Bardsword Sorcery Blog

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  • Brewers’ Almanac: Magician

    Brewers’ Almanac: Magician

    6 February 2026

    Welcome to the Brewers’ Almanac, a series where I share my deckbuilding process. That process is a lot of overthinking, going around in circles, and trying to justify subpar choices. But I derive great joy from that, so I’d like to share it with you to help inspire your own brews. We’re starting off with a new Avatar from Gothic – the Magician.

    We’ve had a while to sink our teeth into Gothic and get a feel for the set and the evolving meta. Players are settling into the decks they enjoy and getting reps with their competitive lists. I have a big tournament in a couple of weeks, and season 10 of the Online Sorcery League is in full swing, so I should be practising and playing my tournament deck. But instead of doing that, I’ve been brewing jank.

    Magician has captured the hearts and minds of Sorcery players. This Avatar is one of the best cards to come out of Erik’s Curiosa. It’s a cheeky joke at the competition, a reminder of good times with a game that means so much to a lot of us, and features one of the most stunning pieces of art in the game. So, let’s brew up some Magician.

    This article will be an insight into my thought process as I build decks. I’ve structured it to read more as a stream of consciousness piece, reflecting how my instincts and evaluations of cards and strategies evolve as the pieces come together.

    Generally, I am a vibes-based deckbuilder, but it is good to crunch the numbers and see how the math is looking. For my calculations, I use this website: https://aetherhub.com/apps/hypergeometric

    Inspiration

    Despite the very real possibility that Magician is the wrong choice for any deck and archetype trying to wield it, the community has embraced the challenge and is having a lot of fun brewing Magician decks.

    Have a look through Curiosa to see the diversity and creativity on display. There’s some great Primers exploring this topic, so thank you to anyone taking the time to write one up.

    The two biggest sources of inspiration for this brew are The Assorted Animals and Tabletop Royale YouTube channels.

    The Assorted Animals Youtube channel has featured a Chaoswish Magician a couple of times. Their list can be found here: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmix5za5n07m902fn4fw59mg4

    And Tabletop Royale featured a Voidwalk Magician: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmjhd70e98aj71afqkg1zaxgx?tab=view

    I highly recommend subscribing to both of these channels for their excellent gameplay and discussion. I particularly enjoy Tabletop Royale’s Card Game Necromancy series where they dig up games from the past. If you enjoy Sorcery, you’ll likely enjoy checking out that nostalgic series.

    These videos and lists were the initial source of inspiration for my Magician journey, so I recommend having these lists open in other tabs whilst you read the article for reference.

    Starting Point

    Let’s rewind the clock a month to when I first started brewing Magician. There are many fun ways to take Magician, but the standout directions were Air for its plethora of Voidwalk minions to utilise the powerful new artifact Ether Core. Water is also a good source of Voidwalk minions, and the combination of Water and Air gives us the Chaoswish combo.

    With Magician, there’s a lot of unique problems to solve. I’ll go over these points in more detail below, but Magician allows us to break the rules of deckbuilding in Sorcery and get a powerful opening hand. However, in playing this Avatar, we open ourselves up to some serious problems and opportunities to shoot ourselves in the foot.

    On Voidwalk

    The Voidwalk mechanic got expanded with Gothic with a bunch of powerful cards and new minions to help us reach a critical mass to properly exploit the mechanic. The strength of Voidwalk minions is that they can be deployed independently of your sites, allowing flexibility in both offense and defense. It can also be considered an evasion mechanic as you can retreat your minions back into the void. Ether Core is the most powerful addition to the archetype, giving us a strong payoff in the most explosive source of mana in the game.

    On Chaoswish

    Chaoswish is a fun card that allows players to roll the dice and potentially hit big. I mean, just go the Curiosa page and have fun hitting the random button a couple of times: https://curiosa.io/cards/chaoswish

    But of course, instead of being a fun card for good times, players instantly found the degenerate combo and began exploiting it. Using Kythera Mechanism to determine the random outcome of Chaoswish to chain additional Chaoswishes, Ring of Morrigan then turns those casts into damage. You can then use your final Chaoswish to cast Courtesan Thais or something equally poor for the opponent to close out the game. This three-card combo does require three different Unique cards, so it’s quite the task to assemble them, but the potential to win out of nowhere is very powerful.

    Don’t forget that you need to be nearby the opponent’s Avatar for this combo, so you either need to spend turns positioning your Avatar or use a movement spell, such as Blink.

    Chaoswish and Void Together

    So, why am I talking about combining two very different strategies in a single deck? I enjoy playing decks that have a consistent A plan, such as beating down with minions, combined with a ‘secret weapon’ B plan that can snatch victory. The more overlap between the A and B plans, the better.

    Ether Core is one such overlap card. It rewards us for having Voidwalk minions and then gives us the mana required to deploy the Chaoswish combo. As we often want to play out all three cards of our combo in a single turn to protect our artifacts from being destroyed or stolen, we need to be able to get up to eight or 10 mana. Chaoswish costs six by itself, Ring and Kythera Mechanism are one each, and then a Blink adds two. Ether Core goes a long way for that.

    The second card that overlaps these two strategies is Stargazer.

    It’s easiest to compare this card to Grandmaster Wizard. Stargazer is cheaper, has two more power, but requires Voidwalk minions to draw cards. The difference between five and six mana doesn’t seem like much, but in practice is significant.

    Stargazer ties these two strategies together. Voidwalk minions buy us time, they distract the opponent and keep the action on the opponent’s side of the grid, and they might even win the game by themselves. Stargazer allows us to either draw into our combo or provide the fuel to push our minion-based win condition.

    Lucid Dreamers is a fun pairing with Stargazer, allowing us to cast the Stargazers into the void to net an additional card for themselves.

    So… Why Magician?

    So, we have our strategy and key cards. Why put Magician at the helm?A perfectly valid answer is because it’s cool and we want to play it. But we have to compare Magician against other Avatars, such as card advantage engines Sorcerer, Deathspeaker, and Archimago. Harbinger also does the Voidwalk strategy effectively, utilising its mana reduction ability to play out minions aggressively. Magician gets a unique opening hand, but so does Spellslinger, so we have to consider it as well.

    Sorcerer can turn early game mana advantage into late-game card advantage by drawing two spells a turn. Deathspeaker and Archimago let us replay our important cards but require completely different builds. Any time I see a list with Grandmaster Wizard, I have to consider Deathspeaker.

    Magician locks in its advantage during deckbuilding. During gameplay, it is at the mercy of luck and is even unable to tap to draw sites to help mitigate back luck. As the game goes longer, Magician’s inherent card advantage will erode away and it will likely fall behind other Avatars.

    Magician gets a seven-card opening hand, like Spellslinger, but we can affect the expected composition of that hand in deckbuilding. To set it apart from Spellslinger, we want to be pushing towards one of two extremities – an opening hand of five or more spells, or one with four or more sites.

    On a quick tangent, I’ve tinkered around with a site-heavy Magician that wants four or more sites in the opening hand, but I feel like there isn’t quite enough power to achieve this currently. Magician also doesn’t get to benefit from the new ramp spells Landmass and Overflow as it doesn’t have an atlas to draw from. But a site-focused Magician is an interesting deckbuilding challenge. I would love to see your attempt at this challenge. Message me if you come up with something cool.

    Anyone who has ever said they want 40-20 is contractually obliged to only ever play Magician. The other benefit of Magician is by combining our atlas and spellbook, we effectively have a smaller spellbook. Our opening hand then comes entirely from this combined deck. This increases our chances of drawing into certain cards. We lose the ability to be selective with our draws, but have the potential of being much more explosive.

    This means that we can expect to see powerful Uniques more frequently than other Avatars. With our mulligan, we get to dig 10 cards into our combined deck rather than six into a spellbook.

    Another unique quirk of Magician is that gets to use Common Sense to tutor for Ordinary sites. Combos that require an ordinary site and a certain spell can be played effectively out of Magician – for example, Hamlet with Sylvan Splendour. In decks leaning into Chaoswish, having Common Sense to put together Fenvale Muse and an Ordinary River could provide immense value to then assemble the game-winning combo.

    Flood, Screw, and Rocks

    When it comes to evaluating Magician, it pays to use some Magic terms.

    The Magic term ‘mana rock’ means an artifact that can produce mana. In Sorcery, mana rock are cards like the four Cores, Shrine of the Dragonlord, and Philosopher’s Stone. For Magician, these allow us to ramp up our mana generation faster than sites would normally allow.

    Anyone who’s played Magic will have encountered mana screw and flood. Screw is drawing too few lands to execute your strategy, and flood is drawing too many lands so you can’t do anything meaningful. The Magician Avatar allows us to enjoy these extremes in Sorcery.

    The Plan

    So, what am I trying to achieve with this Magician deck? An optimal opening hand has sites, mana rocks, a couple of Voidwalk minions, and a wizard to refill the hand. Turn one, we can have lines like a Tower, Core, Forsaken. Turn two, Site, Phase Assassin. Turn three Mix Aer into a Grandmaster Wizard, attack for six. Vanishment and Fade allows us to keep chipping away at the opponent’s life without losing our minions.

    We want to leverage an explosive start and be looking to win as soon as possible. With an aggressive minion start, we can overwhelm the opponent with evasive and strong minions, or stumble into our combo and win the game.

    Like any good plan, there are multiple ways this can fail. With Magician, despite having a lot of redundancy – plenty of Voidwalk minions, lots of rocks, sites and spells that draw into more cards – we need these effects in the correct proportion. This deck can easily get into a position where it’s top-decking and fails to draw anything useful.

    The other thing to expect from Magician is that you will have turns where you can’t do anything with your Avatar. It’s important to include cards in deckbuilding to mitigate this.

    Board position is also critical to consider in our plan. So if you have nothing to do with your Magician, then you need to be considering a tap to move. We can preemptively position the Magician to then maximise the effectiveness of other cards, such as Disenchant and Poison Nova. This is particularly important for the Chaoswish Magician so that it can combo without requiring a movement spell.

    There are a couple of cards that let us tap our Avatar for value. Pnakotic Manuscript is good for this. Combined with scrying effects, such as Observatory and Cradle of Etherrum, this gives us the opportunity to tap to draw sites for zero life,… turning Magician into any other baseline Avatar. But Pnaktotic helps us bridge the gap, allowing us to have an explosive start and then turn into a Sorcerer clone to then push pressure on the board. At this point in the game, we probably don’t even want sites, so scrying effects to put sites on the bottom of the deck is preferable. Since we’re hidden behind defensive Air sites, we should have a healthy life total to exploit.

    Silver Bullet is also a good consideration. The tap cost can be prohibitive for other Avatars, but Silver Bullet gives us the exact card we need at any given moment.

    If all else fails, don’t forget that we can also block with our Avatar to protect our minions. If the opponent needs to attack two minions into your Headless Haunt to kill it, having an untapped Avatar to block the second hit can be a game-winning swing. I’ve found that often players will miss an untapped Avatar and its potential to block, so use this psychological trick to your advantage. How did I learn this trick? By making this exact blunder and not seeing my opponent’s untapped Avatar.

    How Many Sites?

    This is the most interesting question when it comes to building Magician. Ideally, we want as few sites as possible so we don’t get flooded in the late game, but enough that we don’t get screwed in the early game.

    In one build that I brought to a community evening, I was running 12 sites and 8 mana rocks. This is definitely greedy, but considering that the deck will lose games where it draws too many sites, perhaps this greed just front-loads the loss to occur in the first five turns rather than at turn 15. With 12 sites in the deck, the chance of seeing zero sites in our opening hand and mulligan is a miniscule 8.68%.

    Though, when those odds land, it feels bad. The first game in paper, I hit that 8.68% and failed to draw a site in my opening hand. Then to add insult to injury, I then didn’t see any sites in my first five draws, which is a 2.06% chance of happening. I felt bad for giving my opponent a non-game, but then we did have plenty of time in the round to have a couple of friendlies, so easily remedied.

    Looking at lists on Curiosa, no one else has been so greedy as to go as low as 12 sites, but I’m still not convinced that 12 is incorrect. In general, I see people often fielding 20 sites, which feels a bit much. If we’re getting ‘four spell, three site’ opening hands, we might as well be Spellslinger.

    But going from 12 sites to 15 halves our opening hand failure rate, so 15 sites has become my starting point for Magician lists, where you get explosive opening hands often enough with a more tolerable failure rate.

    On NPE – Negative Play Experience

    A successful game is one where your opponent wants to play again. Negative Play Experience, or NPE, is another concept I first saw discussed in Magic. There are strategies in Sorcery that I would describe as NPE, so it’s important to be aware of them and the effect they can have on our opponent. This is particularly important if you expect to play against new players or are trying to convince people to invest their time, money, and energy into Sorcery.

    Cards in Sorcery that seem to elicit the most negative emotions include theft effects such as Infiltrate, Betrayal, and Lilith. There is something demoralising about your opponent using your toys to beat you up. Site destruction can also be frustrating as it prevents you from even engaging with the game.

    In general, Sorcery does a good job of mitigating NPE. We have lots of tools to shore up our weaknesses to any given strategy, so if there is a particular card that riles you up, then it’s up to you to play the counters. I’m not saying that players shouldn’t play these cards, but just be aware of the impact they can have outside of the game.

    My main concern with Archimago last year was that it was NPE. Playing against Archimago, the games felt like a frustrating slog. If my minions ate a devastating Earthquake, that card was face up in the cemetery to wreck me a second time. Every time I played Archie, I didn’t even enjoy it. I don’t want my opponent demoralised and frustrated.

    Losing to a combo that you didn’t see coming or have any meaningful way to interact with is not fun. Any time I have won with Chaoswish, I didn’t even enjoy the win. For that reason, I have dropped Chaoswish Magician from my brewing, making mono-Air Voidwalk Magician the winner of this brewing session.

    My Magician Lists

    After a few weeks of refinement and testing, these are the lists I’ve settled on. The Chaoswish list probably needs some fine-tuning for its threshold requirements.

    Mono-Air Voidwalk aggro: https://curiosa.io/decks/cml8icpl800ei04l26pxm8iwn

    Air-Water Voidwalk Chaoswish:
    https://curiosa.io/decks/cml8rqr4400bp04l5m21608lt

    Other Magician Brews – Joy and Suffering

    Overall, I think what sets Magician apart is its ability to exploit single copies of a given Unique. If your strategy requires one particular card, then Magician is worth considering.

    Magician is a fun, explosive Avatar that can get some crazy high-roll games. There is a joy in sitting down to Sorcery, and shuffling up a singular deck. In many ways, Magician’s strength is that it provides an experience. It’s not about what mechanics the card unlocks, but the joy in our hearts that it awakens.

    Another brew I developed with Magician was a mono-Water deck looking to win with Putrid Presence. Aptly named ‘We Both Suffer’, I have yet to play it for fear of it being a slog for both myself and the opponent:

    https://curiosa.io/decks/cmiza9uez2lo11rfpoio9e8ph

    Conclusion

    Magician is the kind of card I love seeing in Sorcery. The fact that one card can open up so much discussion and possibility without warping or breaking the game is incredible. With 13 new Avatars in Gothic, I find it amusing that Magician is the one that’s taken up so much of my bandwidth.

    In terms of power, I don’t expect Magician to make waves in the meta, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it win a tournament or two, piloted by someone who enjoys the vibes and challenge.

    If you enjoyed this style of article, then please let me know. What Avatar would you like me to feature in the next Brewers’ Almanac?

  • A Month into Gothic

    A Month into Gothic

    15 January 2026

    A new year, a new set, a new meta, and we’re starting to see shapes form in the primordial soup. In this article, I’m going to point to a couple of things that are worth considering in this nascent meta. It’s far too early to say anything with certainty, but there are some early frontrunners to be prepared for. I’ll highlight a couple of Avatars and an archetype to be wary of during this time of discovery.

    Overall, Gothic is a home run, and the amount of exploration required is off the charts. My Curiosa is chockful of decks I’ve brewed up, and I’ve got a couple of pet decks that I’m putting through the paces. So far, my three favourites are Water-Air Imposter, Fire-Earth Persecutor, and Mono-Air Pathfinder. I haven’t had the chance to play any Battlemage yet, but my old favourite is calling out to me.

    At the end of the article, I will go over the Imposter list I played in the recent Online League Championship and how the deck has evolved since then.

    SCG Atlanta

    SCG Con Atlanta fired this past weekend. This was the first SCG event that wasn’t a Crossroads-level event, so perhaps this affected the decks that people played. Reports from community legend Pete state that in the top 17, there were 16 different Avatars, with Interrogator being the duplicate. This is fantastic and reinforces my optimism for Gothic. This shows that curiosity and creativity is high as players are exploring a wide range of decks and Avatars.

    Is Interrogator Too Strong?

    Interrogator was my pick for the Avatar that competitive players would lean towards as it combines aggression and card draw. I was worried that Interrogator might be an early problem, but after playing with and against it, I think its power level is acceptable. It’s strong, but there is sufficient counter-play.

    Most Interrogator lists I’ve seen lean towards Air and Fire with cheap minions to put early pressure on the opponent and then keep the foot on the accelerator. My experiments into Interrogator took a more midrange approach, using Pudge Butcher and Meat Hook to bring the opponent to me, and then take bigger chunks out of their life to make it more unappealing to deny the card draw. The new Earth site No Man’s Land is a boon to this strategy, so beware the Pudge.

    The weakness of the Interrogator is that the opponent knows what you are up to and gets a choice to thwart your efforts. My advice in brief is to give the Interrogator cards when they have too many cards in hand to play effectively and take the life damage when the Interrogator is running short on cards. If Token Interrogator strategies become popular, Briar Patch and Troll Bridge are good choices. Avatars with high power such as Persecutor and Avatar of Earth force the Interrogator to trade their small minion if they want to trigger their ability.

    One of my core mantras with Sorcery is that if you give the opponent a puzzle to solve, they will solve it – and in the way that’s most detrimental to you. Interrogator is such a puzzle, and you have options to mitigate its strength.

    But I am grateful that there are viable aggro decks in the format, as it’s essential to have a mix of aggro and control decks for a healthy and balanced meta. I expect that we will continue to see Interrogator throughout the year, so make sure to get some practice in against it.

