A Rockpacker's Tribute to the End

Hello everyone! Today I am going to review the latest Fall of Argenport spoilers we got yesterday together with the ‘End’ Cycle.
My ratings will be from a very competitive point of view and I will only talk about the implications for constructed. However, I will try to talk about the more fun and casual implications if I see any. Without further ado, let's begin!

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The rating scale

I am going to use a rating from 0 to 5, where 0 is the lowest and 5 the highest. This will increase in 0.5 steps.
Here is a rough translation of what every rating means:

5 - This is the cream of the crop. Cards that get this rating are ones that spawn new decks by themselves (for example Tavrod, Auric Broker, Shelterwing Rider, Bandit Queen).
4 - Cards with this rating are not enough to incentivize building new decks all by themselves, but are most of the time the correct inclusion if you are able to play them (for example Vicious Highwayman, Sandstorm Titan).
3 - These cards are ones you might end up playing in your deck. They are solid, but depending on your specific gameplan you might chose not to play them (for example Crownwatch Paladin, Ripknife Assassin).
2 - Cards like these are narrow but might be worth including in a specific meta and will be a decent choice for the Market (for example Backlash, Azindel's Gift).
1 - This category covers the even narrower cards, that aren't likely to see play, even in the markets (for example Kaleb's Intervention, Hesitate).
0 - Here you will find the cards that won't see any play at all (for example Aerialist's Khopesh, Weather the Storm).

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Tribute

Firstly, I would like to say something about the new mechanic called Tribute. Tribute is active if a unit has gone to your void this turn, even when discarded. I am really happy to see this mechanic introduced since it will change the way you have to plan your combat. It empowers bluffing, as a prior obvious attack now, and makes your opponent think about possible Tribute follow-up plays and combat tricks. There are two different kinds of synergistic Tribute decks that I can see. The first one is an aggressive deck that activates Tribute with repeated attacks where some units are bound to die due to blocks.  The other kind I can imagine is a slower more value-oriented Tribute deck, one that looks to activate tribute with spells like Combust or Devour and is looking for void recursion akin to the Soulbringer I am going to talk about.

So that was a quick look at the Tribute mechanic, now let's move on to the new cards!

End of the Story

Rating: 4/5
Let me say it now, I'm a bit sad that the End cycle wasn't revealed at the end of the spoiler season. This feels like a missed opportunity that could have had so much potential. End of the Story is effectively Harsh Rule numbers five to eight. I don't think you can reliably activate the Tribute, which luckily isn't required for this card to be good. It adds consistency to decks that are looking to sweep the board and you will sometimes get value from the Warp effect too. I expect to see at least one or two in most control decks for extra consistency. However, there is a limit to how many Harsh Rules you can play, since there are too many strategies in Eternal that can punish you for relying on this form of removal such as Charge-based aggro decks like Skycrag or Stonescar Aggro. However, End of the Story is a big difference compared to Leave a Witness, as getting to six power is far easier to achieve than seven power. I am looking forward to playing with this card and hope it helps good control decks resurface.

End of the Barrel

Rating: 3/5
End of the Barrel is an interesting card for sure. So far, it is the only Warp card that you will generally always want to play from the top of your deck whenever possible. Cards like this, that can temporarily ramp you towards a big swing play, are from my experience about as good as the cards you ramp into. I don't see any obvious concepts at the moment, but this probably requires time to be figured out. One of the ideas I can think of is an early Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince on turn 4, in a grenadin deck with Combustion Cell that also gets new tools in the form of First Flame (I delve a bit deeper into the deck idea at the bottom of my article). A Warp focused deck like this is always looking for more power to warp in even more cards. I think it's fair to say that this card has the potential to do some very interesting things, but requires a lot of set up to do so and I am a bit skeptical if that will be the case.

End of Hostilities

Rating: 1/5
It is hard to deny that End of Hostilities can do some powerful things. However, in order to do these things, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. You want a unit on board that is worth copying and it needs to be worth the tremendous effort of setting up. In addition, you need to either have one of your units die or discard a unit from hand or deck if you want to enable tribute, which seems like there would be too many moving parts that are only good once you are already in a leading position. Therefore, I don't expect to encounter this card outside of janky combo decks.

