The card masters now play decks of their own.
Shaman Urza heals and burns, Rifleman Hilde brings rifles and cannons, Moonlight Priestess Lunara heals behind the forest's guards. The realm's tables now play the way their card masters look, and the road gets harder in steps.
Until this update, the card players of a region shared their faction's ready-made decks: meet the Badlands' three card players and you met much the same cards three times. Now 21 tables have a deck built around who sits at them, from the free Core Set and its Neutral cards, so each of those card masters plays a match of their own.
Who plays what
Innkeeper BramThe tavernHis regulars and a Dwarven cellar crew.
Wandering Bard LyraThe tavernTravellers' tales and an Elven song.
Shaman UrzaThe BadlandsHealing, burning spells and war drums.
Ogre Brute MogThe BadlandsBig bodies, with a horde behind them.
Grove Ranger FaelinThe SilverwoodArchers and swift blades, and few walls.
Moonlight Priestess LunaraThe SilverwoodHealing behind the forest's guards.
Crossbowman WrenThe CrownlandsCrossbows, ballistas and judgment.
Paladin AldricThe CrownlandsPaladins, captains and the Kingdom's walls.
Rifleman HildeThe IronpeaksRifles, cannons and gyrocopters.
Runesmith OrlaThe IronpeaksRunes, golems and engines.
Brood Mother VyrnaThe Ember PeaksHer brood, and dragonscale.
Elder Dragon MorvaxThe Ember PeaksGreat drakes and fire.
The champions build their decks around their own Legendary card: Warchief Grokka leads the horde and its swift riders, Archdruid Sylvaris brings treants, unicorns and the Tree of Life, Queen Elara the Unbroken stands behind a wall of guards, Thane Borin Ironbeard plays the whole forge and Ignaroth the Sun Dragon the whole flight. The card players around them play no Legendary at all.
Harder in steps
Every deck was tuned in the game's balance simulator, hundreds of matches per table, against the decks a player owns by the time they reach that table. The tavern is the gentle first stop. Within each region the card players come first and the champion is the hardest fight, and the champions grow from region to region, from 30 health for Warchief Grokka to 40 for Ignaroth. Archdruid Sylvaris has only 28: the Elves heal so well that she needs less to be just as hard.
Two card players keep a simple deck on purpose: Goblin Scout Snik, the first card player of the Badlands, and Ember Whelp Cinder, the first of the Ember Peaks, still play their faction's starter deck.
What the simulator taught us
Walls matter. Guard creatures make a card master far tougher: Moonlight Priestess Lunara without them was easy prey, and two Silverleaf Sentinels and two Treant Guardians turned her into a real test. Health matters at some tables and hardly at all at others, where the match is won or lost on the board long before the last points.
Meet them at their tables now, and keep an eye on them: in Rise of the Sigils, the next card set, the realm's card masters become Legendary cards themselves.
