Cocofang

So the idea is to have these units as targets for Twilight Curse but not for NG, right? So it's T2 150p VS T2 200p. But the problem is that these two units are also supposed to be Parasite Swarm targets which goes T3 150p. What if instead Parasite Swarm got "buffed" to being able to take over T3 175p units and Twilight Hag + Twilight Treefiend got changed to T2 175p? This would put them in range of Parasite Swarm, keep them out of NG and within Twilight Curse's range.

@Kapo I'm with you on Twilight Hag and Treefiend as it has similar stats to Thornbark. Whisperers though not only offer sustain but also damage and perma CC on any enemy ranged units. That's well above a T3 power level. Similarly Stonekin Aggressor has higher power than any T3 L ranged unit. The same is true for the other excluded L units, Devastator and Rageflame getting a grace pass. Some of the excluded L units could probably skate in terms of theoretical power efficiency. If they were assigned T3 150p some could still be within bounds of what such a unit would look like as a player card. However takeover is binary. It doesn't differentiate if the taken over entity is better or worse, it simply either works or doesn't. It could be a consideration if takeover was dynamically adjusting its power cost depending on what it gets used on but that's not the case. So despite these exceptions being theoretically feasible T3 150p units, they are objectively better than actual T3 L units. And those are the benchmark. We must never forget that we are still talking about a mechanic that: insta-kills. creates energy unbound entities. adds enemy battle power to your own, creating a drastic shift. can jump tiers in terms of accessible power. So these points have to be kept in mind when considering units that are stronger than any player T3 L equivalents, while the player is still on T2. In this case it's as easy as a few clicks. Amazons takeover ability has a simple restriction that it can only be used on enemies that have the class Beast. So by simply adding the Beast class to Manabeast, it could be taken over.

Looks like reasonable stuff overall. It gives the impression that the guideline for orb and power assignment was player cards, which would make the most sense. M Units Excluded for NG: Twilight Hag, Twilight Negator, Twilight Whisperer, Lost Spellbreaker, Drones, Firechanter Which interactions does Twilight Negator have with PvE entities? Unlike MotK it doesn't block attacks. I suppose Drones are blocked because the player card is T3? Excluded for Parasite Swarm: Twilight Hag, Twilight Whisperer Not sure about Twilight Hag. It has M knockback, which is very strong on T1 and still good on T2. But why keep it from Parasite Swarm? Nightmare Shard uses Twilight Witches, which are currently (hidden) immune against takeover. L Units Roster available for NG: Twilight Devastator, Stonekin Rageflame, Lost Manabeast, Lost Shade, Spikeroot There are two obvious concessions here: Stonekin Rageflame - T2 100p for 1750/1950 Much higher raw stats than any T2 ranged unit, even if it cannot attack air. Twilight Devastator - T2 100p for 1800/1700 + Siege Higher raw stats than any T2 unit except Harvester. So that gives NG basically two "cheat" units that grant T3 equivalent power. I don't like it but if PvP makes it impossible for NG to comfortably go all in on T2 150p units (through cheaper ability, no resistance buff, etc.), I guess. Roster available for Amazon: Twilight Devastator Why not Lost Manabeast? It literally has "beast" in its name, wouldn't it make sense for it to get the Beast-class so Amazon can take it over. Roster available for Parasite Swarm: Twilight Deathglider, Twilight Devastator, Twilight Frenzy, Twilight Horror, Twilight Vileblood, Stonekin Rageflame, Stonekin Warrior, Lost Manabeast, Lost Reaver, Lost Shade, Lost Vigil, Ashbone Pyro, Mutating Frenzy, Fathom Lord, Spikeroot, Swamp Drake, Thornbark, Magma Hurler, Virtuoso, Vulcan All within reasonable bounds for T2/T3 units. Excluded for Parasite Swarm: Bandit Gunners, Bandit Hornblower, Bandit Windhunter, Twilight Treefiend, Stonekin Aggressor, Stonekin Rockstorm, Void Maw, Emberstrike All either have their player version on T4 or have power well above player T3 L units. So makes sense. XL units Excluded from Mind Control and Mindweaver: Bandit Lord, Bandit Ship, Raven Battleship, Raven Scoutship, Lost Archfiend, Viridya's Grimvine, Stonekin Arbiter, Stonekin Deepfang, Stonekin Gemeye All make sense here. Now the important question though: How is it going to be communicated to the player which units can be taken over by which takeover-instance? I feel like word of mouth is not enough. Will the tooltips be changed?

@TREX All Towers have damage capabilities, except Stranglehold G, Willzapper and Lost Converter. Stranglehold G can be put aside since P has damage. Lost Converter doesn't even have internally assigned classes, clearly an oversight. Which leaves Willzapper as the only building that is somehow a designated Tower, yet cannot deal damage. So I would argue that in its case we are looking at a faulty class assignment, it should be a Shrine instead. Same as Lost Converter. As such Willzapper falls outside the scope of a Tower/Fortress rework. As for Infected Tower, what do you think it would need to receive in compensation? If you could make an Infected Tower that operates under a pop cap but is still good to go, what would it look like?

