Santa Claus is Coming to Town

     We have finally got a new spoiler from Trial by Frost and boy is it not only a good one, but its also seasonally appropriate. We have a big jolly red fat man in a magic sleigh – aka Santa Claus and he is representing the Lyra faction.

     Santa is a five-cost card from hand and reserve who gives us five points of stats in mountain and water and nothing in forest. The zero stat is a signature thing of the Lyra faction, and we’ll come back to talk more about that later. Ten points of stats for five mana really isn’t much to write home about, however that’s not all Santa brings. As we all know, Santa brings presents as this particular present is a Hand Cost 3 or less card for all players.

     The rare Santa Claus it seems only costs 4 from hand and reserve. We don’t yet know if there are any other changes yet, but that would make the card even more of a bargain and a par with The Hatter. We’ll have to wait for now to see if there are any other changes.

     The problem is that as the active player, you will have to play your free card first and then your opponent gets to react to that free play with a free play of their own. So, whatever you set up with Santa could easily be countered by your opponent if you are not careful.

     Note that in multiplayer or in 2 versus 2 everyone gets a present. You therefore want to build your deck so that you get a better present than your opponent. There are a few ways that you can do this.

1. Play Santa when the opponent runs out of cards in hand or reserve (that cost 3 or less). This means that you get a present from Santa and your opponent doesn’t and it is the best way to get an advantage from him.
2. Ensure that your deck is built to take advantage of the free card. There are some quite strong three cost cards that can immediately take advantage of being made a present. The Sandman for instance can add stats to your side and nullify the best thing on your opponent’s expedition.
3. A variation on the second point is to play cards with 3 or less hand cost and much higher reserve cost but from reserve.  The example below is perhaps not the best one, but you get the idea, a card that costs 3 from hand and more from reserve with all the abilities stacked from the reserve.

      So, which hero does Santa Claus fit in with then in Lyra? Well, he has no affinity with rolling dice, so I’d say he probably isn’t the greatest card with Nevenka (though still playable). Fen doesn’t get a particular benefit from him either, except if you get lucky and your super 3/6 cost Unique is randomly put into your reserve by her ability and you are left with Santa in hand (an unlikely occurrence).

     This leaves us with Auraq. Santa has a zero stat which helps us trigger Auraq’s ability. Santa also costs 5, which would be handy if Auraq flipped to play for free, and potentially Santa’s ability could give us another free Auraq performance counter as well. We could therefore (luckily) use Auraq’s ability and get two counters straight back on them. Santa may well be a good fit for Auraq’s deck, but I think Auraq will need at least one most thing to truly be competitive, but it’s a start. 

     We will hopefully get more presents leading up to Christmas and hopefully get to know the full rare text and alternative faction for Santa.