Masquerade Of The Macabre & Wintertide Wonders

Top 40

Written By - Andrew Berry, Dr. Red, Jackson Baldwin, Jacob Feldt, Jennifer Moore, Jordan Steenge, Kaleb Morey, Matt Waller, Sylas Belmont, Thomas NeilsonDecember 4, 2025

For previous sets I've done a community Top 25 to let 5 community members talk about 5 of their favourite cards from a set, but with the exciting wealth of new cards in both Masquerade Of The Macabre, as well as Wintertide Wonders, I wanted to switch it up a little with a Top 40!

We've got 10 community members from a variety of LRAW communities to show off 20 exciting cards from Masquerade Of The Macabre, and 20 from Wintertide Wonders 2025! So let's dive into it, and explore what cards people are already enjoying playing with, and which ones they're excited to see at the Wintertide Wonders release!

Masquerade Of The Macabre

Andrew

- Ethereal Majesty

The Ethereal archetype may be my favourite archetype in the game and I can’t wait for this card. Ethereal monsters are already powerful warriors with 3-5 attack power, with even some having the keyword (Devour), this card is going to make these monsters insanely powerful, plus the protection is a bonus, and the teasing of Medusa?! chefs kiss.

- Rogue Poison Dart

Rogue getting lots of love in this set made me so happy, and this card has me excited to use. Not only do I get to fuel my lust for gambling with more dice rolling. Each die roll outcome has great effects and I’m most looking forward to the 3 or 4 outcome, synergizing with other rogue cards, old and new plus its in discard effect is also a fun little recycle so to speak.

Dr. Red

- Melpomene, The Muse Of Tragedy

I chose Melpomene, The Muse of Tragedy, such a wonderful look to her, with a great name along side it! she seems playful with the way she is tilted, but the way she looks right now, makes you wonder what she's thinking behind that mask!

- Unyielding And Unholy

I chose the Unyielding And Unholy, for it's choice of colors, the teal along with the red and yellow melting, fantastic way to meld colors.

Jackson

- Dulpe, Ethereal Ooze OF Lethe

Dulpe is not just a pile of ooze, but he is an adorable blob bolstering 3 attack and is a focal point in the ethereal strategy. Dulpe allows you to to trigger relevant eradication effects of your ethereal cards, create Tartarian Strix, and or put himself in a relevant zone for cards such as Ripples From The Ethereal Plain.

- Unholy Orb Of Dying Light

Have you ever thought to yourself, "I wish there was a free way to revive my Night Watcher/Light Warriors"? Look no further! This orb allows you to easily splash x number of light / night watchers into any angel pile and with it easily accruing holy counters, players will reap the rewards for keeping this orb around in no time!

Jacob

- Countdown (Rosaline)

While choosing a card that isn't currently playable might seem like an odd choice, as a fan of both the art and lore of Legions Realms At War I felt I was a must include. The card is beautiful full art however when placed next to the previous countdown, Duxvox From Empires On The Rise, it tells its own story, the hourglass on the card is now slightly lower, time is slowly running out, the countdowns are counting down to something, the question remains what. For that we need to look at the lore and the flavour text which show that both Duxvox and Rosaline factor into the Decimaya’s plan, which we now know has something to do with the fracture. The Rosaline Countdown is a countdown to Decimaya and I can't wait not only for Decimaya but to find out how the countdown cards themselves will function.

- Seraphim Severance

Seraphim Severance is a great addition to not only the Michael control kit but the angel control package as a whole, and a nice alternative to Cerebral and Eon, that while not shutting down as single keyword in general, instead shuts down all the keywords of a warrior for the turn and sends them to the discard pile. A great way to shut down pesky Perishes and the ever present threat of Cultivate. I foresee this card getting a lot of use in the future.

Jenny

- Mot, Night Watcher Commander

The new warrior Mot the Night Watcher Commander brings about a darker side to the angel warriors. With new abilities such as Snuff. A new dynamic of sending warriors to the discard pile but also reviving them as well.

- Archon, The Fractured Avenger

Archon, The Fractured Avenger introduces us to the Fracture keyword ability. As his name says he is here to avenge his fallen angel brethren but also bless those around him with such abilities as Sanctify.

Jordan

- Lady Darksky, The Fractured Dusk

The first card I picked was the Lady Darksky, The Fractured Dusk. When cracking packs, I saw the card and the art was absolutely stunning. The dark aura with the bright green makes her look epic and it is a card I want in my collection.

- Unholy Summons

I’m really excited about this next card as I am sick and tired of having to eradicate my deck to search angels using Help. To be able to search, summon and get a plunder, while also getting a gust or exhume will lead to some fun combos without having to eradicate a Radiant Orb by accident.