Hmm, I feel like the new booster covers are still not quite there. Mini and General didn't get changed as far as I can tell. Fire is very busy now. Previously it had two prominent figures in Rageclaw and Firedancer, one smaller in Juggernaut and a barely visible Moloch. I liked the purple hue of the previous one but the new orange cover is nice as well. It looks chaotic, like a scene from a battle. But it is fitting for fire. On the other hand I don't quite see what it has in common with the other three pure covers. It's the only one that looks like a cohesive artwork. Overall I think both old and new are good in their own ways but when it comes to visual clarity the old one had the edge with Rageclaw and Firedancer being very clearly visible. The old Moloch up there in the corner though ... kind of useless. I don't get this "snapshot of the moment" feel from the other three pure faction covers though. The old shadow one pretty much only had Fallen Skyelf as the centerpiece, the rest just kind of merged together. Especially Necrofury had it bad, just like old Moloch. In the new one, the Fallen Skyelf is just a tiny speck and feels more like clutter than part of the image. Tiny Harvester creeping in from the side feels out of place, he is so small. Shadow Worm is the most prominent creature but without knowing that its a worm, you'd also just think it's a disembodied maw. I do like the Skeletons taken from the Harvester artwork at the bottom. I think both old and new kind of miss the mark but I give the edge to the old one because it has a more prominent, clear centerpiece in Fallen Skyelf. Old frost booster had pretty much only Frost Mage going for it. The rest was a mashup without a sense of scale or perspective. New cover nails the sense of scale with Frost Mage < Tremor < Construct but the three entities don't seem connected. And Frost Mage is a way too detailed artwork. It just blurs into spikes and lights when scaled down to that size. I much prefer the old one, if only for the fact that it had at least one clearly visible, detailed figure. The new nature one has two very cool elements in the green tornado and the Thornbark in the background. But the Werebeasts and Shaman are in a odd place. Shaman is the only entity not heavily tinted green. Despite standing out in color, he is also rather small. Do like the new darker greens overall, it seems more menacing. But I feel like the old nature cover was pretty spot on from a compositional standpoint. It had three clearly visible entities, Grove Spirit taking centerstage, Spore Launcher being visible in big parts and taking up the background. Parasite Swarm rounding out the cover in the corner and being big enough to stay present, although its size being off. It seemed pretty ideal. Twilight now has a teal hue and is zoomed further out. I like the change in size but the fact that the hue also affects the letters makes it seem like the colors simply messed up instead of an intentional change. Bandit got the BATTLE color changed, I like it. It has one prominent entity and that's it. But the artwork is still great. Although very much its own thing. Stonekin has an entirely new lettering color. Both top and bottom being so similar makes it lack an interesting highlight/contrast, that the logo usually provides. If only one part of the logo had these colors but the other was different, it would definitely be more consistent with the rest. The collage of Stonekin entities is unchanged and still a bit weird. Deepfang once again popping in from the side with unfitting size and the barely visible, second Crystal Fiend is unnecessary. Lost Souls seems to be unchanged and is still fine. Only odd thing is the tiny Lost Horror there. But it's another battle scene, just like the new fire cover. I like this cover, even though only Lost Grigori is really visible. It's good but definitely not consistent with the rest. Amii is also unchanged and could maybe use an update, we have Paladins now after all. The lettering is badass though. Love the colors. Overall, I feel these updates is odd. The best new one is probably Fire, I'd say. Then maybe Nature but it got its problems. If the goal was consistency as stated, then I don't see how that was achieved. Lettering: Mini, General and 4x Pure - Normal two-color lettering Twilight - Teal hue lettering Bandits, Lost Souls, Amii - Specific two-color lettering Stonekin - Uniform lettering I'd say Twilight and Stonekin are the odd ones when it comes to this aspect of the booster cover. And Stonekin was changed but instead of being consistent it is now an odd one out. Cover art: Mini, General - Structure Shadow, Frost, Nature, Stonekin - Mashup of three entities Fire, Lost Souls - Cohesive battle scene artwork Twilight - Still the planet? Bandits, Amii - A single entity (although Bandits has a "scenery" feel to it whereas Amii is more of a character-artwork) There is hardly any consistency here. I guess the idea was "Mashup of three entities" but I am not a fan of the execution. Harvester and Fallen Skyelf are super sidelined in Shadow. Frost Mage blurs together with the other entities and loses its details. Shaman sticks out color wise but is so small, Werebeast is mostly obscured by the lettering. And Fire is its own thing entirely. Just from glancing over the general color composition, I do like Fires reddish orange and Natures dark tone but those aren't necessarily defining. So I am mostly just left confused. Aiming for "consistency" implies there was a specific concept in mind that got worked towards, but I don't quite see it in the results. In the places where there is consistency (Shadow, Frost, Nature, Stonekin) I find the execution not entirely up to par. I am sure all adjustments went through quite a lot of iterations but what checks were there to see the goals through?

