16 October 2025 Update
Guess I was punished for that clickbait title.
Waking up the following day to find all three non-foil sets and foil Fields of Phyxis sold out was a massive disappointment. Many people opted to not get these due to the high shipping costs and were hoping for a solution to this access issue. To see ‘sold out’ 24 hours after they dropped just puts everyone into FOMO mode. I expect all six items will be sold out soon enough.
Yesterday, I made the decision to hold off on getting these sites because the shipping cost to my country was prohibitive. I would have loved to get the cards, but I figured I’d get them later, maybe when I had the dust to get one or two other items in the shipment. Now, do I pay the incredibly high shipping to just obtain two of the three foil sets that are still available, scrambling to get something rather than nothing? No, that’s even worse. The cost remains too high, and I won’t even get the site I was most excited to play with.
My only hope is that these will return in a future store update and that this allocation was a super small ‘early access’ (maybe even with a dust cost premium). But for those attending SCGCon Las Vegas and need to factor the cards into their tournament, this is devastating, and I fully empathise with anyone feeling frustrated and angry about this situation.
Ultimately, what I said about the cards in the article, what the promos represent for the game, and the excitement they generate is still all relevant (with an asterisk). I even wrote about the benefit they have on the game even if individuals can’t get them in hand, but that’s now a bittersweet silver lining that most people won’t see any merit in.
Any sort of FOMO, intentional or not, is disastrous. This will have a negative impact for any dust store updates in the future, creating a precedent that urgency is required. People will feel pressured to act with immediacy and be unable to fully consider the pros and cons of their purchase. Ultimately, in a FOMO environment, everyone loses. Those who do get the cards in hand are undermined by the negativity of those who missed out, and the legacy of the art gets overshadowed, becoming representative of a feel bad moment. If we go into the Gothic Dust Store refresh with FOMO being the expectation, then there will be more tears.
I left yesterday’s article with a sentiment that this early access drop will encourage play, on a note of hope that these promos will entice attendance throughout the window before Gothic releases. This ‘sold out’ dashes that hope on the rocks. If anyone had acted yesterday and roused their friends to play on the weekend with the promise of earning some cool early access promos, then I have to imagine they’ve cancelled those plans now.
15 October 2025
Just when I thought I might get a reprieve from the Sorcery roller coaster that I’ve been on for the past week, Erik gives us an unexpected surprise. Three Exceptional sites from Gothic have been released on to the Dust Store and are available now. Read the official article here:
https://sorcerytcg.com/news/early-access-gothic-cards-new-dust-rewards
In this article, I will go over my thoughts on these cards, the impact they might have on the meta, and whether they’re worth spending your dust on.
I wrote an article earlier in the year about the ways in which the Dust Store adds value to the game and allows for creative opportunities for the design team. I also went over my favourite cards that were added in the Arthurian Legends store update, so if you’ve got a difficult decision on how to spend your dust, this might be of some use.
The Cards
River of Blood – this card is a powerful hoser against life gain. It’s important to note that since the effect rounds down life gained, it’s especially effective against cards that gain odd amounts of life, reducing one to zero and three to one. The cards most impacted in the meta are Ring of Morrigan, Angel’s Egg, Holy Ground, Divine Healing, and Pillar of Zeiros.
Fire-based aggro decks were already incredibly powerful, and this pushes their power even higher. I think Fire decks won’t struggle to find space for three of these sites, especially those that don’t need to run multitudes of Ordinary Deserts.
Fields of Phyxis – where were you at Melbourne Crossroads? This card would have answered so many problems for me. It’s certainly finding a slot in my Water-Air Battlemage deck. I got wrecked by Troll Bridge at this event, so having some tech against that is more than welcome.
Fields of Phyxis also helps with threshold needs by turning off the negative clauses that many multi-threshold sites have. Fields boosts the power of the Unique castles, such as Tintagel, and might even put some life into Avalon and Wedding Hall. Perhaps this is the time to try out some Knight builds. Could this one site save Templar?
Haystack – this card is hilarious from a flavour perspective, but scary in application. It hits format staples like Common Sense and Highland Princess hard. It serves as a safety valve if search effects become too strong in Gothic, so I’m happy that we’re getting this card.
I enjoy that it offers protection against Feast for Crows, and in a super niche way is great for beast tribal decks to thwart Kingswood Poachers from stealing all your pigs.
The most powerful aspect of Haystack is that it’s not symmetrical. This means you can benefit from all the searching that you want whilst your opponent misses out. This is an interesting design choice as often effects like this would be symmetrical, as is the case with River of Blood.
For the Collection
‘Collection’ I mean in two ways. Firstly, these sites are great for collectors looking to add some more bling to their binders. But more importantly, these sites are incredible additions for your Collection once Gothic releases. If you haven’t seen the news on this mechanic, read about it here:
Ersatz Platz is going to be an important site in the game once Gothic releases. It’s an incredibly flexible card, offering threshold fixing and utility in one card. These three sites today are all excellent grabs for the Platz.
But how do these Dust Store promos in particular facilitate the Collection? If you don’t normally play foils in your deck, you could form your collection with foil and promo versions of cards? This will help you differentiate cards that belong in your deck and in your collection and allow you to get extra mileage from your promos and foils. My suspicion is that Dispel was chosen as the Crossroads promo for just this reason. Now plenty of players have access to a special version that will be a frequent inclusion in Collections.
