Food For Thought #1: Ultra Rares
Posted 09-21-2009 at 10:06 AM by Rawiswar
Welcome to my new Epic TCG blog! This week I'll be evaluating Time Wars' Ultra Rares. I'll touch briefly on why Epic has ultra rares, and at the end I'll mention what effect they've had on card prices and how they affect deckbuilding.
It's hard to be shocked that Epic has begun printing ultra rares in its second expansion. Ultra rares increase how much product serious players need to buy to get the cards they want, and they're a fun bonus for casual players to open. This makes them profitable. All of the most popular card games out now have a level of rarity above rare: Magic, World of Warcraft, Pokemon, and Yugioh. (In fact, between super rares, ultra rares, secret rares, and ultimate rares, Yugioh might have more rarities than Epic has cards.) Most collectible miniatures games also have a level of rarity beyond rare. So arguing that Epic shouldn't have ultra rares is like arguing the place you live shouldn't have taxes: they all do, so we better accept it.
Where games differ, however, is in which cards are made into rarer-than-rares. If ultra rares are no better than regular rares, players will ignore them, so they may as well not even be there. However, if ultra rares are too much better, players without access to them have no chance against players who can get them. This is frustrating for players and can decrease a game's popularity. With this in mind, I'm going to rate the ultra rares from Time Wars on two scales. First, how powerful they are.
1 of 5: Nobody should ever play this.
2 of 5: There's almost certainly a better card for your deck.
3 of 5: This is a solid card for certain powerful decks and/or against certain common matchups.
4 of 5: This is a very good card for a large number of decks.
5 of 5: Every deck should play this.
So basically, cards that are 4 or higher you should expect to see alot, and cards that are 2 or lower you should expect to never see in serious decks.
Second, how upset am I that the card is an ultra rare and not just a rare? This is a 3 point scale:
1 of 3: A fine card to be an ultra rare. It might help to think of this as a zero, because it represents no problem whatsoever.
2 of 3: I'm moderately irritated that this card is ultra rare.
3 of 3: I'm convinced that this card being an ultra rare hurts the game.
Breath of Life:
Power: 3 of 5. Against heavy discard strategies, this is obviously a good card because it does exactly what your opponent wants it to not do: it puts more cards in your hand. Your opponent is actually farther away from stripping your hand than they were before they used their discard effect. If your opponent isn't playing discard, however, this card is very mediocre. There are many, many better "Draw 2 cards" options, and against burn you'd rather have Revitalize.
Righteous Indignation over it being an Ultra Rare: 1 of 3. If your deck can't win without Breath of Life, it probably can't win. Just use Echoes of Inspiration as your discard hate.
Charging Styracosaurus
Power: 4 of 5. What could you ask for in an aggro champion? Big Size: check. Breakthrough: check. Paced speed, so it can attack right away: check. Difficult for other decks, especially control decks, to answer: MEGA CHECK. The only problem with this champion is that Frankenstein's Monster and Dreaded Judge, two champions that every deck seems to have, just block it and laugh. But letting them stay around means you lose anyway.
Righteous Indignation: 1 of 3. Blood Hound is the perfect rare equivalent for this. It has the same key qualities (paced, unstoppable, event ward), and in some cases it's even better because it can hunt your opponent's Facilitator, Echoing Mage, and so on. Of course, two unstoppable event ward guys is even better, so having the ultra rare still improves your deck's power/options.
Compost Pile
Power: 3 of 5. This card is free, it's hard to deal with because it's an object and it makes a creature every turn, and it's nice to have an answer to graveyard recursion in your deck. But it does take up a free slot, and how often will your opponent say, "Man, he had the compost pile and it completely dominated me!" That's what I need from my Epic cards. Plus, there are a couple really good answers to free champions/objects now. More on that later.
R.I.: 2 of 3. This card seems like a really cool option for decks that want to get good offensive value out of their free cards (especially, you know, the free deck), and it would give more decks a chance to fight recurring cards. But not having it doesn't cripple any decks.
Denied
Power: 4 of 5. A free stop that doesn't confer card disadvantage is awesome. You can spend your action point without fear of exposing yourself to something insane, or you can force your \1/ cost card through against a non-instantaneous stop. But it is a gift, and not being instantaneous makes it vulnerable to Compromise and Now.
RI: 1 of 3. To me, there are so many good gifts. Oh no, I have to play thought stealer or compromise or seaside cave instead of this! How will I survive? Of course, I reserve the right to change this rating if a free stop is as incredible as it seems to be at first.
