Lyra Common Analysis

Lyra Common Roundup

ONE MANA

None. I don’t usually comment in sections without a card, but I think that not having a one mana card really hurts the Lyra deck. It makes plays tricky with odd numbered mana and you often in the early turns waste mana as a result. This deck and the Ymzir deck have the highest mana costs and mean they don’t play the early game too well unless they are very lucky.

TWO MANA

Ouroboros Trickster (2/1)

This card is slightly harder to evaluate due to RNG in this deck. A two mana 1/1/1 from hand would be weak. A two mana 2/2/2 is on par with everything else. A one mana 1/1/1 from reserve is on par and a 1 mana 2/2/2 is under costed. So, the value of the card (without the Ouroboros Bastion in play) is roughly on par overall, but the card is better from the reserve.

With the Ouroboros Bastion in play it gets significantly better, so it depends on when you can play the Bastion as to how good this is. You could play the Bastion on Turn 1 (if you have it) but that guarantees that you will lose one side on turn one and possibly both. Even if you do that and play two 2/2/2’s for 2 on turn 2 (assuming the RNG goes your way, you still might not win against an opponent playing a 4 or two better 2’s. Of course, you have Nevenka’s ability that you will probably be able to manipulate to give an extra counter, but nothing is guaranteed.

The rare Trickster is somewhat better giving you 3 boosts if you roll 4 or more. With this Bastion this becomes very good, though the mana cost from reserve has been increased to 2 to compensate a bit for the extra boost.

Esmerelda (2/2)

Esmerelda is a 2/2/0 for 2 mana. That would be weak just on stats (as you are paying for only 1 and 1/3 mana for those stats) so there has to be more. This extra is that you get a resupply ability when played from hand, effectively giving you an extra half card that you can use. I think that this is a much better later play than an early play as later you are likely to have a full reserve already, but its not a shabby play if you can use that extra card.

The rare version of the card resupplies from both the hand and the reserve making it that bit better. Late in game you can run down on cards and those extra half cards from the resupply ability are critical to helping a deck out.

Hathor (2/3)

Hathor is a 0/3/3 character for 2 mana from hand. This is bang on the money for this rate, but the back side of the character (playing from reserve) is slightly below par. As it has no other ability its not the best card but can be used well in the right biomes. The thing that makes me not as down on this card as I probably should be is the zero stats. Why does a zero stat interest me? There are reports of another Lyra hero playing well with characters with zero stats. I think this is a piece of that deck rather than in Nevenka’s deck. So, in the Nevenka promo deck Hathor is poor, but I suspect in a different Lyra deck he is much better.

THREE MANA

The Ouroboros, Lyra Bastion (3/3)

The Ouroboros Bastion is the signature card in Nevenka’s deck. Essentially it lets you roll an extra die and choose the result from all the dice that you roll to be the result. The more dice that you have, the better the Nevenka game will be. It will skew the results to be more in your favour. It won’t completely stop you from getting bad luck and failing, but it will mean you’ll have more good luck than bad on average.

Playing this card however manes that you have to take a turn off from concentrating on both sides. Playing this permanent will mean you will probably lose one of the expeditions if not sometimes both of them. You need to do it at some point however, so if an opponent has played something big on one side you might accept that you’re going to lose there anyway and put out the Bastion.

I have heard rumours that the cost has risen to 4 on the common and then been reduced on the rare. I hope not, but we really need to see all the cards first.

Lyra Cloth Dancer (3/2)

The Cloth Dancer has a very poor set of stats for its base stats. It’s a 1/1/3 for 3 mana. That’s a whole one and a third mana below rate. So, we a spending that on casting from hand on what exactly? Well, we are making another target character fleeting. It’s not useful for this particular turn (though it could be – so see later) but it helps get rid of problem some characters such as the rare Hua Mulan and Athena. These characters lose fleeting when the come back into play from the reserve, but then can be given it again by the Cloth Dancer. Additionally, you can get them after they are played from hand so that they never go to the reserve. Alas it doesn’t help as much with Jeanne D’Arc, but you can stop her coming back a second time.

I like the Cloth Dancer as pseudo removal, and it at least leaves a body behind as well. I hope that the rare gives fleeting as well from the reserve.

Lyra Chronicler (3/3)

The Lyra Chronicler is another character that is slightly over costed (like Hathor) but has a zero stat. As a 4/0/4 for 3 it’s marginally over costed on both the hand cost and reserve cost by around a third of a mana. Like Hathor I think this belongs in the deck that looks at characters with zero stats. I think that this and Hathor are good in that deck but just not stella in this deck. Having said that, if you can compete on the right biomes, then a 4 stat for 3 is pretty good and competes against a lot of things.

Cloth Cocoon (3/3)

Cloth Cocoon is a removal spell with choices. You can either banish a permanent or a fleeting character. There is no restriction on casting cost of the target character or permanent, so it can hit anything for 3 mana. There are some great targets for this spell including many of the good permanents from Axiom, a rival Ouroboros Bastion and an Ordis Carrier. Of course, it can take out most characters coming back from the reserve, or it can team up with the Lyra Cloth Dancer to make a character played from hand fleeting first before banishing it. I really like the flexibility of this spell. It’s not perfect but it has some good coverage. Shame it has fleeting itself though so you can only use it once.

All-in! (3/3)

The second Lyra spell is perhaps even better in this deck. It gives a character a boost that is sized based on a die roll. If you have the Ouroboros Bastion out, then this booster could get pretty big (up to 6). An average d6 die roll is 3.5, so even without the bastion you are on average getting 3.5 boosts for your 3 mana. With the bastion that average goes up. This spell is very much the thing that really gives the Nevenka deck the huge RNG and it can sing or fail depending on die rolls. Since it doesn't have fleeting, you get to use this twice.

FOUR MANA

The Hatter (4/5)

The Hatter is yet another Lyra character with skewed base stats, one of them being a zero, that is seemingly over costed. A 4 mana 5/5/0 is over costed by 2/3 of a mana. However, you get a free ability stapled onto the Hatter to make another character (with 3 cost or less) anchored if you banish him from the reserves. The alternative being you get to replay the Hatter at an even more over costed value of 1 and 2/3 mana. Still, you have got choices here depending on the board state. It’s a shame this ability is restricted to 3 mana hand cost of less. Perhaps the rare will let you do that for 6 mana or less!

I think the Hatter is another character that goes in the deck that wants characters with zero stats in them.

SIX MANA

Asmodeus (6/6)

Six is a lot of mana in this game. So, what do you get for your mana here then? A 5/5/5 is the answer, which on the base stats front is a little behind the cure. Both Atlas and Coneman effectively give you 6/6/6 in different ways. However, Asmodeus either gives you an 8/8/8 OR gives you a 5/5/5 anchored (effectively 10/10/10 in stats). Both options are good and with the Bastion in play you are likely to be able to choose which of the two you want. Realistically you probably are only going to win one side with this. But it is very powerful as a card.

The rare is bonkers as it only costs 5 mana from both the hand and the reserve.