End of Days

Rating: 2/5
If you want to ramp, End of Days has got you covered. I tend to be slightly more optimistic when evaluating ramp cards, since it only requires a hand full of good ramp payoffs to make a competitive ramp deck. End of Days does get you towards Spirit of Resistance or Aid of the Hooru consistently and we have already seen Owl Ramp making a bit of a competitive splash. I look forward to brewing with it, but for now, I will hold a bit back on the rating, as ramp spells tend to be less valuable that late in the game. Rest assured though that I will give Five Faction Ramp at least a couple of spins, with this and Memento Mori.

End of the Line

Rating: 1.5/5
This is basically an Extract that hits two targets at double the cost, that sometimes deals 4 damage. End of the Line mostly deals with threats that cost three or less and only being able to do that on turn six or later is a big restriction. Occasionally, you will be able to play it from the top of your deck and get a three for one, but that scenario doesn't strike me as especially likely to happen. It is still worth keeping End of the Line in mind whenever we have a meta like the current one, heavily dominated by Justice x/3 units, but even there I'm not entirely sold on the card.

Ironfist Faithful

Rating: 0/5:
I don't see any deck that wants to play this. It's bad on turn 1 and every following turn and it takes too much effort to trigger it's very minor upside. Even the Valkyrie tribe will not save this.

Magenta Wisp

Rating 2.5/5:
Wisp synergy seems to be one of the bigger themes in Fall of Argenport and depending on how good Suffocate is, I can see this little critter being played. It takes out a threat when needed, activates Tribute, but relies on the existence of a slower deck using Tribute or Wisp synergies.

Soulbringer

Rating: 3.5/5
Soulbringer packs a lot of value!  In the best case scenario, I can see myself returning 1 or 2 Dark Wisps and be happy with it. However, my rating makes the big assumption that we will see a bit more of Wisps and then it's safe to say that Soulbringer will be a key part of the grindier strategies. I do have some ideas floating around for this Radiant. Firstly it probably fits a value-oriented Midrange deck, akin to Xenan Killers. You return cards from the void and generate incremental value and a best case 4 power 6/5 over 3 bodies that draw 2 cards on Entomb fits perfectly in. Another thing worth noting is that this card is a good target for Haunting Scream, again the best case isn't far away from Gorgon Fanatic and that deck likes to run a sacrifice package, which further helps to activate Tribute. You will definitely catch me brewing with Soulbringer once the Fall of Argenport releases.

Gnash, Pridestalker

Rating: 3.5/5
Who doesn't like a four power 7/7?! I do for sure! But even without the additional stats, I can see this time prince doing a lot of work. Firstly, it enables Tribute for free while attacking and might end up giving invulnerability to all your other units too and gets out of hand in multiples. Our Pridemaster is probably looking for a more aggressive shell, since it wants other units to attack alongside him, and I expect to face Gnash at least a couple of times on ladder.

Aeva, Eilyn's Elite

Rating 1.5/5
If you get to activate both the Tribute and the Infiltrate, this offers a lot of value. However, that is a rather big ‘if’. Activating the Tribute might be doable without too much effort, but I don't think the ability is enough to make it worth the effort. Infiltrating with a 5 drop that has no protection from removal is probably too difficult to begin with and two, one power 1/2 fliers are not enough to be satisfied with the tempo loss of this getting removed.

First Flame

Rating: 3/5
Epic!! I will lean a bit out of the window when evaluating First Flame. I am really excited to see a top-end card that has this much potential. Firstly, this and Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince are both big fire cards that end games quickly after showing up. It is worth mentioning that the possibility of using combat to activate Tribute doesn't work with First Flame, as you need to activate it before combat begins. The earliest you could potentially play the big fire elemental is turn five, by playing it off of one of the earlier spoilers, Dramatists Mask, which conveniently activates the Tribute ability too. Another possibility is ramping towards it with End of the Barrel and Combusiton Cell or reanimating it with Grasping at Shadows. Maybe add Great-Kiln Titan to the payoff list and I can quickly see a big Fire list arising. I for one will most definitely give this idea a try, as dealing 15 damage off of a single First Flame sounds really promising. I'm excited to see what others can come up with.

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So that's it, for now. I have to say these spoilers are rather exciting and I am looking forward to playing with Wisps, Tribute, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Stay tuned, as I plan on doing more reviews of the Fall of Argenport. Until next time.