Atsadi and the Wolf

     I am the strange Altered player that actually wants to make Atsadi work. I’ve played with him a lot and lost a lot, so the conclusion we have to come to is either a) I’m a terrible player or b) I’m getting to understand his weaknesses as a hero. The answer may of course be a little in column and a little in column b.

     So, Trial by Frost spoilers have been dribbling out at a relatively slow rate, but we did get a new Bravos card last weekend from Leakinox at Lucca. The card is clearly meant for Atsadi, so I get to talk both about Amarok and the problems that Atsadi’s deck is facing.

     Amarok is a bit of an Animal in that he’s both the type ‘animal’ and that he eats all the other characters that join the expedition after him. So that’s quite a downside to have, but what are we getting for our trouble?

    Well, we are getting a potential cost reduction for a start. Instead of paying 5/5 for a 4/3/3 (which is not a great rate), we are instead getting a cost reduction of 2, making him a 4/3/3 for 3/3 which is much more reasonable. However, he now has a second downside of not having any characters in the expedition before him. So, he’s only really reliably useable on T1 to get an advance and even then, he may not still get an advance, but he will get to draw a card.

     Let’s look at the issues. On turn 1 playing Amarok will be costing us all our mana and thus can only be played to one side. If we are playing against Sigismar, then they get a free 1/1/1 on one side. If we play Amarok to the same side as the token, they can play a Haven Warrior and beat us. Same on the other side, except they get to win both expeditions this time around. So yes, we might have a card, but our 5 counter is used, and we haven’t ramped yet.

     Later in the game if we draw Amarok then he will either have to be played last for his full 5 cost or be on his own on an expedition, which is likely lose later in the game. So, the best thing for him will be mana. Do we really want to be putting a card in the deck that will likely get mana’ed 80% of the time?

     The problem with this common version of Amarok is that it doesn’t really solve Atsadi’s competitive issues. I’ll break down the problems briefly here.

1. The deck can come out backwards. Because you need to have small cards and large mana cost cards in the deck to trigger Atsadi’s ability the deck can often come out backwards. Hence you often need to mana something big on the first turn to be able to make a valid play on turn 1. Then sometimes late game you can end up just drawing small stuff that doesn’t impact the game. Since you only end up getting 3 or even sometimes 4 activations of Atsadi’s ability that doesn’t really compensate this.
2. You need to add ramp cards to your deck, ways to protect your fatties and ways to try and ensure you can get the ramp early. This restricts room in the deck for removal and other ways of card draw, which in Bravos is all at rare. Hence you can’t easily augment Atsadi’s own draw, and I often find myself being out drawn by Ordis and Yzmir decks. With all their extra draw and sabotage the deck just can’t keep up.
3. If you don’t have a way to protect your large creatures out, you are vulnerable to cheaper removal. If you are spending 6 mana to put a Shenlong out and they spend 4 mana to remove it, you will often lose the expedition to a 1/1/1 or similar. Even putting out a Kaibara which can easily win both lanes is susceptible to this risk and the issue is that the more you are spending on a character the more risk you are taking. You can help protect them a bit by playing Spindle, Muna Bastion but to do that you are often taking an early turn off and may end up losing both expeditions.
4. It’s difficult with Atsadi to win both expeditions without having a big creature with Gigantic in play late. You just can’t often play two large characters either side to win both expeditions.
5. You don’t have much wiggle room to play around your opponent as you often have 1 large thing and one small thing to play. Thus, low to the ground decks can often play multiple small things to find where your big thing is and the either remove it OR concentrate on the other side.

     Amarok therefore doesn’t really solve any of those problems. He’s not big enough to guarantee an expedition late in the game, he stops you making plays to support him and he still costs you 3 mana with the discount. Axiom or Ordis can play two cards and go over the top of him. If played at the best possible time (turn 1) he doesn’t guarantee a lane win (though he probably will) but the opponent can just play on the other lane. He also doesn’t help the ramp strategy.

     My hope is that the rare has some nice ability for Atsadi added on that will really help him, but I’m not sure that is what he’s going to get.

     My solution to help Atsadi still stands. A low casting cost (say 2 mana) 1/1/1 that adds or removes a counter from a hero. This would enable Atsadi to more easily play mid-range cards and repeatedly get card draws, which I feel will make him competitive. Still, I guess we’ll see what we get when we enter the snows of Cais Adarra.