spell out for objective purposes.
P: Omg, push three? Dang. Even with the positioning limitations pushing that much is a really big deal.
D: You know what else is great? This can be friendly or enemy fighters. Lots of cool tricks you can pull off with this one. Single focus is totally fair for this. Love it.
P: Both nice for disrupting hold for the enemy but I think there will be plenty of matches where your opponent doesn't hold...
D: Another spell that can steal an objective outright. There’s been metas in the past where this would have been an auto-include. If you’re going to be holding, I always like the option to get on and steal objectives without burning an activation. Big fan of the “modal” gambit spell too. I don’t think the first half of this could stand on it’s own as a gambit spell, so this is a way to get more situational effects into the game.
P: Nice ping. Range 4 is a bit better than average I think so this feels solid.
D: As long as people are running Fearsome Fortress, this should find targets. I found myself having to work a bit to get this set up, trying to drive fighters into hazard hexes close enough to my caster, and then follow up with this.
P: I'm not sure a flip is all that good here? I guess it can disrupt hold but that doesn't seem all that worthwhile.
D: For very specific builds that are trying to do something with Claim the Prize or some such, I might go for it. But not being able to flip under an enemy is kind of a bummer limitation for what’s already pretty corner case, in my opinion.
P: Huh, I guess most of the time this will be two damage. A three damage range three, even if it doesn't come up often, will be pretty nasty.
D: I passed on the opportunity to put this on Zarshia. “She’s already got a spell attack” I said. And then promptly killed her with curse backlash. Fecula pictured on here might be the fighter who would reach for this since her spell caps out at 1 damage normally.
P: A bit risky but man auto spell casts is really strong.
D: Eeesh. Feels like a trap for many. I get being really conservative with how you hand out innates, though. I’ve seen the horrors of Nightvault…
P: Hmmm. Push after successful spells casts. Not bad but there will be times where you really need the cast and it just won't work and this will be a nothing upgrade.
D: Well alright. I don’t mind turning any of your gambit spells into a sidestep as well. If you’re really counting on scoring through your caster, I think the extra positioning flexibility this provides is pretty boss.
P: Uhg, having to take an action to get this benefit is rough. It could keep your wizard safe sometimes but I think more often than not it just steals an activation from you.
D: I agree, the cost of an entire activation is just too high to be attractive.
P: Ho man, getting staggered any time you move adjacent is pretty nice. I can see a tough wizard getting to crack back really well because of this.
D: I wonder if non-casting wizards like Kainan can get the most out of this. Adding a deterrent to a big fighter who can trigger this more than once seems like the most attractive scenario for inclusion.
P: Interesting. A push back after getting pushed off a hex. That is pretty decent if you are invested in holding. The stagger is a little worrisome but you probably only use this right at the end of a round so maybe not a big deal?
D: Some of the “no enemy push” cards like Darkwater Anchor are just straight up a lot more attractive. There’s a little room for trickery here, since you don’t have to push on to the feature token you were pushed off of.
P: I'm not sure moving tokens is all that big a deal these days, but a range two attack that stops you from being driven back seems nice.
D: Yeah, a totally fine attack action on its own. Warbands that want to hold objectives like range 2 attack actions and like not being driven back. This is definitely an option in the toolbox for those.
P: I love a distraction, even if it is slightly range limited. The stagger is kind of nice to have as a secondary benefit but not essential. This would have been much better as a gambit I think though.
D: Can I rate this as “question mark”? The cost of an action is always a tough pill to swallow, but the long range can give you something to do without fully committing early in a round. At that kind of range, you can push a lot of fighters all the way out of charge distance too.
P: Decent. Getting grievous on range three attacks is always nice. Turret mode can get scary with this.
D: More attractive as long as Fighter’s Ferocity is restricted. Not had much success with "turret” style builds in the past, and most spell attacks are only tossing two dice.
P: Eh, only a push after a charge? Not loving it. It isn't terrible but there are so many better upgrades.
D: If I’m trying to stay on brand, then I get stoked for an pushes, but this is only going off once per round unless you have tricks like Hexbane or Mollog. Duellist’s Speed is a lot better if you have deckbuilding options open in your format.
Summary
D: Our experience was that many of these cards still want to have the redundancy of multiple casters, which limits the reach of this deck. The new salvage rule should help sneak a few more of these cards past the deck-building gates but that won’t help with the objectives. I’m excited to see if the "hold” objectives here give a meaningful push to the meta in any way.