[Appicon]’Tis the season to be expanding, apparently. Just like Hearthstone with its upcoming Blackrock Mountain Adventure, Stoneblade’s Solforge (Free) has just released a mini expansion.
For Solforge’s last few expansions, Stoneblade has decided to eschew large card releases for smaller and more frequent ones. The latest 8-card expansion is called Reign of Varna: Darkness Rising, and the cards look like they’re going to create some fun and, possibly, dominating decks.
The first card is Windspark Elemental, a Tempys Legendary Creature that’s bound to stir up a lot of trouble and cause your opponent to change his whole strategy if used right. When you have this card on the board, any damage your opponent deals to any of your creatures either with poison or any other non-battle way will also be dealt to your opponent. In Level 3, Windspark’s ability to double that damage will make your opponent very wary of attacking you. Windspark is well within the range of Cull the Weak, but it still has a relatively good body to help it stick around the board enough to do its damage.
Ambriel Archangel, an Alloyin Legendary Creature, has the ability to give the player some good Armor for protection but only when it’s the only creature on the board. Stoneblade has tried this kind of creature before with Alloyin Highlander, admittedly a weaker card, which didn’t see much play. I’m not sure this card will see much play either because it’s too situational and sacrifices board control which is an issues as, more often than not, board control wins games.
Malice Hermit, a Uterra Legendary Creature, might help bring the Yeti back. This card poisons creatures when it enters the board and gains Attack and Health when the poisoned creatures are destroyed. His ability to attack your opponent’s creatures while at the same time being buffed up, along with his synergy with all the other yeti cards, means he’ll find his way in many decks, especially as in the current meta many players like to fill the board with small creatures.
Xithian Tormentor, a Nekrium Heroic, is an interesting card because when you play it, it clears out your board in return for a very strong body, especially in Level 3. If you can play this guy on a relatively empty board and can reach its Level 3 without having lost too much health because of your weak board presence, he can deal some serious damage. However, if you’re playing against Aggro decks, which you often will, I’m not that convinced that he’ll matter by the time you can play his Level 3.
The most interesting card in the mini-expansion is not a creature but a spell, Ambriel’s Edict, an Alloyin Heroic. This card has the Overload key word, which means once played it’s removed from the game completely, but in return, it’s a nuclear bomb when played at the right time as it discards your hand and destroys all but the highest attack creature of each player. And not just that, it destroys all cards of ALL levels. In other words, if your opponent has a strong board full of Level 3s and you only have two creatures, boom, there goes board control. OP? Maybe. Fun? Most definitely.
Primordial Invoker, a Tempys Heroic Creature, marks the first time that any Solforge Creature deals damage randomly split between an opponent and the creatures he controls. This is an interesting design space that Solforge hasn’t ventured in up to now, and although many players will hate the RNG nature of this card, I think it will make for some fun moments, and every CCG needs those.
The remaining cards are Stinging Invocation, a Uterra Heroic Spell that brings all the Killer Bees to the board and will be so much fun to play in draft, and Spiritstone Sentry, a Nekrium Legendary Creature that continues Stoneblade’s attempts to make Lane placement matter more by buffing creatures in the Side Lanes.
The expansion is already out, and you can buy the cards in two pre-constructed decks, $9.99 each, in Reign of Varna Booster Packs and Legendary Chests, or in the normal Booster Packs.
