Lyonar Kingdoms Round Table 1.87
What is Going on with Lyonar Edition
Lyonar players, assemble!
Unearthed Prophecy has dropped in its entirety so I thought it’d be nice to have a thread to discuss our experiences as they develop. I’ll be discussing the new cards and giving my thoughts on Lyonar’s state overall, I invite you to do both as well in the comments. I’ll be using my own Colloquial Tierlyst to help qualify my judgements so have a read there if you’re not getting why certain words are capitalized. There’s definitely a lot to digest but I’m just going to get started. I’ve sorted the new Lyonar cards in terms of what archetypes I suspect they’ll (mainly) support and I’ve mostly left out Neutrals for the time being.
Generic Support
Pureblade Enforcer is not a strong card by itself. This makes me sad because it has a very pretty sprite. If we see a lot of decks that require playing cheap spells early this might have some appeal but honestly Lyonar can’t afford to be playing Komodo Chargers on the opening turn on the vague hope that the opponent might play a spell on their P1T2s or P2T1s. I’d call it Trash with a minor Meta potential.
Judy is very likely to be another crucial 4-drop for Lyonar to agonize over. The stats are just powerful enough and the effect is really strong; even forcing the opponent to first get rid of Judy before they can target your value minion is really beneficial. I see a lot of decks benefiting from War Judicator, and I expect this to be a Top Tier card going forward despite new cards like Thunderhorn, Sandswirl Reader and Dagona bypassing the protection entirely.
Gear Support
Lyonar gets its own version of Oserix but with a Kazakus twist. I like the idea of the card and I think the art is amazing, but this card is likely also a n00b trap. HOLD OFF CRAFTING THIS until the meta settles and we find out if there’s actual potential for this, and I personally suspect there isn’t. It’s easy to imagine the perfect spawn of Regalia, Regalia & Dawn’s Eye but apparently it always spawns an Arclyte Regalia, Skywind Glaives and Halo Bulwark (i.e. a win-more combination) and you either win because you were already winning or you lose a match you were losing anyway because you weren’t allowed to play spells (which Lyonar needs to stabilize). It’s better than being a random effect (kudos for that) but I wish this weren’t another card you need outside information for to understand. Tempo decks need to win earlier and slow Minion-based Fatty/Provoke decks don’t exist and/or can’t compete with the snow-balling value of other Factions (and you can’t even run Divine Bond for an alternative win condition). I’m betting on Meme tier for the pretty Titan.
Heal Support
Hallowed Ground
Hallowed Ground seems like the weakest of the new Tiles. To work, we need to see strong support for it, and/or we need strong support for Healyonar decks to capitalize on it. Let’s see if we got anything like that.
Let me put it this way: why would I play Fortified Assault over Lucent Beam? Perhaps I play both? Well, if I can lay down enough Hallowed Ground things get interesting. It’s 1 mana cheaper which is really important for Heal decks that are perpetually strapped for Mana each turn, but it’s also a dead card in the early turns and doesn’t start approaching a useful power level until you have at least 3 Hallowed Ground Tiles active (why not just play True Strike otherwise which can do damage right away). This means that we should probably treat this as a card for some kind of Control deck that has enough removal to survive early aggression so you can build up a large arsenal of Hallowed Ground to cheaply remove more threats. I’ll need at least 5 HG tiles to outpace Draining Wave and Lucent Beam (again) in terms of damage and I need my opponent to nót dispel or override any of my Tiles to do that, although luckily it does provide at least 1 for a ping. Meanwhile, Lucent Beam can target Generals while Fortified Assault can’t. I’m sorry but I don’t see this happening. Unless Lyonar needs even more removal on top of Lucent Beam, Tempest, Holy Immolation, Draining Wave, Martyrdom, Circle of Life, Lasting Judgement, Decimate etc I don’t see why even a dedicated Hallowed Grounds deck would play this. Unless HG were very easy to come by of course, which it isn’t. Probably a controversial position to take, but I’m going Trash tier on this one, sadly.
If we can manage to overcome the card advantage loss Sanctify seems like a decent card to me for Hallowed Ground Heal decks: let me explain. Most Heal minions have 4 Health, which means they die to Lavaslasher and Makantor Warbeast. When Sanctified they no longer die to either and you’re guaranteed a heal proc after they fight with something. 4 --> 5 Health is a huge breaking point for Healyonar decks, as is 2 --> 3 and 3 --> 4 Attack. Sanctify is also cheap enough to actually get cast alongside something else. The card is too fair to actually push the archetype forward in terms of power and it doesn’t help the deck to recover (something it is already notoriously bad at) and you can’t play it directly on your General for a guaranteed heal proc, but still. It’s a Niche card, and Viable within that niche.
Sunrise Cleric is probably a staple for Hallowed Ground decks (if they were to surface) because it allows the player to start instantly triggering heals off your General by comboing with Draining Wave and/or Dreamgazer on T1. Players might try Memeing it up with Gold Vitriol or just using it as an early charging point for one or two Sunforge Lancer procs. The card might still be too low-impact and fair to actually show up, but I see potential. Another Viable Niche card.
