Hello and welcome! The Fall of Argenport is nearly upon us and if you are anything like me, you must be super excited for its launch! This article aims to serve as a primer that will help you prepare for the new set as well as give you a better understanding of the various card mechanics that lay ahead. This will not be a comprehensive review of different cards for constructed or draft, nor will it be an extensive analysis about the strategy of each mechanic. Ahorn has already gone into detail with reviewing many of the tribute cards here, whilst Finkel goes into depth on the strategies of using the Market here.
Disclaimer: All information regarding the mechanics of Fall of Argenport have been collated from official sources at Direwolf Digital.
There are six different gameplay elements that you should be aware of going in the Fall of Argenport and each one has its own unique features. These are:
- Merchants & Market
- Berserk
- Tribute
- Spellcraft
- Inspire
- Standards & Tactics
I will go through each one and explain what they do and how I believe they will affect gameplay, in addition to giving you a few cards to look out for.
Merchants & Market
There are five merchants that are going to be introduced in The Fall of Argenport, one for each of the five different factions, and these interact with something called the Market. Think of the Market as simply a small sideboard of five cards that can be of any faction, with a maximum of one copy of each card. Markets only appear in the deck construction window when you add a particular merchant to your deck and you can’t pass the four-of card rule with any card in the Market. Additionally, your opponents won’t be able to see what cards are in your market, meaning that neither you or your opponent will be able to know what card they have gotten with their merchant. Furthermore, all cards in your market are not affected by gameplay abilities such as permanent buffs from Warcry triggers or Clockroach’s summon ability. The only way to interact with cards in your market is through the respective merchants of each faction. It is also important to be aware that in draft, your Market is derived from your drafted cards whilst the Merchants won’t appear in Forge.
So how do we get these cards from our Markets I hear you ask? Well, each Merchant costs three power and has a summon ability that allows you to choose a card in your hand and ‘swap’ it with another card of the same faction as your Merchant from your Market. For example, if you need to remove a troublesome attachment, you could play an Ixtun Merchant in your fire aggro deck to swap any card in your hand with a Ruin in your market. It is important to note that ‘swapping’ counts as ‘drawing’ the card, so skills such as Echo or Fate will trigger. Also, power cards count as the factions they create, so you could choose to have a Fire Sigil or any dual power that could add Fire influence in your market that can be swapped with an Ixtun Merchant. The swapped cards stay in the Market ready to be swapped again by another merchant of the specific faction if you choose to do so.
Similarly, multi-faction cards can be fetched by any merchant of their respective factions. For example, Bandit Queen has Fire and Shadow influence in its cost and so it would be possible to swap a Fire or Shadow card for it in the market using an Ixtun or Kerrendon Merchant.
This mechanic is very complex and one that will lead to many possibilities during deckbuilding. Adding five more cards that you can have access to whenever you draw the merchants is a very big change and one that I believe will have a significant impact on gameplay and the metagame. This concept allows you to be flexible and have tutors for niche cards such as deck-defining relics like Crystalline Chalice or Mask of Torment, whilst equally providing answers to pesky relics such as Azindel’s Gift.
Berserk
Berserk is a very interesting keyword that really favours aggressive strategies. Here’s how it works:
When you attack with a unit with Berserk, you have the option to make it go Berserk. This happens at the beginning of your normal attack with your units. It is important to note that you can also choose to attack as normal instead of going Berserk. When a unit goes Berserk and successfully survives its first attack, it immediately attacks again. There is no window to cast spells or activate abilities. You only receive the second attack once only on the turn you choose to go Berserk. When a unit does go Berserk, it loses the Berserk keyword and gains the Reckless keyword, meaning that the unit must attack at the beginning of each combat thereafter.
The upside for going Berserk is quite high and really plays well with combat tricks such as Rapid Shot or Finest Hour, since the unit will retain those effects and buffs during its second attack. Additionally, any unit with an attack trigger will gain the effect twice with Berserk, assuming the first attack was successful and that the unit survived. Pay close attention to Berserk cards that have abilities which trigger on attack, such as Rusty Grenamotive or Acquisitive Crow for extra value. This applies during deckbuilding where you could combine cards from other sets that have the potential to play out well with Berserk such as Paladin’s Oathbook.
