So that's Black down, with Purple and White handled previously...I'm almost halfway through the Specs. Up next is the Green Faction of the
Mosswood Sentinels - now we're really ripping off MtG wholesale.
In Codex Green is nature themed, with
common starter cards that accelerate
mana gold and a number of big creautres and buff spells.
There's homage, there's plagarism and then there is simply phoning it in...
This is actually pretty disappointing at the conceptual level, seeing as green could easily have been themed around money having a bunch of cards along the lines of, trade caravans accountants, treasure vaults, insurance agents, etc. Or it could have been themed around jealousy with a bunch of duplication / theft abilities and some sorely needed come-back-from behind things that get bonuses when an opponent has more / better things in play. Or it could have been themed around poisons, sickness and medicene - taking the place of the Black Disease spec and adding some non-suck healing options to the game. Or it could have been centered around "green" troops - a bunch of units who are combat weak but cheap to get a bunch into play - but that schtick went to Blue's Peace spec instead.
While green is really strong on gold gain and pretty strong on units that can overwhelm the board in a straightforward slugfest, Green is really weak on removal, has almost nothing with Haste, and also has only expensive lategame options to increase cardflow. Green is also the color with the most forced color synergy where something in each of the three Specs cares that other things you have in play are also Green:
Why's it always gotta be about color?
So as a player you really want to swap in an out-of-color spec to gain better access to Haste, Removal and/or extra draw effects, but as a player you also really don't want to swap out any of the Green specs because you lose forced-color synergy . And while picking any team of three heroes involves trade-offs between strengths and weaknesses, this really comes across as ham-fisted design as regards Codex green, as none of the other factions have as many cards that care what color things are. Even Past and Future's ham-fisted need to stick with the Purple starter comes across as a design oversight and not the designer trying to box you in to a given playstyle.
So the first spec in Green is "Balance", and here's
the official hype link
Hero: Master Midori
This comes from a different game, and ripping off multiple sources is called research.....
Hero Innates: Mr Green's stats are high-tier, but at the maximum cost for such, meaning that he's pricey to level up to higher bands. He has no startband ability -- so he compares poorly against a lot of the cast in the earlygame. His midband was nerfed at the last minute, as the version in the Spec hype link was brokenly strong in the Balance/Truth/Necromancy build - giving you zero-cost 5/5 Spectral Hounds reliably by turn 3 backed up by the potential of 3/3 skeleton tokens. The final version grants a mere +1/+1, which is just not enough to get excited about seeing as it is limited to units with no abilities. Not merely units which have no innate abilities, but anytime you do anything to give a unit an ability, that unit loses the +1/+1 bonus. That really limits the sorts of tricks you can set up and makes it so the red hero whose midband give all your dudes Frenzy 1 is a better choice for 80% of token spam plans -- since Frenzy 1 boosts any of your units which have Flying or Stealth or Swift Strike or what not. I'm not alone in thinking that he should have given his bonus to units with "no printed abilities" or otherwise had it slightly tweaked. What's particularily galling is that the next Green hero has a midband which gives all your units a minor ability, effectively shutting off Midori's midband if you level her to that point too. His maxband makes him a flying hero, but only on your turn. This is really strong, but the hype link is totally wrong about how much of a win-condition that is. Without support, Garth's token spam, Vandy's cheaper stats and threat (even if unused) to pull out her Ultimate, Onimaru's same-cost statline and more directly offensive abilities, and even Setsuki's potential for massive cardflow advantage are all better win conditions than the plan of"hit the opponent with a 4/5 flyer repeatedly".
Spells:
Moment's Peace: this is ripping off MtG's Fog, except that it is a lot more abusable in the context of Codex, where failing to defend your tech buildings means you fall off the slippery slope. It prevents you from patrolling, and it prevents opposing units from attacking you. It does let opposing heros attack, and you have no patrol zone, so you want to have answers for hero-based plans, but being able to play this will significantly crimp a lot of offensive plans.
Nature Reclaims: this trashes an opponent's non-unit non-hero card and also trashes itself for deck thinning. A strong answer against a lot of combo plans.
Circle of Life: pictured above. This lets you cheat in a green tech II unit up to two turns early. Can be very strong, but kind of a high-risk plan to commit to.
Ultimate: Final Showdown. This is the spell which makes Midori effective as a win condition. It gives him +3/+3,
vigilance readiness, resist 1 and as per the wording "he...draws a card when he attacks" -- which is kind of odd in that I thought he was a card within the game and not the one playing the game. But that makes him a 7/8 flyer, and he had to be at max level at the start of your turn, meaning that he can swing for 7 (minimum) the turn you cast it. You can even stack both copies if you went all-in on drafting for that plan. The downside is that it gives a pair of 3/3 tokens with anti-air to an opponent - but those can't patrol until that opponent's turn, and even then the flying vs anti-air rules work such that unless your opponent has air-defenses already up, they are on no more than a 3-turn life clock.