As these sites come in three packs, it might be a fun idea to team up with two friends to each buy one pack of these sites and then divvy it up so everyone gets one copy. It’s quite possible that one will be sufficient for Collection purposes.
Meta Impact
So, these three sites turn off searching, life gain, and defensive sites. Hmm, which powerful meta deck ran all three of these things? Archimago. Is this an attempt to nerf Archie without any bans or errata?
Even if people in your local meta don’t get these cards in hand before Gothic, the fact that they exist will affect beliefs and expectations and will have an impact on how people value certain cards and strategies.
Maybe players will shift right off control strategies, and cards like Angel’s Egg will be seen as too much of a liability. Between River of Blood and Swap, is Ring of Morrigan sufficiently nerfed?
I look forward to seeing how this plays out in upcoming tournaments. It’s possible that even in events where these cards aren’t legal, we will begin to see this shifts as people adapt to future changes. Or maybe we will see a surge of Archimago in the short term as people try and get their wins in with this Avatar before it becomes more difficult to do so. Maybe this will see a spike in people playing Archimago at the next two Crossroads event in an attempt to earn a Rainbow foil version before it becomes more difficult to do so?
Design Considerations
Nerfs and errata are a common tool for managing balance in games. It’s interesting that despite some vocal calls to ban cards such as Ring of Morrigan and the Archimago Avatar, Erik’s Curiosa have stuck to their guns and let these cards run their course. Is releasing these three sites an attempt to nerf these cards in an unique way? Will we see this method employed again in the future?
I enjoy the possibilities that this creates. There is now a precedent that cards could be added to the Dust Store at any time. This means that going into a tournament, changes could be made without warning or with only a short time to adapt. We’ve already seen how impactful Swap has been on the meta for Crossroads Melbourne. Personally, I find this incredibly exciting, but I appreciate how this could be stressful for other players.
Imagine if they released a Unique Minion in this way, some big swingy creature that adds spice to a certain archetype in an unexpected way. This also helps with the ‘one set per year’ design pace, as cards that might be deemed risky during the design and testing process can be pulled from a set and then released as a Dust Store surprise later on. I can just imagine something like the spoiled Asmodeus card literally exploding on to the scene halfway through Gothic’s lifespan, adding a powerful and format-warping Unique to the mix.
The Art!
These three cards have different art to their Gothic versions, so are a special treat for art lovers. It’s actually absurd how spoiled we are with art in this game.
The regular versions of River of Blood and Fields of Phyxis have been spoiled already. There was some art spoiled in the Gothic trailer that could possibly belong to Haystack. And I’m torn between which version I like more!
River of Blood by AronjaArt is beautiful, but after meeting Brian Smith in Melbourne, he’s skyrocketed up my leaderboard of personal favourite artists. So which version will I end up using in my decks? Maybe I’ll use one for the Collection and one for the main deck.
The Cost…
Dust is feeling more and more valuable as time goes on. There are more great things to get from the store, the price of booster boxes is trending upwards, and dust feels scarcer to find on the secondary market.
200 dust for the non-foil set feels generous and priced appropriately, but 1200 for the foil set seems like a premium price, especially compared to the dust store Briar Patch set at 500. I think we will see that these sites are format staples and the higher price reflects this expectation.
The reality of dust is that tough choices have to be made. When everything was limit one, it was much more feasible to get everything. Now, I think a very small percentage of players will be able to afford everything they’d like to get. This does make for interesting decisions. I was so close to getting three War Horses recently, but today I’m glad I resisted the urge as I’d prefer these sites to the War Horses. But then that just makes me think maybe something I’d prefer more than these sites might pop up in the store. So, the downside is that players might be incentivised to sit on their dust, waiting for the perfect offering that might never come.
The other issue is shipping costs. Currently, the price to get cards shipped to me is prohibitively high. Many people, myself included, waited and did a single big order to pick up cards from the recent Arthurian Legends update and aren’t in a position to afford another shipment. The early access benefit is hampered if you can’t get these cards in hand during the early access window before Gothic releases. With shipping time factored in, that window becomes even smaller. I’m sure I will likely get these cards in time, but the impetus to do so today is lessened by these factors. So whilst I’m positive about what these cards represent and how incredible they are, the reality is a bit less exciting.
Better Start Saving! Better Start Playing!
But this does serve as a poignant reminder that if you want dust store promos, then you need dust. And with seven and a half weeks until Gothic releases, there’s plenty of opportunities to play and earn dust.
Before Gothic releases, by just playing in regular events, that’s up to 200 Dust for participation (100 capped per month). Every time you win an eight-person event, that’s another 200, and 100 for second place. If you can get a regular eight-person group to play once a week, over eight weeks, that’s 4000 Dust earned for the group between participation, first, and second-place prizing. It does add up pretty quick.
In Conclusion
Overall, these are fun cards that could make a splash in the lead up to Gothic. Anyone playing SCGCon Las Vegas needs to work these into their plans and build their decks and strategy accordingly.
I have to imagine that these three sites will be format staples going forward, and even if you can’t get them during the early access window, will likely be solid picks throughout 2026.
They serve as an exciting reminder of the impact the Collection will have on the game and how the game will evolve with Gothic.
My advice is to play as much as you can. Earning dust is secondary to the enjoyment of playing this incredible game, but it is an incentive to get players to attend. Remind your community of how these points can stack up over time. If you’re playing regularly and having fun, the dust will accumulate, and those promos will eventually wind their way to your mailbox to end up in your favourite deck.
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