Tribute
Tribute is a summon ability that is active if a unit has gone to your void this turn. It doesn’t matter where the unit has come from so long as it ends up in your void. This means that units can go to the void from combat, get discarded from your hand by spells, such as Herald’s Song, or get discarded from your deck by cards like the new Chairman’s Contract. When you play a unit with Tribute active, it will get a more powerful effect on summon and many of the cards in this set have huge payoffs. Here are a few examples:
This is another ability that really favours aggressive strategies, as you can attack with all your units in the hope that one of them gets destroyed and triggers your tribute unit as a follow up. It brings a whole new level of bluffing to your game, as your opponent will have to think very carefully whether or not to block a unit that should be simple combat math, risking a devastating follow up play with Tribute. Imagine playing Kenna, Shaman of the Scale to get back a removal spell that you had played the previous turn or using Soulbringer to bring back two Wisps from your void that died that turn. These power plays can be game-breaking if you can set them up right. Pay close attention to cards with sacrifice effects, as these are the ones that can activate your Tribute cards easily. For example, Combustion Cell and Brimstone Altar have a free sacrifice effect, so you won’t have to pay any additional power to activate Tribute, just pay tribute and sacrifice a unit for your powerful effects. Gnash, Pridemaster has the potential to trigger Tribute when attacking, whilst giving huge benefit to your team if a unit goes to the Void that turn.
Spellcraft
Spellcraft is a very intriguing mechanic in Fall of Argenport and provides you with the flexibility and versatility in your gameplay. Spellcraft is a keyword that appears on some weapons that allow you to pay extra power to create specific spells and play them for free. For example, let’s take a look at a few examples:
For four power, you have the option to play and equip a unit of your choice with a Welding Torch and boost its power and defence by 3 and 2 respectively. Not too shabby for a common weapon. However, if you have an extra three power to spare, you can also create and play a copy of Torch by paying for the Spellcraft 3 ability. Note that all of the power gets paid at the same time so you have to decide whether or not you are going to pay for the Spellcraft ability before you play the weapon. Also, Spellcraft is an optional choice, so you can still play the weapon as a normal weapon without the extra Spell attached to it if you don’t have enough power. You have the choice of playing a Sword of Unity on a unit for four power, giving it +2/+2 with Lifesteal and Overwhelm, which is already a solid option. However, you could wait until you have the extra two power to play the Spellcraft 2 ability and cast a Stand Together as well, bolstering your team with Aegis and +1/+1 effects.
Once you play the weapon with Spellcraft activated, the weapon will go onto your unit and the spell will be created. As you are casting the spell, the normal response windows are valid, meaning that your opponent will still be able to respond to your free spell by playing a fast spell of their own such as a Backlash or Unseal. The copy of the spell will go into your void like normal and will count for cards that care about spells such as Moment of Creation. Choose your timings carefully to avoid being blown out by an opponent’s removal spell or counter to turn the tide of battle.
Inspire
Inspire is a very interesting mechanic that is centred around drawing cards and is found on many units. Units with Inspire grant a bonus to other units you draw. These could be permanent stat buffs, keyword bonuses or cost reduction amongst others. The format for inspire will always be written in the form ‘Inspire: do something’. For example, Journey Guide reads ‘Inspire: Reduce the cost of units you draw by 1’ which can be pretty powerful for playing a big unit a turn earlier.
Dusk Raider has ‘Inspire: Units you draw get Berserk’ which was the second mechanic we have looked at today. It also can draw extra cards with Nightfall, which is a really useful way to find more units to activate more Inspire triggers. It is important to note that if you have multiple units with Inspire abilities, they will stack with each other. So multiple Breeze Dancers can give your units multiple random battle skills when drawn, akin to the popular Crown of Possibilities. Combining Dusk Raider with Frontier Bard can give units you draw Berserk and Overwhelm, which could be incredibly powerful in the right deck and should not to be underestimated. You should be aware of the various ways there are to drawing cards such as Dark Return, Rise to the Challenge, using the Merchants and Market to name a few. As they all count as drawing cards, they will trigger Inspire abilities from units.
Standards & Tactics
The Standards & Tactics are the final gameplay elements that I am going to talk about. The Standards are a new cycle of power that are similar to the Monuments from The Empty Throne. Like Monuments, they add one influence of their respective faction and come into play depleted. The each have the keyword ‘Transmute 5’ which means that all copies of the card in your hand and deck will transform once you reach five maximum power. All the Standards in your hand and deck will transform into a new card. With the monuments you got 5-power units or weapons but this time you will be rewarded with a two-power fast spell. Let’s take a look at a few of the Standards as examples.
Clan Standard is Primal’s transmute power and will transform into a Clan tactic once you reach five maximum power. Clan Tactic is very similar to Lightning Strike but more powerful, as it does five damage to an attacking enemy as opposed to four. In general, each of the five Standards will transform into a more powerful spell once transmuted, compared to their sister cards. Let’s take a look at Crownwatch Standard as another example. This is the Justice transmute power and will transform into a Crownwatch tactic, which gives a units +3/+3 and Lifesteal for a turn. This is comparable to Finest Hour but for one more power you get a better card with the keyword Lifesteal, which can turn combat in your favour, especially if you combine it with other keywords such as Berserk.
That concludes our Fall of Argenport primer for today. I hope you have enjoyed reading about the different gameplay mechanics that are waiting for us on the horizon. I am very excited to play around with the new set mechanics and can’t wait to brew up some different strategies. Let us know what mechanic you are most looking forward to playing with and why!
