aeonsforever

[aeonsforever]

Orb of the Deep (Outcasts)

Orb of the Deep is a very cheap focusing card. The only other card that focuses at this price point is Marble Galaxy, but Flexing Dagger can be argued as being approximately as good. At a cost of only 2 aether, it's very easy to pick up Orb of the Deep and start aggressively opening up breaches, and most of the time I'll be picking up Orb of the Deep to do exactly that. Of course, aggressive breach opening works best with spells that can actually use those breaches. Orb of the Deep definitely enables my 3 or 4 cost spell addiction.

[aeonsforever]

Cache Glass (Shattered Dreams)

Cache Glass is one of the only gems which I feel comfortable getting 3 or even more in a game. The main weakness of Gems is how they fall off hard in the mid-game and even harder in the late-game. As aether becomes less relevant due to no longer needing to open breaches or buy cards, having a bunch of aether in the deck diluting spell draws feels pretty bad. But Cache Glass more than makes up for it by thinning out the players deck. By covering up the main weakness of gems, Cache Glass is able to keep the deck nice and dense. Once I get two or more in the deck, I'm trying to pay close attention to my deck and be sure that I draw a cache glass in my first hand of a cycle, then trying to get value from my other cache glasses. But the backup plan of buying a Cache Glass solely to enable the ones in my hand and deck is more than worthwhile. Cache Glass is a very solid destruction engine, but as good as it is it still is a supporting piece to a deck. While a player can certainly spend their first three turns buying Cache Glass and probably be pretty happy about it long term, finding a way to pivot that aether rich and thin deck into one that generates productive output is essential.

[aeonsforever]

Spawning Horror (Legacy)

Spawning Horror is the first non-tutorial nemesis of Aeon's End, and is the first "real" game of Aeon's End. In terms of difficulty Spawning Horror is pretty trivial. An unleash that is countered with 3 damage is pretty moderate, but after a pod is spawned the amount of health the players have to deal with goes down significantly. They float around the 6 HP mark, so the unleash summons about 3/10th's of a 6 health minion, which works out to about 1.8 health per unleash assuming the players let the pods spawn and kill them as they show up. So letting the pods spawn makes it much easier to negate the unleash, but that means that the minions can potentially dish out some damage if they can get their persistent effects off a few times. Most of the 7 minions that show up aren't too dangerous, with only 3 of them dealing 2 damage a turn, it's usually not too bad to let them show up. Finally, the signature cards are mostly pretty easy. The scariest of the first two tiers is probably Exterminating Blade, but being exhausted isn't all that bad since the unleash is pretty easy anyways. Even the tier 3 cards are pretty easy, with one of the tier 3 cards just summoning a pod which is similar to a tier 1 minion? As long as the players pick up something resembling damage, they should be entirely fine against Spawning Horror. Even dragging the game on isn't all that bad, as this boss doesn't punish slow play like Carapace Queen with her insane tier 3 cards.

[aeonsforever]

Gex (War Eternal)

Gex, like many War Eternal mages, has a lot of internal tension in her design. Her signature card wants to grab the most valuable card to get an opportunity to "replay it", but by thickening up her deck it'll make those valuable cards less effective. Her ability wants to be activated early, since thinning out her deck makes her stronger in the long run, but a lot of its value comes from giving an ally 2 life, which is less relevant in the early game. However, even with this internal tension, Gex has plenty of raw power. Her signature card picking up even a crystal acts sort of like a 2 aether card and the raw value of her ability is very high. Although she only has three breaches and it's hard for her to get a second breach online, if she's able to thicken up her deck or destroy her sparks she's more than able to support spells as well. Gex has a ton of raw power (How couldn't you with those abs!), but her kit requires a good bit of finesse. Even if you don't play her super optimally, the fact that she thins out her allies decks means that they can end up sweeping the game even if she falls behind a bit.