    Water World

    Throughout 2025, the meta shifted slowly. Water went from being viewed as the weakest element to becoming a dominant force. Crossroads Melbourne cemented this assertion, and we left Arthurian Legends with a fear of water in our hearts. It’s no surprise that players have continued to explore this space into Gothic, and we are seeing Water emerging as the frontrunner as the dominant element.

    So what was it that allowed Water to rise to power in 2025? The first horseman of the water apocalypse was Lugbog Cat. Initial assumptions had it as a Autumn Unicorn with restrictions. Autumn Unicorn had been the benchmark for minions in Beta, but was beginning to fade in popularity. Earthquake was the premium removal spell in the game, so Water sites were a more common countermeasure. This meant that Lugbog Cat’s inherent limitation became a strength. Pond was the second horseman, allowing aggressive plays and cost-effective turns. The only thing worse than a turn-two Lugbog Cat is a turn-five Lugbog Cat into Grapple Shot to take out your valuable minion.

    Troll Bridge was the third horseman. A ‘Free City’ with Water threshold meant that Water had a powerful, repeatable, and essentially free source of board control out of the Atlas. A fantastic early defensive play turned into a removal spell in combination with forced movement effects such as Riptide.

    Now Water has the benchmark minion of the meta and an Atlas packed with powerful sites, so players start pushing the envelope and going heavier Water to play powerful cards such as Mesmerism and The Green Knight. By the end of 2025, players were thinking mono-Water might be viable, but no one was brave enough to test it at high level tournaments. Then Mirror Realm team took Melbourne Crossroads by storm with their Mono-Water Druid. But even then, Mono-Water relied on clever plays, careful consideration, and perhaps an overpowered Avatar to reach its potential.

    Going into Gothic and spellbooks increase to 60 cards. Mono-Water was having a hard time packing enough punch with 50, so would Gothic give us enough for the archetype to function? If anything, Gothic gave Water too much good stuff. Failed Mutation, Sacred Stag and Lacuna Entity give us great four and five drops to curve out following a Lugbog Cat. Ward, Voidwalk, ‘can’t be damaged by Magic’ means these minions can be played around the board to dodge area-of-effect removal spells like Earthquake and Poison Nova. Gnarled Wendigo, Gilman House, and Dormant Monstrosity allow for insane plays in decks with token minions, such as Necromancer. Watch this video from Old Fashioned Nerds for an excellent breakdown of the deck you need to be very, very frightened of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilZLOYMwzq8

    But with so many great Water cards, what is my fourth horseman of the Water apocalypse? Could it be Lord of Lies, the ultimate Pudge Butcher? No, it’s another site – Thin Ice. Thin Ice pairs perfectly with Troll Bridge to give incredible board control, and forced movement effects make it feel incredibly oppressive. Coy Nixie on a Thin Ice is the last thing you want to see if you want to play minions.

    So, if you’re brewing and testing decks, you need to have a heavy Water deck in the line-up. This is an archetype you need to be prepared to play against.

    So, how do we beat it? It’s a tricky one. Drought off a Silver Bullet I fear doesn’t even achieve anything as Water is no longer reliant on having a continuous body of water for many of its cards.

    Iceberg is a cute card to stifle Coy Nixies. But if the answer to Water decks is other Water decks, you’re better off playing your own Thin Ice instead of a marginal corner case card like Iceberg.

    Site destruction and nullification is useful. Fields of Phyxis and Smokestacks of Gnaak are strong choices, and don’t sleep on Leadworks. Sometimes a single turn is all you need to break through the opponent’s defenses and win the game. I’m sure we will see Fire-based aggro decks in the new meta, perhaps Sorcerer or Witch Fury Road style decks, or maybe something leveraging Saviour’s ability to benefit from Lances and Lethal minions.

    Battlemage, Bladedancer, and Avatar of Earth are Avatars that can win without minions. If you can get under the Water deck’s curve, then you can put them on the back foot. Just be careful of having Lord of Lies played on top of you if you go to the opponent’s side of the board, as that will quickly close out the game – and not in your favour.

    As for Earth, Zombie Brute has a lot of potential as a recursive answer to Water’s four-power minions. Earthquake is less effective as a removal spell in a Water-dominant meta, but you can still mess up the opponent’s site placement and open up lanes of attack. If in doubt, there’s always Pudge Butcher.

    Old Favourites

    Despite the plethora of new Avatars in Gothic, I’ve noticed that players are sticking with their old favourites. This is evidence that despite Gothic giving us plenty of new toys, power creep is a non-issue.

    It’s a real strength of Sorcery that going into a new set, players are able to keep playing the Avatars and decks that they have come to love. Someone who has been jamming Avatar of Air for three years most likely wants to keep playing Avatar of Air.

    So for tournaments early in 2026, it’s likely that your local meta will be similar to what it was at the end of 2025. If a player loved playing a certain deck, they will probably continue to play it, especially in tournaments where familiarity and practice goes a long way to success. Just be wary of players who have been grinding away on Tabletop Simulator as they will likely have something new up their sleeves and the experience to back it up.

    Don’t Let Archimago Get Away With It!

    During spoiler season, everyone saw the plethora of cemetery hate and assumed that Avatars relying on cemetery recursion were dead, chiefly Archimago and Deathspeaker. But that’s only the case if people actually play graveyard hate!

    Early on, everyone wants to play with the splashy and fun cards and not bother with the boring fundamentals like cemetery hate. Fire decks want to play aggressive sites like Road to Perdition, not Plague Pits.

    If there was a big tournament this month with prizes on the line, I’d pick Archimago to win. So, make sure you’ve got answers in your Collection to grab with Toolbox, if nothing else. Erik’s Curiosa has given us answers, so it’s up to us to play them.

    My Imposter

    At the end of Arthurian Legends, I was playing a Water-Air Faerie Pathfinder that was a lot of fun. Helpful Hob was the VIP in that deck, allowing Pathfinder to ramp from four to six, whilst also being a damage doubler and Blink impersonator.

    My first thought upon seeing Imposter is, “I can play Pathfinder with a better Atlas,” so this was the direction I took the deck. Imposter also has a much better late game than Pathfinder as it can turn into a card advantage Avatar, such as Sorcerer.

    One of my 2026 resolutions is to get involved with the online Sorcery League. So when the League Championship 2025 was announced, I thought I’d better get a head start and start playing. This was my list:

    https://curiosa.io/decks/cmj6o8na92n6m1afq0lvp1pwl

    It still shows the signs of the Faerie deck it morphed from, including the full suite of Helpful Hob. Sling Pixies is there because I needed something to save me from early aggression without being a dead draw later in the game.

    This deck has a site disruption plan. The Great Drowning of Men has been fantastic every time I see it. Ramping to seven or eight sites with Pathfinder, turning into Realm Eater to knock the opponent back a site or two, and then turning into Geomancer to get more free sites off the rubble has been incredibly powerful and fun for me (less so for my opponents).

    This list is missing Omphalos. At the time of making this deck, I wanted to only play cards I had in paper. This was definitely a mistake for an online league. I think the jury is still out on just how powerful and game-defining the Omphalos will be, but the safe assumption is that card draw is always good, so they will be good.

    The standout card from this deck is Winter Nymph. It’s an incredible card. It slows down aggressive decks. It shuts down the opponent’s blockers to help you close out the game. It’s a way for Water to deal the finishing blow. Charge minions are the greatest threat to Imposter, chiefly Gyre Hippogriffs and Saracen Raiders, so Winter Nymph is a great solution to these.

    The championship league is single elimination. I won my first game, and was knocked out in my second. I’m a bit salty towards the TTS shuffler, as I saw seven Helpful Hobs across the two games, and in the game I lost, I didn’t see any Air threshold across 12 sites whilst having three Air spells stuck in my hand from turn three. But such is randomisation in card games. Both my opponents were super friendly and the games were a lot of fun, so as is always the case with Sorcery, playing is its own reward.

    This league has me excited for Season 10 of the Online Sorcery League. I highly recommend everyone to get involved. It’s free to play, and registration is open now:
    https://forms.gle/Ne4z5F4mepKjg8Ln6

    So, what changes have I made to my list? Mono-Water has proven to be sufficiently powerful, so I have removed Air from the list to prevent from stumbling on threshold. Goodbye to the Sling Pixies, which never really did anything without Tawny around. Grandmaster Wizard is great to refill the hand, but the Omphalos likely do that better. I’ve sadly removed all the Helpful Hob in favour of Failed Mutations and Sacred Stag. I don’t love this homogenisation as the deck begins to look less like Pathfinder Faeries and more like Mono-Water Necromancer. This feels a lot like the end of the AL meta, where I was debating turning my Water-Air Battlemage into Druid.

    What Does the Year Hold?

    So, we’ve got a lot to look forward to this year, and it’s still a mystery just where Sorcery will go in 2026. If this year is anything like 2025, the meta will swing in a direction no one could predict. Whilst Water might be dominant now, it could be replaced by something else entirely in six months.

    We’re still in the learning phase, and there’s plenty to discover. Once tournaments start firing, we will see things clearer and can declare what is meta. But until then, have fun, play your favourites, and enjoy everything that Gothic has to offer.

  • Gothic Speculation in Review

    Gothic Speculation in Review

    11 December 2025

    My first article for Bardsword was written six months ago. In it, I speculated about the future and designed five cards that could possibly appear in Gothic. Now the set has released, I can evaluate my speculation and see how close my attempts were. Did I get five out of five correct? To see my reasoning in full, please read the first article: https://bardsword.com/2025/06/16/five-predictions-for-gothic/

    1. Everyone Loves (Hates) Frogs

    This was my first design:

    Lily Pad Pond.

    Water threshold.

    An Ordinary Site emits a lonely croak.

    Genesis – create a submerged Frog token.

    And the card that Erik’s Curiosa printed:

    I was pretty close. I debated between paying 1 for a frog compared to getting it for free but submerged. In my design, I like how it’s different to the Ordinary villages. This gives a bit of a flavour and mechanical difference to how the two elements play a similar Site.

    A flavour distinction between the two designs is the number of frogs depicted in the art and type line. My site depicted a solitary frog, and Croaking Swamp depicts a slimy horde. This could be one of those situations where the art received from Drew Tucker determined the final outcome.

    One of my thoughts behind Lily Pad Pond was that I saw a need for new tokens in Gothic, whether Minions or tools similar to the Lance token. However, the Collection solved that problem wonderfully. Now we don’t need 100 different tokens, ever increasing over the years. Having ordinary cards in the set function as tokens is an elegant solution.

    Verdict: One point. I think I was pretty close. Though, I feel like this was an easy one, but you gotta start with a freebie.

    2. Coat of Arms

    For my second design, it was a two for one, exploring tribal effects. ‘Tribal’ is a concept featured heavily in Magic the Gathering, where creature (minion) type matters, and then you have payoffs and other benefits for building your deck around a singular type. It is a popular mechanic, and one of my favourites to build around. Onslaught block with its Elves, Goblins, and Clerics was my favourite era of Magic. How could Tribal work in Sorcery? I predicted that Gothic with its undead flavour would benefit from a new token minion. Skeleton felt like the logical pick for that. So here was my design for a card that produced Skeletons:

    Rank of the Damned.

    3 cost. Air, Air Threshold.

    An Exceptional Magic that demands service.

    Choose a row. Summon a Skeleton token to each site you control in that row.

    In Gothic, we received two cards similar to my design:

    So again, I was close. Both these cards deploy Skeleton tokens with a placement restriction. Raise Militia is essentially Border Militia for Skeletons. My design differentiates itself from Border Militia in that you have choice in where they are summoned.

    In both my first and second design, I struck out by overcomplicating the design to be deliberately different from Earth cards. But is that distinction worth the added complexity? It seems the design team prefers that functionally similar cards play the same way to prevent confusion, and slight flavour or element identity quirks aren’t worth adding complexity to gameplay. I can see merit in that, so I will be keeping that in mind if I design cards in the future.

    Undead Ambush at Exceptional gets to be a bit more powerful and a bit more complex, and the flavour and execution of this card is fantastic. The optimal result is receiving four Skeletons for three mana, but there is a subtle restriction to this determined by the amount and placement of sites in play when you cast the Ambush. The power and flexibility of this card grows as the game goes longer as there will be more sites. Also it’s interesting to note that you get more tokens if you use it aggressively to the middle of the board rather than defensively around a minion attacking your back row.

    So, while I was correct in guessing at the existence of Skeleton tokens, I had also guessed that there would be Cultist tokens. Cultists would have an ability where they could sacrifice themselves for mana to pay for your big monsters. Whilst we didn’t get Cultist tokens, we received many cards exploring this design space. Gnarled Wendigo, Temple of Moloch, Dormant Monstrosity all conjure images of ravenous cultists bringing forth dark designs, but without having to require a whole new token cluttering up the board. The design team certainly knows how to be elegant and considered. Opting to only have a single new token minion in the set is absolutely the right choice.

    My second tribal design was around upgrading your Skeleton tokens:

    Scholomance.

    Air threshold.

    An Elite Site of profane knowledge.

    Your Skeleton tokens gain Spellcaster.

    Tap four Spellcasters here to draw a card.

    After seeing the Necromancer and how easy Skeleton tokens are to produce, this site would have been broken. Also looking at my card now, the wording is incorrect, and it should be Spellcaster ‘here’. Or was my intention to give them Spellcaster everywhere? That would have been silly.

    Now that I reflect on Scholomance, I like the flavour, but I dislike the execution. This site is pretty uninspired, and card draw should be harder to come by. We already have Standing Stones if we wish to educate our undead friends to the ways of being a Spellcaster, and we can take them to a Necronomiconcert if we desire card draw from them. I think Necronomiconcert is a great example of how many hoops should be jumped through for a payoff of cards, and my Scholomance offers neither an interesting mechanic or rewarding payoff.

    As for tribal payoffs in Gothic, we got quite a lot. First are the power boosters – Death Knight and Fallen Angel. It’s interesting to note the subtle differences between these two cards. Fallen Angel itself isn’t a Demon, which is subtle but incredibly evocative. We also didn’t get a similar design for Monsters, which showcases the differences between the three Evils.

    We also got Undead payoffs in the forms of recursive upgrades – Bone Jumble, Barrow Wight, Fowl Bones, and Zombie Bruiser. These are great designs as everything you need is on the card, which reduces the mental load of having to remember multiple things at once as you start to layer different bonuses and buffs. The downside to Tribal in Magic is the constant calculation required to update power and toughness and changing abilities every time a creature enters or dies.

    So, all up, I was correct about Skeleton tokens, wrong about Cultist tokens, and off-base with the tribal payoff. Considering I gave myself the easy point for my Lily Pad Pond design, it’s fair that I don’t give myself a point for this category.

    3. An Avatar of Sites and Aggression

    Gothic gave us a plethora of new Avatars. But the Avatar design that I was so confident the game needed was nowhere near any of the 13 we received. My design was:

    Titan – 2 power.

    Your Avatar shapes the land through mighty deeds.

    When Titan kills a minion, replace an adjacent Rubble with a site from your hand.

    The glaring problem with this Avatar design is that it needs other cards to function, namely things that generate Rubble. I designed Titan with Hamlet’s and Castle’s Ablaze in mind, but that restricts Titan to Fire. One of the most successful aspects of the Gothic Avatars is that they aren’t restricted to any one or two elements, so Titan fails in that regard.

    A fix to Titan would be to change the ability to: ‘When Titan kills a minion, replace an adjacent Rubble with a site from your hand or an adjacent void with Rubble.’ But more words doesn’t equal more interesting (a note for myself).

    I do enjoy the payoff and interaction between attacking and playing sites. One of the limitations of Titan is what happens if the opponent doesn’t play any minions to fuel our ability? At least Battlemage gets to hit for three. The new minion Bitten is a great design space to address this problem, so perhaps in the future we might see this design space explored further.

    This one, I will give myself zero points for. This was my first design where I would either be completely right or wrong, so no wriggle room here… though, technically, with the right combination of Avatars out of Imposter, can we cobble together Titan?

    4. An Unordinary Tower

    I believe that the three Ordinary Towers in Alpha-Beta are problematic for design. They are powerful ramp effects that must be considered in every deck. Often you will see decks that don’t run any Air cards run one of each of these Towers to get that boost of mana to play minions above curve.

    I picked that we would get the fourth Ordinary tower in Gothic mainly because it felt obvious. Gothic didn’t seem like a place we’d find a desert. I was definitely wrong there. Mechanically, Deserts are the perfect counter to both Ward and Skeleton tokens, and the beauty of the world of Sorcery is that you can have anything anywhere anytime.

    My design for this category was:

    Crumbling Castle. No Threshold.

    An Exceptional Site that is doomed to disintegrate to dust.

    Genesis – gain Three this turn.

    At the start of your turn, replace Crumbling Castle with Rubble.

    Crumbling Castle would have been great with Titan. And as I said in the previous article, the three mana burst would have been far too strong. So this design was problematic because the numbers didn’t work. Though, we did see cards in Gothic that suggest that the team were working through this tower problem. Ultimately, their solutions were fascinating:

    The fix to the Ordinary towers is to… make a stronger card? The benefit of Ghost Town is that it doesn’t have the limitation requiring it to be your only copy in play. There is something incredibly unsatisfying about playing your second copy of Gothic Tower in a game, or worse yet having to Mirror Realm a Lone Tower – ew.

    Going forward, Ghost Town will save me thousands of mouse clicks in Curiosa as I can just add three copies of Ghost Town to a deck instead of typing and clicking each individual Tower in ‘quick add’.

    However, are the Towers still better? Atlantean Fate is one of the best cards in the game, and the counter is to have Ordinary Sites. So is there any benefit to three Ghost Towns over three Towers? The only one I can think of is to prevent Avatar of Air from puffing all over you.

    We also got four Unique sites that can provide a constant two mana a turn with some serious downside. These are City of Plenty, City of Traitors, City of Glass, and City of Souls.

    I think these sites will be strong, but they do require a bit of finesse. They can’t be jammed into every deck, which is a sign of good design, but they will greatly benefit those who put in the effort.

    My initial thought was how to turn on and off threshold so you can benefit from the Cities on your turn and deny it to your opponent. The Bloom Ordinary sites can do this, and I think there might be a worthwhile deck in that concept.

