Thoughts & Baubles: June 2022

With Uprising, Legend Story Studios has stepped up their extended art game.

The twelve dragons of Volcor are on full display with extended art variants that do away with extraneous card templating, accentuated with that gorgeous cold foiling that's become a trademark of the game.

Given the hobby's penchant for dragons and the incredible presentation of these variant cards, there's no doubt these twelve cards are going to vault to the top of many collector's wants lists. A full collection of all 12 may become one of the most desirable collectibles in the game.

But it has to be noted that the 12 dragons are all Illusionist cards. You may remember Illusionist as the class with cold foil auras in Armory kits. And extended art heralds given away by content creators. And another EA herald given away as a judge reward. Not to mention the extended art Herald of Erudition found in first edition packs of Monarch. Oh, and the Illusionist legendary from Monarch is still the most valuable legendary of the set. Did I mention Illusionists are one of two classes that can use the Great Library of Solana?

Yes, the majority of those cards are entirely optional to an Illusionist player. Set aside the Library (which was largely out of favor during the Everfest meta, but may return to competitive play with Uprising), and you're left with pursuing one expensive class Legendary- a burden most heroes carry with them in this game. That's not an unreasonable expense, in the scheme of this game.

But if we set aside Illusionist, Flesh and Blood has traditionally distributed its 'money cards' pretty equally across classes. So much so that there was quite a bit of outcry when the Crucible of War Fabled card was a Viserai specialization (this has since become the norm for Fabled cards).

Again, I want to restate that we're not talking about a barrier of entry here. What I'm examining here is incidental value found within a class-focused collection. It would be nice if Illusionist, Ninja, and Wizard fans could all approach Uprising with equal enthusiasm; certainly there's plenty of gameplay reasons to be excited for Fai and Iyslander, but the most glamorous pulls all belong to Dromai.

Ultimately, is this a big problem for the game? Probably not. We're talking about variants here- there shouldn't be any impact on the actual ability for anyone to play Dromai or access her full card pool. These valuable cards are collectibles, and whether or not you play Illusionist should have no bearing on what high-value cards you hold in your vault- or display in your game room. In the end, anything that adds value to the box you're opening is a good thing.

And if you're wondering why Illusionist? Some will say it's James White's personal bias, but I'm going to advocate for a narrative basis for the choice to cram premium extended art cards into the class. The Illusionist class is thematically about presenting overwhelming apparitions that mask the hero's mundane combat prowess. Dromai's ash-formed dragons are massive, and extended art cards showcase that. Prism's heralds are shining visions of celestial beings, and extended foils replicate that. The same treatment simply isn't merited for Bravo's punches or Azalea's arrows. It's uniquely representative of the class theme.

Despite being playable only in Illusionist decks, I think everyone will be able to enjoy these premium cards and the gorgeous art they showcase. I just hope that, moving forward, we begin to see equally breathtaking variants for other classes.

Before we get into Uprising and its new meta, we wanted to launch a new section of the Rathe Times specifically for new players. You'll find Player Guides listed in the navigation bar. It's a new page on the site that links directly to essential articles, important information, and the complete FAB101 series, which introduces the heroes of the Classic Constructed format and the core mechanics of their classes. We hope this new area becomes a convenient reference point, and a first stop for new players.