Lyra Roundup

There's a Lyra Festival in the air and what better way to celebrate it than by going through all the cards that Lyra has availble to it as a faction. As usual I'm using the scale below to rate cards overall and for the various Lyra heroes.

Starting off Lyra with one of their better cards. Lyra is desperately short on 1 cost cards and so the little Martengale gets even a B rating at common even though it doesn’t do that much. The ability to play an early low-cost card is good and as it has one zero stat it is even playable by Auraq. The rare is even more important to Lyra though. Adding 1 to a dice roll makes it very important to Nevenka’s deck and still very good in any Lyra deck that is using the rare All-in. Definitely the rare is an A tier card and important to Lyra.

The Trickster is not the greatest card, but it is solid and has a number of uses. With Nevenka and her ability to make the rolls go her way, the card is solid and the rare is slightly above stated. Fen will often put the card into reserve through her ability and the one cost from reserve is the pick of the two for her. As the Trickster has three zero stats, she is perfect for triggering Auraq’s effect and working with Yong-Su.

The card Is okay a common as the 4 points worth of stats and the resupply make it just over the edge. However, as Fen already dumps things into reserve it isn’t as impactful there and you may just end up wasting cards from your reserve and pushing the common into the reserve means you lose her ability. The rare is stronger in Auroq and Nevenka as you’ll likely get double the resupply effect.

The Lyra Skald at common is best described as a draft card. With only 5 points worth of stats for 2 mana it is below the curve, and it does nothing else. The rare is more interesting as it has lots of options to it for Nevenka and more importantly Fen. Although it has a zero stat, I’m not sure that Auraq really wants this card in their deck.

The Lyra Thespian has an interesting ability that is actually a quest to achieve to get you over the par stats. On the common you need 3 or more zero stats on characters you control, which means you either need two other characters one with two zeros and one with one or you need a character with three zero stats (Ouroborous Trickster for instance). Which makes this a combo card really for Auraq. As it doesn’t have a zero stat itself, I’m not sure if completing the quest is quite worth the prize, but it’s a consideration for Auraq.

Hathor is a card used to bring that combo piece that you need back to your hand. As such it’s a useful card in all Lyra decks, but I think it will be particularly useful in Fen decks where that card you really need to play for hand, randomly gets flipped into your reserve. I think the common can be stronger as you are more likely to play the card for its support effect than for its stats from reserve.

The Lyra Navigator is better in its native faction than for Bravos but not by a lot. The zero stats and the resupply make it better with Auraq but its still not a card I’d expect to see used that much.

Anansi is an interesting card that is quite swingy between the heroes. I don’t think its that great with Nevenka, but Fen will tend to put more stuff in your own reserve, so will do very well with the common. I can see it being a 4/4/4 or 5/5/5 for 3 fairly often from hand and then a 4/4/4 for 2 from reserve. The common doesn’t have any zero stats so is not that good for Auray, but the rare is perfect for them. 

The Lyra Cloth Dancer is a really good card that has a bunch of uses but it requires on getting the timing right. It’s not great against tokens, but an opponent with a stacked pool with a number of characters in it against this will feel very sad. The common is great to get rid permanently of recurring characters (Sun Wukong, Athena, Hua Mulan) and Muna anchored creatures coming out of their anchored phase.

The Lyra Chronicler is a work horse card. It’s four stats on two biomes is going to feel useful at times, but sad at others. It easily gets out powered by Haven Warrior, Three Little Pigs and Kakoba but there are times when it will help win you a side. It’s a little better with Auraq due to the zero stat.

The Inkcaster is a step above what Hathor offers and is pretty good at both common and rare. The rare is cheaper and offers flexibility in the support ability, but it is really good at rescuing that combo card that you need. I think its particularly good in rescuing All-in so that you can potentially get three uses of it for Nevenka. Its also good for helping put that Lyra Festival combo together. It’s not quite as good in Auraq as it doesn’t have a zero stat.

Tanuki is Lyra’s only in faction sabotage card. The common is fine and playable. The rare has an extra half chance to sabotage from reserve. With Martengale’s ability to affect the roll and Nevenka’s ability to skew the odds, chances are she will get two sabotage effects from it. Fen’s unfortunate effect to automatically put things into reserve will potentially make this less useful though and there’s another sabotage card that might suit her better.

The Sandman is a character that I think will be used for two things. Firstly, for trying to get Lyra Festival wins as it’s a key way for Lyra to get an asleep character in their expedition. Secondly for targeted expedition wins, particularly when going for a winning plan the turn after that you were going to lose an expedition anyway. The rare is especially good with Kadigiran Mage Dancer builds in Nevenka.