    Returning to my design of Crumbling Castle, I do think sites that turn into Rubble is an interesting design space. I was hoping for more Rubble generation in Gothic, and we got this incredible Ian Miller site:

    Old Mortimer’s Den might be my favourite site in Gothic. I have been a fan of Mariner’s Curse since Alpha, and using forced movement effects to kill your opponent’s minions is so much fun. I think Mortimer will warp games, where your opponent is incentivized to play more sites than they’d like to prevent you from replaying the Den freely turn after turn.

    In regards to all this Rubble talk, I have been experimenting with Geomancer in non-Earth decks, using site destruction and other effects that leave Rubble behind to then get free Sites from the Avatar ability. Mono-Fire Geomancer has been a fun little project, but it might be dead with a 60-card spellbook. Send me a message if you want to learn more about this.

    So, do I deserve the point? Probably not. But it did generate some good talking points. Did we get a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard reference in Gothic? Not that I’ve noticed. We did get a Ten Ton Slug reference for fans of Doom and Sludge Metal.

    5. Jesus Christ

    My most controversial pick. Would Gothic give us a depiction of this iconic figure? Looking through the set, we got many Biblical references, named angels and demons, and even real-world historical figures such as Rasputin and Jack the Ripper. We even got Judas named on Kiss of Judas, so this shows the extent that Erik’s Curiosa is willing to use these references and risk potential public outcry. Here is my design for the big man:

    Jesus Christ.

    A unique Mortal of the divine trinity.

    4 Cost – Earth, Water threshold. 0 power.

    Other minions nearby can’t be destroyed.

    So did Gothic give us Jesus? I say, yes, it did.

    The flavour of this Unique minion ticks many boxes that we’d expect to see for Jesus, chiefly the redemption of evil. The art itself certainly suggests a divine and powerful figure.

    My mechanic is similar to the Saint of Redemption, both focusing on preventing conflict between Minions. My choice for Jesus to be Earth and Water is confirmed to be on the right path by Garden of Eden in Gothic.

    Now, my wild prediction is that there is a Curio version of Saint of Redemption with Jesus Christ as its name with new art. Perhaps it will have similar gilding to Unladen Swallow and the Sir Curios from Arthurian Legends, in the fashion of illuminated manuscripts.

    So far in Gothic, we have seen seven curios, which doesn’t feel like enough based on how many we saw in previous sets. But the quantities in which these have been found suggest a certain possibility. Beta was distributed in waves, demarcated by differences in colour saturation. Perhaps if there is to be three waves of Gothic releases, we will see the Curios released across waves, seven in the first, six in the second, and five in the third, for example.

    So, until we have all the Curios accounted for, I maintain that I am correct on this point. And give myself the point.

    Extra Credit Bonus Round

    So, I had an extra bonus prediction regarding the release date for Gothic. I had picked a Halloween release date for flavour reasons, and it did seem like a likely spot based on other events like the Crossroads. It was also Friday, which is the perfect day of the week. Some pundits were picking 2026 dates, so I’m glad that wasn’t the case – apologies to our friends in Europe, Australia, and Brazil who haven’t got product yet.

    So, not releasing on Halloween seemed like a missed opportunity, but then I discovered (from watching a year-old MeatCanyon video) that December 5th was also thematically appropriate – Krampusnacht. In many European countries, the night of December 5th is when they celebrate Krampus, so ultimately the fifth was the perfect date for Gothic.

    Conclusion

    So, how many points would you give me? Six out of five? That’s very generous. Thank you.

    I was more incorrect than correct, but I had a lot of fun thinking about these possible designs. I enjoy deliberating and thinking through the ramifications of cards more than designing them from scratch. Design and development should be a collaborative process, and there’s only so much I can do by just throwing out ideas without any testing and conversation.

    I think Gothic is a beautifully designed set, and the team really hit high marks in terms of interesting game mechanics and elegance in function. So five out of five for Erik’s Curiosa.

    I greatly enjoyed the first week of Gothic. I attended two Sealed events and a draft, and got to play a handful of matches of Constructed on Tabletop Simulator. Over release weekend, I managed to place first at all three Limited events, going 11-0 overall, so I’m happy with my performance. Gothic looks to be another excellent set for Limited play, and I’m looking forward to many more events throughout the year.

  • Gothic Avatar Inspiration Guide

    Gothic Avatar Inspiration Guide

    6 December 2025

    It is here! Gothic release day has finally arrived! I hope everyone is enjoying cracking their packs or starting their testing if product hasn’t quite made it to you yet.

    During this initial Gothic window, my goal with this blog is to share my experiments with deckbuilding. I want to provide decks for new players to get started with and provide some strategy tips for seasoned players to level up their game with.

    During the 2025 Cornerstone Season, I placed fifth at Crossroads Melbourne, placed first in a Constructed Cornerstone with Water-Air Battlemage, first in a Sealed Cornerstone, and finished second a handful of times at other Cornerstone events. So, the purpose in going quickly over my recent tournament credentials is to show that maybe my content is worth the read. I prefer longform written content, so I can share my thoughts in full with a bit of flair and artistry, and to hopefully inspire thinking and testing.

    In this article, I’ll go over the 13 new Avatars released in Gothic. I won’t be going into great detail for each as I don’t want to be overly proscriptive. Instead I want to start the brainstorming process and point out cards that might inspire others. This discovery phase of a new set is the absolute highlight of the year for me. There’s so much to find – combos, synergies, maybe some broken interactions that the developers didn’t quite catch. But it’s also the best time for self-expression. Pick your favourite Avatar and elements and just have fun with it. Iterate and reiterate to find the perfect deck for you.

    First Impression of Design Direction

    Quickly, I’d just like to mention my overall impression of the Avatars as a set of work, of what they represent for the direction and development of the game. Avatars are emblematic of the game and a great starting point to analyse the set.

    Overall, the Gothic Avatars feel to be more about creating archetypes, rather than being novel ways of generating card advantage. Sorcerer is iconic and the perfect design to start with. It’s simple, evocative, and sets the standard for every future Avatar. It’s card advantage in the purest sense.

    In Beta, Avatars such as Geomancer and Pathfinder looked to generate card advantage by not having to draw sites. This is a more obvious source of advantage as it takes away the opportunity cost of deciding to draw a site or spell for turn. But then it becomes more nebulous as designs become more complex. Now, the term ‘card advantage’ is one of those terms that can elicit as many arguments about what it exactly means as metal fans arguing about genre. Is Seer card advantage? It’s card selection, and in a game like Sorcery where draw is so rare, does that blur the line enough? Either way, it demonstrates the interesting point at which mechanics and card identity blur together to make something interesting. Am I calling the Beta Avatars uninteresting? No, not necessarily, but the Gothic Avatars are definitely much more interesting.

    This is because they leap the boundaries out of early set design and become something altogether novel. This shows the maturity and growth of the development team and their ability to play within their own system. The old adage is that you must first master the rules before bending them.

    Early Avatar design was largely restrained by tap abilities. The positive of this is that you can have some powerful effects that require timing and sacrificing the ability to perform other actions. The downside is that tapping for an ability means you can’t tap to draw and play sites. Avatar of Fire is an example of this not working well. It needs sites in hand for its tap ability, but then the more you use it, the less fuel you have. So, then strategies get stuck around making the most of fewer sites, but Avatar of Fire really wants to get to eight mana to throw two fireballs in one turn. This makes for an uncomfortable grinding of gears with this design.

    Flamecaller and Sparkmage are good examples of tap abilities. Removal in a game where minions are so central will always be powerful. They are also tap abilities that can directly win you the game. Conversely, Waveshaper and Witch didn’t quite make the mark. Temporary effects and hobbling your opponent proved to be insufficient to be worth tapping for. Waveshaper has many fans, but I’ve seen too many games where the Waveshaper’s plan fails to develop because they’re forced to use their ability too early and too often in the game. In the fast AL meta, this meant that Witch never had the opportunity to get off the ground at all.

    The downsides of tap abilities are exacerbated by how important moving around the realm is. Early in the game’s life, Avatars seldom moved. They started in their square and sat there for the entire game, playing sites, tapping for sites all game. Now, the game is more dynamic. There’s more nearby and adjacency requirements. There’s also more effects that let you move your opponent’s Avatar. This means that Avatars have to be more flexible with their actions to not be sitting ducks and get themselves out of sticky situations. Don’t let your Avatar get trapped in the Darkest Dungeon.

    So, with Gothic avatar design, we’ve moved away from tap abilities as a whole. Instead we see more deckbuilding opportunities, more movement and combat abilities to encourage Avatars to get into the fray, and more abilities that don’t get in the way of drawing and playing sites.

    Trust me to get so sidetracked in an article about the new Avatars. I hope I haven’t turned away readers or they’ve at least managed to scroll past successfully. But I think it’s important to reflect on the past to understand the future. So don’t forget to reevaluate older Avatars and cards alongside the new to see what’s been unlocked. So, let’s dive in.

    The Precon Four

    These four Avatars are the perfect ones to start with. They are emblematic of the set’s mechanics and flavour. They are elegant designs, but there are so many different routes to take them. I think these four will be the most popular Avatars for a long time in the Gothic meta.

    Savior

    Savior fundamentally shifts the cost curve of minions. Now, every minion essentially costs one more and comes with a Ward. There are plenty of good Ward synergies in the set, and I think the precon demonstrates this strategy well. Timing when to use your Holy Nova and other payoff effects will be interesting when piloting this Avatar.

    Savior’s ability scales well across archetypes. We can play cheap minions such as Pit Vipers with ward; we can midrange minions with Charge aggro getting in immediate damage with our Redcap Powries and making them a mission to deal with; or we can drop in expensive bombs that warp the game. When building your Savior deck, I think deciding upfront where you want to exist on this spectrum is an essential first step.

    Outside of combat, Ward can help us protect important minions. Lances in AL were useful to protect our valuable minions from combat, but didn’t help against a Lightning Bolt. Ward solves that problem. So this is a boon for cards like Mother Nature and Queen of Midland. I’m very interested to see if these value engines see more play now. Mother Nature was a lot of fun out of Dragonlord-Xeraphine, so I’m crossing my fingers.

    Important to note that Savior’s ability works on summon. Casting is what you do to summon a minion from hand. So this is a double benefit for Mother Nature, as you can protect her on cast and then protect what she summons to the realm. This also makes Adept Illusionist a terrible pest. Bodyguard minions like Old Salt Anchorman, who protects your minions from being submerged and burrowed, become incredibly resilient.

    Savior is single-handedly going to turn the wheels of the Meta. What will be the sweet spot of power to cost? Will small minions be the threat, or will large resilient threats be our bane? This is my favourite Avatar out of the precon kit, and I think will be a great choice for new players and experienced alike.

    Necromancer

    Necromancer is our token deck. The precon list gives a great starting point to get the most out of our tokens, whether that’s upgrading them, boosting their power, giving them more bang with Artifacts. Anything that boosts power is a winner here, so consider your Pendragon Banner and House Arn Bannerman.

    But for alternative strategies, you can consider your skeletons as sacrifice fodder to power out monsters from the deep. Your skeletons can lower the cost of cards like Gnarled Wendigo. Instead of making a beeline for your opponent, your skeletons can go to the corner void to summon forth the Dormant Monstrosity.

    I could also see a version of Necromancer that’s all control spells as you have a win condition printed on your Avatar. Punish your opponent for playing minions, punish them if they don’t by attacking their hand or sites. This could be a fun toolbox deck to explore the Collection mechanic with Toolbox and Silver Bullet.

    That’s three completely different archetypes to explore with this one Avatar. But I’m looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with. Necromancer is my pick for the Avatar that will be winning the first round of tournaments.

    Persecutor

    This is an interesting one. To me this feels a lot like Avatar of Water in that it has built-in movement and then the payoff isn’t immediately obvious. I think Persecutor will have a huge surprise factor where you’re not quite sure what your opponent is up to until it is too late.

    Poison Nova and proximity spells are a great starting point. The free movement lets Persecutor position efficiently to time their spells for the most devastation. Movement without a tap is super useful for effects like Love Potion. Will Persecutor finally be the Love Potion menace we all feared ever since that card was spoiled?

    This is the only Avatar in Gothic with more than one power, so is a contender for more aggressive strategies. Will it achieve what Templar couldn’t? Two power can be an awkward amount as it’s not enough to threaten burst damage like Avatar of Earth; and as Witch showed, two damage chunks aren’t super threatening.

    Town Priest is our most cost-efficient source of bounce so far in the game. Could this pairing be enough for a successful tempo deck? Persecutor makes good use of a large suite of anti-Evil tech in the set. If Evil decks become popular, then Persecutor’s stocks rise as well.

    Persecutor can embrace the dark side and consort with demons. It’s the perfect companion for Shackled Demon, which needs a Spellcaster to unchain it with a tap.

    Harbinger

    Precon Harbinger wants to go big and play big minions early. Harbinger is one of the best flavour Avatars as well, and I think many players will enjoy the storytelling opportunity of being the key and guardian of the gate to the dangers of the cosmos.

    I’m a big fan of stacking cost reduction effects. If you can get a Town underneath a summoning portal, you will have a lot of fun. The randomness of the effect does have to be mitigated, so Voidwalk minions are a great choice. Headless Haunt is an obvious choice, but maybe this will give Peregrine Apparition a new lease of life?

    Harbinger is going to be a deck where the roll of the dice could make or break it. The worst-case scenario is that you roll entirely on your back row. Will you build your Harbinger to be able to pivot into a more defensive deck if that happens? Or will you lean fully into the all-or-nothing aggressive strategy and just make do without your portals?

    Harbinger is the antithesis to Savior, shifting the cost curve in a different direction. Will resilient Warded minions trump big monsters coming down early? This will be a battle fought across local metas.

    Let Loose the Avatars of War

    In this next section, I’ll go over the three Avatars that point us in a more aggressive direction, where they directly take the battle to the opponent. Persecutor belongs in this category as well, so any tips here can apply to it as well.

    I’m a big fan of aggressive combat-orientated Avatars. Battlemage was my champion throughout Cornerstone season. I enjoy having an Avatar that can directly influence the board, deal with the opponent’s minions, and can thwart my opponent’s anti-minion strategies.

    Combat Avatars have unique deckbuilding considerations. They need to consider movement effects so they can influence the board efficiently. They need cards to boost their combat prowess. But it’s also important to bring minions of your own that support your Avatar and benefit from your combat spells and Artifacts.

    Ironclad

    Ironclad and Bladedancer are great Voltron style decks. This is where you load them up with Artifacts, such as Flaming Sword, and go all-in on this strategy. Ironclad is the more resilient and defensive flavour of the two, so I could see the possibility of building a deck and then swapping between the two Avatars depending on your local meta.

    Ironclad shines with untap abilities, such as Belfry, Sugarplum Pixies. Maybe this is even the moment where Silver Valkyries gets played. Ironclad makes it harder for your opponent to get in attacks on your sites, whilst also defending the valuable minions you’ve invested in. Ironclad will have your opponent scratching their head trying to find a way to break through your defenses, so you also need to be bold and aggressive so they don’t have the opportunity to solve that puzzle.

    Ironclad is also great with self-damaging effects. Note that life lost is not damage, so he doesn’t synergise with many demons like Lesser Blood Demon. However, Searing Truth is damage. Throughout this year, thousands of Ironclad decks will be started in Curiosa and the first thing added is three copies of Searing Truth.

    Ironclad’s downside is that it has no built-in mobility, so you will need to answer this. War Horse is a great pick. I love Blink and run it in nearly every air deck. Helpful Hob’s untap can pack a punch once you’re fully decked out in equipment.

    Ironclad is also a great meta answer to Necromancer, so if that pesky control Necro that wants to win with tokens gets too bothersome, then Ironclad might be the solution.

    Bladedancer

    This is going to be a fun avatar once it’s fully suited and booted. Too bad it doesn’t have Battlemage’s card draw ability, but I guess we can’t have everything on one Avatar. Bladedancer’s strength is that it gets to push through damage on the opponent and thin out the opponent’s minions. Battlemage has to choose which axis to focus on and commit to it, but Bladedancer can split the difference.

    Bladedancer does suffer from the problem of what do you do if the opponent doesn’t have any minions? There are a handful of cards that give your opponent minions, like Bitten, but is that even worthwhile? Battlemage gets to kill that token and draw a card from it, so Bitten is an efficient threat that replaces itself eventually for Battlemage.

    I think I prefer Ironclad out of these two, but I think I’m missing something. Let me know what you plan to do with Bladedancer. I’m sure I’ll get my butt kicked by her soon enough.

    Interrogator

    This is my pick for the most popular initial Avatar out of the gates. Players love drawing cards, and unlike Battlemage, you can send your minions in to do your dirty work. The fact that this isn’t once a turn is scary. ‘Ally’ also includes your Avatar, so I’ve included Interrogator in the combat section as it can do the Battlemage plan of getting in your opponent’s face.

    Token minions are a good strategy here. Zero damage still counts as a strike, so Frog tokens are viable. But since they have to attack the Avatar directly, this means tokens are likely single-use as they will get struck back, but single use for a card draw is very powerful. You can leverage that with Shield Maidens.

    Denying the opponent life gain is strong in this build, so River of Blood is a strong contender here.

    Yeah, I’m scared of this Avatar. It’s like starting with a Boudicca in play as your opponent will likely pay the three life whilst they have life to spend. Your opponent will have to play extra defensive to deny the draw. Going all in on small minions could be a strategy, but just be careful of Poison Nova and Holy Nova wiping out your forces.

    This Avatar appeals to me a lot, and this might be the one that I take to my first tournament. I think there will be a large brain trust of competitive players working on this deck and perfecting it into a meta dominating force.

    Leverage Other Angles

    In the game of Sorcery, there are several things that can lose you the game. Losing to burn spells and minions attacking is the first and most obvious axis. You can also lose a game of Sorcery because you didn’t draw the threshold you require or because your opponent messed up your sites. The third axis of losing is being denied board access. Perhaps this is due to your opponent flooding sites to deny your Burrowing minions access. Maybe this is done with a Bailey or Mountain Pass.

