We've seen the first new cards from Masquerade Of The Macabre, including the new Majik Mask cards, the first 8 of the Directors Cut cards, aswell as a couple higher rarity Exalted and Renowned cards! Let's dive into a few of them and what they offer for a huge chunk of archetypes!
Our first guests at the party, we've seen some exciting spoilers for the Rogue archetype in the Masquerade Of The Macabre spoilers so far! As an archetype, Rogues have consistently had some incredibly strong tools in Rule Of The Rogue, Rogue Dynamite Dice, and Angelica's Emerald Luck Charm, but have missed a large enough list of consistent tools to build out the archetype fully, without relying on other Hero archetypes. With MOM, this looks to potentially be changing with 3 cards for the archetype revealed already, with each helping to support existing pieces and sub-archetypes in the archetype.
Discard synergies have had some support in the Rogue archetype, with Elixir Of Vitality acting as a strong fueling engine for cards like Rogue Danger Daggers, Alvar's Rogue Connection, and Rogue Warriors to fuel Revival effects. The newly spoiled Rogue Poison Dart is a great support piece for these synergies, offering a much better route to trigger the discard effect of your Elixir, while also being a strong card to send to discard itself.
Rogue Secret Passage - Ballroom helps to kick Rule Of The Rogue into overdrive, giving you a strong route to recover your Rogues to hand and to conscript them into play, while also reducing the deck's reliance on Sapphire Amulet.
Potentially the most exciting piece however is the new Rogue Exalted, Cinnabar, The Scarlet Rogue. The Cloak ability on Scarlet is huge as a control tool, forcing your opponent to take card of Scarlet before they can use other cards safely, and Danger is a nice way to support the incremental burn damage of the archetype. The Dagger keyword is the most fun one here however, with the ability to not only provide a little bit more burn damage, but also to potentially setup Rogue Card Monte as another value engine for the archetype.
Overall, the new pieces for Rogues both strengthen the core engine of the deck, while also offering a lot of support for synergy pieces like Rogue Card Monte and Elixir Of Vitality.
I'd be amiss to not also mention the one non-Rogue card spoiled for Heroes so far, Majik Mask - Dark Wood Visage. Part of the cycle of Majik Masks given to every Legion, Dark Wood Visage offers the Retaliate keyword, and when attached to a Dark Wood Warrior helps to buff up the Keyword by cranking up the attack of both Warriors in battle. In combination with Majik Mask - Three Eye Dark or other Armaments offering multiple attacks on Warriors, this could be a neat way to push in damage against a full board of Warriors, potentially in a more Armament or Mask focused hero deck, potentially one focusing on Rortimer.
Spooky, The Dark Wood Omen is another notable addition to the Dark Wood archetype, offering both another way to push in Effect Damage, as well as a way to recur other Dark Wood Warriors with Spooky's Perish ability. This is another great tool for the archetype, and it'll be exciting to see how it can push the subpackage.
On the greener side of things, Duxvox has been picking up some new toys for his archetype. Storm Of Smog And Ooze looks to be a powerful setup tool for the archetype, allowing Duxvox to take better advantage of the staple Reservoirs Of Revival Ooze than Sharn can, with the ability to send it to discard to setup a Retrieve. Storm also helps to pile on the Cooldown hate, with the ability to hit Synergy cooldowns, helping Duxvox to limit how much power an opponent can have directly after Veil Pierce.
Duxvox Operation: Ooze Overflow is another neat tool, offering a one-shot revive that sets up Doomsday Counters, while also being a payoff for Duxvox's Doomsday Cannon with it's "when destroyed" ability.
Dukka, Duxvox Doomsday Engineer is also an exciting piece, helping to generate Duxvox Doomsday Scorpions and Doomsday Counters, while also giving a solid route to remove Doomsday counters from cards like your Duxvox's Deployable Bomb while denying your opponent resources.
The Orc Mask, Majik Mask - TarDaxian Butchery hints towards a new archetype, but more importantly at the moment offers the (Butcher) Keyword as a way to clear out Warriors quickly in Battle, potentially being useful for setup in the Wasteland variant of Sharn Aggro where Rampage isn't quite as easily accessible for pushing past Warriors.
