Tag: gothic

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.