    Site placement and moving sites is one of the most underrated axes of the game but might be the most powerful. If you can destroy an opponent’s site and replace it with your own, you’ve now given yourself access into the opponent’s line and given yourself immense opportunities. Just make sure you don’t give your opponent an easy site for their minions to chew through your life. In Gothic, we’ve been given the strongest Avatar yet that can exploit this axis. Say hello to the Real-Meater.

    Realm-Eater

    When using Realm-Eater’s ability, this is the hierarchy of power:

    1. Denying threshold.
    2. Denying opportunities to defend.
    3. Denying your opponent mana.

    Denying threshold can prevent your opponent from playing threats for many turns, putting them at the mercy of drawing from the site deck. Whilst they’re trying to fix their threshold, they aren’t drawing threats or playing them. This is the attack that will have the greatest impact on your opponent.

    Denying your opponent board control is also very strong. Taking out defensive sites like Gnome Hollows so your attackers can get in is a big tempo swing. Breaking their line so your Airborne minions can easily attack their backrow is also very strong. Realm-Eater will require an untap to be able to destroy a site and play a site on the same turn, so this might be a bit more difficult to achieve with just the Avatar ability.

    The least impactful is taking your opponent off one mana. Sometimes this denies them a turn; most often they just play a different card. Similar effects like Witch and Tax Collector never really had much success. A common mistake with Realm-Eater will be taking the opponent off an inconsequential site instead of developing your own board. Since Realm-Eater has to digest before it can use the Move ability again, your opponent will look to play their important sites during your off turns when your belly is full. Such moments will be where Realm-Eater players lose the game without realising it, so be considerate with your timing. Often the threat is more dangerous than the action.

    It will be interesting to see how these decks shape out. I think initially we will see cards like Teleport played with the intention of being able to snipe any site early to try and take the opponent out of the game ASAP. If you spend your turn three playing Teleport and attacking a key site like Tintagel, you might throw your opponent off their entire strategy. But this costs you a turn, a card, and your own development. But my gut feeling is that Realm-Eater will work better with a longer and more deliberate game in mind.

    Like the combat-focused Avatars above, Realm-Eater needs movement effects to fully leverage its ability, and it also needs ways of taking out defenders. You have to successfully strike the site itself to feast on it. Immobile doesn’t prevent you from Attacking the site you are on, so effects like Blink are super powerful here to dance around defenders and strike deep into the enemy’s territory.

    The mere existence of Realm-Eater is an existential threat to greedy atlases and greedy players. The mere possibility that you might sit down to face this Avatar in a tournament is enough that every deck has to be prepared for it. My guess is that this Avatar will have a low play rate in tournaments (I think it will be quite popular in more casual settings), but will be an impactful and important deck with a high win rate. The players who take this to tournaments will be dangerous.

    There is a risk that this is the negative-play-experience Avatar of the set. There’s a chance that Realm-Eater becomes the new Archimago, where the chance to play the game gets taken out of your hands and you are forced to sit back and watch the slow inevitable conclusion play out. I hope not.

    I know there’s players in my meta that will pick this as their first deck to pilot, and I’m scared. I’d better start thinking of a game plan to beat this deck.

    A New Way to Play

    This category of Avatars introduce new angles to the game and feel like the wildcards of the set. When you sit down to play against these decks, you will have a hard time guessing what their game plan is.

    Animist

    Animist is a spellcaster that can play to the board. Animist can compete on the board with minions whilst benefiting from having more options in hand. This feels like the toolbox Avatar of the set. Mortality is never a dead card for Animist.

    The problem with cards like Mortality for Animist isn’t that they’re narrow, it’s that they make for weak minions. A two-cost two-power minion that has no ability is pretty weak. A three for three is where it starts feeling all right. For this reason, I think we need to look at silver bullets that cost three, four, and five mana, so they can be reasonable minions. Extinguish and Boil are the most immediate picks from the older card pool.

    However, then my brain goes to, ‘What’s the point of playing an Avatar whose strength is having a weak back-up plan in case its A plan fails?’ Maybe this is fine for the deck that’s just a pile of removal spells and then the removal can be a threat. Maybe this is fine for a deck with such a strong combo that if you get it, you definitely win, but you just need a backup plan to not get overrun or just lose the game otherwise.

    The biggest issue against Animist is the lack of built-in card advantage. Is Sorcerer or Archimago just the stronger combo Avatar? I’m not sure. It will be interesting to see what players come up with.

    My only corner-case tip to offer is that it might be useful to run effects like Fey Changeling so you can bounce your spell-minions back to hand if they become relevant in the match. Yeah, that’s a nice utility, but will it ever be relevant? Probably not.

    Animist is a great Limited Avatar as it ensures you can pack more powerful utility spells in your list whilst being able to play minions on curve. In a draft, if you get Animist early, you will then be able to take and utilise cards that no one else can. And in draft, where removal is king, having your removal spells turn into minions is super helpful.

    Imposter

    This will be an incredibly fun Avatar and is my pick for what I want to brew with first up. I think the best Imposter decks will have a plan to change Avatars through the early, mid, and late game, with a toolbox to draw upon to adapt and counter threats. We also get to combo and synergise Avatar abilities in a way that’s never been possible before. We can be a Realm-Eater and make a bunch of Rubble, then switch to Geomancer for efficient site ramp.

    The ‘getting damaged’ clause makes combat Avatars like Battlemage and Bladedancer more difficult but not impossible to use. This is a deck that definitely wants Amulet of Niniane and maybe even Blasted Oak to protect your Avatar from errant Lightning Bolts. I think it’s incredibly compelling that Imposter creates a fourth axis in addition to what I talked about before in regards to Realm-Eater, in that you force your opponent to directly interact with your Avatar lest you run away with advantage.

    Here is how I’m planning on building my Imposter. It’s an Earth deck with a Fire splash ramping and disrupting the opponent. In my Collection, I have 10 Avatars to have access to maximum utility. Pathfinder, Realm-Eater, Geomancer, Avatar of Earth, Sorcerer, Witch, Flamecaller, Avatar of Fire, Ironclad, Necromancer.

    Early: Pathfinder. On turn three turning into a Pathfinder, tapping for a site, is incredible. The slower the format, the more powerful this is going to be. If you can get away with three or more turns masquerading as Pathfinder, then that’s incredible value. Even just getting one turn as Pathfinder, you’ve essentially started the game with a free ramp spell in hand.

    Then going into the mid game and late game, there are several routes to take depending on what the opponent is doing. Having Realm-Eater means you can disrupt the opponent who is minion light and wants a long game. Geomancer helps get even more free Sites down. Avatar of Earth can start dishing out massive damage once you have a cluster of sites. If my opponent has too many minions, I can retreat back and shift into Sorcerer to start drawing cards and benefit from my ramp. If I’m ahead on the board and don’t want to overextend, I can shift into Witch and curse my opponent.

    I also have utility picks such as Ironclad to thwart token strategies if I’m on Death’s Door. I have Necromancer as well if I need tokens to gum up the board or have a constant flow of threats.

    Being able to shift into an Avatar with an ‘I win’ button is incredible, so that’s Avatar of Fire or Flamecaller. Depending on whether you’re more likely to have a Fire site in hand or a Fire minion in the bin will determine which is better here.

    You could easily cut out the three least likely Avatars you’ll need, arguably Witch, Ironclad, Necromancer, so you have a bit of room left in the Collection for other toys, but why not lean fully into the Imposter?

    My Work is Done in Deckbuilding…

    This next category of Avatars are those with abilities that impact Deckbuilding more than gameplay. These will be a lot of fun to tinker with in deck builders, but once they’re on the table, will have more linear games executing their strategy.

    Corruptor

    This is the most wide open Avatar of the 13. It cracks open the card pool and makes us peer through the kaleidoscope of choices.

    An important rules note is that this effect applies everywhere, so unfortunately cannot use Call to War (one of my all-time favourites) in Corrupter.

    I think the best way to approach this is by working backwards. Start by looking for strong payoffs for Evil, Monster, Undead, and Demon and then seeing if they’re strong enough that including more minions is worthwhile.

    Here are a few possibilities for each archetype:

    Evil: Willing Tribute, Witching Hour.

    Monster: Abyssal Assault lets our efficient beasts like Lugbog Cat turn into monstrous bombs on curve.

    Undead: Carrionette. This lets us recur our expensive utility mortals such as Grandmaster Wizards, Death Dealer.

    Not being mortal means we’re safe from All Mortals Gone and play it ourselves.

    Kiss of Death: unlocks this powerful kill spell.

    Necronomiconcert: This lets our utility mortals like Land Surveyor join in the card advantage party.

    Angels and Demons? I just love the flavour of building an Angels and Demons list, so hopefully there’s something spicy to justify this. Let me know if you see a spoiled card that Corrupter could use.

    …and What the Hell is That?!

    Now, these last two are pure insanity that not only change how we approach deckbuilding but also how we perceive the game. These next two Avatars are going to be contentious, and I predict there will be a furor and uproar from the community over what they represent.

    Duplicator

    I am torn on this card. On one hand, this destroys the implied contract of what Unique means to us as players and collectors. One of the selling points of Sorcery was that we only needed a single copy of each Unique card. This affected prices for Uniques as players only needed to get a single copy. Duplicator will affect the entire marketplace.

    On a sour note, this also means that individuals who saw this card leaked before release date had a window of time to gain an unfair advantage by buying cards before the general public was aware of what was happening and could react accordingly. Worst is in the case of Dragonlord. Due to scarcity, many players missed out, and those who got one copy were relieved that it represented all they needed for gameplay. Now that’s no longer the case.

    As for playing with Duplicator, the first hurdle is overcoming the inherent card disadvantage. Tithe and Round Table are the two standout for this. I think there are two obvious routes to building this list. One is the Knights of Arthurian Legends. The other is Immortal Throne. Maybe you could do both of these in the same deck. I have tried Immortal Throne Knights Templar back in the day to middling success, but having two copies of the Round Table is super useful. But it remains to be seen if having a second copy of a critical lynchpin Unique outweighs losing out on the initial card advantage and utility contained in Elites, Exceptionals and Ordinaries.

    Magician

    Now, this is a card that will create positive controversy. I think everyone will have the same reaction of, ‘Oh, no, they didn’t,’ when seeing this for the first time. It’s just a perfect joke and emblematic of the flair and fun out of Erik’s Curiosa.

    On first pass, this just feels like a worse Spellslinger. You get one extra card over Spellslinger without the certainty of drawing an optimal mix of sites and spells.

    But then the next pass is the realization that you get to control the ratio of sites to spells with full control at deckbuilding. This means you can build a deck that wants to draw six spells and one site in the opener – or conversely, a six site and one spell hand. With Sorcery’s mulligan system, it’s easy to push this to the limit since you have a lot of control in choosing what to keep and what to put back.

    For fans of the 40-20 format, this kinda allows you to do essentially that. The cost is that generally it’s cheaper and easier to draw sites than spells, so you’re losing out on the most efficient card advantage sources, such as Tithe and Kettletop Leprechauns, with Magician.

    Magician still has access to the 10-card Collection, so make sure you make the most of that advantage.

    So, what does Magician do that other decks can’t? You’re exchanging one form of consistency to adjust the dials elsewhere. Is that sufficiently powerful? We saw Spellslinger achieve Rainbow foil status, so it’s not impossible that Magician will see tournament play if just for the memes. There is something appealing about only having to shuffle a single deck…

    The worst-case scenario is that Magician’s deckbuilding advantage enables negative-play-experience combos that have been dormant since the increases in deck size. Players were glad to see the back of frustrating combos such as Roots of Yggdrassil, and Candlemas Monks with Crave Golem, so I hope they remain dormant. I’m sure there will be a new negative play experience found in Gothic for those desiring the chance to frustrate their opponents. If such strategies do become a thing, just save them for your friends and tournaments. Don’t make new players suffer through Candlemas Monk nonsense, please.

    Bonus Round: Aspiring Avatar Demon Lord Mephistopheles!

    Mephistopheles wants in on the fun as well! This card is my favourite Unique in the set, and I hope to crack a copy (maybe even a foil) early on so I can play with it. This design space of being able to ascend your Avatar is something I enjoy a lot in card games, and I’m super happy to see it here in Sorcery. Hearthstone fans will know Jaraxxus, but there was a similar mechanic in the older World of Warcraft TCG, where you could turn into a master hero such as Jaina or the Lich King. I find this mechanic extraordinarily fun as it feels like a quest and accomplishment within the game and has great storytelling potential. I’m glad that we only got one card in Gothic, though, so it’s special and unique overall, but I hope to see this design space revisited in the future.

    Mephistopheles is great for Avatars that have an early-game benefit and then need a bit of a push to win the game. This is perfect for Seer, who can find Mephistopheles easier and needs some help in the late game. Pathfinder is another perfect choice. Interrogator is a fun one where once you’ve accumulated lots of cards in hand, Mephistopheles lets you spew them out.

    Conclusion

    Wow, that was a big article. My biggest one yet. I hope it wasn’t too wordy and was densely packed with useful information. I don’t expect anyone will read it entirely, but hopefully people can jump around to their favourite couple of Avatars and leave with something useful to start their brewing.

    Overall, I’m super excited. There’s hundreds of possibilities to explore here. Each Gothic Avatar has at least three obvious paths to go down, with multitudes of less obvious ones to discover. As no Avatar is restricted to a single element, like in Alpha and Beta, each element and combination requires examination.

    We also have to go back and see what Gothic does for our existing 21 Avatars. I am looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with. This time of exploration is going to be immensely fun and rewarding.

    In this article, outside of a few spoilers, I haven’t even talked about how the actual card pool impacts all of this. How will the big archetypes influence things? We have Evil and Ward turning the wheel of the meta. What will come out on top?

    The Beta-Arthurian Legend meta was generally quite fast, especially early on. What will be the tempo of this new meta? Will this be a meta where fast decks, such as Interrogator and Harbinger aggro is MVP, or will it be slow enough where Imposter can shift through six different guises and come out on top?

    So, let’s get on Curiosa, sleeve up some decks, fire up TTS, and have fun with Gothic.

  • Gothic Cards Are Available on the Dust Store Right Now!

    Gothic Cards Are Available on the Dust Store Right Now!

    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 Dust Store is so much more than just a rewards programme.

    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:

    https://sorcerytcg.com/news/what-you-carry-with-you-a-first-look-at-the-collection-and-deck-sizes-in-gothic

    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.

  • Baldassare’s Quest – A Sorcery Solo Mode Adventure

    Baldassare’s Quest – A Sorcery Solo Mode Adventure

    26 September 2025

    Baldassare’s Quest is an solo adventure for Sorcery: Contested Realm. It uses the rules and mechanics of Sorcery with a few twists. Can Captain Baldassare and his pirates conquer the Isle of Avalon and claim its treasures for themselves? This adventure can be played solo using the provided AI rules or against a human opponent piloting the Avalon deck.

    The scenario has a unique setup, special mechanics for playing and obtaining cards, and an AI rule set. I have tried to be as nuanced as possible with the rules, so the initial read might be daunting. I recommend setting up the game and playing along as you learn. With the core rules and objective in mind, the flavour and intent of the scenario should unfurl naturally.

    Note – this scenario is a work in progress and I would greatly appreciate any feedback to clarify and improve these rules. Sorcery is a complex game, and to get the AI functioning sensibly is quite the challenge.

    Disclaimer – this scenario is a fan project, using the rules and mechanics of Sorcery: Contested Realm, a game by Erik’s Curiosa. Thank you to the design team and all the artists whose hard work and creativity make this such an incredible game.

    This scenario can be played on Tabletop Simulator, which is available on Steam, but I highly encourage players to buy and play with the physical cards. I’ve prioritised cards from the recent set, Arthurian Legends, and given love to some underplayed cards from Beta. One of the goals in creating this scenario was seeing how I could showcase underplayed cards. It’s a testament to the creativity that underpins Sorcery that there were so many flavourful cards to use. Escyllion Cyclops is a great example of this. Because of its inherent drawback, it doesn’t get used too often, but it’s a powerful card in Limited formats and perfect for this scenario.

    Baldassare’s Quest Lore

    The infamous pirate captain Baldassare has heard rumours about the mythical Isle of Avalon and the treasures it holds. He’s already gained a foothold in Tintagel, capturing the castle and its surrounding holdings. However, the next part of his mission will not be so easy. He’s roused the ire of the champions of Avalon, who are preparing themselves to repel this invading force and drive them back into the sea from whence they came. Will Baldassare be able to triumph against these mighty figures of legend, such as Merlin and King Arthur?

    The very land itself rises up in defiance, and the Druids of Avalon work tirelessly to summon forth its ancient magic. Warriors and monsters have been drawn together in the defense of their homeland. Ever ready for a fight, the Knights of the Round Table have taken up arms to fulfil their oaths and claim glory and honour.

    As the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Blunderbore, the ferocious giant has finished pillaging the Dome of Osiris, and armed with a treasure of great power, is spoiling for another fight. Will he help or hinder the cause of Avalon?

    However, weakness has settled in the heart of Camelot. Distracted by the quarreling between the Pagans and Christians, King Arthur has failed to defend his shores. Will the pleas of Avalon fall on deaf ears? Will the King remember his oath to the sacred isle and rally in time?

    But those are not your problems; you are the pirate captain Baldassare. You’re here to pillage and plunder these lands and claim its treasures and magic for yourself. Rally your Sea Raiders and prepare your weapons of war. It’s time for battle.

    How to Play

    The core rules and goal of this solo scenario is the same as a normal game of Sorcery with a few important rules twists and a different initial setup. You have to reduce the opponent to zero life from 20, and then deal a finishing blow while they’re at Death’s Door. You must achieve this without dying yourself. If the player is reduced to zero life and is dealt damage at Death’s Door, they lose the game.

    Assume normal rules for the game with the scenario rules taking priority. The Captain plays mostly the same as a regular game of Sorcery, but Avalon has a very different turn structure to create challenge and random outcomes against an AI opponent.

    Important Rule Changes:

    The Pirate Rule – after the Captain player casts any spells from the Avalon deck through the effect of either Captain Baldassare or Sea Raider, place the cast cards into the Captain’s cemetery instead of Avalon’s cemetery. Any remaining card(s) that the Captain does not cast from these effects go into Avalon’s cemetery. This is how the Captain player gains access to new cards and powerful spells.

