[Totemica: Duelist] New Booster Packs

Let’s talk about new boosters.

So, our newest pack – Maelstrom:

First, what i like in this pack: i love main theme of this pack. Especially these undeads on ships, i like this climate.
( http://totemica.wikia.com/wiki/Cookley )Cookley – I got him from buying VIP membership. I think he is strong, but not overpowered rare. His ability can deal 5 dmg for 1 gem (almost that much as hydreen) and it can ‘eliminate’ one opponent’s summon from defending/attacking. But you can’t play another card after this, so it won’t be used to often.
Ah, and his stats are great too. 4/24 is always good.

I like Walrush ( http://totemica.wikia.com/wiki/Walrush ) card art :P But i don’t know if his ability was thought enough. If someone uses deck with small amount of summons, he can draw just killed summon in next 1-2 turns. So if someone use Walrush and low-summon deck eliminating specific summon is useless, as opponent will draw it in next turn :P You can only try to kill Walrush, but he has huge amount of hp, so it is very very hard.

Magellan ( http://totemica.wikia.com/wiki/Magellan ) art is very cute :DD
Razormaw is a card with very good mechanic, like it :)

Ok, time to complain:
I will never understand why devs are making cards like ( http://totemica.wikia.com/wiki/Praxian_Sub ) Praxian Sub. A forever-untargetable NUKER?! Nukers was always cards that players tried to eliminate firstly, and then there is a card that have protection from abilities permanently. And his nuke abilities are as good as Hydreen (3/6/10). It’s not all, Sub have 1 more attack then Hydreen. In fact you can do nothing with it, it will be on field from the moment of summoning to the end (it will be probably last summon that will be killed). I know, if someone is using it he can’t buff it too, but it’s a nuker, it is not designed to rushing or something like that. This card is obviously broken.

Other rares (kraken and Leviathan) seems not to be powerfull. It needs to kill all your summons on field (at least two if you want to summon Kraken, and 3 if you want to summon Leviathan). Just after summoning these card can’t be buffed, so opponent will have a free 1-3 turns to attack a single summon with all his creatures. It seems easy to destroy them (imagine using Asassins mark :P).

Walrush: That ability needs to cost something. With its high HP, it’ll be easy to build a deck that starts out with one, and it won’t be too long before you get a second one, especially if your deck doesn’t have many summons to begin with. It’s also good for 0 or 1 gem summons that have low HP, since them dying doesn’t mean much since you can easily get it back next turn. Blade Trap, Polterboy, Webling, and maybe Brain Scrambler would be good for this.

Praxian Sub: Agreed. That would be a good ability to have on something that’s otherwise unremarkable, like Poltergirl or Spybot, but that’s insane on what might be the strongest nuker in the game.

“Other rares”: Yeah, the killing your own summons thing really makes them seem not worth it. Maybe they’d be useful if you start the match with Queen and get the rares out by turn 2 or 3 without losing anything valuable.

There’s a Maelstrom rare called Destroyer available right now. 3att, 24hp, 3 gem cost to summon, and a 2 gem ability that evenly distributes 12 damage among all enemies, with an additional 4 points of effect for every Cannaos you control. 12 works nicely because it’s divisible by all possible #s of summons you can have at once. With Destroyer, how do you evenly distribute 16 or 20 damage among 3 enemies?

Walrush:
I played it but not as strong as it seems.
Its ability doesn’t work anymore if you don’t have summons in deck. So this can leave you without any summon to draw for a while if you don’t cycle deck fast.
Its ability is basically useless once your field is full with the summons you want, this leaves you with one summon that does “nothing” or you have to replace it, potentially wasting turn att bonus.
Tsunami spell is really good too, although that forces you to play with void field as well + you need to keep walrush in play late game because that’s when tsunami is more cost effective.

Praxian Sub: yeah… really strong card. Its strength is both in its good nuking ability, its untargetable buff and its decent attack. One of its main asset though is that it is versatile. You need only one card to provide you both nuking capability and the non targetable buff. Most mid/long fight decks need to have at least 1 non targetable summon, otherwise getting 4 summons on field is really risky against aoe like thunderstorm.

Magellan: good drawer, better than crystal ball due to its 2 att.

Razormaw: decent defense card, but low hp so hard to play as a defender. Unlike whistly that can benefit similarly from att/armor buffs, razormaw benefits much more from att buffs than armor buffs.

Drunk Sailor: interesting card for its 0 cost ability, but its low stats and the fact you should mainly play it while having party untargetable makes it rather bad.

Anchortooth: really good defense card. Its nuking ability is not as good as top nukers, however the additional effect is really strong: one good way to deal with nuker is to pressure by attacking with higher stats card. Nuking is usually best used on high att cards, which are also the ones that opponent uses to attack you. Perfect targets for Anchor Toss.

Urchin Volley: Looks like rather weak card.

Aqua Beam: Nice card, this is one of the most cost efficient nuking ability, as you have hydreen in play it allows you to get +1 att for 4 mana and 2 turns on 21-25 hp cards as well.

Cannaos: Strong ability. But as it is designed for mid-end game, the card itself may be too weak to keep it on field for long.

Grax: Interesting card that I haven’t played. Should be played to win fights quickly. Should probably be played with armor debuffs + mass heals.