[aeonsforever]

Oblivion Swell (Aeon's End)

Oblivion Swell is amongst the wordiest spells with 5 lines of rules text, but it can be divided into three separate effects: Gaining 1 aether per turn Dealing 2 damage Converting a gem in your hand into a spell and "instacasting" it. From a raw value analysis, I expect a 5 cost spell to generate about 4.5 damage worth of value. Breaking it down, Oblivion Swell seems to do that approximately, assuming you cast it right away and it discards a decently pricey gem. In practice, though, I find Oblivion Swell to be quite underwhelming. First of all, the aether generation isn't too powerful I feel. By the point in the game that I'm drawing back into Oblivion Swell, the value of aether is quickly falling off and I tend to prefer to have the damage output needed to end the game or kill a minion, especially on a pricier card like this. The second effect of merely dealing 2 damage on cast is really, really poor. For a 5 cost spell, I'm hoping to really secure the midgame and obliterate any minions that show up, and 2 damage just doesn't cut it. Finally, being able to convert a gem in hand into damage is a pretty solid option. However, that requires both buying a gem and having it in hand when I'm casting my Swell. There are many times where I don't by gems, or only buy one, and spells naturally desynchronize with the rest of the deck, so it's hard to get that to consistently line up. Oblivion Swell tries to do a lot, but I find that it simply doesn't do enough as compared to a more direct damage spell. At 5, I'm hoping for a heavy hitter, and Oblivion Swell simply doesn't hit hard enough.

[aeonsforever]

Erasure of Mind (Southern Village)

Hey, you can see Cairna's Freckles from here! 10 is a pretty big number. The sheer amount of damage can easily close out a game, but it does destroy a 3 cost card in hand. However, if the game is ending soon it's not likely that the 3 cost card was going to be redrawn, so it's not that bad in my experience. It's just that downside makes Erasure's first option unreliable if I cheated it out early. Now, for the second ability, 5 damage is an exceptionally mediocre number. Filtering the top two cards of the deck, however, makes it very easy to redraw into Erasure. When using this ability, I find it pays off to count how many draws it will take to get back into Erasure and potentially even discarding "good" cards so I can draw into Erasure that much faster. I find that Erasure's first ability is great at just telling the boss to pack its bags and go home, while the second ability is just decent. Of course, it clocks in at an expensive 7 aether, meaning that in most situations to grab Erasure it would take lining up two bought gems in the same hand or cheating it out with an ability. It definitely pulls its weight as a 7 cost card, and it makes up for its intrinsic slowness by converting past purchases into a ton of damage. I would go a bit out of my way to pick up Erasure of Mind, but it is still a 7 cost card so it definitely won't always slot into my strategy.

[aeonsforever]

Galvanized Bauble (The New Age)

Galvanized Bauble has three modes: Focus an ally's breach, cast and destroy a spark, or cast any player's spell. Of these options, the first two are fine. Focusing any breach of an ally means that you can skip to a IV breach, which is very relevant in The New Age with many mages having special breaches. Destroying a spark is also entirely fine for a 3 cost card. I usually don't consider the instacasting of the spark, as that's damage that would've happened anyways, and kind of see this as "destroying a card in a discard pile". However, as different as these two abilities are, I find that they sneakily overlap in such a way that makes Galvanized Bauble a bit more narrow than one would expect. Destroying a spark serves to heavily free up breach space for higher quality spells, while opening breaches, well, creates breach space. In both of these instances, it will make casting spells easier, and as such when I'm using Galvanized Bauble I'm almost always looking to pick up spells to use my extra breach space. Picking up spells also helps to keep the final option on Galvanized Bauble relevant, instacasting spells to deal with a problem minion or cycle a spell back in. Although this option is subpar from a raw value analysis, it's of course good to have. Galvanized Bauble allows players to support eachother, but only in the avenue of making spells easier to handle. It won't get higher quality spells and it won't really do damage on it's own, so it's very important to use Galvanized Bauble as a supporting piece rather than an entire value engine.