    Refresh Rule – if either the Captain’s Spellbook or the Avalon Spellbook is empty and you need to draw a card, take the corresponding Cemetery, shuffle it facedown to reform the Spellbook. Neither the Captain or Avalon loses if their Spellbook is empty. If you’ve played a deckbuilding game like Dominion or Ascension, you will be familiar with this mechanic. The second time the Avalon Spellbook is emptied and reshuffled in this manner, Escalation occurs and all Avalon minions gain Movement +1.

    The Captain Rule – Captain Baldassare is not an Avatar or Minion in this scenario. Captain Baldassare is not an Avatar, so cannot tap to draw or play Sites. Captain Baldassare has three power, as printed. Captain Baldassare cannot be destroyed by card effects or damage. This rule is important for how the AI operates and evaluates the board. Captain Baldassare cannot be submerged, burrowed, or enter the void.

    Importantly, as the Captain is not an Avatar, he does not have Spellcaster. At setup, the Captain player has no Avatar and thus cannot cast cards without special casting conditions, such as stated on Grievous Insult. This is the first puzzle the player must overcome.

    Building the Deck

    The deck list for this scenario can be found here: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmfok2qeq006aih04skkw4a2p

    The deck list is structured in a way to facilitate being loaded into TTS and for ease of setup. There is a 59-card Avalon Spellbook, a 11-card Avalon Atlas, and a Pathfinder Avatar for Avalon to use. The ‘Sideboard’ comprises of both the 10-card Pirate starting deck and 19 setup cards. The scenario contains 100 total cards. Do not duplicate the cards in the Maybeboard. These 10 cards in the Maybeboard is the Captain’s starting deck to be taken from the Sideboard during setup.

    Tabletop Simulator Setup

    This scenario can be played using either physical cards or using the Sorcery module for Tabletop Simulator. I recommend building these decks and playing in real life, but for ease of testing, TTS is a useful tool.

    Making sure Thresholds are correct is critical for playing the scenario. Keep in mind the effects of Avalon and Bailey’s impact on Pristine Paradise.

    Tips for using TTS:

    Drag cards belonging to the Avalon AI into the hand of the second player at the top of the screen. This will switch control of the card. This allows you to use the threshold tracking and ‘start turn’ functions of the mod.

    Setting up the game in TTS:

    To create the game in TTS, go Create, Single Player, load Sorcery module in Workshop, Load. Then in the Sorcery module, Constructed.

    Load the Decklist in game using: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmfok2qeq006aih04skkw4a2p

    Move the 11-card Atlas and 59-card Spellbook to the opponent’s side of the board.

    Setup

    Take the cards from the Sideboard and place them on the board in the following positions under the control of the appropriate player.

    Avalon Player – 13 cards and the Pathfinder Avatar. All these cards come into play under the control of the Avalon player except for Ruby Core, which begins on the site and thus isn’t controlled by either player at the start of the game.

    Site 1 – Four cards: Camelot, King Arthur, Fine Courser, Four Waters of Paradise. King Arthur is carrying the Four Waters of Paradise. Fine Courser is carrying King Arthur.

    Site 3 – Two cards: Island Leviathan, Belfry.

    Site 5 – Three cards: Dome of Osiros, Blunderbore, Ruby Core. (Note Blunderbore does not start the game carrying the Ruby Core, and thus doesn’t provide mana and threshold for Avalon in the first turn of the game)

    Site 8 – Two cards: Avalon, Pathfinder. (Note you can use any Avatar card to represent the Avalon Avatar, but Pathfinder is the most appropriate to use as a rules reminder for how sites will be placed)

    Site 13 – Three cards: Merlin’s Tower, Merlin, Merlin’s Staff. Merlin is carrying Merlin’s Staff.

    Captain Player – 6 cards.

    Site 17 – One card: Autumn River. (This can be any of the ordinary River sites. Change the tone of the game by changing the season.)

    Site 18 – Two cards: Tintagal, Captain Baldassare.

    Site 19 – Two cards: Pristine Paradise, Bailey (note because of the Bailey, the Pristine Paradise won’t provide mana or threshold for the Captain player)

    Site 20 – One card: Hamlet.

    After setup, shuffle each of the three decks, Avalon Spellbook, Avalon Atlas, and Captain’s Spellbook.

    The Captain player draws three cards (from the Captain’s 10-card deck) to form their opening hand. The Captain player can mulligan up to three cards as per normal mulligan rules. The Avalon player does not draw cards from their Atlas during setup or at the start of their turn, so don’t draw a starting hand for the Avalon player. There should be zero sites in the Captain player’s Atlas. Captain Baldassare is not an Avatar, so cannot tap to draw or play Sites. The Captain player is always the first player and takes the first turn of the game.

    For the rest of the game, follow the normal turn order and structure as outlined in the Sorcery rulebook noting the exceptions below. There are special rules for how Avalon will draw and play cards from its Spellbook, and then AI rules on where it will place minions, how it will use the ‘Move and Attack’ action, and how it will use its minions to defend.

    Keep the Avalon Spellbook and Cemetery distinct from the Captain player’s Spellbook and Cemetery. When using the effect of Captain Baldassare or Sea Raider, make sure to refer to the Pirate Rule and place cards in the appropriate cemetery. The Captain wants to retain his loot.

    Captain Player’s Turn

    In the solo mode, the player will take control of the Captain deck, led by captain Baldassare.

    The Captain’s turn is identical to a normal turn of Sorcery. Follow the turn order outlined in the Sorcery rulebook. Once the player has access to a Spellcaster, they can play cards from their hand following normal mana and threshold rules. The Captain’s Atlas is empty at the start of the game. As the Captain is not an Avatar, he does not have the ability to tap to Draw or Play a Site.

    AI Turn, Glossary, and Notes

    Direction Rule. When AI minions need to Move and there is a choice of sites, if Avalon is on Death’s Door, go to the lower numbered site, otherwise go to the higher numbered site.

    Threshold. Tracking threshold is important. The game is designed to have roadblocks and randomisation created through both players’ access to threshold. Also once the Avalon AI has eight Water threshold, Island Leviathan will activate, so make sure to keep track of this carefully.

    Threatened Site. The Threatened Site is the singular Avalon site that contains the Captain’s minion(s) with the highest total power (including modifiers from abilities and artifacts). In a tie, the higher numbered site is considered the Threatened Site. The Dome of Osiros cannot be considered Threatened.

    Site Number. For example ‘Site 8’ refers to the site that’s in the grid space numbered 8 on an official Sorcery playmat. Sites go from one to 20. If there are conflicts between numbering orientation across various mats, refer to the Valley of Delight playmat.

    Forces Pile. A temporary zone used during the ‘Forces Gather’ step of the Avalon Main Phase.

    Captain / Pirate Deck / Invaders / Player – are all synonymous terms for ‘player one’, which will always be a human player. Consider these terms interchangeable to represent this faction. These terms might be used at different points in the document to mean the same thing for flavour reasons.

    Avalon / AI – are synonymous terms for the opponent in the solo mode, designed to be governed by the AI rules. These can be used interchangeably at times. The disparate setup of ‘Avalon’, ‘Camelot’, ‘Blunderbore’, AI, etc, as all components of the opponent.

    Avalon Turn

    In this section, the rules will be written from the perspective that the game is being played solo with the full set of AI rules in force. If there is a human player piloting the deck, then you can substitute choices such as Minion placement and activation with human agency. The turn structure and how Avalon plays cards from the Spellbook remains the same even with a human playing Avalon.

    Sorcery Rule Book: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sgQo0xf0N2teIR0zlyl91g9j6LVncZnr/view

    The AI player takes their turn, following the turn sequence as outlined in the Sorcery Rule Book page 16, with Start, Main, and End Phases. The Start and End Phase function mostly the same, but the Avalon Main Phase has extensive changes to allow the AI and the scenario to function.

    Avalon Start Phase:

    Steps One, Two, Three as per normal. Skip Step Four of the Start Phase. The Avalon player never draws a card at the beginning of their turn. 

    Avalon Main Phase:

    Step One. Place a Site. Activate and tap the Avalon Avatar. The AI draws and places sites similar to how the Pathfinder Avatar functions with a few minor exceptions. The Avalon Avatar can replace Rubble sites. Tap the Avatar and reveal the top Site from the Atlas. Place this site in an adjacent empty (or Rubble) grid spot following these considerations –

    1. Ignore Site 16. (Avalon does not want to move next to the Captain’s stronghold)
    2. Move horizontally before vertically.
    3. If there is a tie between sites it can move to, prioritise the higher numbered site.
    4. If the Avatar cannot place a site following these rules as they are on Site 14, they teleport to Site 13 and attempt this once again.

    Essentially, the Grid is formed through the Avalon Avatar moving clockwise through the Realm. This creates opportunities for both players to attack and engage with each other. Avalon will play a site each turn until it runs out of Sites.

    On its first turn, Avalon’s Avatar will tap, reveal the top Site from its Atlas and play it to spot nine. This is because of the rules prioritising moving horizontally over vertically, and then since there is a tie between sites 7 and 9 on either side of it, it will go to the higher number, which is 9.

    If the Grid is full of Sites, excluding Site 16, or the Avalon Atlas is empty, the Avalon Avatar will move in the most direct route to a site where they have the most number of untapped minions nearby to it without being adjacent to the Captain’s minions. If there is a tie, it will move to be adjacent to their strongest untapped minion. This is where the Cruel Rule is important, if the AI has a choice, it won’t move to a location where it will be dead on board.

    Step Two. Forces Gather. This step is the most different to a normal game of Sorcery. In this step, the Avalon AI attempts to muster forces to protect itself from the invaders. The Forces Pile is a special zone to facilitate cards moving from the Spellbook to in play. Cards discarded from the Forces pile always go to the Avalon Cemetery.

    1. Draw five cards from the top of the Avalon Spellbook to the Forces Pile. If there are any cards in the AI Player’s hand, place all such cards into the Forces Pile.
    2. Reveal the Forces Pile. If there are no Minions in this pile, discard all the cards and return to Step 1.
    3. Calculate the threshold and mana the AI player has access to. (During the first turn of the game, the AI player does not generate mana or threshold from the Ruby Core as it’s not controlled by them at this stage as it’s not carried by their minion.)
    4. Discard all Minions in the Forces Pile that the AI player cannot play due to Mana and Threshold requirements exceeding the available Mana and/or threshold available to Avalon. Make an exception for any Minion that can be played to a Site with special rules such as Tournament Grounds.
    5. If there are no Minions in the Forces Pile at this point, stop, discard the Forces Pile and start again at Step 1.
    6. Discard all Magic and Aura spells. For each card discarded this way in this step, deal one damage to the Player’s minion with the lowest power. This can only affect one minion at maximum. Captain Baldassare is not considered a Minion.
    7. Choose the minion with the highest Mana Cost in the Forces Pile (if there is a tie, randomly select one) and play it to the Grid Square following the Minion Placement Rules below. Discard all other Minions and Automatons.
    8. Calculate the remaining mana available to the AI player. Discard all remaining cards in the Forces Pile that exceed this amount.
    9. Play an Artifact from the Forces Pile into the hands of the Avalon Minion with the highest power (even if it wasn’t played this turn).
    10. If there is still an Artifact in the Forces Pile, return to Step 8. 
    11. Surge! Mill cards from the top of the Avalon Spellbook until a Minion is revealed and place this in the Forces Pile. If the Avalon AI can play this Minion with their remaining Mana and available Threshold, play this minion following the Minion Placement Rules, otherwise discard it. The Avalon player will only Surge a maximum of once per turn.
    12. Proceed to the Step Three of the Main Phase, placing any remaining cards from the Forces Pile into the Avalon Cemetery.

    Minion Placement Rules

    These rules determine the priority of where the Avalon AI will summon minions to. The AI will never summon a minion to the subsurface (Burrowed or Submerged) or to the Void. Consider in order when casting a minion…

    1. If Avalon is on Death’s Door and there are no Minions in the same square as the Avatar, summon it to the Avatar’s Site.
    2. If Tournament Grounds is in play, any revealed Sirs, Knights, Dames are summoned here.
    3. If the Minion has the printed Submerge ability, play it to the surface of Site 3, which is the Island Leviathan at the start of the game. (If this Site is Rubble, the Minion cannot be summoned here)
    4. If there is an Avalon Site considered ‘Threatened’, and there are no other Avalon Minions there, summon it to that space. The Threatened Site is the Avalon site that contains the Captain’s minion with the highest power (including modifiers from abilities and artifacts).
    5. Site 8.

    Step Three. Avalon Minions Activate. 

    Start with the Avalon minion with the lowest printed cost. If there is a tie, start with the minion on the highest numbered Grid square. Repeat until all the Avalon minions have activated.

    1. The Minion will pick up any Artifact in their Grid square. For example, on the first turn, Blunderbore picks up the Ruby Core. (Optional Advanced Rule, if a Minion could Drop an artifact it is carrying that would result in a better outcome for Avalon, applying the Cruel Rule, then it does so)
    2. If the Minion has Summoning Sickness, end their activation and go to the next Avalon minion.
    3. Move and Attack, following the Minion Aggression Rules below. If a minion has no possible moves, go to the next Avalon Minion.
    4. Once all Avalon minions have activated, go to the End Phase.

    Note, in the early turns, Blunderbore and King Arthur are unable to do anything because they are disconnected from the rest of the realm. This is intentional.

    Escalation Rule:

    The second time the Avalon Spellbook is emptied and reshuffled, all Avalon minions gain Movement +1. This serves as a timer on the game and to prevent unintentional stalling tactics. Take this added movement into account when considering possible moves for the AI. At this point in the game, it should most likely result in ending the game for the player.

    Minion Aggression Rules.

    The forces of Avalon are trying to repel the invaders and ultimately defeat them. As such, they will prioritise killing nearby minions before moving to attack Sites. This is an area where the AI can be exploited the most and the player can prevail against the advantages that the AI player has. Follow the Cruel Rule here and skip any activation that is completely detrimental for the AI player. Note that Captain Baldassare isn’t considered a Minion for these calculations.

    Direction Rule – when minions Move and there is a choice of sites, if Avalon is on Death’s Door, go to the lower numbered site, otherwise the higher numbered site.

    When the Captain is on greater than zero life, follow these rules:

    1. If it’s possible that two Avalon minions could Move and Attack this turn to destroy a minion with greater power than both of the Avalon minions without interference, then Move and Attack that minion.
    2. If there is an adjacent enemy minion with lower power, Move and Attack that minion. If there is a tie, choose the Minion with higher casting cost.
    3. If there is an adjacent enemy minion with equal power, Move and Attack that minion. If there is a tie, choose the Minion with higher casting cost.
    4. If Avalon is on Death’s Door, Move to be able to Defend a Strike made against the Avatar. Calculate Belfry into this consideration.
    5. If an Avalon site is ‘Threatened’ and the minion has equal or greater attack than that minion, Move towards that minion. The Threatened Site is the Avalon site that contains the Captain’s minion with the highest power (including modifiers from abilities and artifacts).
    6. Move and Attack an adjacent Site controlled by the Captain, ignoring any site with Bailey. If there is a tie, consider the Direction Rule.
    7. Move towards the nearest site controlled by the Captain, ignoring any site with Bailey. If there is a tie, consider the Direction Rule.

    If the Captain is on Death’s Door, follow these rules. Apply the Cruel Rule where possible considering the Captain’s potential to block, but if it’s possible to exhaust defenders with a suicidal move for the AI to ultimately win, then its minions will make the attack.

    1. If adjacent to the Captain, Move and Attack Captain Baldassare.
    2. If the Captain is on Death’s Door, Avalon Minions gain: Tap, Destroy an adjacent Bailey.
    3. If it’s possible that two Avalon minions could Move and Attack this turn to destroy a minion with greater power than both of the Avalon minions, then Move and Attack that minion.
    4. If there is an adjacent enemy minion with lower power, Move and Attack that minion. If there is a tie, choose the Minion with higher casting cost.
    5. If there is an adjacent enemy minion with equal power, Move and Attack that minion. If there is a tie, choose the Minion with higher casting cost.
    6. If Avalon is on Death’s Door, Move to be able to Defend a Strike made against the Avatar. Calculate Belfry into this consideration.
    7. If an Avalon site is ‘Threatened’ and the minion has equal or greater attack than that minion, Move towards that minion. The Threatened Site is the Avalon site that contains the Captain’s minion with the highest power (including modifiers from abilities and artifacts).
    8. If the Minion can make an effective block on the following turn, they remain where they are.
    9. If the Minion could make an effective block on the following turn by moving nearby the Belfry, they take a step.
    10. If Avalon has more minions than the Captain, they Move towards Captain Baldassare if they are not adjacent to the Avatar.
    11. If Avalon has equal or less minions than the Captain, they Move towards the Avatar if not adjacent.

    Apply the Cruel Rule. The AI won’t move their minions needlessly or into harm’s way. If there are no logical moves, then it remains where it is.

    Minion Defensive Rules

    If the Captain attempts to attack an Avalon minion or Avatar and they have adjacent minions that can block, follow these rules. If there are multiple minions available to block, if it’s possible that they can kill the attacker, they will do so with fewest and least valuable combination of minions. If there is a tie of possibilities, use the minions with the lowest casting costs as a priority, and if there is still a tie, randomise it, ensuring the Avalon loses the least amount of resources.

    1. If the attacking Captain minion would reduce the Avalon life total to zero life or if Avalon is at Death’s Door, then the lowest casting cost nearby minion will block, even if it’s a chump block (it doesn’t kill the attacking minion).
    2. If the attacking Captain minion would kill an adjacent Avalon minion with a higher casting cost, then the lowest casting cost nearby minion will chump block the attack.

    End Phase:

    This follows the normal rules of the game. Make sure to activate Belfry at this point to ready nearby Avalon Minions. The intention of the Belfry is to allow mobility and defensive power of the Avalon forces.

    Play then returns to the Captain player, who has their turn, and so on. The game ends when one player is dealt damage whilst on Death’s Door.

    Two-Player Version

    This scenario was designed with AI rules baked into it, but could easily be played with either a human player controlling the AI to facilitate play for the Captain player, or with full human agency behind Avalon. The Avalon player will have quite an advantage in this case, so be prepared for this if you choose to play in this way. The Forces Gather step of the game is intended to provide some randomisation to mitigate this power imbalance and removing this step will likely break the scenario.