Gift Bearer
Power: 3.5 of 5. This is another card that you'll rarely be sorry to play, but that will never dominate your opponents. It's an unstoppable threat and guaranteed card advantage, but if your opponent is going to kill all your guys with a board sweeper effect or run over them with airborne/breakthrough fatties, it's basically just an unstoppable build speed draw two. Which is still not that bad.
RI: 1 of 3. There are alot of casual decks that I think would like to have this, but you probably won't be upset that you don't.
Graft-Steel Seer
Power: 4 of 5. I'll keep it short. If you play a constructed deck, and with Time Wars you can play a very good constructed deck, you need this.
RI: 3 of 3. If you want to play a constructed origin deck but you can't acquire these, your deck will be WAY less powerful than it could be. So not having ultra rares basically means you can't play your constructed deck. Not cool.
Group Think
Power: 2 of 5. Until you flip 4 champions, this card is strictly worse than Knowledge. And if you have all those champions, isn't your deck better served by attacking with them? I mean, if you flip man of the people and then cast this on your opponents turn, that would be sweet, but I think this card encourages you to play alot of cards that are really bad without it.
RI: 2 of 3. What, I finally got an ultra rare? Awesome! An ultra rare that doesn't have a home in any deck I would want to play?
Harsh Denial
Power: 3 of 5. It stops a card and gives you card advantage. That's cool. And since your goal as a control deck is to answer all of your opponent's cards, a discard may be better than a draw. But sometimes they don't have a card, or have a card that rewards you when it's discarded, so wouldn't it be better to have Not Today? And it's generally accepted that instantaneous stops are much better because your opponent can't cast Now, Compromise, or Anything but That on their card in response.
RI: 1 of 3. Just play Not Today.
Insignificant Threat
Power: 4 of 5. There are alot of really good free cards, and this answers almost every single one. Plus in a pinch you can stop a \1/ card. Of course, you could just play your own really good free card, but this lets you trade a non-gift for a gift. Yes please.
RI: 2 of 3. It's hard to imagine a deck that doesn't benefit from this card, so it's sad that many people can't use it. But there are enough good free cards that you'll be ok.
Join us next time when we finish up the list. Spoiler alert: if I saw Maul bleeding in an alley I wouldn't call 911. Ok, if I saw Maul in an alley I'd take it and try to sell it, but you get what
I'm saying.
Food for Thought is brought to you by Epic on Magic Workstation. Epic on MWS: it's frickin free, just use it.
It's hard to be shocked that Epic has begun printing ultra rares in its second expansion. Ultra rares increase how much product serious players need to buy to get the cards they want, and they're a fun bonus for casual players to open. This makes them profitable. All of the most popular card games out now have a level of rarity above rare: Magic, World of Warcraft, Pokemon, and Yugioh. (In fact, between super rares, ultra rares, secret rares, and ultimate rares, Yugioh might have more rarities than Epic has cards.) Most collectible miniatures games also have a level of rarity beyond rare. So arguing that Epic shouldn't have ultra rares is like arguing the place you live shouldn't have taxes: they all do, so we better accept it.
Where games differ, however, is in which cards are made into rarer-than-rares. If ultra rares are no better than regular rares, players will ignore them, so they may as well not even be there. However, if ultra rares are too much better, players without access to them have no chance against players who can get them. This is frustrating for players and can decrease a game's popularity. With this in mind, I'm going to rate the ultra rares from Time Wars on two scales. First, how powerful they are.
1 of 5: Nobody should ever play this.
2 of 5: There's almost certainly a better card for your deck.
3 of 5: This is a solid card for certain powerful decks and/or against certain common matchups.
4 of 5: This is a very good card for a large number of decks.
5 of 5: Every deck should play this.
So basically, cards that are 4 or higher you should expect to see alot, and cards that are 2 or lower you should expect to never see in serious decks.
Second, how upset am I that the card is an ultra rare and not just a rare? This is a 3 point scale:
1 of 3: A fine card to be an ultra rare. It might help to think of this as a zero, because it represents no problem whatsoever.
2 of 3: I'm moderately irritated that this card is ultra rare.
3 of 3: I'm convinced that this card being an ultra rare hurts the game.
Breath of Life:
Power: 3 of 5. Against heavy discard strategies, this is obviously a good card because it does exactly what your opponent wants it to not do: it puts more cards in your hand. Your opponent is actually farther away from stripping your hand than they were before they used their discard effect. If your opponent isn't playing discard, however, this card is very mediocre. There are many, many better "Draw 2 cards" options, and against burn you'd rather have Revitalize.