[aeonsforever]

Triplite Core (Buried Secrets)

Triplite Core is a card that downright requires the player to form a strong plan around instead of just picking it up and hoping for the best. I've found that many players think Triplite Core is quite weak, and I think that's because they treat it like any other gem. Buying three of a regular gem is, well, I wouldn't call it good but at least it can fund breaches and charges once cards aren't good anymore. Triplite Core, meanwhile, is going to be a deadweight on the deck once gaining cards becomes irrelevant. As the game progresses and either deck quality is high enough or the game is going to be over soon anyways, gaining cards will be pointless. Of course, an unconditional 3 aether can lead to some pretty powerful opening turns. Using this card to catapult into a 7 aether card on turn 3 is more than viable, assuming that 7 aether card is strong. After that opening, it's still important to have Triplite Core be relevant, otherwise it's definitely not going to pull its weight. I find that Triplite Core is at its best when I have a plan for it for as long as possible. Triplite Core is not a gem that the player can just buy three of and mostly be alright. In fact, I don't think I'd ever buy more than one, if I do at all. The nature of Triplite Core makes it very easy to pick up more Triplite Cores, but just gaining a bunch of Triplite Cores is spinning your wheels without getting anywhere.

[aeonsforever]

Umbra Titan (War Eternal)

Umbra Titan has maybe the wordiest unleash in the game. Such small text! However, it boils down to a pretty straightforward "Deplete one of three health bars". Umbra Titan's gimmick is that it has 8 nemesis tokens that it'll try to get rid of to win, effectively acting as a third health bar. While a direct 2 damage is very powerful for an unleash, the "third health bar" effectively dampens Umbra Titan's raw power. Paying attention to its signature cards, Umbra Titan is extremely minion dense. Out of the 6 signature cards in tiers 1 and 2, 4 of them are minions. Being able to get the spells needed to counter these minions is essential to the fight. I'll just about always be looking to increase my damage output in my first two turns against Umbra Titan, opening a +1 damage breach or grabbing a nice cheap spell will help to clear out these minions and race down the boss. Ultimately, since Umbra Titan boils down to dealing a bunch of damage, the best way to handle it is by killing it before it can kill you. Furthermore, I find that I generally prefer taking damage over losing nemesis tokens. Despite Umbra Titan's unleash being damage, I play against Umbra Titan as though it's a summoner since it just outputs so many minions. As long as I have a way to scale my damage early, I find that Umbra Titan isn't all that bad.

[aeonsforever]

Lash (Aeon's End)

Quartz Shard is very random and honestly I'm not a huge fan of it. Not that it's weak by any means, the probability of revealing a player turn order card is approximately 60%, making Quartz Shard give an average of 1.6 aether on play, which is an entirely fine amount of aether to give. Now, the fact that it can put the revealed card on bottom makes revealing a nemesis turn order card not an entire whiff. If there's a minion in play or a power that the players need to pay off, Quartz Shard can potentially make the difference there. Furthermore, putting a player turn on bottom when the board is cleared out means that the players will have a guaranteed turn to react to anything the nemesis may put out. Lash's breaches are very solid. He's somewhat shoehorned into opening his II breach on turn 2, though because his IV breach is in such a good position it's more than possible to (assuming you won the 60% chance with Quartz Shard) focus IV turns 1 and 2 for an early open. Finally, his is quite similar to Mist's ability. Giving a player an extra turn is pretty similar to allowing a player to draw 5 cards, although it does give an extra casting phase and all. I think it's an entirely fine ability, but won't be breaking the game by any means. Unless he goes infinite of course. Lash going infinite is something that's "core" to his character. In practice, though, I don't think I'd ever do it in an actually hard fight. The sheer amount of setup needed to go truly infinite is obscene (In the base set, I think the easiest way it could happen is by having Xaxos as an ally and having a deck of 3 mage's talisman, 2 essence theft, and 1 card to discard to Essence Theft). I usually find that if I'm trying to set it up in some way, the game is practically over by the time its set up or even before then. Still, it's definitely fun to pull off. I've found Lash to be decently powerful. Nothing in his kit is really weak, and I've found that even if he doesn't get lucky with Quartz Shard he's still more than able to pull his own weight.