This card might see play if the meta produces a lot of high-minion decks. Overall I expect this to mostly be an anti-Exhuming Sand and -Wraithling tech card in some kind of slower Control or Combo deck. CPG seems to want Lyonar to have a big slow deck with oodles of removal that refuses to die. Not a Heal deck so much as an ‘immortals’ deck that just refuses to go down. I don’t know if that can happen, but if it does this’ll be a Niche card, and a Meta card otherwise.
Vale Support
Speaking of an ‘immortals’ or Valyonar deck, here’s Vale Ascension. This card needs to spawn an entirely new Lyonar archetype to see play, and I appreciate it for that at least. I imagine people building a deck with just a lot of removal and no 1-3 Mana minions (save for Komodo Hunter, which might work in such a deck) to guarantee bigger drops from Vale Ascension. This deck might also run one or two Keeper of the Vale (what is going on in that vale!) for more rezzes. Sunrise Cleric probably shouldn’t be run in such a deck because you risk resurrecting it, and Sanctify might not actually have a consistent friendly minion to place HG under so there are quite a few considerations to this kind of build. I suspect this kind of deck to be more of a Fun deck, and Vale Ascension would be an Auto-Include for it because the deck would revolve around it. Of course if Komodo Hunter does actually see play this card can’t get off the ground for obvious reasons.
Zeal Support
Lyonar gets a new Zeal minion! Too bad it’s too fair to see play outside of Gauntlet. The card isn’t bad, but Lyonar can do so many other things for 4 Mana and it dies to Lavaslasher and Makantor Warbeast so what’s the point? It’s an answer-or-die card but the pay-off isn’t big enough for Ranked play. I love Zeal so I wish this card were pushed enough to make the archetype viable, but I don’t think we’ve gotten that. A Niche Trash card that I probably wouldn’t run in my own Fun Zeal deck.
This card seems too expensive to see serious play. Rasha’s Curse exists, this game has tons of ping, I need an established board to benefit, clumping up is a húge risk already, I don’t see it. Good Artifacts in this game are no more expensive than 4 mana and typically need to be able to work even when you’re behind. Outside of a swarm deck I don’t see this happening, and even there I’d expect players to value more damage output over protection because they need to end matches ASAP. Trash would be my best guess.
Zoo Support
Another good kitty to add to the Lyonar arsenal: Auroara is good for zoo decks and nowhere else. The cost is good, the Health is perfect and if you play it on P1T2 or P2T1 you have a decent shot at dominating tempo for a turn or two with at least a 5/5 (thank you Zyx). Probably an Answer or Die Niche Top Tier card.
Is this card better than War Surge? I’m honestly not sure. It’s more expensive but also has a bigger effect. The big drawback is that its effect is restricted to a reasonably small area, and clumping up is plenty risky already. Still, if you can play this on any T2 you’re very likely to explode with a buttload of tempo, which is what that archetype needs. The 2 Health boost is also particularly valuable to keep Sun Wisps and Bloodtear Alchemists alive, something War Surge does not (barring Fighting Spirit support) do. You know what? I’d probably run this over War Surge in Zoo and Golem decks. A Top Tier Niche card, probably.
One might assume any Heal card would get placed under the Heal Support category but why would I not just play Sundrop Elixir there? If I have a swarm of like 4 minions I’d go for Channeled Breath and that only reliably happens in Zoo decks. I’m pegging this for a pointless sustain card in an archetype that can’t win unless it snowballs to victory on T4 anyway. I can’t even use it to heal a minion! Niche Trash, so sad because it could’ve been great with a tiny tweak (triggering separate heals per minion).
Conclusion
I’m not very hopeful about Lyonar’s chances in the coming months based on my impressions so far. Lyonar has only gotten fair cards and cards that expand on sub-optimal archetypes without actually pushing them. Hallowed Ground is easily ignored unlike the other three Tiles in existence and when compared to the other Faction cards and even the Neutrals there is very little other than War Judicator (and even she’s pushing against other key Lyonar cards) that I can get genuinely enthusiastic about, so far anyway.
There was a time where everyone was complaining about Lyonar because of the existence of one deck (Tempo Argeon) and it seems to have made CPG hesitant about giving Lyonar any tools that might jerk the same knees again to the point that the new Lyonar cards seem overall very ‘safe’ to me. Removing enemies is good, but what threats does Lyonar bring itself? We dislike Vanar for saying ‘no’ to everything you do, but now Lyonar is getting cards to do the same while other archetypes languish with cards that are fair and fun but probably can’t compete with the insane additions to the other Factions.
Overall: three straight-up competitive cards, of which two for swarm decks. I expect Golem decks to be Lyonar’s strongest, adding just Empyreal Congregation to its mix.
What do you think? Am I off base? Am I not seeing things straight? Please help me out because I’d like to continue playing my favorite faction in the coming months.
Have fun exploring regardless.
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