    Difficulty Modes

    These rules can be added to increase the difficulty of the scenario. As many can be applied as desired to increase the challenge of the game.

    1. Quick Giant Hands – Blunderbore begins the game carrying the Ruby Core.
    2. Poor King Arthur – Do not include Four Waters of Paradise during setup.
    3. Multiple Surges – add one or more additional Surge steps.
    4. Dangerous Isles – during setup, the Island Leviathan site begins the game in Site 16. Place a Rubble in Site 3.

    These difficulty modes were my favourite part of designing this scenario, and I would love to hear what you’ve come up with to spice up the design. There’s so much room for expansion here.

    Conclusion

    If you’re someone who enjoys reading rulebooks, thank you for making it this far. If you don’t like rulebooks, then you won’t likely read this sentence. Without the AI rules, this document would be a third of the size. I admit that this concept probably got away from me in the end, but I wanted to present this idea to start a conversation and hopefully inspire others to give it a go.

    The challenge of creating a solo mode for Sorcery is the complexity of the game. Adding a unique setup and a different turn structure was perhaps excessive, but it was my greatest opportunity for creativity in the scenario and the part I enjoyed designing the most. This is why I’m referring to this rule set as a scenario rather than a complete and all-encompassing ‘solo mode’. Some people may be disappointed that I didn’t just create a single-player version of the normal game. You could try to apply my AI rule set to a normal Sorcery setup, but I think that would just reveal more holes in my AI instead of creating a fun and rewarding game experience. For example, the Forces Gather step was an effort to reduce the number of AI decision trees and create some fun randomisation. One of my favourite moments in solo board games is when the AI gets their worst possible outcome and you get a free turn to exploit their bad luck.

    I will keep an eye on feedback over the weeks and continue to tweak the rules and improve the system, but I did rush slightly to get this article out as I need to move on to other things. There is an important Crossroads event on the horizon, and fingers crossed an entirely new set. I have enjoyed this ‘lull’ at the tail end of Arthurian Legends to explore and play around with some more esoteric concepts, but I’m super excited and looking forward to the discovery phase of Gothic.

    Ultimately, at the end of all this, I think Sorcery might not really function well as a solo game. Whenever I attempt to goldfish decks in testing, I find it wholly lacking. The joy of Sorcery is seeing what the opponent can do and in the back and forth that comes from that. Still, I encourage and look forward to seeing what other people come up with in regards to Solo and Single Player modes, and I’d greatly appreciate any feedback on my attempt.

    I’m also interested in what the Sorcery design team think about a solo mode, as it’s something the community has asked for quite often. There’s a board game that I’ve had my eye on for the longest time that’s proven to be difficult to get in my part of the world – Xia: Legends of a Drift System. The follow up game to that, Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, has a name attached to it that Sorcery players should recognise. Ira Fay is a genius when it comes to game design and solo mechanics, and with his involvement with Sorcery, I hope that we will see an official solo mode in time.

    My next article will be a design diary based on my thoughts and experience with designing this scenario. Ultimately, it was an exercise that I found challenging and rewarding. I found the cards and mechanics of Sorcery excellent for this purpose and gave me an appreciate for the little things that go into designing a game.

  • Part Four: My First Cornerstone

    Part Four: My First Cornerstone

    9 September 2025

    In part one of this series, I declared loyalty to the Battlemage Avatar and set myself some goals to spice up Cornerstone Season for myself. This kicked off in New Zealand with three events in the South Island of New Zealand, in Dunedin, Invercargill, and Christchurch. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend these events, but from what I’ve heard, all three were a lot of fun. This past weekend was my first opportunity to attend a Cornerstone, so I will go over my event and my thoughts on a couple of things in the world of Sorcery.

    Part one of the series can be found here:
    https://bardsword.com/2025/07/09/part-one-battlemage-is-my-cornerstone-champion/

    Achieving Goals

    So, a quick recap of my five goals and how I’m progressing with them.

    The first goal was to attend three events. I have one in the books and one planned for the 20th of September. The third is still up in the air. There are three more possibilities, but one’s in the South Island, and details for the other two Auckland events aren’t set in stone, so it would be pretty funny if I failed the easiest of the five goals.

    My second goal was to attend an event in the South Island. There is one more opportunity, but with the expense of air travel these days, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to. However, I have decided to attend Crossroads Melbourne in the West Island of New Zealand, so perhaps that counts.

    The third goal is to make the top cut / top eight of an event. Technically, I achieved this, but I’m going to roll this one forward to try and achieve it in a constructed event as well.

    My fourth goal is to win a Cornerstone event. Have I ticked this one off? Read on to find out.

    And finally, number five, the bonus goal, is to see a Rainbow Battlemage Avatar awarded. This is an interesting one. When I set this goal, I felt like Battlemage was a strong contender in the meta. However, with the recent rule change, I feel like Battlemage’s chances have dropped dramatically.

    In the next section, I will quickly go over how I feel the rules and meta shift has impacted Battlemage and how it affects my Cornerstone Season.

    A Grim Shift in the Meta

    All it took was one little rules change to change everything. Grim Guisarme, Mask of Mayhem, and Daperyll Vampire being able to benefit from striking sites has dramatically altered the meta. Now, it’s more dangerous than ever to leave minions on the board. If the opponent starts their turn with a five-power minion on the board, that can easily be doubled to 10 and doubled again to 20 with something like Grapple Shot for six. This insane burst potential means games can end quickly and from out of nowhere. This also means that four- and five-power minions are more significant.

    This is terrible news for Battlemage. Now Battlemage has to pack even more answers to big minions, whilst having their most precious resource, their life total, being even more critical. Even being at 16 opens the door to a sudden burst to zero.

    Earlier in the year, before the rules change, I was playing Grim Guisarme in Battlemage as an answer to Archimago’s life gain, but now that everyone is playing this tech, everyone is expecting it, and the element of surprise is gone. Battlemage’s unique burst damage is now available to everyone.

    So bigger minions, more burst damage, swingier games. It’s a tough field for Battlemage. What does this mean for my goals and decision to take Battlemage to Cornerstone and Crossroad events? Is Battlemage now just a terrible choice in this meta? Is it poor form to renege on my self-imposed challenge and switch to another Avatar?

    Dragonlord is Powerful and Fun

    With the release of Dragonlord, I’ve been distracted away from testing Battlemage and instead have been experimenting with various Dragonlord decks. Overall, these have been fun and powerful and offer some interesting builds.

    Dragonlord-Xeraphine has been my pet deck for the last few weeks, and it’s been a lot of fun. More concerning for my challenge is that it feels like a strong choice into the current meta. Being able to recur impactful minions like Morgana and the Green Knight means this deck can win the long back-and-forth minion-versus-removal match, whilst having game against fast decks that have lots of smaller minions.

    Overall, I will decide on whether to stick to Battlemage after the upcoming constructed Cornerstone event later in the month.

    Sealed Cornerstone Deck Build

    My first Cornerstone event was a sealed event, three packs of Beta and three of Arthurian Legends. Sealed is my favourite format, over draft and constructed, as the added randomness adds some spice to the mix. It also means I don’t have to endlessly test decks in preparation for the event. But this did unfortunately mean no chance to put Battlemage to the test at my first event of Cornerstone Season.

    Cracking packs to kick off an event is a great way to inject excitement into the room. And true to form, a foil Philosopher’s Stone was opened, sparking everyone’s excitement levels to 10.

    My sealed pool was an interesting one. I had great removal, a bloat of good minions in the three-drop slot, two bombs that pulled me in two completely different directions. Unfortunately, my piles were just a little bit light to go solidly into only two Elements, so my choice was to either go three colours or play some filler.

    Here is my pool and the deck I played with on the day. I would be interested to hear what other people would do with this pile. Ultimately, without big minions and powerful finishers, I would have to rely on speed. Two Sly Fox and a Pendragon Banner formed the core of my game plan.

    Build that I played: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmf9buai900g9jl04jodsqvc3

    Second possible build: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmf9chuat00iwjl04dtnon3l4

    This second list was what I initially built before I got nervous about missing thresholds and removing the Air splash. It increased my chances of hitting my three drops on curve, but took out some power.

    Second potential build: https://curiosa.io/decks/cmfacp6ys00k8l704jiyf0vxg

    This build is a totally different path that I only considered the day after the event. On the day, I dismissed Earth as it appeared shallow. I think I got a bit blindsided by Water due to the double Sly Fox and Lugbog Cat, but in a field with Ordinary Deserts and fewer Water sites, this might have been a mistake. Overall, I think the Ninth Legion is too difficult to cast to consider and my Air isn’t strong enough to justify it. Maybe the correct answer is Fire-Earth with just a light Air splash? But this is the fun of Sealed, and with a time limit, it can be hard to identify the best course in the moment. Much like in constructed, I do let myself get carried away by personal preference, and the Sly Fox duo was too much to ignore.

    Sealed Game Results

    There were four rounds on the day, and overall I felt confident with my deck. It was a decent pile with a plan.

    My first game was against Louis. Louis is a skilled player who I’ve faced in many final rounds of tournaments over the years. Getting this pairing in round one was an interesting way to start the day. At least I had all my brain power intact to throw at this game.

    This was a fun game with lots of back and forth plays. His Belmotte Longbowmen on turn three was countered by a Submerged Coral-Reef Kelpie to the site in front of it. This is the kind of three-dimensional play that I love about Sorcery.

    There were many interesting decisions, but my Firebreathing and Lava Flow got solid two-for-ones, swinging the game to my favour.

    My second game was against Grant. A while back in a draft event where first prize was an Alpha Binder, he beat me in the finals, so another formidable opponent. Unfortunately, Grant stumbled on threshold, and I was able to execute my Sly Fox Pendragon Banner plan successfully. Grant had fielded Sparkmage, an Avatar with an inbuilt counter to Sly Fox, so I got lucky to win this game.

    Third game was against Peter, a player who you might know from his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@feriomadrox
    Peter is a cunning opponent, who enjoys disruptive strategies and tricky plays with Avatar of Air in constructed.

    My brain power was flagging by this point. Sorcery events really take a toll. I had brought a chocolate bar for just this moment, but the sugar dumped fuel into my nervous system rather than into my brain. Adrenaline began to take over. Peter was playing a disruptive deck with cards like Bailey and Hamlet’s Ablaze, which could have really blown me out if I had played the three-element build.

    I managed to take the win through consistent minion pressure, meaning I was into the finals.

    The final round was against Andre, a newcomer to the Auckland scene. Andre was playing a superb Fire-Air deck with a solid curve and good top-end threats. The game devolved into minion-removal-minion-removal, dragging us into the late game, where my deck would eventually flounder. We both cast Firebreathing and Lava Flow to great effect, highlighting the power of these splashy Fire cards in this format.

    Eventually, the game got to double Death’s Door. I had a Sly Fox under his Spellslinger’s feet to threaten a finishing blow the next turn, but a Major Explosion got me first. So good game, and well done to Andre for taking the win.

    Cornerstone Results

    So, 3-1 made for second place. It’s always frustrating to get so close to the win, but such is the nature of games.

    I want to thank FTW Events for their successful Cornerstone Event. Their events are always a highlight for me and something I can mark on the calendar and look forward to. I was honoured to receive a Swap promo for my contributions to the Play It Forward programme – and for writing an article or two. If you are a new player in New Zealand interested in Sorcery, there are sets of Ordinaries available to kickstart your collection just for the price of postage. Send me a message and I can link you the Discord.

    Battlemage Update

    Following the Sealed event, there was Constructed. I begrudgingly took out Battlemage over Dragonlord. It’s time to start getting a bit more serious with my testing. I immediately sleeved up my Swap to take the new toy for a spin.

    My three games were against Enchantress, Avatar of Air, and Dragonlord-Ignis Rex. I got the 3-0, proving that Battlemage is an effective Avatar to play when you’re braindead from playing all day. I think this is the biggest reason for taking Battlemage to tournaments.

    A Legacy

    With each of my opponents on the day, you may have noticed a pattern. There is a rich history of competition between us. As time goes on in Sorcery, the memories and experiences weave into a rich tapestry. The ‘meta’ is so much more than just the decks people play; it’s the legacy and history formed over time.

    It’s also great seeing new players achieve success as it means they are more likely to come to future events, creating an environment where we can push each to greater heights and learn from each other, whilst forming friendships and in-game rivalries.

    Watch out, Australia

    Getting to Crossroads Melbourne was a bit of an ask this year, but after a lot of consideration, I decided that I will attend. It’s just too much fun.

    I had such a great time in Melbourne last year, attending two tournaments at Plenty of Games, so I am looking forward to returning. With PAX as well, it will be an incredible week – even if I go 0-2-drop with Battlemage.

    There is a massive group of New Zealanders heading over for the Crossroads in Melbourne, so it will be fun to see if we can get more Kiwis into the top eight than Aussies. It’s good that the All Blacks aren’t playing Australia the same weekend or this might spill over into an international incident.

    Gothic Release…?

    There are whispers in the darkness, a new shadow over the realm. Gothic is going to change everything. Is it possible that Crossroads Melbourne will be the final big event of Beta-Arthurian Legends? I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the realm of Arthurian Legends, but I am so ready for Gothic.

    My pick for Gothic release date is still Halloween, October 31st, with an announcement six weeks before on the 19th of September (the most important day of the year).

    You can read some of my predictions about Gothic here:

    https://bardsword.com/2025/06/16/five-predictions-for-gothic/

    Conclusion

    My first event of Cornerstone Season is in the books. Event two is close, where I can finally put Battlemage to the test. Melbourne will be the highlight of my year, and then Gothic on the horizon. I’m having a lot of fun with Sorcery. I hear some talk about a lull? I don’t know what that is.

  • Dragonlord – First Impressions, Strategies, and Deck Lists.

    Dragonlord – First Impressions, Strategies, and Deck Lists.

    The long-awaited Dragonlord set is here. 13 incredible new cards, featuring the amazing art and lore of Ed Beard Junior, and the designs and mechanics of Sorcery Contested Realm. I want to give a massive congratulations to Ed Beard Junior and the team at Erik’s Curiosa for what they’ve achieved with this project.

    I’ve had a weekend to think about the cards, test some out, and design a couple of decks. Overall, I’m incredibly positive on this set. The cards give new life to existing decks, there are new strategies and archetypes to explore, and I’m reassessing Gothic spoilers through a new lens.

    Two for One

    My favourite part of the design of Dragonlord is that this isn’t a 13-card set; it’s actually 20 cards. The Dragonlord Avatar is actually eight different cards in one. Each Unique dragon minion in this set pulls double duty as a strong minion and as a mode for the Dragonlord. Note that Kairos the Archivist doesn’t work with the Avatar as you cannot pay for its genesis ability during setup.

    1 of 13 Foils Collected

    I am a fan of foils. They are a great thing to collect or to bling out decks with. I think it will be incredibly difficult to complete this set in foil for one major reason. People will open their Dragonlord box, see the foil and have a reaction along the lines of, “Oh, that’s cool… Wait, what’s that? Whoa, that’s amazing!”

    Then they turn it over to the full-art back, “I didn’t see that before! Dragons are awesome. I love this card.”

    Then it gets put in the front page of their binder as a reminder of the time and place where they opened their Dragonlord set.

    So good luck to anyone going for 13/13.

    My First Weekend – Water-Earth Pathfinder

    Before release weekend, I had been playing my Water-Earth Pathfinder deck. I needed a bit of a break from Battlemage after spending a month playing it exclusively and writing over 10,000 words on it. Please read my three articles about Battlemage and the upcoming Cornerstone events. What I’ve typed will be a window into my madness.

    This Pathfinder brew wanted to achieve two things. First it was to be a deck where I could use my awesome new soldier tokens from the Dust Store. Secondly, it was to see if I could break Helpful Hob. Now, these two missions might seem antagonistic: Hob wants big minions, soldier tokens aren’t big minions. But there’s two things that tie the room together. First is that Hob lets Pathfinder ramp, allowing you to cast your bigger minions sooner. Then with more sites in play, Border Militia and Guards! become stronger, so your soldiers scale with the game. Then the soldier tokens can be Shapeshifted and be the big minions.

    I was having so much fun with this deck, that I decided to add some Dragonlord spice to it on release day and keep rolling with it. I added Shrine of the Dragonlord, Talamh Dreig, and Vatn Draconis. Each of these cards were incredibly fun, and made for some incredible moments. My favourite play was Shapeshifting into Talamh Dreig on turn four, equipping Grim Guisarme turn five and hitting for 20.

    Is Helpful Hob broken? Maybe not, but he is very, very useful in Pathfinder. He can be ramp, a power-doubler with a big minion, a movement spell, and then a blocker to boot. He won me games as a top deck, and four copies in this deck didn’t feel egregious. In Water-Earth, you don’t have too many similar effects, so give him a go!

    Here is the decklist as it stands now. It’s a lot of fun. I also wanted to play Sir Yvain as he’s one of my favourite knights from Arthurian Legends, so there is a beast package as well, but that’s on the chopping block if I wanted to make this deck more refined. So here is my Soldiers, Beasts, and Dragon Pathfinder brew:

    https://curiosa.io/decks/cmdwb27jz00rkla04h2bgoie0

    First Impressions of the Cards

    I’ll go through the cards now, giving my impressions and ideas for potential strategies and decks. I think there is a lot to discover, and I expect some creative brews to pop up over the coming weeks.

    Dragonlord Avatar

    There are currently eight modes that the Dragonlord can be. As I go through the eight minions, I will also talk about the Avatar mode at the same time. As I mentioned above, this is fantastic design and allows us to get a lot of mileage from this set.

    Caelestis

    There’s a couple things to keep in mind with Caelestis. You still need to meet the threshold requirements of the dragon you’re casting for zero. Considering the wide variety of threshold requirements across dragons, it might take a bit of work to squeeze them all in to one deck. You also need to meet normal summoning requirements, so you’ll need a Summoning Sphere to cast dragons on your opponent’s sites.

    So Caelestis does require a bit of work as a minion. I think it will be more fun as the Dragonlord.

    Dragonlord-Caelestis allows for an interesting strategy. Spend your first three turns deploying sites, hopefully hitting the demanding threshold requirements. Wedding Hall is interesting as it delays you a turn, but it might be more consistent than other combinations.