[aeonsforever]

Thraxir (Outcasts)

Thraxir's kit revolves around getting his breaches open, though it's quite a bit more complex than just opening all of his breaches as soon as possible. Despite how all of his breaches are in the right position, the fact that both his I and II breach are sort of "free" to open. They both immediately gain a card that costs as much as it costs to open them, so Thraxir can often feel like a mage who starts with two opened breaches. His I breach is pretty notable for having a focus cost of one, so no aether is lost by focusing it. In his early turns, he can always spend his aether efficiently, allowing him to adapt to a market very well. His III breach is really powerful, and probably the main attraction to his kit. Just shuffling your turn order card back in is worth about 5 charges and 1 health according to Lash's ability, so getting that and an additional opened breach is very notable. Finally, his IV breach has an effect that is actually a bit weaker than his III breach. Just gaining any spell is worth about 5 charges, but the earlier his IV breach is opened the better, so if I do plan on opening all of his breaches I try to do it before his III breach. In some cases, I'll forgo opening his IV breach entirely. His signature card is pretty straightforward. Either gain the aether or have an ally discard a card and focus any of your breaches. I usually use this to try and get focuses on his IV breach if there's a spell I'd want. Finally, Thraxir has a pretty weird ability. At 0-2 breaches opened, it's just instacast three spells, which is bad but maybe can get the players out of a jam. At 3 breaches, it's instacast three spells and make them deal an extra 1 damage. Again, it's fine, but still subpar. It can definitely be worthwhile at this stage if its letting Thrax cycle back in three solid spells, though. If all four of his breaches are opened, it becomes instacast four spells and they all deal two additional damage, which is a massive power spike, and can often close out a game or entirely solve a board position. His ability is strong when it's at its full potential, but he doesn't need it to pull his weight. I find that some players tunnel vision on just getting his ability online and firing it off, but if the instacast isn't relevant and it's just dealing 8 damage, that's not at all gamebreaking. Thraxir gets a lot of power off of opening his breaches. He's flexible and approaches every market differently, and as with every character its important not to get tunnel visioned on one aspect of the game. He has the capacity to have really solid breach capacity without at all giving up his capacity to scale his deck, which means that I usually play pretty spell heavy with Thraxir.

[aeonsforever]

Wound Mender (Into the Wilds)

Wound Mender is a Bouncing Boom with a Well of Energy stapled on top. So for the low cost of two additional aether, Wound Mender can practically trivialize player health while still outputting a high amount of damage. So from a raw value analysis, Wound Mender is very strong. However, speed is extremely valuable in Aeon's End, and Wound Mender is slow even for an 8 cost card. By needing a III or IV breach open and usually requiring the player have two bought gems in their hand, Wound Mender requires a ton of resources that may be too slow for the situation at hand. Furthermore, if the players are not able to use player health (I.E., the boss isn't doing much player damage or the players can kill the boss before the damage becomes an issue) then the healing does practically nothing, and Wound Mender is just a taxed Bouncing Boom. Spending so many resources on avenues other than raw damage will inevitably cause the game to drag into tier 3. I find that if I feel that the player health is very relevant and tier 3 won't entirely kick my teeth in, then Wound Mender's insane value can secure a win. However, in fights that have unfair tier 3 cards and/or focus more on Gravehold damage, investing into a Wound Mender can spell certain defeat. I think Wound Mender is a great example of how just because a card is strong on paper doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be strong in practice. Knowing when it does and doesn't slot into a strategy is essential.