Righteous Indignation over it being an Ultra Rare: 1 of 3. If your deck can't win without Breath of Life, it probably can't win. Just use Echoes of Inspiration as your discard hate.
Charging Styracosaurus
Power: 4 of 5. What could you ask for in an aggro champion? Big Size: check. Breakthrough: check. Paced speed, so it can attack right away: check. Difficult for other decks, especially control decks, to answer: MEGA CHECK. The only problem with this champion is that Frankenstein's Monster and Dreaded Judge, two champions that every deck seems to have, just block it and laugh. But letting them stay around means you lose anyway.
Righteous Indignation: 1 of 3. Blood Hound is the perfect rare equivalent for this. It has the same key qualities (paced, unstoppable, event ward), and in some cases it's even better because it can hunt your opponent's Facilitator, Echoing Mage, and so on. Of course, two unstoppable event ward guys is even better, so having the ultra rare still improves your deck's power/options.
Compost Pile
Power: 3 of 5. This card is free, it's hard to deal with because it's an object and it makes a creature every turn, and it's nice to have an answer to graveyard recursion in your deck. But it does take up a free slot, and how often will your opponent say, "Man, he had the compost pile and it completely dominated me!" That's what I need from my Epic cards. Plus, there are a couple really good answers to free champions/objects now. More on that later.
R.I.: 2 of 3. This card seems like a really cool option for decks that want to get good offensive value out of their free cards (especially, you know, the free deck), and it would give more decks a chance to fight recurring cards. But not having it doesn't cripple any decks.
Denied
Power: 4 of 5. A free stop that doesn't confer card disadvantage is awesome. You can spend your action point without fear of exposing yourself to something insane, or you can force your \1/ cost card through against a non-instantaneous stop. But it is a gift, and not being instantaneous makes it vulnerable to Compromise and Now.
RI: 1 of 3. To me, there are so many good gifts. Oh no, I have to play thought stealer or compromise or seaside cave instead of this! How will I survive? Of course, I reserve the right to change this rating if a free stop is as incredible as it seems to be at first.
Gift Bearer
Power: 3.5 of 5. This is another card that you'll rarely be sorry to play, but that will never dominate your opponents. It's an unstoppable threat and guaranteed card advantage, but if your opponent is going to kill all your guys with a board sweeper effect or run over them with airborne/breakthrough fatties, it's basically just an unstoppable build speed draw two. Which is still not that bad.
RI: 1 of 3. There are alot of casual decks that I think would like to have this, but you probably won't be upset that you don't.
Graft-Steel Seer
Power: 4 of 5. I'll keep it short. If you play a constructed deck, and with Time Wars you can play a very good constructed deck, you need this.
RI: 3 of 3. If you want to play a constructed origin deck but you can't acquire these, your deck will be WAY less powerful than it could be. So not having ultra rares basically means you can't play your constructed deck. Not cool.
Group Think
Power: 2 of 5. Until you flip 4 champions, this card is strictly worse than Knowledge. And if you have all those champions, isn't your deck better served by attacking with them? I mean, if you flip man of the people and then cast this on your opponents turn, that would be sweet, but I think this card encourages you to play alot of cards that are really bad without it.
RI: 2 of 3. What, I finally got an ultra rare? Awesome! An ultra rare that doesn't have a home in any deck I would want to play?
Harsh Denial
Power: 3 of 5. It stops a card and gives you card advantage. That's cool. And since your goal as a control deck is to answer all of your opponent's cards, a discard may be better than a draw. But sometimes they don't have a card, or have a card that rewards you when it's discarded, so wouldn't it be better to have Not Today? And it's generally accepted that instantaneous stops are much better because your opponent can't cast Now, Compromise, or Anything but That on their card in response.
RI: 1 of 3. Just play Not Today.
Insignificant Threat
Power: 4 of 5. There are alot of really good free cards, and this answers almost every single one. Plus in a pinch you can stop a \1/ card. Of course, you could just play your own really good free card, but this lets you trade a non-gift for a gift. Yes please.
RI: 2 of 3. It's hard to imagine a deck that doesn't benefit from this card, so it's sad that many people can't use it. But there are enough good free cards that you'll be ok.
Join us next time when we finish up the list. Spoiler alert: if I saw Maul bleeding in an alley I wouldn't call 911. Ok, if I saw Maul in an alley I'd take it and try to sell it, but you get what
I'm saying.
Food for Thought is brought to you by Epic on Magic Workstation. Epic on MWS: it's frickin free, just use it.
Total Comments 1
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Poor Maul
Great Blog! Informative and funny: the two things I want in a blog.
Posted 09-22-2009 at 08:59 AM by dkastle 
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