TarDaxian Blademaster, Mictiras is another interesting piece, with the ability to tutor any Orc Armament. While we'll still need to see new pieces for the archetype, it's potentially a decent generic piece in any Orc archetype that's interested/reliant on a specific Armament.
In the Divinity Realm, we can see some of the pieces of our first new archetype in the set with the Night Watchers! This includes our first Night Watcher Warrior, and 3 Unholy support cards.
Amariel, Abyssal Night Watcher combines 2 exciting Keyword Abilities. Sanctify is well known for Angels, but Exhume is a particularly interesting one, letting you pull out 2 Warriors with 3 or more attack. While I'll be patiently waiting to see what big Warrior support comes for the Night Watchers in this set, I'm already excited by the prospect of using this to pull out Mastema, The Divine Prosecutor.
Unholy Eventide is a strong way to generate Holy Counters with it's on-board ability offering a constant stream of Holy Counters to all Night Watchers that enter play, aswell as counters for itself, while it's in-discard ability is a great one-shot way to protect a boardstate, or to build up Counters for effects like Bow Of The Archangel.
The next 2 pieces of the archetype continue to push a revival focused theme, with Invoke The Unholy letting you trade 6 Holy Counters for 2 Night Watchers. Invoke also hints towards discard/mill synergy for the archetype, something we haven't seen yet in Angels.
Majik Mask - Unholy Volto offers one more revive effect with it's sacrifice ability, but potentially more interestingly lets you give Sanctify to any Angel Warrior you control. While many already have the ability, getting a few Holy Counters on an Archon or a Mastema is potentially fantastic for protecting your most dangerous Warriors.
We can also see the first explicit Light archetypal piece, with the Directors Cut Mothman, Protector Of Moon's Light. Mothman is our second Brillinace Warrior, potentially making it a lot easier to put a lot of power into play off of Help From The Chaos Divine. At the moment there aren't many targets for Mothman's Perish ability, but being able to eradicate a Lost Messiah - Punishing Light is relevant, and more excitingly, eradicating Archon, Avenger Of Light is a nice way to get some single target removal into your deck.
Shifting from one Unholy force to the next, Demons have some new tools for an archetype that's often more loathed then loved, with two new tomes for the Black Magic archetype!
Black Magic Tome - Envy offers a unique way to get card advantage, reaping greater rewards for your opponent having more resources than you do. The on play ability potentially sets a full backrow of cards, but offers a fun sort of mindgame with your opponent, as the more resources they keep back the more you get, but trying to get rid of their own Fortified cards might lead them into pushing a little too hard, a little too fast. The on-eradication ability helps in the games where your deck has a bit of difficulty getting going, helping to even out the playpatterns of the archetype.
Our next tome works well with the last, with Black Magic Tome - Lust as a neat defensive tool to pull some value from your opponent's eradication zone. In addition to the eradication ability making 3 Soul tokens, this is a nice way to gain some value, or at the very least, put some bodies into play to keep you alive.
So far in the set, we're also seeing some love for the Hell-Plains, with a small sampling of cards revealed. Bethany, Possessed By Hell-Plains is a solid 3 attack Warrior who can notably wear Majik Mask - Hell Plains Horror. The Demon Majik Mask here offers a new way to trigger discard or eradication effects from hand, while also being able to rip your opponent's Warriors right out of the discard pile.
Box From The Hell-Plains offers some attrition to the archetype, reducing the heavy costs of cards like Fight For The Hell-Plains and Hex Of The Hell-Plains, while also giving some unique tech to bring cards back from eradication, or to shut down Perish abilities.
As expected, the Undead revealed so far are all pieces for the Crimson Vampire archetype. The first two Warriors revealed have been Vampire Viscountess, Victoria, and Demetrius, Vampire Earl Of Tantibus. Victoria is a solid board buff piece, giving a +2 Atk bonus to your board on Perish, while Demetrius is a fantastic setup piece thanks to his Perish ability letting you tutor out any Vampire Warrior from your deck. While we'll need to see more Warriors for the archetype, these are a great base to start out.