Kaleb

- Duxvox Doomsday Preparation

This card not only gave Duxvox some much needed card draw, it does so in an interesting way, getting better with less veil counters or just drawing 4 after the veil flip. This lets duxvox players focus on getting the cards they need and holding on till their Veil Pierce, and then filling their hand up, discarding unneeded cards or Vox'tox for a revive to go for a turn 3 win. It also has an interesting retrieval effect that may not be too crazy, but I'm a sucker for making your opponent choose and advocating for more interaction between players.

- Sir Cervante, The Fractured Slayer

The Fractured keyword is wild! completely avoiding the need for revival or conscription, you can just pay BB 10 and play it. sure the cool down thingy sucks, but Cervante has insane removal with eradicating things face down and to top it off he's a beefy 4 Atk with Valiant. Absolutely going to be busted in hero storm and easily one of my top chase cards of the set, I just now wanna find a way to squeeze it into my Brackus deck.

Matt

- Rosaline, The Fractured Queen

Invite is extremely consistent, giving you solid access to the needed keywords in your deck once you are able to find Rosaline, opening up a lot more options for you since you have access to the warriors in your deck

- Majik Mask - Stitched Abyss

Stitched Abyss works exceptionally well to leave it on one warrior to get a stack in which they can only respond with one thing once it is on, allowing you to activate a fortified that might be a little riskier, completely safe at the very least. In the best case scenario they are playing fully into it and not getting rid of their warrior/you aren't giving them ways to get rid of it

sylaS

- Jann-Marid, The Sacred Jinn

One of the new warlords coming, with a cool and unique new play style. While not the most competitive right now, I'm very interested to see what else he gets in his toolkit as he continues to grow.

- Fandorian Royal Procession

A new draw tool for Fandorians, it is incredibly powerful, and one of the strongest new tools they got in this set, even above some Exalted and Renown Rares. Also the fracture art is gorgeous.

Thomas

- One Frozen Winter's Night

I've been testing Frozen occasionally to see how it fares without assisting sub-archetypes, and One Frozen Winter's Night is an incredible new pickup to bolster the archetypes consistently. Being able to easily find your important Frozen Warriors and make additional Frost wolves seriously upgrades the consistency of the deck's engines, which have continually felt like the deck's weakest link. The ability to conscript Warriors from deck also makes Genhildr and the original Devotion a genuinely synergistic choice for card advantage, rather than feeling like an unfortunate necessity.

- Big-Top, The Freakshow Carnival Carnivore

Freakshow has been an archetype with quite a bit of potential when it comes to the incredibly unique ability to duplicate Keywords thanks to KEYWORD DOUBLER. With Big-Top, the archetype gets a big enough buff that I'm excited to try it out as a unique aggressive strategy that turns cards like Plunder Party and Steadfast Courage into value powerhouses!

Wintertide Wonders 2025

Andrew

- Insatiable Ethereal Hunger

More Ethereal support!? Just when you thought they weren’t strong enough this eradication effect is going to make these warriors MONSTROUS. The normal effect is also a fun way to remove opponents' warriors and with the Ethereal's ability to make tokens, sacrificing warriors may be just fine!

- Frozen Adventurer, Finkledorf

Snipe keyword is BACK! And it being on a Frozen dwarf card makes me happy, they’re all good dogs. The art on this card is also phenomenally done, what's better than aura farming with your crossbow and mans best friend by your side, and you can’t beat that name… Finkledorf.

Dr. Red

- Snapper, The Roving Island

I chose Snapper, The Roving Island, because TURTLE, If I need to say more, I mean it's a huge turtle man! what else would some one else say?

- Unstoppable Winter's Beauty

I chose Unstoppable Winter's Beauty because of the more realistic art on this card in particular, power with elegance!

Jackson

- Ethereal Athabaskan, Wechuge

Titan players rejoice! There is a non-warlord locked warrior that comes with removal at cost with Strength Of Atlas, but also threatens on board warrior removal with Pummel. The titanic value of this deer doesn't stop there, with some investment into the ethereal archetype, his INSATIABLE hunger to sacrifice other warriors will reward you with ever growing attack power!

- Weeping Mary, The Terror Husk

As a token undead player, my goal in life is to help my opponent revel in the discard zone as much as I do. When Mary activates her perish, both players have a thrilling experience of discarding from deck and drawing a consolation card. Mary will see an inclusion in any deck along with her friends Squash and Shiftshaker. As this dynamic trio attempts to remove your deck and your opponents, I promise everyone will enjoy the experience alike!

Jacob

- Great Northern Brackus Hare

This card is on the list mostly for the archetype and the art. While I certainly can see it having some counter play against Gaia, Statues and Vampires it is mostly on this list as it represents the growth of the Great Northern archetype. I can't wait to start winning games via woodland critters. Also, bunny.