The Ouroboros Croupier is good with Nevenka, since you are always getting something, you want from it. The free card is a real bonus, but the resupply is not usually terrible. The problem for Fen is that the ability is a hand ability, and you really don’t want the card flipped to the reserve by Fen’s ability. The stats are good for Auraq (it has a zero stat), but it won’t be the best free play for them because the ability is from hand only.

The main use for the Hatter I see is as a combo with the Kadirigan Mage Dancer with Nevenka. The main reason to anchor a small character is to see it grow over time and the mage dancer grows with your dice rolls. Outside of that I don’t see too many other combos with this card, but it will be worth keeping an eye on for future sets. In general, its got pretty good stats though (excepting the zero stat of course) and it can easily help win a biome with its 5 powered stats.

I primarily see Ahmale being useful in a Fen deck and very good for Fen in the rare side. I think Fen will sometimes get clogged with too many cards in reserve that you will likely have to junk at the end of the turn if you are not careful and this is really good way of unclogging your reserve and drawing lots of cards. The card is solid and useable for Nevenka and Auraq, but I think it will get eclipsed by other cards.

Asmodeus is a fine top end card for Lyra, but really shines where you have the Lyra Bastion out to affect the odds – which will likely be with Nevenka. Both results of the roll are good though, but you might want then at different times. For instance, on a turn you might win, you might favour the 8/8/8 rather than a 5/5/5 anchored. It’s solid for both Fen and Auraq as the ability is a play from anywhere ability that fires off when Auraq’s ability is procced. 

The problem with Loki is that although the effect is good, he’s pretty expensive and his ability only happens from hand.  Fen tends to want to put thinks into reserve, so he’ll often be blanked on his ability there. The common is better for Fen as the effect doesn’t wipe the reserve which Fen will likely have full all the time, so she really doesn’t want the full effect of wiping the hand and reserve. If Auraq’s ability procs and gets this it also won’t want Loki as it will only enact -> effects, so its not a great top deck for that ability. The only hero who can usefully use Loki is Nevenka and I suspect her deck will already be full of other rare cards.

A Capella Training is a cheap utility spell that will help take a character away from coming back. It’s particularly good for being able to stop menaces like Sun Wukong, Athena and Hua Mulan from continually coming back. It’s also good for stopping cards with anchored for coming back for a second anchored turn. The rare is better even though it has fleeting as I feel that you don’t need this effect that often and the card draw is actually really good when stapled to this spell.

It took me a while to rate this since I initially didn’t see the difference between the common and the rare. There is however a big difference in practice. Lyra characters are often very targeted to specific biomes and having played them in the right expedition, you don’t really want to then switch them across to an expedition you can’t win with them. It’s actually better to play this trick on an opponent whose skewed stats won’t win on the other side. This spell can be good enough to get two expedition wins, but realistically you might win one with this trick.

This is another trick spell for the Lyra faction of tricksters. I like the common version of this a lot more than the rare for two reasons. Firstly, because it is cheaper and secondly it doesn’t have fleeting. I don’t think that you need to blank an entire expedition that often, but blanking a good creature two turns running I feel is more important. If someone invests a lot into a Hydracaena, expecting it to grow to an 8/8/8 then 12/12/12 and win a side twice, then this spell can effectively stop them. Blanking an expedition for one turn just moves the problem one turn down the line. Now that is fine if you are going to win this turn with the other expedition, but that’s not going to happen that often.

All in is Lyra’s best spell. Oh, you wanted me to expand on that? Okay the spell is best for Nevenka as she is most likely to have odds warping cards in her deck which will make the average roll higher. The average is 3.5 which is better than Physical Training, but chance may interfere and give you a low roll. The rare though means your lowest outcome will be 3 which is on a par with training. Your upper end result though is 8. With the Lyra Bastion in play that roll will likely be higher and furthermore a Martengale or two could take those boosts to 10. If you need a target, then you’ve got the Martengale in play. Without some of the odds altering cards its not quite as good, but you are still getting at least value (on the worse result). 

This is the best removal that Lyra has in faction, though there is a big margin of difference between the common and the rare. Surprisingly it’s the common that is the better card even though its more expensive. The reason is that it can discard a permanent. The number of games I’d seen won by a landmark dominate the board that I think this is an essential spell. With the number of characters that have fleeting or anchored that this can target it’s a good spell for Lyra if not really an S tier.

Paint Prison is a delay spell that causes a character to go back and be drawn again. In MtG this is a powerful effect, but I don’t think its as powerful in Altered where you are drawing 2 cards. I think once again the common is better as more often than not you’ll be wanting to discard that card from reserve to reduce it if you are going to run it.