The seasonal forge is a fun idea! I really like the winter one. The dark gray lines should get another touch up though. They look painted on. The original forge has the golden borders, which gives the illusion of stone plates framed in gold. You barely see a hint of slightly blue borders in the winter forge. e/ Oh, I hadn't even looked at it with normal settings. Had the game in a small window with low specs, as I sometimes do, when first checking the winter forge out. Nevermind, it looks amazing in high specs.

What are the issues with it?

The T3 shadow core of Frenetic, Infect, Soulshatter is always good. SoW even instantly refunds the energy expenditure. For T1 Soul Splicer G could be a consideration. Tortugun will have to be fed, otherwise it will just run wild and eat your own units. Is the plan to feed it with Commandos spawned by Corsair? Generally, I feel like Tortugun is such an unique unit that you almost have to build your entire deck around it to function. Which offers a great playstyle but doesn't really give you room to do anything else other than manage your Tortuguns. T2 is so powerful with Harvester, that you could even remove your T3 units entirely and get by. Harvester + T3 spells will go a long way. Not a fan of Lava Field because you only get that by T3, at which point you'll probably want to spend your energy on the much stronger shadow spells. Bloodhorn P could replace Bloodhorn R, since you use Disenchant G anyway. Bloodhorn P has very high boss damage but Bloodhorn R is much more reliable. Either is fine, really. An alternative to Shrine of War can be Furnace of Flesh + Cultist Master. Depends on how you feel like it plays out. In rPvE, you'll never want for energy while SoW is running. FoF+CM is completely autonomous though, it can be used whenever. You can play around with what you prefer. Necroblaster seems a bit odd, definitely not too necessary for rPvE. And on cPvE T3 looks a bit late to get fortification going. Can leave it in if you find yourself using it frequently. What you are definitely missing is sustain. You can't heal your army at any point in the game, except for the puny heal of Nether Warp G. And I guess Necroblaster? But that has limited range. Consider Blood Healing or Bloodthirst. Both combo very well with Unity B. Blood Healing works great with Undead Army.

It doesn't matter. You are focusing way too much on the things in the statement that you dislike than what should put you at ease. Nothing is changing in that respect except for the male/female mechanic, which includes only Twilight Hag and Girl Power.

Shouldn't this put the entire thing to rest anyway? Like I said, it's just the male/female mechanic that's getting scrapped/overhauled. A mechanic nobody cares about. That includes Twilight Hag and consequently its ability icon. It wasn't even the ugly, disgusting Hag itself dancing on the pole, which would've been funny. It was straight up just a stripper and a disco ball. It seems you are concerned about this being the harbinger of a great purge of scrubbing the game squeaky clean. But the very statement you quoted specifies that it's not. It is about reworking the male/female mechanic. Which affects two cards that nobody uses.

Scantly clad men and women aren't going anywhere as far as I can tell. Just the male/female mechanic and the stripper pole are on the chopping block.

Stop making it such a black-and-white issue. First off, the current icon is only tentative as far as I have read. For me the issue with it is simply that it's immersion breaking. It does not belong in the fictional universe. It's a throw away joke that doesn't add anything. The entire "male/female" class mechanic is in a shit state as well. In some instances there is no way of knowing if a unit is either and you have to try if the spell works. It's a throw away joke made into an attempted mechanic. Which is even sillier. It's not even worth salvaging. Pretty much the only reason to even be outraged by this is on principle because of being sick and tired of the entire topic. And I sympathize. But I bet most people wouldn't even have noticed the change because both Twilight Hag and Girl Power are abandoned concepts. Bet if you were to count the amount of times those cards have been played since release, you would barely even hit triple digits.

Stanning for a stripper pole.

There are still some changes planned for Tortugun to give it a buff after consuming a unit. And both getting long range. But the hunger mechanic won't be going anywhere, it seems. And it doesn't have to. Even now Tortugun offers a very unique and involved playstyle. The approach of this rPvE deck is basically just cycling through Tortuguns non-stop. Either by making one near-frenzy Tortugun eating another one. Or Offering/Motivating it to get it out of the way before it frenzies. The reward for such heavy micro isn't quite there yet but it's a playstyle you don't get otherwise. It's fine if it stays niche. Bandits will get reinforcement by Wasteland Terror in any case. However, after the upcoming buffs, actually feeding them consistently might be very worthwhile.