[aeonsforever]

Voltaic Relay

This card generates an obscene amount of value for a 4 cost card. Maybe. Many pulse cards try to be decent in a vacuum, however Voltaic Relay is pretty awful on its own. In practice, this card is usually give any player two pulse tokens and they destroy a card in hand, and if there's nowhere to put those pulse tokens that's pretty clearly awful. The value of a pulse token seems to range between .5 to 1.5 aether, and of course its very dependent on the card that is using those extra pulse tokens. Two pulse tokens could mean "Any ally draws two cards", or it could be "Gain one additional aether eventually". In the Legacy campaign, I found this card to be extremely powerful after I got it. Although the early pulse sinks tended to be comparatively weak, as the game progressed and pulse sinks got more and more powerful, so did Voltaic Relay. Both aspects, in fact, since with more powerful market cards the power of destruction goes up.

[aeonsforever]

Carapace Queen

Carapace Queen is a boss who has an unleash that is countered by damage and some really, really gnarly tier 3 cards. The strategy of get damage, followed by damage, followed by more damage is pretty clear against Carapace Queen. She's a bit vulnerable at 60 health, but her husks taking a lot of that damage means that she's pretty durable. It's very easy to lose against Carapace Queen if the players aren't prioritizing damage. Maggot Engine is an absolutely absurd tier 3 card, requiring 18 damage to deal with minimum (6 + 12), and can often spell certain defeat not too long after dropping. When I'm fighting Carapace Queen, I always try and close out the fight before tier 3. Furthermore, none of her signature cards require that I hit high aether thresholds, so going entirely no-gems against Carapace Queen works very well. I think it's very, very important to stay on top of the husk track, between both Foul Multitudes and Broodwomb, prevention is often the best cure. There are many times where I'd take one damage to deal with only one additional husk. Of course, getting high damage spells to kill several husks at once is very valuable, along with having high spark mages who can handle Broodwomb. Carapace Queen is very very easy to lose to, but she's also not all that bad as long as the players deal with her properly. My first impression with Carapace Queen was like many other players, picking up gems, going into tier 3, and dying horribly to Maggot Engine. But now that I've gotten more experience fighting her, I find it very easy to defeat her by wide margins.

[aeonsforever]

Helix of Amber

Helix of Amber is pretty strong and is able to push a deck’s power level incredibly high, assuming you are willing to pay up that life.

 Losing 1 life to destroy a card is a bad trade on paper. A life is worth 2 aether, destroying a card in hand is worth about 1.5. Of course, the power of destroying a card fluctuates wildly based on where you are in the game and on how high quality the cards in your deck are. With an early gem like Helix, it’s possible to grab pretty quality cards and therefore make the destruction more than worth it.

Of course, if you expect the boss to do less player damage, then giving up player health really doesn’t matter too much. Having good awareness of the nemeses deck can help to inform when this card is especially valuable. It also helps if the players have access to healing. Although the healing will certainly come at a cost, by allowing the players to use their health as a resource and eventually pay to build it back can be worthwhile, “borrowing” power from the future.

Overall, I quite like Helix. Being able to destroy one or two starter cards is often the difference that allows strong cards to cycle an entire turn faster.  There are of course many fights where Helix isn’t going to be any good, since player health is often really important. But if I’m able to lose my health or build it back later, Helix allows me to build my deck fast enough that I can kill the boss before it matters.

[aeonsforever]

