Realmstone Raiders
Welcome to our rundown of Realmstone Raiders. Make sure you catch our podcast coverage of the release. For everything out with this release window, follow these links:
Thanks go to GW for providing a review copy to make this content possible.
Introduction
[D]AVY, [P]HIL, [B]RIAN, & [S]KYLER
P: Raiding Realmstone is, from what I understand, kind of a big deal in Aqshy. Lets see if the obsession with glowing rocks is worth the risk of fighting in Embergard!
P:A very neat idea for a plot. Being limited to keeping only Emberstone cards when you raid makes for some awkward choices in nemesis though. Also, it is fair to note how much potential information you will be giving your opponent. If they know you just put a push or a confusion on the bottom of your deck they can make some very different plays. Another thing to keep in mind is that you cannot raid against fighters with zero bounty, so raised warbands, and some other outliers, can really stymie your ability to keep raiding. Overall, I like this design space. Deck manipulation is powerful in card games and we have not seen it used much in Underworlds before.
D: Important trivia: There are six Emberstone ploys and six Emberstone upgrades. Bear that in mind as you read through the objectives.
Objectives
P: Even in Rivals this is anything but a sure bet. The chances of actually hitting an Emberstone power card after raiding with a 3+ dice attack are not good.
D: If you know you have an Emberstone card top-decked (for instance, maybe you already raided) then this is just succeeding with a three dice attack. The real cost is how much did it cost your deck building efforts to put enough Emberstone in to make this feel reliable. Consider copy-pasting that last sentence into, like every surge in this deck.
P: The 2 glory payout certainly has my attention. Raiding twice shouldn't be too tough if you're making melee attacks whenever possible, but keeping all enemies out of your territory might be too much. The nice saving grace here is that it doesn't say raiding after an attack so power cards can help score this late in the game, but I still wouldn't want to rely on that option.
D: Excitement! Raiding that isn't tied to Emberstone! That's just a single successful melee attack against a two bounty fighter. But man... everyone is all up in enemy territory these days. I don't think you can run this.
P: Similar to Sure Bet, this is going to be a low chance to happen. I guess you could stack your deck to know your next raid will be the right kind of card, but then you are needing to have already raided at least once to set this up.
D: So this is a substantially harder Critical Effort. That card just needs a crit. This needs a crit, a successful attack (to raid) and pulling the right card.
P: Wow, I don't like this one in nemesis. This essentially says you need more than half your power deck to be Emberstone cards to stand a chance of raiding 4 unique cards. This will also become harder as the game progresses since the cards in your deck to raid will get smaller and smaller.
D: Oh noooooo. That is rough. And extra book keeping. That's gonna be a hard no from me, bro.
P: If you have 2 or more bounty values in your warband then this card is probably playable, even if not amazing. There is some luck involved in having the right number near the right fighter, but for 2 glory I still like the concept. Raised fighters can't score this so death warbands may need to leave this at home.
D: Where did this come from? There's some oddball warbands like Zikkit that have lots of different bounty values. Just... there isn't much of this in the deck.
P: Uhg. Getting the attack on a fighter on a treasure is likely, but not guaranteed. But now you also have to hope you hit an Emberstone card when you raided on that specific attack? Not interested personally.
D: And more book-keeping. Boo.
P: Gaahhh. Raiding is tied to enemy bounty so this can be dead before the game even starts. There is 1 power card to help this but I don't feel that is enough to feel good taking this card.
D: Plus you have to hit just the right number of Emberstone. Eesh.
P: A more difficult Looted Realmstone. Yuck.
D: I think this feels especially rough when there's cards like Get Stuck In out and about. You could understand having some drag in the objectives if the Emberstone power cards were hot fire, but...
P: Similar to the other Emberstone cards I'm not sure you can take this in nemesis. There are 12 potential power cards to trigger this and I don't know that you would actually want them all. Combine with the fact you may not have the spare glory for the upgrades and things could get rather tricky to line up.
D: I think the other issue is that by using the Emberstone Ploy or Upgrade ability, you're thinning your deck of Emberstone cards, which is something to keep in mind. Helpful if you're digging, but it actually hurts a number of your other objectives.
P: My reading of this is you need to raid 3 or more times and you need to raid with more than one fighter. This should be pretty reliable given you don't need to raid Emberstone cards. I like this one, 2 glory for attacking like you wanted to is pretty solid. However, if this requires 3 different fighters raiding it is a different story and becomes pretty difficult.
D: I can get on board, especially if it's just needing two or more fighters. I wish it was a little more clearly written.
P: Again, this comes down to saturation of Emberstone cards. If you run the majority of your power deck with them this is probably alright. If not, you are gambling.
D: This forces some weird situations too- like if you're holding this, or playing towards drawing it, any time you see an Emberstone card when you raid, you have to bottom deck it to keep this viable, since this is busted as soon as you raid the same Emberstone card twice.
P: Either you need to delve away a lot of treasure to make this more reliable, or have a huge amount of realmstone cards to guarantee hitting. Thankfully, they don't need to be unique realmstone cards. But if you need to raid 5 times you better hope your opponent has multiple big fighters you want to hit or you have power card support to raid. I think if this can be 2-3 raided cards you might have a decent end phase.
D: If you're pairing with Pillage and Plunder, you're hopefully making progress towards this anyways. In practice, I've actually found this kind of hard. Our understanding is that these don't have to be *different* Emberstone cards, which can accelerate how scoreable this one is.
Ploys
P: I don't think this is it. If you are bringing this deck you are likely a very melee oriented warband. Getting one shot at raiding from range probably doesn't really move the needle.
D: Not making the cut for Nemesis. Gives a little more flex for warband pairing in Rivals.