A) There was no way to avoid that because the damage ran deeper. The reforging system should've been present since day 1, ideally. However, that was unfeasible at the time and so cards had one year to just pile up. The damage accumulated. This resulted in the volatile effect reforging had when released. There was no way to avoid that, no matter what. The people that already had stockpiles of worthless cards waiting would always end up benefiting the most, adjustments or not. That is an undoubtedly unfortunate reality. As you noted prices are already starting to settle in again, after the initial massive oversupply distributed itself. The small size of the community slows down this process but you can already see it at work. B) All rarities are now loosely tied together in value. Previously that was not the case. Which resulted in Cs becoming completely worthless, you couldn't even sell them anymore. Same was true for most UCs, with just a handful of outliers. As for Rs, most of them were slowly dropping in price more and more. On the other hand the popular URs kept inflating endlessly because supply was lower and they were the last remaining magnet for all the BFP that are constantly generated. The gap became larger and larger. Now all cards have inherent value, if not for play then as reforge material. The price floor was raised, while the ceiling was lowered. Which also means as soon as there is an oversupply and prices drop, these cards become attractive purchases as material. On the other hand, if cards start to inflate like before a similar thing will happen in that it becomes an attractive option to attempt reforging into these cards. If the floor drops, it drags the ceiling down. If the ceiling rises, it drags the floor up. C) We already had a one-month booster discount on release. From this we know for a fact that as soon as the discount gets disabled the vast majority of prices will rise accordingly across the board. Which means that a price change of boosters won't actually change their relative value. In any case, if you buy your daily booster for another 100 BFP discount, you will most definitely always see a positive return if you open a few. Overall the booster value settles at roughly the normal market price (be it 350 as of now or 450) although we saw gradual distortion pre-reforging. The real question is in which card pulls the value is concentrated. The entire thing relies on people opening boosters, reforging and participating in the economy. However, reforging needs to find a sweetspot where people continue engaging with, so that it can fully unfold. If it turns out people stop doing it for whatever reason, it has to be looked at why that is. @Reckoning There seems to be some anecdotal bias when it comes to the UR chances here. You are suggesting a pity system to get one every 20 packs. This means that you think a 20 pack streak without an UR is a thing that regularly happens. However, UR chances are 19.5%. Which means that you get one every 5 boosters in the long run. Looking at my own booster history of 361 (which contains some Mini Boosters), I have exactly one time where I open above 20 boosters, 28 to be exact, without an UR. I also have streaks of opening several URs in a row or in short succession. In total I pulled 71 URs. Which, you guessed it, averages out to 19.67%. It seems you are evaluating UR chances as much lower than what they actually are based on selective memory. Of course, odds don't protect against bad RNG and a pity-system would. But I wonder if the situation is as dire as you think it is. Your sample size is even bigger than mine. I'd be very surprised if you ended up below 15% UR pulls.

With such precise timings and strict procedure, I assume the effect of randomness is minimized if not eliminated altogether. If such a speedrunning script leads to a reproducible course of events, wouldn't it be possible to automate it?

Sounds like a different problem at work.

I mean, sure. Forging is not something you are meant to do when you don't even have excess cards. However the initial progression didn't really change. You have your dailies, your boost, your booster discount and your achievements just like before. But forging provides a passive benefit to new players by making cards they get have innate value and by putting a dampener on UR inflation and putting even the top tier cards within their reach. For this to fully materialize the economy (and of course the people participating) will have to adjust first. Hopefully in a way that is long term beneficial for everyone. And like previously mentioned, it's hardly possible to take the current prices at face value. Because of the sudden oversupply and the booster discount.

The game NEEDS a way to get rid of excess cards. There is no way around it. People were sitting on hundreds, in some cases thousands, of Cs and UCs. This was also becoming an issue for the server. It was dead-weight too because their overbearing supply made their economical value so low that they weren't even worth selling. Meanwhile BFP were and still are constantly pouring into the game endlessly. This lead to inflation. A fixed price on boosters merely slowed it down. But it did not stop it at all, as people originally hoped it would. Most cards became worthless while the majority of the value was focused on a few top tiers. When opening boosters you basically always bled BFP unless you hit a jackpot worth multiple boosters. The top tiers became the magnet for the inflating BFP. We had a very low floor and a very high ceiling with less and less inbetween. Card reforging tackles all of these issues at once. It serves as a card drain and also as an indirect BFP drain, since cards are merely different manifestation of BFP. They are generated from boosters after all, which are generated from spending BFP. The "hard work" isn't going anywhere, it's getting readjusted. Ideally we will eventually see a state where every card has inherent value as reforging material, raising the floor. This also means that whenever a card drops too low in value, it immediately becomes an attractive purchase if only to reforge. The flipside is also true. When Rs and URs start increasing in price too much, it will eventually become worthwhile to purchase preceding rarities to forge into them. This ties all cards together, creating a completely new, interwoven economy. But the impact of reforging is greatly exaggerated right now. People went on a reforging frenzy after the patch. All the Cs and UCs that were gathering dust were getting funneled into Rs and URs. People also rushed to participate in the economy more. This lead to a drastic increase in supply but not enough demand to soak it up (yet). It will take some time for the market to adjust and reach a new equilibrium. And a second point, that isn't being considered, is the fact that we have a 100 BFP price reduction on boosters for one month. This will also drive market prices down across the board. Consequently they will increase again in mid-January, when the discount gets removed. We already know this from release. The biggest hurdle for the market settling in again is, aside from the current discount, the player numbers. A smaller amount of player simply means the process will take longer.

Very exciting. I am looking forward to how Card Reforging will affect the economy. It's an interesting element to add to the equation. Hopefully it will make all cards more exciting and the top tiers more accessible. Maybe I can pull all the new cards right away and give them a try. Looking forward to them.

A pure fire and pure shadow guide for budget decks.