For other support pieces, Crimson Coffin is another great setup piece on both halves of the card. The main ability lets you send your Vampire Warriors to discard, setting them up for a revive effect, while also replacing itself. The in-discard ability may become incredibly strong too, letting you help to keep a Vampire Warrior in play to help rack up your buff from your Vampiric abilities.
Majik Mask - Crimson Bite is a great control tool for the archetype as well, allowing you to not only push your Vampiric count higher, but also giving a solid bit of life-gain. Notably, this heal effect is quite a bit stronger than other similar cards like Slugoth's Legendary Blood Axe, with Blood Axe caring about the Atk of the destroyed Warrior, and Crimson Bite healing based on the Warrior equipped with it. With what we've already seen of Vampire's Attack buffs like Crimson Fields, this has the potential to get a ton of healing, possibly giving the archetype some of the best attrition in it's Realm.
The Titan Pieces in this set are so far showing off another new archetype: Ethereals. Building off of the base of Ethereal Watchtowers and Ethereal Gates Of The Unbound, this archetype's got some monsters far bigger than just the Tartarian Strixes.
Ethereal Tartarian Gatewurm, Campe is the start of this as an exalted for the archetype with 5 Atk, and a Perish which helps to flood the board with Strixes while pushing in damage, this is an incredibly powerful threat on the board with a lot of potential power if revived.
The next Wurm in the archetype, Lefshe, The Ethereal Earthquake is a bit smaller at 3 Atk, but with Tremor and it's ability to deal 3 damgae on Perish, it's another great way for the archetype to push in the hurt.
Our last Warrior for the time being is also at the 5 Atk mark, with Ethereal Vampire Bat, Desmodontidae. As a Vampire, Desmodontidae has Vampiric 2, letting it scale it's attack up, but that's not the only thing it's got. The new Devour Keyword requires Desmodontidae to sacrifice 2 other Warriors to attack, relevantly letting you trigger the powerful Perish effects of the other Two Warriors we've seen so far, aswell as any spare Strixes you may have clogging up the board. Once you've buffed it's attack up, it's Perish ability lets you pass it's high Atk on to another Warrior, possibly another copy of itself to build the buff up even higher.
Helping to tie together these Warriors, Emerge From Lethe is a powerful setup tool, letting you Eradicate an Ethereal Warrior from deck, while also eradicating the top cards of your deck based on the Attack of the Ethereal Warrior, which currently means 3-5 cards. The eradication ability of the card is also highly relevant as another way to get your Ethereal Warriors back into play to start pushing in damage against your opponent.
It'll be exciting to see what other support pieces we recive for the archetype, but for the time being there are already some pretty interesting options to take advantage of some of the strong revival tools existing in the Titan Realm.
In the Mythical Beast Realm, we've got 2 archetypes getting shown off so far, with Jinns and Sirens.
Jinns have been getting some great support through the previous few sets in EOR, GCD, and ELP, and with a new Warlord coming in the set, there's bound to be some incredibly exciting tools for the archetype! From what we've gotten so far, Sa'hada's Shifting Sands is a solid support tool for the archetype, having both a strong first activated ability to reward bouncing it back to hand, aswell as a once per turn to constantly enable any of your card moving/zone synergies, such as with Allure Of The Jinn.
Lamp Of The Mystic Fire Storm is neat as our second lamp, following Lamp Of The Dueling Dragon. Like the first, this Lamp offers some fantastic card advantage and refill abilities, and Incinerate is a great Keyword for controlling the board, and using Recycle abilities.
Our first introduction to the Sirens is interesting too, Siren Warning Bell is potentially an incredibly strong support piece for the archetype, letting you match your opponents Warrior Conscriptions 1 for 1, potentially letting you pull out a full board of Sirens against a greedy opponent. But what Siren Warriors are you getting?
