Aegis is a battle skill that reads as follows:
“Aegis protects a unit or player from one enemy spell or effect. It doesn’t block friendly effects, nor does it stop battle damage from Killer attacks, Relic Weapons, or normal attacking and blocking.”
Put very simply, if you want to use spells or abilities to destroy a unit with Aegis, you will need to use two of them.
As with Magic: The Gathering, one of Eternal’s core principals is card advantage, meaning you want to force your opponent to dedicate two (or, even better, more) cards to dealing with one of yours. Obviously, if an opponent is using two cards to answer every one of your cards, they will run out of resources first, and, very often, lose.
If you are playing against a control deck that plans to target each of your units with kill spells and then take over the late-game, units with Aegis really throw a wrench in that plan. The Shadow faction’s strategy is built around exactly this type of 1-for-1 trading of a removal spell for a creature.
As units with Aegis (and spells that give units Aegis) have become more ubiquitous, Shadow-based control decks have continued to be pushed out of the competitive metagame. Enter ‘Into Shadow’ and five powerful new Shadow spells that that are already shaking-up Eternal’s ranked ladder.
As spoilers for the new campaign began, Vara, Vengeance-Seeker seemed like the frontrunner for the most powerful new card.
Her ability to prevent Aegis had the potential to address this major issue for Shadow, and her low cost and Lifesteal (gaining the player life whenever she deals combat damage) had implications for approaching the most aggressive match-ups as well.
So far, Vara seems to be doing her job, and she is finding a home in several different shadow-based archetypes.
Less flashy Last Chance and Shakedown are also seeing play - the former in more combo-centric shells and the latter in control - and Eremot,the Gathering Dark seems like a fun option against the various unit-light control decks.
The Shadow card that has me the most excited, however, is Azindel, Revealed.
This massive unit absolutely takes over games, and, if you have units ready to attack on the turn he comes down, you can take advantage of his ability immediately without needing him to survive until your next turn.
Shadow was in desperate need of a finisher as strong as Icaria, the Liberator to close games, and they have found it in Azindel.
Will these cards dethrone the onslaught of Aegis units that have been plaguing battlefields? I am skeptical, but they have certainly put several new decks in contention and jostled a metagame that was beginning to look quite stale.
Dire Wolf Digital has once again shown what makes Eternal one of the best digital CCG’s available, and I am very much looking forward to seeing how things shakeout.
‘Into Shadow’ is available for 25,000 in-game gold (acquired from winning matches) or 2,000 gems ($20 USD). Full patch notes are available here.