Foreword Content: Cost Tier progression Alternative Cards to use Upgrade priorities My other Guides This guide aims to put together a pure shadow deck on a budget. As always in Skylords, any suggestion is merely that. It’s all about experimenting. If you don’t like something, just change it. Want to give something a try? Just slot it in! Pulled an interesting card that you want to see in action? Build a deck around it, make it work! Struggle with a specific map? Try different cards, there might be more suitable ones for different situations. Create something else entirely from the ground up? The card pool is your oyster. With that being said my goals here are: Focus on cards of mostly lower rarity Use mostly cheap cards Introduce cards (in the deck itself or as alternatives) that have at least some interesting synergies and are more involved Be flexible, so many cards can be changed Be a generalist, usable in both rPvE and cPvE You will notice my use of singular letters next to card names, which are referring to the cards affinity. G = Green, P = Purple, B = Blue, R = Red. Cards with affinities have two different versions and they vary in effect, depending on their affinity. Affinities are represented by a small dot on the card in their respective color. They have nothing to do with what Orbs you need to play that card though. Cost The pricetag isn’t excessive but it will inevitably be higher than a budget mixed deck, because the pool of available cards is restricted. Also, because of the nature of Shadow, we have to use at least one or two more expensive cards. Forsaken - 10 (starter card) Snapjaws R - 10 Knight of Chaos - 10 Shadow Phoenix - 50 Shadow Insect - 10 (starter card) Cultist Master - 150 Necrofury - 50 Overlord - 400 to 500 Embalmer’s Shrine - 150 Soulsplicer G - 150 Furnace of Flesh - 40 Time Vortex B - 30 Necroblaster G - 10 (starter card) Life Weaving - 30 Undead Army - 10 Blood Healing - 40 Frenetic Assault R - 130 Plague - 130 Rifle Cultists - 10 (starter card) Offering G - 10 (starter card) So right away I have to say that it is really hard to make a pure shadow deck work at all without using Rare or Ultra Rare cards. Some cards are also in dire need of upgrades or even charges to become decent. If you are trying to put together a pure shadow deck without at least some investment, you are in for a bad time. So we have to assess the trade-off between budget and usability. Make sure you have BFP and gold saved up to cover the absolute necessities. Your gold reserves will also be especially strained to get the Rare cards up to speed. The estimated total to get the aforementioned cards should be around 1500 BFP, which is achievable within about three days of play. Buy your discounted daily booster, resell it to someone for more and there you go. The expensive cards don’t need charges though, which makes charge upgrades cheap at least. AH (Auction House) prices seem to be pretty consistent, if big outliers appear they usually settle again after a few days. What is more, you want to have around 15000 gold to immediately upgrade the cards that benefit from it the most. Less is workable but you'd have to cut corners. Shadow is generally a bit harder to play than other factions and trying to make working under budget restraints makes that especially true. Playing rPvE 9 is possible with the baseline version but it can be very tough. Especially the harder enemy types will be a big challenge. You’ll probably end up waiting around a whole lot in order to stack up your army. I'd advise you to stick to solo until you got a good feeling for the deck. Play one round of 6 or 7 at first. Then try 8 and 9. Tier progression Tier 1 Forsaken are our main guys, we stack as many of them as we can. One Snapjaw R is enough to serve as our support unit. We have to actively micro manage our army if we want to make the most of it. Snapjaw R applies a 50% damage taken debuff to the enemy it attacks and we want all our Forsaken to focus that target as well. This makes it possible to pick off one target after another in quick succession. Their ability Frenzy is hardly worth using until they are at least U2. Be careful with it, as it carries a high risk. If we don’t manage to use the immense damage boost to kill all opposition, we will be left with nothing. Embalmer’s Shrine is a very important building for this deck because a lot of cards have Corpse Gathering and therefore use corpse HP as a resource. While Pick over the bones is active Corpse Gathering will be much more efficient. We can build two Shrines and cycle their buffs, so we have permanent up-time if necessary. Soulsplicer G is used both offensively and defensively. We can build it just outside an enemy base and then pull their units into its AoE for Corpse Gathering. While it has some stored up, it will heal our army with Gifted Necromancy. This also makes it great to fortify a position together with units. We use it on U1 to gain access to Soul Suction, which effectively increases the area it can gather corpses from. On T1 specifically, we can use Pick over the bones to boost Soul Splicer G if absolutely necessary. Life Weaving probably won’t find much use in this tier yet. It’s actually a T1 card we pick up for later. Having it at least on U2 makes it work much better. Same for Offering G, it will see use in T3 and T4. Something to keep in mind about Offering is that it even resets a cards cooldown. So whenever we want to use a card in quick succession we can circumvent its cooldown, either internal or through a lack of charges, by offering a unit of the same tier as the desired card. Tier 2 Here things get interesting. Knight of Chaos is a pretty strong card but tricky to play and it depends on which affinity is used. Basically, we pre-cast Chaos and take care to not tag our own units. Then we run in before our own units, positioning the knight as deep as possible within the enemy army. Which affinity we use is completely up for preference though. Tainted Chaos has pretty big damage potential as enemies attack one another. But it's also riskier because you have to take care to not affect your own units. Blessed Chaos lets you use Forsaken to kill a few units before the enemy can react so it's safer. We can also use several knights to easily cycle the effect. This is seamlessly possible once it's U2. Imagine Shadow Phoenix as a spell. They deal massive AoE damage to ground targets and multiple