- Amethyst Talisman

Amethyst Talisman makes the list solely because of how disruptive it can be, shutting down the ability to eradicate cards. While previously concrete catacombs was an option, it could be countered and going second the opponent often already set up. With eradication heavy decks like Titans, Dragons, Putrid, Castiel, Black Magic and more, having a talisman on the board shutting down eradication turn zero is sure to change the game.

Jenny

- Alexandria, Purifier Of The Heavens

Alexandria, Purifier Of The Heavens works well as engine conscripting her fellow angels into battle she helps to seek out her allies and reward them granting abilities to trigger additional times.

- Ascendant Ranks Of The Chaos Divine

Ascendant Ranks Of The Chaos Divine shows us exactly what divine chaos looks like as it searches out warriors to conscript while also building on holy counters. Being a chaos divine card it is searchable within the deck. Holy counters of course work for both Michael and Castiel decks so this could be a key card in either deck.

Jordan

- Sirens Of Seduction, Melody & Luxe

This card is absolutely stunning. It looks like a psychedelic fever dream; The warm colours in contrast with the blues and purples and the long wet hair with the dripping water bring the image to life. Null is an excellent ability as well, and I will be excited to try this new archetype.

- Auspicious Devotion

In the wintertide set, I’m inspired to try the new fortified devotions. It allows for some benefit for the first turn player as compared to the unified devotions and allows for some new combos. As an angel player, it will also be nice to spread more and more holy counters to non sanctify angels that have just come out.

Kaleb

- Blood Majik Revanant

This card was super interesting to me in the flood of commons/uncommons. A little 1 atk chump with Recover 4 isn't bad, especially with all the recursion orcs have, but it also allows for strong plays in Blood Majik with Altar of sacrifice being hard to keep off the board and constantly pinging/healing with Uthrall and also making Blood Majik Skull kinda viable. Simple yet a very good addition to a deck idea I had.

- Shiftshaker, The Labyrinth Terror

It's very nice to see Exalteds without a clear allegiance to a specific warlord. Shiftshaker is great and enticing to mill out your opponents with Extinguish instead of yourself. He comes packed with some built in mill and with Squash, Chilling Grasp and Boreal Thicket also coming out in Wintertide, he seems like a powerful pick and brings a fun new game plan to mill decks in legions.

Matt

- Meg'Saria, Grimm Vizier Of the Vault

Meg feels really good since it is basically a spores on a warrior, so long as there isn't anything getting rid of her keywords, and you use the loyalty properly you can be racking up anywhere from 8-12 damage realistically each turn, with the potential of it being much higher if the setup is right

- Merryman's Personal Pin Cushion

Pin cushion either needs to be dealt with early enough before it starts racking up massive pin counters or will basically just be a negate for the rest of the game, I've found that people are hesitant to remove the pin cushion since when it is removed it does X to the opponent's warlord where X is the number of pins on it.

Sylas

- Curious-Eyes, Mystic Fire Imp

He's just a silly little guy.

- Krampus, Torment Of The Wicked

My boy! Hes drawing cards, hes dealing damage, he goes back to your hand or makes your opponent discard cards, what more could you even want from a Warrior?

Thomas

- The Mystic Druid, Heroes Hood

More aggressive variants of Heroes is something I've been curious to try testing for a while, with some very exciting existing tools like Rortimer to kit Warriors up. The Mystic Druid is a really appealing new addition to this style of deck with the ability to drastically increase the amount of damage you're able to threaten off of your Armament buffs. The Druid especially plays well with Dark Wood Hood Hideout, providing an incredibly relevant "Hood" hero card to fuel it's effects.

- Leona, Purifying Power Of The Empyrean

Now I couldn't make it through one of these without mentioning at least 1 Angel Card, and for Wintertide, Leona is an incredibly exciting piece for Castiel. One of the biggest issues I've ran into with the deck is the tendency to run out of your important cards in deck before veil pierce. I've combated this in the past with Mysterious Mechanism or Majik Void Typhoon, but not needing to rely fully on these bounty pieces is fantastic for the archetype. Additionally, another solid Wisdom Warrior is great for securing needed early game card advantage to help make setup smooth and consistent.

Community Shout-outs

I'd like to extend a huge thanks to everyone who wrote in for this article, and sharing their excitement about Masquerade Of The Macabre and Wintertide Wonders! If you want to see or read more from some of our community members, you can check them out here!

Check out Dr. Red on Squarespace as well as Social Media and Discord for the USA hub for LRAW.

Check out Jackson and Sylas at the TSW's LRAW Academy Youtube channel, where they post LRAW gameplay, tutorials, and Deck Techs.

Check out JBF on his Youtube and TikTok channels, where he posts LRAW pack openings every single day.

If you're local to Sault St. Marie, check out Vintage Games 'N Junque's Steel City XmasCon this Saturday, featuring a for fun LRAW tourney!

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