So far we've only seen one, with the Director's Cut Mercury, Hypnotizing Silver Siren. This Warrior introduces the Lure Keyword Ability, letting you rip a Warrior out of your opponent's hand, and strip it's Keyword Abilities right off, This is a sweet and quite unique hate piece, and basically the only targeted hand disruption outside of Demons at the moment. Whether Sirens have enough cards to build out a full archetype by the release of the set we'll have to see, but Mercury looks like a solid enough consideration in sideboards to hate out specific powerful Warriors.
The Dwarves have a plethora of fun new pieces to try out, with new toys abound for almost every archetype so far. The Blastforge has gotten their favourite thing: a bomb, in the form of an incredibly explosive removal and combo tool. Blastforge Powder Keg is a solid removal piece which specifically punishes full boards, letting you blow up one face-up card, and every card adjacent to it. With no once per turn restriction, this could be an incredibly relevant piece to recur and retrieve. The in-discard too helps to keep churning cards, clearing the way for more Warriors and to keep fueling your conscriptions and discard pile.
For the Alehouse, we've seen our first Fortified Alehouse Drink with Alehouse Drink - Vodka, The on-play of this card is incredibly nice as a simple Warrior negate, while the reveal effect is notable for setting up both The Grand Alehouse and Brewmaster's Alehouse to enable cards like Alehouse Fortunes And Future.
Arcane is getting a swath of new tools, helping to build off of Druni, The Arcane Elderman. Werth, The Arcane Fortune Forger is another nice tool for the archetype, with the Augury keyword helping to setup the top of your deck, while also revealing cards.
The reveal part is incredibly relevant, as Majik Mask - Arcane Fortune shows an interest in reveal synergies for the Arcane archetype, making the reveal effects on Druni and Werth offer board buffs when they trigger. The Enigma ability of Arcane Fortune is great too, giving you a way to dig into the cards setup by these abilities.
While so far we haven't seen too much for the Arcane archetype, Druni, Werth, and Arcane Fortune all work incredibly well in combination with basically any other Dwarf Archetype, giving you a way to draw even more value out of the reveal effects of your cards.
The only other Arcane Card revealed so far is Raylene, Frozen Arcane Defender: one of the eight Kickstarter Stretch Goals for the Masquerade Of The Macabre Kickstarter!
2 Bounty Archetypes have also already recieved some exciting new tools, with Marianas recieving her first Exalted card!
Ancient Relic - Seamark Sextant is an Act for Marianas that lets you turn Infamy Counters into Ghost Pirates while also letting you punch through boards to help build your Infamy up! The Removed from the field effect is exciting too, as if your opponent removes it, you'll get guaranteed access to your Synergy to use again!
As for the namesake of the set, Majik Masks are also getting tons of support, in no small part thanks to the myriad of exciting new masks available to every legion, surely making mask builds much more exciting and varied.
Majik Mask Dressing Room is an exciting support piece to send important Majik Mask cards to the discard pile, and to move Masks around. Being able to use Majik Mask - Three Eye Dark on a Warrior with Condemn, or potentially with a mask like Dark Wood Visage, and then move it to an opposing player's Warrior so they suffer the burn damage sounds like the making of a solid Mask burn build.
Majik Mask - Freakshow Pierrot also piles on the potential for burn with it's Warrior destruction ability, while also being potentially an exciting piece in a deck with a Freakshow subpackage.
Majik Mask - Stitched Abyss offers a unique control piece to limit opposing player's card options, and Warrior conscriptions, while Majik Mask - Jester's Regalia is a huge buff to let Majik Mask decks close out games.
If you haven't heard, or if you've been putting it off, the Masquerade Of The Macabre Kickstarter is currently over 75% funded, but we need your help to get that last 25%! There's a myriad of tiers of support, whether you're just looking to pickup a few boxes for the set, whether you're looking to get into the game with the first two Structure Decks, or whether you're looking to get some great bang for your buck with any of the tiers, the Kickstarter is a great spot for however familiar you are with the game!
The only way we get there is with your support, and if you're as excited for this set as I am, then make sure to checkout the Kickstarter to help to cross the finish line!