at once can instantly kill high priority buildings like spawners. We take care to always have Embalmer’s Shrine running to ensure they make full use of Reincarnation. What’s even better is that when they use Crashdive once, they count as having died. Which means we get the usual 90% energy refund to your void pool. Considering the whole package, they are probably the strongest unit we can have on T2 hands down. There is also a fun interaction with Knight of Chaos. While Blessed Chaos prevents the Phoenix from suicide bombing Tainted Chaos lets them attack (albeit randomly) but since Crashdive isn't technically an attack the knight doesn't get damaged. Furnace of Flesh is this decks energy manipulation building. Whenever we have units we no longer need or have identified a spot where enemies tend to die regularly, we build a Furnace to speed up our void return. Having it on U1 will make it a bit more efficient. This is a vital building and will see use throughout the game. At this point we can also consider that, instead of simply destroying a left over Soul Splicer, we build a Furnace next to it and use Corpse Sharing to fuel a bit of void return until it runs dry. Time Vortex B deals a lot of damage and has strong knockback. It also shoots faster and faster the less void we have. So they have natural synergy with Furnace. Undead Army is another very important part of the deck that relies on corpses. It summons up to four Skeleton Warriors with Unholy Armor active, which means they take less damage but die after some time. Embalmer’s Shrine makes it much easier to summon the maximum amount of squads. The Skeletons upgrade level is the same as the spell, so it should be at least U2. They make great meat shields to soak up damage that would’ve been dealt to our main army otherwise. If the situation presents itself, letting the Skeletons die near a Furnace will make use of their corpses for void return. Tier 3 Cultist Master is one of the core cards in every shadow deck but it requires upgrades to gain exponentially more power. That's expensive, considering it's a rare, but it's well worth it. On its own it doesn't pack a big punch but with Call Horros it summons Nightcrawlers with Frenzy. Using these it can swamp enemies with murderous insects for a life cost. With Soulsplicer G it can push on the offensive repeatedly. But even more important is the interaction with Furnace of Flesh. This is the quintessential way to cycle void power for the rest of the game. Let a few (usually 3) Cultist Masters sit in your base around a Furnace and cast Call Horror whenever available. The Nightcrawlers will die automatically and fuel the Furnace so it gives back void power. No new power is created by this, you just get your old power back much quicker. This makes Cultist Master probably the highest value card we can pick up. Shadow Insect supplements T3. Once again, we encounter Corpse Gathering, this time to enable Soul Shock, which is a strong, spammable ranged nuke. U2 makes its usage much more rewarding. Embalmer’s Shrine helps sustaining frequent use. It can be tough to manage though, since their low health makes them impractical as frontliners. Cultist Masters can feed Shadow Insects with Nightcrawlers before you engage. Necroblaster G is one of the strongest T3 towers but it requires corpses. U2 is rather important as it makes it deal even more damage, which in turn kills enemies quicker and helps with corpse sustain. The real power of this stage lies in the spells. Blood Healing is very important to keep your units healthy, so U2 is recommended. We can use it on Nightcrawlers summoned by Cultist Master or Skeletons summoned by Undead Army. These make ideal targets since they will die anyway but their Unholy Armor reduces the health cost. This becomes an even stronger interaction once Undead Army is upgraded. Some numbers to think about: Skeleton Warriors U0 – 3 ticks of Blood Healing U1 and U2 – 5 ticks U3 – 7 ticks Blood Healing amount per tick U0 - 860 U1 - 900 U2 - 1000 U3 – 1100 This means if we have U0 Undead Army and U2 Blood Healing, we are only getting 3000 healing out of sacrificing one Skeleton. U1 Undead Army and U1 Blood Healing gives 4500, so it’s a much better investment. U3 Undead Army/U0 Blood Healing gives 6020 even. Having both on U3 will give the maximum output for this combo at 7700 healing. But that’s not all. Coming back to our T1 spells, we can use both Life Weaving and Blood Healing on the same unit, drastically reducing the health cost. Of course part of the self-damage will be spread out to surrounding units, which is vastly off-set by the healing though. However, the damage splash applies BEFORE the healing. Units that are close to death might just die from the effect of Life Weaving before Blood Healing heals them. But this combo makes it feasible to use Blood Healing on our own, permanent units without having to fear their death. Frenetic Assault G is one of the strongest spells in the game. It makes enemy units attack each other, so not only does it have huge damage potential, it makes our own units less likely to be attacked. The red affinity, which we use, can even be used on buildings, to make enemies destroy them. If the affected target dies quickly enough the spell even procs a second time. Offering G makes its first major appearance here as it can be used to sacrifice a Cultist Master in order to refresh the long cooldown on Frenetic Assault G or recharge your T3 cards in general. Tier 4 Unfortunately we have to spend big to get a decent T4 army going, since the cheap options pure shadow has to offer don’t work very well together. Which means we opt for an extremely powerful frontline in Overlord. U1 is very important here since it doubles the proc rate of Flesh Feast. This passive ability makes Overlord gather corpses to constantly heal himself. So despite only having 4000 HP, he can take a lot of punishment in prolonged skirmishes. Blood Share can be used to quickly heal some units, but a combination of Life Weaving with Blood Healing will be better in most situations. Take note though, that on the targeted unit Blood Healing prevents healing by any means other than inherent leech like Life Stealer. Necrofury cannot attack airborne targets but they wreak some real havoc. Positioning them in reasonable safety we can use Bone Shards, which is a devastating nuke that costs a lot of life points but deals even more