    Then from turn four, tap to deploy one big dragon a turn. It will be interesting to see if this is sufficient pressure to win the game. At least with Airborne dragons, you can get around sites that might otherwise completely shutdown other big minions, such as Bottomless Pit and Perilous Bridge.

    Here is a quick deck I threw together:

    https://curiosa.io/decks/cmdwez2hl00t9l5048x5krj46?tab=settings

    Having to pay three and tap is pretty tough as it limits your ability to develop your board. You’ll need to find opportunities to tap to draw and play sites. You don’t want to overextend your board, and have all your dragons wiped out by one Earthquake.

    Excalibur and Gilded Aegis are interesting as they provide protection for a big dragon and can be played the turn before tapping to deploy one. Rescue also feels pretty vital to get a critical mass of dragons. Blink and War Horse on turn two are important to get the Dragonlord in position so your dragons don’t have to waste a turn moving up themselves.

    This feels like a deck that just gets destroyed by a strong fundamentals deck such as Avatar of Air, but I’ll give this a test and see how it goes. Perhaps it needs some cards from Gothic to make it tick.

    Adtonitum

    Zap, zap, zap. Every movement spell comes bundled with a Lightning Bolt. Adtonitum is so much fun, and there is a card spoiled in Gothic that goes nuts with it. Check out the spoilers on SorceryTCG.com and see if you can spot it.

    As the Dragonlord’s ability, this allows you to build a whole deck that exploits movement effects. It does require a bit of ramp as you need three to activate the Dragonlord first each turn and then enough mana to play all your spells. Merlin’s Staff is a great payoff to this strategy.

    My prediction is that Dragonlord-Adtonitum will be a meta contender. Movement is such an important part of the game, so anything that can leverage or get additional value from movement is just inherently strong and versatile.

    Draco Corvus

    This card makes me laugh. I can just imagine this dragon shuffling around like an old crow, suddenly swiping lightning fast and stuffing someone in a hole, cawing all the while. It just has incredible Jim Henson vibes. This is also the foil I opened, so he’s my special shiny crow boy.

    Stealth and Airborne makes for a versatile and flexible attacker, and his ability lets it beat bigger minions. The ‘tapped minion’ clause is a bit of a limitation, but I can see board states where Draco Corvus is sitting menacingly in stealth and the opponent can’t make effective attacks without opening up their minion to be buried the following turn. Throw in a Border Militia, and your opponent might really struggle to find effective lines.

    As the Dragonlord, I think this might be the least commonly used as it’s more reactive than proactive. Most decks are built with a more active game plan in mind. But having removal always available to your Avatar ability is nice. If the meta shifts towards more big resilient minions like Seirawan Hydra, then Dragonlord-Draco Corvus is a nice answer to that. In this way, Draco Corvus is a nice safety valve to the other cards in this set, so that’s a nice design touch.

    Ignis Rex

    The most dragon dragon. As a minion, Ignis is pretty straightforward. He’s a big minion that you can play if your Fire deck can support it. The ability is useful, and Immune to Fire damage is actually quite powerful.

    As the Dragonlord… Well, poor Avatar of Fire, Dragonlord is just so much better than you. This is also one of the more reliable self-discard effects we have currently, so opens up avenues for reanimation effects, like Raise Dead and Boneyard. Going into Gothic, I’m sure we’ll see plenty more options as well, so don’t assume that Ignis Rex is just a boring one-trick pony-dragon.

    Moonsong Talagelum

    If you have a Grey Wolves deck, throw away one wolf, add one Moonsong. If your Wolves deck was Earth-Water for Geyser, then you might need to retool.

    It’s interesting as the Dragonlord ability because I think Talamh Dreig might be the better choice in this deck as it’s a backup plan to board wipes, such as Poison Nova. Sure, the ceiling is higher with Moonsong, but the floor is lower.

    However, to Moonsong’s credit, there might be situations where you don’t have more Grey Wolves in hand, or don’t want to play more, so being able to pump the ones you have on the board with your Dragonlord-Moonsong Talagelum might provide an important breakpoint to overcome the opponent’s forces.

    I’m sure the Grey Wolf aficionados will solve this one, and we’ll hear all about it in Discord. #TeamFrog

    Talamh Dreig

    As a minion, this dragon is a lot of fun. It’s easy to get to 10 power, which is obviously great with Grim Guisarme. It is surprisingly resilient with immunity to forced movement. Bury and Earthquake won’t work. Avatar of Air can’t puff it into a Bottomless Pit.

    Dragonlord-Talamh Dreig has to be compared to Avatar of Earth and Battlemage. Dragonlord has more flexibility with deckbuilding than Avatar of Earth and a more flexible playstyle than Battlemage.

    What I like about Talamh Dreig Dragonlord is that you don’t have to overcommit minions to the board. You can play a big one, like Pudge Butcher, then if the opponent plays around it or removes it, your Dragonlord can just activate and chunk the opponent for five or six. If the opponent plays around shutting down your Avatar, then your minions are strong enough to hold their own.

    Just be careful with your Blinks and Grapple Shots as you can’t activate your Dragonlord and then use these, as these are forced movement effects.

    Vatn Draconis

    Vatn has a lot of play that isn’t immediately obvious. Water has to be the element that has to do things differently. The mono-water dragon of course doesn’t have Airborne and an ability that isn’t about damage. Water makes you work for it.

    The turn you play Vatn, it provides immediate value by drowning your opponent’s belongings. Then being submerged, is resilient and evasive. If you can flood your opponent’s sites, Vatn can slink over and get in some sneaky damage.

    As the Avatar choice, it’s very strong defensively. Similar to Draco Corvus, but this doesn’t require a tap. This is strong with Riptide and Undertow, and water decks that were relying on Mariner’s Curse can retool to Dragonlord-Vatn Draconis. If you can flood the opponent’s side of the board, this also turns your submerge minions into Gneissgnath Gnomes. This is also quite fun with symmetrical effects like Horn of Caerleon that function on ‘nearby’, as you can bring them up on your turn and then drop them back down at the end of turn.

    I’m hoping Gothic gives us a bit more flexibility with flooding sites to boost Water’s power a bit and unlock strategies like this.

    Xeraphine Konrul

    As a minion, this compares to something like Riddle Sphinx – a big flyer that draws you a card. Xeraphine gives you your choice of card, at the cost of requiring a sufficient mass of minions in the cemetery to keep it up. The ongoing value this can generate is pretty incredible, making it a must-remove minion. But with more cemetery hate being played in the meta, this can be risky.

    Of all the Dragonlord modes, this feels the most unique. I have seen a lot of people dismiss this as just a worse Deathspeaker, but this isn’t the case. Deathspeaker needs a critical mass of value Genesis minions, can only recur each minion once, and the recurred minions don’t have a board presence.

    Dragonlord-Xeraphine can recur the same minion multiple times, and make full use of their board presence. This makes minions like The Green Knight or Sir Mordred incredibly useful. This also allows you to use value engines like Mother Nature.

    Deathspeaker also struggles to close out games, so it relies on combo finishers like Nimbus Jinn. Dragonlord-Xeraphine can just replay big finishers like Infernal Legion again and again.

    Kairos the Archivist

    Shahrazad… If you know, you know. Kairos creates a mini game by threatening to turn back time. This is a card that I hope to see occasionally, but I hope there isn’t some crazy strategy found to make it meta dominant. It’s an incredibly flavourful card, but if my opponent plays this in the final game of a tournament, my brain will fall out of my ears.

    As I said at the top of the article, Kairos doesn’t work with the Dragonlord avatar, which is definitely a good thing.

    Dragonlord’s Lair

    With release weekend, this seems to be the card that people are most excited about. It’s the one site in the set, and has incredible art displaying the world and creation of Ed Beard Junior. I can understand why its popular, but it will be interesting to see if it holds the top spot.

    My favourite combo with this is Camelot, as you can stack the cost reduction and get your big Unique dragons out a turn sooner. It’s very splashy, and the one game this weekend where I managed to do that, I didn’t draw any Unique dragons to take advantage of it.

    This site suffers from the same problem that Tournament Grounds does. You get incredible consistency in the games you can play the site, but your plan can suffer when you don’t. With 30 cards in the Atlas, this is even more problematic for Unique sites. So when deckbuilding with this site, consider the games you draw this as outliers and build your deck to function without it.

    Cradle of Etherrum

    I think currently it’s a bit of a mistake trying to make a dragon tribal deck work. I don’t think there is a critical mass of dragons to really make the strategy pop off, especially if you don’t include Azuridge Caravan. Combined with the inherent inconsistency of Unique cards, it’s hard to build a strategy around this one. Hopefully, we get a few more Ordinary and Exceptional dragons in Gothic to help this out, but my guess is that we will either get zero or one dragon in Gothic.

    Here is a quick Seer dragon tribal I put together to test dragon tribal:

    https://curiosa.io/decks/cmdwbmu4y011vjp04nhl291h6?tab=view

    I like Seer as it helps you draw appropriate cards for the stage of the game. It also prevents the games where you draw a Mix Ignis and no minions or vice versa.

    Shrine of the Dragonlord

    This is going to be the most discussed card of the set over the next few months. People will argue whether this is so good that it goes in every deck, or if it’s not worthwhile and goes in none.

    Where Four Waters of Paradise is the two-cost version of the Mix cycle, Shrine is the two-cost version of the Core cycle. But where Four Waters doesn’t provide long-term threshold consistency, Shrine of the Dragonlord fixes it permanently. In the Pathfinder deck I listed above, a turn-two Shrine was just so powerful. I’m currently leaning on the side that it goes in every deck, but we will see.

    The biggest thing to note is that the mana isn’t generated on the turn it is played as sites only generate mana when they enter the realm and at the start of your turn. Being a monument, the Shrine is more resilient than Cores that have to be carried as it’s harder for your opponent to purloin it. Just be wary of anyone bearing Land Deeds – or anyone working for the British Museum.

    The Genesis effect is also a nice little addition. There will be one game where you can blow out your opponent playing a bunch of dragons with it. Play this late game, scoop up all the dragons, drop a Cave-In, and bury them all. Make sure you take a picture of your opponent’s face afterwards.

    Conclusion

    Dragonlord is fantastic. It’s improved decks I already have and got my brain churning with new ideas. Over the weekend, I had some incredible games, and the Dragonlord cards were so incredibly steeped in that distinct ‘Sorcery’ flavour.

    One game with my Pathfinder versus Geomancer, my opponent and I completely filled the board. We were both dropping masses of soldier tokens on the board thanks to Magellan Globe, and we were just laughing at all the crazy haymakers from big spells and big dragons. “Now, this is Sorcery,” I said as I threw down a Talamh Dreig.

    I sympathise with people who’ve been unable to get a copy of Dragonlord this weekend. I recommend trying out the cards on Tabletop Simulator or borrowing a dragon or two from a friend to test out a build in the meantime. Hopefully more copies of Dragonlord become available soon. Don’t forget that you can also compete to win a copy at all first-round Cornerstone events.

    Feedback Requested

    With these articles, I’m opting to save time by going barebones with graphic design. One of the goals of this blog is to create a writing portfolio to aid my professional career. So the more time I can spend on writing, the better.

    My personal preference is to have Curiosa open in another window to look up cards as I’m reading articles and watching videos, so I don’t need images within the article. I also mention so many cards that if I included a graphic for each one, the article would be a mile long.

    However, if this isn’t your preference, it would be good to know so I can improve the overall reading experience. Feedback is always appreciated.

    Thank you for all the positive comments I’ve received so far. It really does go a long way to keep up my motivation.

  • Some Context: My Game Journey from Magic, Board Games, to Sorcery

    Some Context: My Game Journey from Magic, Board Games, to Sorcery

    1/7/2025

    A Foil Bloodstained Mire

    Like so many, I grew up with Magic the Gathering. I was probably around 10 when I first played. It was at a school camp, and everyone was sharing their smuggled contraband. A pile of tatty cards featuring various monsters captured the attention of all the kids. At the time there was no way I could anticipate the impact that this game would have on my life. A friend graciously gifted me a pile of common goblin cards, and that became the seed of a 25-year-long collecting and gaming hobby.

    Urza’s Saga was on the shelves at the time, but we had our eyes on Craw Wurms and Shivan Dragons, so we spent our pocket money on bulk commons rather than ripping booster packs. Too bad I didn’t know about Tolarian Academy back then. But that era of pure innocence is irreplaceable. We played on pure joy and imagination.

    I would play Magic on and off throughout my childhood years, but I moved schools and lost touch with many friends. I played and collected Pokemon and Score’s Dragon Ball Z, instilling that sense of wanderlust that maybe the next best thing can be found in a completely new game instead of the tried and tested one. In the process of exploration, novelty was found, but at the cost of never quite being on the same page as everyone else. Not quite being in the right place at the right time became a frustrating theme.

    And then in 2002, the set called Onslaught drew me back in to Magic. I remember getting a tournament pack, and the excitement to be opening so many cards in one go was immense. The first card I saw beneath the cellophane was a foil Bloodstained Mire. How disappointing. A rubbish land, that costs life, and a waste of a foil as well. I think I sold it for about 40NZD soon after and was pretty happy with that at the time. Probably immediately grabbed another four or so booster packs. I sometimes look up and see how expensive that card is now, but ultimately that feeling is just part of the hobby. Sometimes regret can be a useful emotion in the collecting hobby, or maybe it just helps create a hoarding mentality…

    The Onslaught block was also the only Magic set that I have ever collected in its entirety, completing Onslaught, Legions, and Scourge, giving me an appreciation for the difficulty and cost of pursuing such endeavours. My greatest Magic the Gathering success was winning a Champions of Kamigawa prerelease on my 15th birthday. Meloku the Clouded Mirror was one hell of a card, and I had two in my sealed pool, so I think that win was more luck than skill. But when things align, it does create a sense of serendipity that is quite intoxicating.

    But the overall feeling that I learned about competition in Magic was that it wasn’t for me. I enjoyed the thrill of playing with actual stakes, with prizes and pride on the line, but it was all too often not enjoyable. I learned about zero-sum fun. This is the perception where there needs to be a loser for there to be a winner. This attitude extended to the other parts of the hobby, and trading often felt like a hustle rather than something mutually beneficial.

    The only trade I remember fondly through all of this was at a prerelease, probably around the Kamigawa block, where my goal was to trade for a Mirari’s Wake for a kitchen table deck. An older player had a foil copy that was well beyond the scope of what I had to offer, but he generously gave it to me seeing my enthusiasm for it. It’s a shame I don’t remember who that player was, but it left a permanent mark on me that sometimes the best trade deals are the ones where dollar amounts aren’t considered. I try and remember that lesson whenever possible.

    Eventually, I developed an all-consuming World of Warcraft addiction and there was no longer time for Magic.

    The Board Game Era

    During university, I stopped playing Magic altogether. Completing that Onslaught block set taught me the difficulty and cost of pursuing completionism, and now there was beer and World of Warcraft subscription time to buy. I did dabble in the Spoils card game and the World of Warcraft TCG, but was unable to afford to go beyond starter decks and a few boosters. Getting a taste of a fun new game and being unable to delve further in was more frustration than it was worth.

    Then I saw the Summoner Wars board game. I couldn’t believe that in a single product I was getting all the cards I needed to play, all at an affordable price. I quickly made my purchase and walked out of the store feeling like I had robbed the place. But the first taste is free for a reason.

    But my board game was missing a crucial ingredient – people to play it with. World of Warcraft had given me hours of entertainment, but it had withered away my social networks and social skills. I had spent years with faceless players, grinding away in a video game. Meeting and playing with new people was certainly too much for me at the time. Thus began convincing uninterested friends (the few real-life friends I still had from school) to play board games with me. If only Discord existed back then.

    Then came the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight. This was a solo board game. Now I didn’t need to find an opponent, and I could dive in to the mechanics and adventure all by myself. Thus starting a long and expensive hobby of collecting and sourcing packs from around the world. If I’m honest, my favourite part about the LotR LCG wasn’t collecting or playing it; it was listening to a fan podcast, Cardboard of the Rings. The sense of being in a community, of listening to other people’s stories and experiences of the game. Year after year, I heard about all these incredible conventions held in the States. Later on as the internet and social media developed, terms emerged such as ‘parasocial relationship’ and ‘FOMO’ which may better describe the situation here.

    Over the years, I leaned heavily into collecting board games. I was the guy that rocked up to a social event with a bag full of games that no one really wanted to play, but if things got boring enough, then perhaps a board game would be acceptable. There were some incredible nights where a board game absolutely landed and left everyone wanting more, spurring me on to buy more and more. But more often than not, it didn’t last past the rules explanation before we decided to play a drinking game instead.

    But that’s the beauty of competition. It’s a shared desire to attend an event and participate in an activity. That’s the secret weapon of card games like Magic. That people converge in time and space to play together. People bring energy and a desire to share ideas, to put those ideas to the test. I was lost in the hypothetical without enough opportunity to channel that latent energy into something meaningful and useful.

    Ultimately, I feel that board games suffer from that failure of time and place. It often feels like no one is ever quite on the same page, even at a dedicated board game event. When sitting down with a group, there is disconnect right from ‘what game should we play?’ Then through a rules explanation, there is a further gulf created from the knowledge, skill and what people want to achieve from the game. Add a few cell phones, side conversations, rules questions, and drinks and… it often just doesn’t quite work. It’s the unsatisfying feeling of a buffet restaurant, of quantity over quality.

    By this time, I was longing to go back to Magic. The structured format of organised play has merit, especially for anxious and awkward young men like myself. Even if the vibe got a bit too cutthroat, at least everyone was on the same page.

    Netrunner: the Best Game Ever Made

    Then came Android: Netrunner. Netrunner was everything I wanted out of a game. It was competitive. It was deeply thematic. It was novel in its mechanics and gameplay. Then events started popping up, and I braced myself to dive back into ruthless competition, but, unexpectedly, it was different to Magic. Everyone was having fun.

    Netrunner did not have that savage competition, that zero-sum brutality. I realised that it was more about the shared story space that emerged between two humans and their piles of cards. The game invited you to understand your opponent, to see them as creative and cunning and capable. The game wasn’t played on the table. Heads were raised, we looked each other in the eye, and we asked each other questions – ‘Is that a Snare or an Agenda?’