P: While I like having some options to raid from power cards this feels like an awful lot of hoops to jump through for raiding 1-2 times most likely.
D: I count five objectives that care about raiding, but don't need it to be an attack. A couple of those are pretty big duds, so I agree with Phil. It's a lot of setup for that payoff.
P: Solid push! Not sure how often I want this to trigger from raiding but I guess it could be overrun insurance?
D: Pushing closer to any enemy fighter can be pretty darn flexible. Like many of the Emberstone cards, using the Emberstone Ploy or Upgrade ability during its window (immediately after an attack) is often sub-optimal. But there's a lot of ways to get value from a push. There's times you'll wish it was Sidestep, but not bad at all.
P: Symmetrical pings are a good balancing tool so I'm happy with this. Unsure that it needed the caveat of adjacent and not vulnerable but I'll take cautiously designed pings over scary guaranteed damage.
D: Jaws can inspire off this and even get rid of snakes that are keeping you from being charged out. Real solid. But not Emberstone.
P: Man this kind of effect can be brutal against melee fighters. If you are hoping to raid into this I believe you will need to choose not to drive them back though.
D: Situationally boss. Back breaking under the right circumstances.
P: Perhaps in line for worst named card! The ability to go on guard with a fighter who hasn't moved yet has it's place, but probably only for decks that want to hold? Prepping for a counter punch can be decent though.
D: There's a lot of weird names in here. I'm starting to think I'll be happy to leave Angry Aqshy if for no other reason than I'm getting a little Rage fatigue. It is one of the more restricted Guard cards out there, but some warbands are going to love this one.
P: Absolutely brutal! If your opponent has exact damage lined up you get to surprise them with saving your fighter! You can also guarantee you don't get driven back which is also clutch in some games. Powerful card.
D: Amazing. Like... a good enough card that it'll make me think if I can make this deck work in pairings when I shouldn't.
P: An okay accuracy boost. Can't be upset with this one.
D: Yeah. Again, timing is not great with the Emberstone Ploy ability because your opponent has maximum time to react, but just fine. Plus an early stagger can help cascade more raids.
P: Assuming you are running any amount of raid cards that require hitting Emberstone, I think you need this card to help the odds. If you only run a couple of raid objectives and they don't check for Emberstone then this probably isn't worth the slot.
D: This is functionally a little weird. Raiding usually means, raid one card at a time per bounty of the attacked fighter. Have this out, and a three bounty fighter will show you six cards. Also... a domain. So.. there's counterplay to Explosive Charges? I guess?
P: Very interesting card. I know there are times where I'd have been very happy to see this, however any time your hand is good this card is dead, so a bit hard to decide if it can make the cut.
D: I think in the current deck building environment, it's often difficult to build an objective deck that's silky smooth Rounds 1-3. This is one I was lukewarm on, but every time I've drawn it, I've found some use for it.
Upgrades
P: A failed attack insurance policy that only works for fighters with 2+ damage... I struggle to see this being worth 2 glory. I'm sure there are times that you'd feel happy knowing you had this, I'm just failing to imagine them right now.
D: I mean, I can imagine those times, but the opportunity cost for including this over something more functional is high. I don't know if there's a meta scenario where trying to push damage through on high defense becomes more important?
P: Healing your heavy hitters is nice. Even if you never have damage on your fighter, it is still great to know you have an opportunity to heal when you need to.
D: I somehow thought this needed to be a tie too. I'm much more on board with this one.
P: If you have raided and stacked your deck this could be nice to grab the card you need. However, if you don't know what you are drawing then a 1 to 1 power card replacement isn't great, especially when you had to play this as an upgrade first and then land a hit. Probably would be busted if the upgrade didn't break though so I guess it has to be this way.
D: I think with it refunding it's own glory, it's pure deck thinning. I don't hate it. And it's Emberstone. In my test though, anyone who received this card either immediately died or forgot how to hit anything. So... no guarantees in life.
P: Really? 2 glory to equip this? Sure, it has a decent shot at being pretty accurate but for 1 damage I'm not sure it is worth the effort.
D: Yow. I feel like a lot of these Emberstone Upgrades are getting priced up because of being Emberstone? I'd consider it at 2 damage... maybe.
P: Among the Emberstone ploys, there are a couple I'd want to play multiple times, but the timing is kind of awkward for when you'd want to have this upgrade to play.
D: Pulling back a push, guard, or move token control card all seem great. Slight flashbacks to Malevolent Masks.
P: Great Fortitude is always nice, too bad it isn't Emberstone. But, I guess they figured it would be too good?
D: Great Fort continues its quest to be the most printed card in 2e.
P: Also always solid. I have found this card to be clutch in second edition because of it being 0 glory to equip.
D: Can't argue with that. Plus if it gets you in range for another swing of the axe, you've got more chance to raid.
P: Same thing as Great Fortitude.
D: Hi Gorl. Come back soon.
P: And we get the whole suite of stat boosts! That is very nice, but does make for some limited options in certain Nemesis pairings.
D: It's weird, because these are great, and also likely to get forced to the bottom of the deck, especially in Rivals.
P: Unlike Forgotten Fortune, I don't think there are enough Emberstone upgrades I'd want to play a second time to justify including this card.
D: You bring back Forgotten Fortune so you can use the same ploy three times! Galaxy Raid brain.
Summary
P: I for one am happy to leave the mad mining to others. I love pushing the boundaries of Underworlds and trying new mechanics, and I hope GW keeps it up. However, the balance seems off on this one. I think this needed more bake time to really figure out how best to utilize an admittedly powerful concept of getting to filter through your power deck. I’m sure I’ll tinker with this one a bit just for the challenge, but I’ll probably end up leaving this for smarter, or madder, brewers to unlock.