Tech I cards:
Gemscout Owl: This is Codex's rip of Birds of Paradise, they are a 0/1 flyer than produces
mana gold -- except they are kind of crap in this game. In MtG, mana birds were a potential turn 1 drop that provided extra mana production, mana-fixing, a potential chump blocker, and the potential to be a buff-spell delivery system. In Codex, you have to Tech these in, and build a Tech I building -- meaning that they are only possible sooner than turn 3 in very rare longshot hypothetical openings. They do provide gold production, and do so without having to
tap exhaust, but they don't help you skirt Codex's multicolor penalties. Due to the floobiness with the flying rules, they can only
chump-block patrol against attacking flyers. And they have a "can't attack" drawback on them, because being able to use buffs on them might allow effective offense. These are solely to pressure an opponent into acknowledging that you will have a slow but cumulative economic advantage in the long game, and then sacrificing with Circle of Life the instant they commit to trying to rush you down.
Tiny Basilisk: This is a 2-cost 1/2 critter that has deathtouch. That's awesome it trades favorably with all sorts of bigger, scarier, more expensive things. And then it sweetens the pot by adding "unattackable and unstoppable by tech 0 units". So this is pretty much Mono-green's most reliable earlygame removal option. The downside is that "unattackable" means if it's patrolling, the attacker which cannot attack it can and must bypass it.
So neither of Balance's tech I units can patrol effectively against a tech-0 ground unit -- which are the majority of starter deck cards
Tech II cards
Chameleon: this is a 2 cost 3/3 with Stealth. Yawn.
Dorthraki Dorthram Horselord: For just $3 this trap option gives you a 6/5 overpower unit. The hype link lies about this one too. In any 1-on-1 game you are not already winning, he's going to go join you opponent on your next upkeep. Because they get a turn to respond to your playing him before the power totals are checked, and their turn will consist of either increasing their own or reducing you total ATK -- and having him in play makes it worth them going down on cards to take a card away from you.
Faerie Dragon: This is a 4-cost 4/2 flyer. When it arrives, it can make one other tech I or tech II unit into a 3/1 flyer. Notable for being the only way to give something else flying in the game (aside from some clone effects which copy flyers) and has a couple cute combos with damage-based removal effects to one-two a buff opposing unit. But generally you only care about this decidely mediocre flyer because it's Green's best flyer.
Potent Basilisk: this is a 4-cost 4/5 with untargetable and deathtouch. It also has a disenchant effect when it arrives, because the deisgner felt that Balance needs 3 different ways to get rid of upgrades, when the remaining 19 specs have a grand total of 3 anti-upgrade cards between them ( Versatile Style, Assimilate, Zaramonde the Obliterator ). I find such decisions totally mystifying.
Wandering Mimic:
way cooler than the actual art
This is a $4 cost 4 /4 which has any and all of the following abilities { Flying, Overpower, Sparkshot, Stealth, Untargetable, Haste } which other things on the board already have. This is generally strong as it sets up a "what will it do next turn" threat for your opponent, and if you are already ahead on the board it can get you multiple abilities for cheaps. But where it truly shines is for posing hypothetical puzzle situations.
Tech III card
Tyrannosaurus Rex: because this is Balance, the T-Rex can destroy upgrades when it arrives. I'm still scratching my head over that one, especially given how rare ways to deal with upgrades are in
the entire rest of the game.
Maybe they can destroy this guy's suspension....
But the T-Rex is a just-short of top-tier Tech III option. It's 10/10 with overpower and resist 2, meaning it hits hard though blockers and is a bit pricey for the opponent to target. But the real deal is the arrives ability, which seeing as you are already playing Balance you are not going to have opposing upgrades to target, so you are going to pick the other options: killing two units if you are behind, or two workers if you are ahead. Thus is has some comeback potential and at least a chance to delay an opponent building their tech III and seal a win.
And because it's Codex, the ability wording on T-Rex is of course phrased with needlessly ambiguous grammar:
"Arrives: Destroy up to two units, upgrades, and/or workers.
As per the usual rules of what "and/or" and comma placement mean in English, that text should mean up to six targets. The online clarification rephrases things to a much less overpowered ability to destroy no more than two targets -- but why doesn't the card text use the clarification wording in the first place? It's not like "Destroy any combination of up to two of the following things: Units, Upgrades, Workers" or "Destroy up to two targets, each of which can be a unit, an upgrade or a worker" wouldn't fit on the card ?
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