This is a very specific spell that belongs in Auraq’s deck. Because Auraq wants payoff cards that are high costing in the deck, the only way you’re going to make anything from this spell is by finding those high costing cards. I just think that Nevenka and Fen won’t be running enough of them to make this spell worth it for them, but this is top tier for Auraq providing the rest of the deck is built well.

Any card that says ‘You win the game’ has to be taken seriously. As with most alternative win conditions there is a little quest you have to achieve to actually get that win. This one involves getting an asleep character, a fleeting character and an anchored character in play when you have the festival out. Now this is potentially easy to disrupt as you only win this at dusk, so if your opponent knows you have a festival deck, they will save removal for your landmark. I think it's doable as Lyra, but the Anchored component is the hardest part to get. Ironically, I think the OOF in Muna is easier to achieve. I don’t think Auraq is the best hero to try this out with, so they have been marked down a little bit.

The Lyra Bastion will be good for all Lyra heroes, but I think only required in Nevenka’s deck. It will depend on how many die rolling cards you have in your deck. With only a few in Fen or Auraq, I would expect this to be cut. If your deck has a number of dice rolling characters and spells, I expect to see it turn up.

Tinkerbell is the other sabotage card that I expect to see turn up more often with Fen than the other two heroes. I suspect that Auraq decks will not have the space for this OOF rare, and it will not make the cut and I don’t expect to see it at all in Nevenka decks. Fen’s ability to put random things into the reserve mean that it is more likely than not to be going straight to reserve and used as a surprise play to get rid of that annoying card in reserve.

Dr Frankenstein is a card waiting for a future set. For now, though you might get two card draws from it, assuming you are also playing either the Aether Shard or the rare Lyra Festival. The other possibly is give a couple of characters fleeting. It’s not impactful enough and requires a lot of mana to get it going, so I doubt he’ll get played for now. However it is worth keeping in mind for later sets.

Bravos Pathfinder is one of my favourite cards, but even that is not going to give it a higher rating. It works better for Auraq as it has a zero stat and is not a bad early play, but I’m not sure it does enough for Lyra to deserve a rare spot.

I’m only marginally more positive on Tomoe Gozen’s chances of getting that much play and only then possibly in Fen’s deck. Since he can’t be played on turns 1-3, that restricts how impactful his decent stats will be. Fen can hold him in reserve for a few turns so I don’t think he’s terrible there.

The Mighty Jinn is the one Bravos rare I think you’ll see played a lot in Lyra. I think he’s playable in every faction (for the mana boost) and essential in Auraq. Not only does he have a zero stat, but he also boosts the mana for the big creatures and spells that Auraq has in the deck as a payoff for his ability. Nevenka decks may cut the Jinn for numbers, but I expect to see Fen decks running him.

Kappa is a weird one. I don’t think in Bravos he is at all impactful as he just doesn’t quite do enough for the mana he costs. However, in Lyra he compares favourably in his costing, and I can see fen decks considering him. He’ll likely get cut more often than not, but I think he is at least playable.

Shenlong is a powerful card, but one to be played with care. He is subject to a lot of removal and without Tough to protect him he is best used sparingly as a surprise. Auraq wants to run him and / or Kaibara to get the payoffs for their ability, but the odd one of two could show up as a top ender in Fen and possibly Nevenka (though I’m less sure on the second one here).

Kaibara is (in my view), very specifically meant to go in Auraq’s deck. The other two heroes can play him as a one of surprise, but I don’t expect to see a lot outside Auraq’s deck. I feel Auraq’s deck plays a lot more like Atsadi in some ways.

Kodama is a card I only expect to get played in Lyra in Festival decks. I don’t expect many (if any) Auraq festival decks, so they get a lower rating. I am not sure that Kodama will be much played in Lyra outside of that.

Aloe Vera is another character that may end up in Lyra Festival decks. Lyra finds it harder to get anchored effects and consequently Aloe Vera may make it for numbers in that deck. The card is cheaper than the other Muna anchored character, though the same price if the optional effect is taken into account. There’s a trade of between the two of flexibility over slightly better stats.

Yong-Su is a solid card. Its stats are bang on par for what you are paying for it, but the combo potential to get those two extra boosts make it tantalizingly close to being really good. You need that character with three zero stats (Ouroboros Trickster), but 3 mana for a 5/5/5 is too good to ignore, even if it doesn’t give Auraq a counter.