damage. Using it early can take out big parts of the opposition before the fight even heats up. Much better to first upgrade the card though. Rifle Cultists are mainly there to fuel all your other T4 card charges with Offering G. Plague has ridiculous damage potential and is just too strong to pass on. Enemies that die while under the effect of the 5 original parasites will spread it even further. Some chain reactions later and we can have dozens of Plague instances. And they can even stack up! So if we are lucky we can have several stacks of Plague eating through a boss. Undead Army is still as useful as it was on T3, if not more so because of Blood Healing. Frenetic Assault G will also continue to serve us well. As will Furnace of Flesh with Cultist Masters. Alternative Cards to use With each Tier explained, let's look at some alternatives, upgrades or additions. Rough price chart: Very cheap - <20 Cheap - <80 Moderate - <150 Expensive - <250 Very expensive - <500 Top end - 500+ Tier 1 Options Nox Trooper – Sidegrade to Forsaken. Overload provides a lot of burst damage and they are less susceptible to knockback by virtue of being M. Cheap. Dreadcharger – Swift with The Reaping being a very strong if niche ability once upgraded. Moderate to expensive. Skeleton Warriors – Beefy frontline with Unholy Armor once upgraded. Very cheap. Phase Tower – Even after Relocation, it still has more raw stats than any unit for its cost. Cheap. Decomposer – A way to drastically speed up T2 acquisition but Furnace of Flesh quickly replaces it. Very cheap. Motivate – Useful throughout the entire game, assuming you have ways to replace the sacrifice. Moderate. Tier 2 Options Harvester – Possibly the most iconic shadow card. Extremely fun to play and an absolute powerhouse once upgraded. Top end. Darkelf Assassins – Their ability can make short work of enemies. Very risky to use though. Cheap. Shadow Mage – Difficult to use but can be very fun. Enormous damage output but they require a lot of care for sustain, like Soul Splicer G or Undead Army. Moderate. Resource Booster – If you are confident a round will be over quickly, this will speed it up further. Always a boon in rPvE where the timer guarantees that you will benefit. Very cheap to cheap. Stone of Torment – Very situational but used in clusters it can deal with most attacks. Very cheap. Unholy Power – Great synergy with centerpiece units like Harvester. Very cheap to cheap. Nether Warp B/G – An amazing utility card if used right. Don’t inconvenience your allies though, you don’t know if they want to come along for the ride. Blue affinity is better suited to CC enemies, green is more beneficial for your own units. Very expensive to top end. Tier 3 Options Ashbone Pyro – Once upgraded this card can carry T3 and even work on T4. Moderate. Fallen Skyelf – Visions of Despair can annihilate tanky enemies, even bosses, if sufficient damage output is present. A classic combo is Necrofury buffed by Unholy Hero using Bone Shards. Moderate. Unstable Demon – Quite difficult to pilot but a very engaging card once upgraded. Cheap. Infect – A whole lot of meat shields with damage potential to boot. Top end. Frenetic Assault P - The spell is so powerful that it can even be justified having both affinities in a deck. Moderate. Soulshatter – Smart usage can wipe out bunched up units. Moderate to expensive. Tier 4 Options Death Ray – Requires U3 to get faster. Leech Guns gives them immense damage output but it’s hard to sustain them in pure shadow. Moderate. Grim Bahir – Supportive unit that summons lots of meatshields. The Nether Crawlers can even be Offered to recharge T4 cards. Expensive to very expensive. Shadow Worm – Very powerful and versatile card. Self sufficient backline, Earth Diving disruptor or mobile Disintigrator. Life Stealer works through Blood Healing and the damage reduction while moving reduces its damage. Very expensive. Void Maw – Enabling a lot of damage potential and offers some guaranteed burst damage on bosses. Cheap. Altar of Chaos – Together with Cultist Master summons the bombs can deal ludicrous damage. Moderate. Unholy Hero – Makes a single unit deadly both to enemies and allies. Especially potent with already high offensive capabilities, like Death Ray, Necrofury or even Rifle Cultists. Very cheap. Upgrade priorities Some advice on what to invest in once you start gathering Gold for card upgrades and BFP for more charges. There are some mandatory upgrades and charges as a baseline and I wouldn't advise running this deck without them. These are extra highlighted. Vital upgrades AND charges Forsaken – Stronger T1 is always a priority. U2 and C2 Recommended. Shadow Insect – Better ability and more charges to Offer for Satanael. U2 and C2 Recommended. Necroblaster – More damage means better corpse sustain. U2 and C2 Recommended. Undead Army – Always have this spell ready and tankier Skeleton Warriors not only mean better meatshields but also more efficient Blood Healing. U1 and C1 Recommended. Blood Healing – Your major way of sustain, every tick needs to be worth as much as possible. U1 and C1 Recommended. Vital upgrades Cultist Master – More Nightcrawlers summoned. U2 Recommended. Overlord – Much stronger heal and damage. U1 Recommended. Furnace of Flesh – More void return. U1 Recommended. Life Weaving – Better synergy with Blood Healing. U2 Recommended. Soulsplicer G – U1 is very strong. U1 Recommended. Important upgrades Shadow Phoenix – More consistent survival and greater damage output. Knight of Chaos – Ability lasts longer, which allows chaining it and of course longer uptime. Necrofury – Much stronger ability and health. Embalmer’s Shrine – Makes any corpse reliant ability easier to use. Time Vortex B – If you use them often treat yourself to more damage. Offering G – If you use it very frequently, upgrade asap. Frenetic Assault G – Too powerful to ignore. More charges won't do anything though, because of the long innate CD. Decent upgrades Snapjaws R – Just a bit more life. Rifle Cultist – A very powerful ability but mostly used for Offering G. Plague – Much cheaper to use. My other Guides HOW TO: PvE Deckbuilding Guide - If you are unsure how to start building your own decks and what to consider. CHEAP and powerful BEGINNER Deck - If you are rather interested in a very cheap and flexible mixed deck. CHEAP Pure-Fire Deck - If you are rather interested in a cheap and flexible fire deck.