Razra

I feel as though Razra is probably the hardest character in the entire game to play optimally. The sheer amount of options that she has means that she can build in incredibly divergent directions, by being able to support her allies she should be communicating with her team and having some level of awareness of what everyone else's deck needs, her upgrades combo with one another in strange ways, and her deck and breach setup are intrinsically awkward. Let's start with her breaches. They are very subpar overall, and both her III and IV breach being in the right position makes it very hard to open up those breaches, but what I find most awkward is actually her II breach. It costs 4 aether to open that breach, but neither of her two opening hands naturally have 4 aether. If she can hold a crystal into turn 2, it's possible for her to open her II breach then, but I find that unless I'm buying a card on turn 1 with that 2 aether that it's not really worth it. Now to get into her five unique signature cards. Rip, Help! Rip, Help! just gets charges. It's quite "powerful", having two copies and quickly generating charges, but not doing anything else makes Razra fall behind in the early game. It's more than possible to just get a charge sink for Razra and just ignoring the rest of her upgrades. Rip, Go! Rip, Go! combines some scaling and output, however it's essentially "blank" for Razra. Getting a few focuses for allies can really catapult their midgame, and simply having the knowledge that Razra will focus their breaches a few times can allow them to more aggressively purchase spells. That charge is also very relevant, of course, but very contextual based on your ally. I find that Rip, Go! is an easy to use value engine that is the default go-to if I don't have a specific plan for Rip, Fetch! Rip, Fetch! Rip, Fetch! is pure scaling. It will destroy your cards and focus your breaches, but as previously mentioned since it is harder to open her II breach Rip, Fetch! is intrinsically hard to use. It would of course be preferable if the focuses happened on her III breach, and I find that using Rip, Fetch! to focus her II breach feels really bad. Also, focusing Razra's breaches is a bit weaker as her breaches will take a long time to open. In the general case, I find Rip, Fetch to be less raw value than Rip, Go!, but both of its effects are very synergistic with Rip, Attack!. Rip, Eat! Rip, Eat! is quite awkward I've found. It's main benefit is just generating two charges, but that destroy in hand is just hard to use to good effect. Destruction is good early on, but since this card takes eight whole charges to get online chances are this card isn't coming early enough for that destroy to be very good. The main draw to this card is the two charges, and of course that's very dependent on what your ally is doing, but if it's possible to get this card very early the destroy can be a decent part of its value. Rip, Attack! Rip, Attack! is a card that I have found to be very easy to underestimate. Instacasting two spells, letting an ally prepare a spell (which lets them cycle it back faster), and dealing an extra two damage is a smorgasbord of small effects that, if you're able to use every piece of it well, can be an absolutely absurd amount of value. Getting two instacasts is best when Razra is casting two of her own powerful spells, instantly cycling them back into the deck. It also works best if her III or IV breach is opened, letting her get more uses of that + damage breach. Hopefully, your allies bought enough spells to utilize that prepare well. The synergy between Rip, Fetch! and Rip, Attack! is very notable. Cycling cards back into the deck is best when the deck is thin. Optimistically, it would be possible to cycle back two high quality spells every single turn in a very thin deck, even though trying to get it every other turn is more realistic and still quite good. Furthermore, opening breaches as previously mentioned is really good with instacast. Being fully aware of all the build options for Razra, all the interactions between her pieces, all of her allies and the market and then making an optimal game plan is always incredibly complicated to navigate. As I said, I think she's one of the hardest mages to play optimally, and her ability being "slow" means that it's important to keep the long term in mind rather than solving problems as they show up. I still feel as though I'm a bit weak with Razra overall, but that may be because of me misplaying rather than due to her kit. She has such incredibly unique and powerful options, but she can be a bit slow. As I've spent more time playing Razra I can feel myself getting better with her, and often her weakest games are due to me pigeonholing myself into a certain idea instead of being honest and realistic with what Razra can and should be doing in the context of the game.

[aeonsforever]

Pyro Geist

Pyro Geist either acts as a 4 damage or 5 damage card. (For clarity sake, a 5 damage spell in a +1 damage breach would do 6 damage, as would Pyro Geist, which is what I mean when I say "acts as") In terms of raw damage output, it really isn't special at all. A 5 damage card is just meeting the mark for a 6 cost spell, and if it isn't in a + damage breach it's not even that. However, its upside of being flexible with both timing and targeting makes it extremely good when it comes to dealing with minions. It'll just about always deal perfect damage, or set up to let your ally deal perfect damage. However, I usually don't mind having chunky damage instances that overkills minions. since most chunky, 6 cost spells also have some kind of upside that guarantees that it generates more value. In the context of Legacy, however, Pyro Geist's several damage instances can absolutely shred through Shield tokens, and it's really the only spell other than Spark that does it with a perfect one damage instance. Of course, Pyro Geist is also solid because of its multiple damage instances and comboing with +damage. I find it to be a spell that's usually just okay, but because of its unique properties can sometimes be extremely strong.