    Perhaps because of this, perhaps because the genre and subject matter encouraged inclusivity and empathy, Netrunner seemed to attract the best players in the community. People were friendly, welcoming, and engaging. Competition could occur without negativity. Suddenly, it didn’t quite matter as much if you won or lost. There was something else being generated, something worth more than prize money and rare promo cards.

    Unfortunately during that time, I had a difficult work schedule, so I couldn’t play for weeks at a time, and then when I did have time, I was too tired to attend events. Combined with a format that changed constantly due to the monthly release model, I just couldn’t keep up. I regret not pushing myself to attend more events. When the Fantasy Flight run ended with Reign and Reverie, I was left wishing I had done more. I had found myself at the finish line with gas left in the tank.

    Chasing the Dragon

    I had experienced the best of what games could offer. I had also experienced many lows. There were some incredible moments, but there was much more discontent. I was now in my 30s and becoming disillusioned with the hobby. In many ways, games – the thought of games – became a coping mechanism, an addiction to get me through the long work days. Retail therapy.

    Instead of playing board games, I became a board game collector. I would dream up situations where a game would be the perfect activity for a particular situation with a particular group, and that would be enough to click buy. Receiving a package, unboxing it, putting it on a shelf… well, that was about as far as it got for 90% of my board games.

    In Magic, Commander, or EDH, was on the rise, seemingly offering the Holy Grail of gameplay. A chance to play with three friends, to utililse your entire collection, singleton, and actually have fun playing Magic. I poured money into Commander chasing that dragon, building decks and stockpiling singles.

    But Commander was a poisoned chalice. For many players, it was a platform to destroy and demoralise three people at a time. Bad-faith actors could never operate with more efficiency at a gaming table. I’ll reiterate that I’m not saying all Magic players are like this, but with four players, the odds are high that at least one person can spoil the experience for one reason or another. Commander is the worst of Magic combined with the worst of board games.

    By this point, I had tried everything. I was burnt out on board games and Magic. COVID had done its damage and changed the landscape of interacting with people and going to public spaces. At this point, I decided I was done with games and it was time to move on to something else.

    Ensorcelled

    And then I saw Sorcery advertised on Kickstarter, and I changed my mind.

    Well, no. The Kickstarter looked amazing, but I looked at my shelf of games, and closed the browser. I can’t do another trading card game.

    But it stuck in the back of my mind over the next few weeks.

    Throughout the pandemic, Team Covenant kept many of us sane by streaming various games on their Youtube channel. I enjoyed watching their content because of the friendship and comradery they showed. I sensed a genuine passion for games in the way they talked about the hobby and the wider industry. They certainly were putting in the hours during a time where most people opted to opt out.

    I had found their channel years before by searching for Netrunner content. They often talked about how they’d had a similar experience as I did with Netrunner, experiencing similar positivity, so I sensed that I was on a similar bandwidth as them when it came to gaming.

    So when Team Covenant began talking about Sorcery, I listened. Now I was ready to back the Kickstarter.

    What appealed to me the most about this fledgling project was that it wasn’t going to be a competitive game. It was a trading card game where I could set my pace. One set a year meant I could build decks and attend events at a nice relaxed pace. I didn’t need to put more money into it than I was comfortable with. Sorcery didn’t demand anything from me.

    With Alpha in hand, and Beta starting to hit the shelves, something happened that I did not intend. I started playing and enjoying Sorcery as a competitive game.

    Positive Feedback Loop

    As with most things, that shift from zero to competitive Sorcery player didn’t happen overnight. It was a series of small and vital steps. The first and most crucial step was that I met incredible people playing Sorcery. The game seemed to attract likeminded individuals that shared my frustrations of the wider hobby and had found a reignition of passion in Sorcery.

    I was still in a COVID mindset so there was some re-acclimatising that needed to happen to get back to being comfortable in public. Social anxiety had crept back in during the isolation, so it took some work to overcome that. Fortunately, I found a player interested in trying the game who lived out in the same rural area of Auckland as I did, so he graciously offered to pick me up on his way through to the store to play some games. It was only much later that he revealed how nervous he was that I might be a complete nutjob weirdo and was relieved that I was all right. So, shoutout to Rich, and thank you for taking that risk.

    Sorcery has a steep learning curve, so luckily everyone was on the same page in terms of game experience. It was an enjoyable time muddling through the rules, discussing scenarios, and talking strategy, all with an easy grace of likeminded and easygoing individuals. There was no ruthlessness, but competition was active and engaging. I wish there was some way to capture this experience and package it for new players. An issue currently is that new players find it challenging to learn the rules of a very complex game, whilst also dealing with the gulf of knowledge between them and enfranchised players. If anyone resonates with this point and is struggling, then please persevere. It is a challenge, but it’s worthwhile, and everyone will help you to the other side if you ask for help.

    During that initial league at Baydragon, I started meeting the people that would become the familiar faces of the Auckland scene. Community events hosted by FTW Events in Auckland gave this spark kindling, and I began feeling the call of the competitive spirit, encouraged by the positive feedback loop of great experience after great experience. Soon I found myself flying to Melbourne to play in my first ever international tournament.

    That event in Melbourne cemented Sorcery in my mind as something worthwhile, not just as a game, but as something that I can put my time and effort into. The energy at Plenty of Games was electric. Everyone was smiling, eager to share stories, show off their cards, and make trades (trades based on vibes and not online prices). The store itself is fantastic and well-equipped. The staff are all lovely. And there are actually plenty of clean bathrooms.

    At this tournament, I also somehow managed to make the top eight. I was having fun and doing well. Though, my standings were salvaged by the draft portion of the event more so than the prowess of my constructed list. I remember returning back late after lunch on the second day and missing the announcement of the top eight. I was informed that I had made the cut. I rocked up last as Jesse, the tournament organiser and community legend, was trying to herd players to take a photo, so he was surprised to see me holding out my hand for a Crown Sorcerer. To be fair, I was surprised too.

    There exists Youtube footage of me being crushed in my top-eight match. It was the first time I had properly played against Enchantress. I was exhausted and mentally drained. There were some boisterous Warhammer players nearby, so it was hard to focus. But still it was one of my favourite and most memorable games I had. My opponent was gracious, and Jesse was able to provide a level of clarity and expertise to the rules that made for a great learning experience. I played my Plague of Frogs into an on-board Wildfire, amongst many other obvious mistakes, and it was inevitable that I lost. But still, I left the event with something greater than any prize – a vigor to delve deeper into the hobby and give more of myself to the community.

    The Domino That Did Not Fall

    Over the following year, I played multiple times a week, attended more FTW community events, and even went back for another tournament in Melbourne. It was a whirlwind year, and I was cruising on a high of positive emotions. In that time, my collection goals ballooned, my spending increased massively, and going into Arthurian Legends was a feverish dream of ripping packs and going to every event on offer. 

    And despite all of that, it seemed that the set just didn’t quite land with the community. Attendance in Auckland quickly dwindled. People were disgruntled about various things. Players returned to Magic and other popular franchises such as One Piece. I think there are several reasons that could possibly explain this, such as economic downturn, a perceived barrier to entry to learn Sorcery, and a reluctance for players to embrace change – such as the increase in deck size.

    This is currently a challenging time for enfranchised players, but I think the tide is turning. There is a strong passionate core of players carrying the torch, new players are testing the waters, and Gothic has immense potential to reignite the wildfire. A firework in the sequence didn’t quite work with AL, but there’s still a whole display to detonate once the fuse is reignited.

    However, what the fanbase has done under its own steam is incredible. Every stumble is met with two hands held out in rescue. Things currently aren’t loud and flashy, but they’re there, and people are having fun. People genuinely love this game.

    Take a Look at Where We Are

    Sometimes it’s beneficial to take a step back and reflect properly. Climbing a mountain is more fun if you actually turn around and see the progress you’ve made.

    I hadn’t intended to write out this massive chunk of exposition, but I felt compelled to share, that it was important to set the stage for the blog and my writing. I expect my story isn’t unique. In fact, I think my story is very typical for Millennials. The threads of my story culminate into where I am currently and hopefully explain my thinking and position on many things.

    My story may sound gloomy and dismal, but there were many great times in the mix that I’m grateful for. However, the crushing industrial process of turning hobbies and nostalgia into a commercial product has left me pessimistic. That is why Sorcery is so refreshing to me. You can’t escape the realities of capitalism, but it’s nice when profit isn’t the number-one objective of a company. It has to be on the list somewhere, of course, but not being priority one makes a massive difference.

    Looking to the future, and Cornerstone and Crossroad events are on the horizon, and then Dragonlord and Gothic some time after that. There is a lot to be excited about.

  • The Dust Store is so much more than just a rewards programme.

    The Dust Store is so much more than just a rewards programme.

    With the Arthurian Legends refresh of the Dust Store, I have seen many people asking for advice on what they should spend their dust on. I’m here to make that decision even more complicated. In this blog, I’m going to list my favourite cards available through the Dust Store, both old and new, and explore the six ways that the Dust Store is much more than just a rewards programme.

    • The Dust Store is an opportunity to provide alternate art promos to entice collectors.
    • It rewards players for playing.
    • It allows for design innovation from the designers.
    • Provides practical solutions to enhance gameplay through accessories.
    • Celebrates artists.
    • Preserves the history of Sorcery.

    For each of these points, I have chosen one item from the Dust Store that exemplifies the point. My goal with this blog post is to generate excitement for the Dust Store and get more out of their rewards.

    I think it’s important to state how easily dust can accumulate through consistent participation over time to allay negative feelings. Between participating weekly, opening one or two booster boxes, and winning an event or two, it’s entirely feasible to earn 1500 dust in a year. So far, we haven’t seen the Dust Store go out of stock on anything, so there is time to earn and spend down the road. The marketplace aspect of the Dust Store promos is important but beyond the scope of this blog post. I’m just focusing on fun for now.

    The Dust Store is an opportunity to provide alternate art promos to entice collectors – Camelot (1500 Dust)

    Camelot is my favourite addition to the Dust Store. It’s the perfect encapsulation of what the store can offer. Collectors are rewarded by being given the opportunity to get these amazing alternate art cards. Whilst I’m certainly looking forward to playing with my Dust Store foils, I know most players are picking these up to add to their collections. The Dust Store does serve to provide that little bit extra value for people who are buying a lot of product.

    I love this alternate-art Camelot for many reasons. Firstly, Camelot, in my opinion, is a strong, fun, and powerful site. Currently, meeting threshold requirements is incredibly important due to having fewer proportionately sites that produce multiple threshold in a 30-card Atlas, powerful cards that attack sites directly, such as Hamlet’s Ablaze and Sinkhole, and the intense requirements of powerful cards such as Morgana le Fay. Due to this, I feel like we haven’t seen Camelot really hit its stride in the current meta, but I expect it to be a strong card into the future.

    The main reason I enjoy this card so much is that I’m a huge fan of Ian Miller’s artwork. This version offers a grim reinterpretation of the original version. 

    In the Jeff A. Menges piece, we see a resplendent Camelot, with triumphant knights returning home, banners waving in the breeze, and the castle gates wide open to welcome the heroes home. For me, this art depicts the height of King Arthur’s reign. However, in the Ian Miller artwork, I see Le Morte d’Arthur, the death of King Arthur.

    In the Ian Miller piece, the bridge from the shore to the castle has been severed, the gates are closed, and the angle looking up to the wall presents an insurmountable cold cliff. The transition of colour from the white castle walls to a lush green forest being drained of its colour, all shadowed by a dark sky and encroaching evil. This pieces says to me that the good times ushered in by the reign of King Arthur are over. This is the end of the Arthurian Legends.

    And we’re going into Gothic. Ian Miller is no doubt going to be featured heavily in the upcoming set of Gothic, so to me, this feels like a deliberate tie-in between two otherwise very disjointed sets. Arthurian Legends feels light, whimsical, and playful; whereas Gothic certainly won’t be. The Ian Miller Camelot is a perfect middle ground from where we are to where we’re going next.

    It rewards players for playing – Pudge Butcher (200 Dust per copy)

    Pudge Butcher might be the card that has hooked more new players into Sorcery than any other, so it’s always fun to see it being celebrated.

    The Pudge Butcher promo also showcases the benefit of the change from one copy per customer per lifetime to three, as players can now get a full playset of three copies of this Exceptional rarity card from the Dust store without having to go to the secondary market.

    Before this change, it was a mission to get a second and third copy, and players who achieved this often then kept them sealed, not quite making the leap to putting them into a deck. Now that everyone can get a playset, I expect this will open the floodgates to the idea of people using their Dust Store promos in decks instead of keeping them sealed in plastic or locked away in a binder.

    Pudge Butcher represents how the Dust Store rewards and celebrates players playing the game. Taking powerful constructed cards and giving them alternate art is a celebration of players. I hope to see other constructed staples get similar treatment in the future through the Dust Store, but I expect such cards are being saved for store promotions, such as the teased Apprentice Wizard and Grandmaster Wizard from Severine Pineaux.

    It allows for design innovation from the designers – Druid four pack (1000 Dust)

    The Druid Dust Store promo highlights how the store is a powerful tool to help the designers break out of the limitations and challenges imposed by the requirements of the printing process.

    The Druid as a double-sided card could have been handled in many different ways. I think the option of putting the foil Druid cards in booster packs as three or four separate cards would have had serious drawbacks.

    Firstly, combining the two Druids into one foil card would mean we’d lose the beautiful full-art back for two cards. And in my opinion, players opening the tokens would have caused more confusion and bad feelings than positive because of the connotation created by other card games that token cards are low value.

    This Dust Store package gives a feasible way to print all four in the way they deserve whilst preserving their perceived value. This shows how experimentation in design can be facilitated by the Dust Store, and I expect to see more of this in the future.

    Provides practical solutions to enhance gameplay through accessories – Soldier Tokens (200 for AL four pack, 400 for Alpha-Beta three pack)

    The tiny Foot Soldier tokens are a tidbit from the Kickstarter when the tokens were accidentally printed quarter size instead of half size. The fanbase loved this, and it was kept this way. 

    There are pros and cons to tokens at this size. An advantage is they help reduce clutter on the board and can be easier to handle in larger quantities. The downside is that they are easier to overlook and be obscured by other cards.

    For ease of game play, using full-sized Foot Soldiers tokens could be beneficial. I find often a Foot Soldier that comes down on turn one through an ordinary Village site can be easily overlooked and forgotten until it causes a critical error. They can easily be covered artifacts held by the avatar and minions played to the back row such as Highland Princess. Larger tokens helps prevent this issue by making the token have the same presence as other minions.

    The tokens help players customise their game experience and have options for how they want their game to look. I think there’s a lot of value in offering these options and provide players with personalisation options in the Dust Store.

    Celebrates artists – playmats, Watchtower, Roots of Yggdrasil, Mirror Realm, Primordial Spring (800 Dust each)

    Did you know that you can win the game before you start playing? If you put down a Roots of Yggdrasil playmat, the opponent will be so tilted by their strong emotional reaction to the power of this card, they’ll be unable to play at their best.

    I think the one thing players, collectors, and everyone involved in Sorcery universally agrees upon is that the artwork in the game is incredible and important. People are generous in giving their support and appreciation to the artists, and the Dust Store is another way in which this can be achieved.

    This is a bit of a cheat category as everything in the store proves this point, but I chose the playmats in particular to represent this. They showcase the passion and consideration that Erik’s Curiosa has for their artists in supporting them and championing their craft. The artwork comes to life at the larger size and small details can be noticed and appreciated at this scale.

    I would like to encourage players to embrace the half-sized mats and use them more often and bring them more often to events. I think it’s fun to sit down, place down your mat next to your opponent’s and share a moment to share and appreciate the art. It’s a great way to ease into a game and get into that positive mindset that makes for an enjoyable experience.

    Preserves the history of Sorcery – Sorcerer (300 Dust)

    The Dust Store can be used to preserve the history of the game. The Sorcerer is an iconic avatar, and this version gives a chance to preserve the Alan Pollack artwork that was previously only available through the Kickstarter and make it more accessible.

    I think perhaps the Sorcerer promo has been unfairly maligned, with players questioning why they would spend dust on yet another copy of the Sorcerer and that it might not be worth the dust, especially considering the availability of the box topper foil Sorcerers. I think this perceived negativity is perhaps the reason we did not see the previously spoiled Common Cottagers in this Dust Store update.

    It is unfortunate for something to be put on to the Dust Store and then rejected by the fanbase. Dust is a precious commodity, and players want to save their currency for when it really matters. I do hope that we see more items like the Sorcerer in the future, but perhaps we will see historical pieces like the Common Cottagers distributed in other ways. The Dust Store can’t quite resolve all issues, but it is still a powerful tool in the arsenal to help.

    I enjoy the Sorcerer promo and am grateful to have it in my collection. I think it gives an insight into the creative process that goes into the game, and that’s something I hold high value for.

    Concluding remarks:

    As I finish up writing this blog, I am eagerly awaiting my promos to arrive in the mail. I am definitely an overthinker and I enjoy musing about these things. As the store refreshed with the AL offerings, I acted a bit too quickly and missed getting Briar Patch because at the time I thought it was only one copy per 500 dust. Due to shipping to my part of the world being so expensive, I save up and do a single big order, so the Briar Patch will have to wait another year. Last year, I couldn’t afford Cloud City, so that was the first thing I put in my cart this time.

    Thinking about that Cloud City promo was a bit of a past-time over the last year, including accidentally bidding on a regular foil Beta version on Ebay thinking it was the promo. Fortunately, I didn’t win that one. Though, at the time I did need a Beta foil for my collection, so it wouldn’t have been a total fail if I had. It was incredibly satisfying a few months later when I opened a foil Cloud City in a booster pack, though. All that to say is that sometimes overthinking can be positive, especially when it’s about cardboard and our hobbies that bring us so much joy. If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already picked that up about me, and you can expect much more of that in my future posts.

    The Dust Store is a privilege. It’s an example of how Erik’s Curiosa goes above and beyond in many regards. For players and collectors, it’s a chance for us to show our appreciation by using it and taking the time to share our thoughts with the community. If anyone sits down to a game with me and has three copies of Melissa A. Benson’s Warhorse, you will have my immense respect.