Cernunnos is a strong character in the ilk of Haven Warrior. Its more than playable in both Nevenka and Fen’s decks. As it doesn’t have a zero stat it will likely get cut from Auraq lists.

The Coneman is a very strong card. Not quite as strong in Lyra as it is in Muna, but more than solid. A Nevenka deck playing an All-in can give you a very strong anchored character (same with Fen). Again, as it doesn’t have any zero stats it doesn’t really play into Auraq’s gameplan, but it is strong enough for some inclusions.

This is an S tier card. It’s a card that (assuming you can play it), the opponent must answer. I think Nevenka is less likely to want this as it needs so many odds warping cards, but the card is just super strong on its own. They have to get rid of it somehow else they will continually lose a side.  Auraq loves this card as a potential free proc from his ability.

The Paper Herald is the second best one drop for Lyra as it has a support ability that can generate the full 1/1/1 soldier as opposed the 0/1/1. I feel that Nevenka wants to play Martengale in this slot, so it will be more beneficial to the other two heroes.

Robin Hood is a really annoying card. It will likely suck 2 or three mana from your opponent’s ability to put stats on the board. This could mean that they can’t execute the plan that they want to and will end up in a sub-par scenario. Since Robin has a zero stat he’s even ideal for Auraq, so he’s a card I would consider for every build.

Alas the Studious Disciple is mostly the worst 1 cost offering for Lyra, though I think it has some potential with Auraq as they need to play some big spells and it could be useful there.

The Lyra version of the Kadirigan Mage Dancer was made to go with Nevenka. You will always get at least one boost for him through Nevenka’s ability and with a ton of dice rolling cards in her deck you are likely to get at least 2 boosts on him. He’s fine with Fen depending on the build but I’m less enthusiastic about putting him in Auraq as he doesn’t have a zero stat and doesn’t really further their plan.

Alice does something that is pretty unique (sic) for Lyra in that she has a support ability that gives an After You. I think there are times when Lyra really needs an After You, so I think Nevenka and Fen could take advantage of this. As she doesn’t have a zero stat, I see her less potential in Auraq.

Flamel is a fairly flexible creature that has his uses across most Lyra heroes. Being able to return a card from your reserve to your hand is valuable in ensuring (if you are going first) that the card you really want to play doesn’t get sabotaged. Alas it is not quite as good with Fen as he can randomly be drawn to go into reserve using Fen’s effect. 

Hooked is a variation on Ride the Bifrost on a smaller scale. Generally, you only want to switch one character to make the real difference. Since this spell can target either your character or your opponent’s, this is very flexible for 1 mana and then you can reuse it again for 2. Where your opponent has one big built-up character on one side and the rest on the other, this is great to stacking everything up on the same side. Flexible and useable by all heroes.

I’m less impressed with Magical Training. In Ymzir, it can act like an After You, but I think realistically this is only true for Nevenka here. Fen’s ability putting a card in reserve will make you sad if it is this one, and Auraq’s proc getting this would also not be ideal.

I’m much more impressed by Spycraft though. This card not only sabotage’s your opponent, but also gets you a new card in reserve. Since it is naturally fleeting it doesn’t matter if Fen puts it into the reserve. Generally, a solid play every time for Lyra.

I’m less impressed with ‘Off You Go!’ However. Although it is cheap removal from hand, it only gets creatures with cost 3 or less, which means that it misses out on most of the annoying things you want to take out. Secondly, it only sends them to reserve, so there’s always a chance that they might be back unless you try and combo this with a card that gives it fleeting. The reserve cost of 4 is too high for Lyra for such a limited removal and Fen would be very nervous having this in the deck.

Small Step is a very straightforward spell that can end a game on the spot (you win as soon as the expeditions meet). However, it costs six mana to pull off and unless you can cheat it into play somehow (Auraq), I think it is too expensive to go in most Lyra decks.

Aether Shard needs to be in play for two more turns after you play it to start actually getting value from it. There are ways in Lyra to retrigger the -> effect on the permanent, so you could make it a little better if you try, but at a cost of 5, it may come into play too late to be effective or worth the cost. I think there’s an outside chance that Auraq might play it as they can cheat it into play and gain even more card advantage at the same time.

The last card, the Ymzir Bastion, I think is only going to be played in whacky Lyra builds that want to retrigger Small Steps and Mind Apotheosis for free to get the benefits out of Auraq’s ability to put big things into play. Auraq can play this for free, so if the deck gets lucky, they can play this for free and then tap it to play Mind Apotheosis for free to draw a Hydracaena and a Kaiba to play for free. Welcome to Altered Christmas Land! Play in Nevenka and Fen is D for doubtful.