You'd obviously only go clearing the cannons after the wagon is locked down and safe. If your allies are in a hurry and want to rush the giant then they have a choice: Either take the reward penalty for not finishing the side-quest or help out doing so. You don't need three people pushing the giant (with the forth potentially even joining in) anyway, the only reason why that became the default approach is because the right side of the map is unimportant after the wagon is secure. If the cannons are meaningful again, two players might actually take on the right side. If you think about it, it's kind of weird that the meta for this map evolved in such a way that the one thing that decides over instant-failure is the responsibility of a single player. Intuitively, you'd almost expect everyone to quickly pull up a serviceable defense on the base and then joining together to secure the wagon as four, only spreading out again after that is done. But it turns out to be a one-man-job, oh well. Barely anyone questions it either. It's "Need a good Pos3 for BH or bust". Back to the topic of making the cannons more important: Ideally there would then also be a path that leads from the cannon-camps directly towards the giant so the players that cleared that don't have to traverse the entire map just to get to the final boss.

Tweeto continues to do such a bang up job emulating the artstyle. As for the name, I would lean a bit into the naming scheme of less serious, rugged names that you can imagine being bellowed across a tent while everyone is getting drunk. Things like "Boom Bomb" from Artillery. Bandit Launchers "Firebug". Corsairs "Big Fat Cannon" and Rioter's Retreat "Uproar". Descriptive, visceral names that you can yell even while drunk on gold and booze. "Treacherous Path" sounds a bit to lofty to catch on with Bandits. And a different name would help differentiate the card from "Mine" and Soulhunters "Minefield". Name: Desert Carpet Ability: Toeclippers The idea is based on carpet bombing as the area is similar. It is also something that I can imagine crafty Bandits saying. "Let's lay out the desert carpet for these folks.", making fun of the more civilized nations and their customs. The ability itself is the more grounded version and represents a type of dark, macabre humor I see as very fitting for Bandits. Since mines are equally meant to cripple and kill I imagine Bandits might have fun ironically belittling them as Toeclippers. Knowing fully well how devastating they really are. "Harhar, hope they don't mind some Toeclippers."

If you were able to trade up lower rarities to higher ones, then the excess of low rarity cards would get diminished to the point where it's actually worth it again to put them into the AH. And if it turns out the supply becomes so low that the prices, even for Commons, become unreasonable, then opening Boosters would be very lucrative once more, since even the crap cards would recoup some cost. Which would then increase supply again. Right now the value of an opened booster is determined by just a couple of cards that are valued for more than multiple boosters. Every booster not containing one of the top tiers is a big loss overall at the moment. So with enough economy participants, it should find a new balance. But the most important points are that it would stop endlessly inflating Ultra Rares by increasing supply (as people trade up) and the bottom tier Commons/Uncommons become a bit more valuable as the excess gets culled. Being able to trade up should have the effect of lowering the price ceiling while giving every card inherent value (if only as material to trade up), raising the price floor. It would also serve as a soft BFP sink, as cards are just another manifestation of BFP (they get generated through boosters, which are generated through BFP). Actually, I think a quick-sell option of turning cards directly back into BFP would be detrimental. It would generate even more BFP, which is the last thing the game needs.