The Arrival and Departure of Black Moonbeam
Introduction
So with the coming of the new Reiya cluster starter decks,
we’ll soon be seeing Alice Cluster rotate out of New Frontier. For those not in the know, New Frontier is
the typical format most people play in Force of Will, which always involves the
two most recent clusters. In this case,
Reiya Cluster is coming in with the five new starter decks, everything from
Lapis Cluster is sticking around, and Alice Cluster is heading out.
But with that aside, every rotation is impacted not just by
the new cards but also by the cards that leave, some of which are incredibly
defining to how the game is played.
Among the many important cards that came out in Alice Cluster, one of
the biggest is Black Moonbeam, both in the direction it pushed
the game when it arrived on scene and what will happen to the game now that
it’s heading out. I’d like to talk about
both of those events.
The Waxing of the Black Moon
In Battle for Attoractia, a new, game changing card was
released: Black Moonbeam. Black Moonbeam
is a very simple but dramatically powerful card for the sole reason that it can
single handedly set back or take down an entire chunk of the game, J-Rulers. See, unlike any card before it, it was able
to destroy J-Rulers at any time instead of just during your own main phase,
meaning that swiftness on J-Rulers was no longer a reliable to getting through
damage as a good control deck could just sit back hold up this card to shut
down most aggression.
In addition to that, it has the “can’t be chased” clause,
which essentially means that players cannot do anything in response to this
card. No playing quickcast cards in
response, no playing activated abilities in response. If Black Moonbeam was played, it was
probably going to resolve. There were a
few exceptions to this, the biggest of which was Wind-Secluded Refuge, which
got around that issue by automatically canceling the spell. However, that still served to force J-Ruler
decks into wind and dramatically slowed down the game plan by forcing them to
dig around the deck for a copy of Wind-Secluded Refuge and play it down first
before going to judgment.
The effect it had the game was dramatic to say the
least. Alice Cluster had been primarily
focused on building up J-Rulers as powerful, game ending threats that could be
powered up further with the use of regalia and that came to a shattering end as
games were slowed way down by a single card that you had to play around or lose
to. Suddenly J-Rulers were far and few
in between in the game, with strategies shifting towards using the front sides
of Rulers to avoid simply outright losing to Black Moonbeam.
The Waning of the Black Moon
That said, strategies did eventually adjust around Black Moonbeam. New decks sprang up with the coming of Lapis Cluster, still largely focusing on the front sides of Rulers. Fiethsing was likely the most notable, playing the Turbo Gwiber deck that managed to menace tournaments for a long while with her efficient 1200/1200 fliers while never bothering with flipping over. However, other options also crept up, such as Mikage, who dealt with Black Moonbeam by still largely focusing on using his front side to build up blood counters and then flipping over to deal 4000 damage in a single go. Notably, he had imperishable, which also kept Black Moonbeam from permanently killing him.
Other major rulers to pop up included Lilias Petal,
Lumia,
Gill Alhama’at, Pricia, and Yggdrasil.
Out of the five of them, Lumia, Gill Alhama’at, and Yggdrasil all either
constantly stayed on their front side or only had a front side, thereby
avoiding the whole issue of Black Moonbeam altogether. Lilias Petal was unique in that his backside
had the text, “This card cannot be destroyed.” Thus getting around the whole
Black Moonbeam issue all together. The
one card to buck the trend of Black Moonbeam immunity was Pricia, who instead
offered the far more extreme solution of being able to judgment and win before
Black Moonbeam was ever a threat by using Laevateinn
and her God’s Art ability to attack twice in a turn. For better or worse, Black Moonbeam had the
trait “Ancient Magic”, meaning that Alhama’at was still able to keep up with
her pace by using his mana counters to play it whenever he chose.
Regardless, you’re seeing the pattern here, despite Black
Moonbeam’s usefulness dropping off overtime, it was still a major shadow upon
the game, forcing many out of a large number of strategies that required
relying on your J-Ruler staying alive.
Now with Alice Cluster rotating out and Black Moonbeam going with it,
let’s have a look at some of the J-Rulers from Lapis cluster that may not have
had a chance to shine until now.
The New Faces
Faria, by far, has the most to gain out of Black Moonbeam
sliding on out. From the get go, it was
obvious she was weakened by the card. The
card encourages you to get to the J-Ruler side quickly by giving you a stone
when you judgment her and even has ways to protect herself with her God’s Art
that gives her barrier for free. Sadly,
due to the “can’t be chased” clause on Black Moonbeam, the God’s Art was
useless against it. Now though, she
takes at least two cards to kill and is surprisingly durable in combat due to
her ability to use inheritance for free, essentially giving her free stat
boosts.
What’s even better is that her strategy has improved over
the course of Lapis Cluster. What was
originally just a deck focused on pushing Faria through can now invest in a
variety of tools to push damage through your opponent’s defenses. One of the most unassuming ones was Light Dragon’s
Egg. It fits the bill
perfectly, it’s a resonator so it can be found using Faria’s Summon
and its inheritance ability puts a flying resonator on the field. This is important since it lets Faria put an
evasive resonator on the field on the opponent’s turn for free and then attack
with it next turn, complete with boosted stats from another inheritance
resonator.
Add in cards like Divine Bird of Attoractia, which can be used as a
cheap inheritance for cards like Divine Beast of Attoractia, evasive and efficient
attackers that can be boosted, or just a simple blocker that can draw a card
means that Faria’s no longer going to have to worry as much about sliding
through the opponent’s defense. Granted,
she’s still able muscle that push through regardless.
Another big winner has been Gill Lapis. In his standard attributes, fire and
darkness, there’s no card he can rely upon to protect him from Black Moonbeam
aside from discard and even that won’t help against drawing it or even
searching it out with a card like Rune of Sol.
Despite this, much of what Gill Lapis does relies on him surviving on
his J-Ruler side to reap the benefits of the many cards he’s removed from the
game up to that point.
As a result, the deck had to rely on using light a lot of
the time as not only did that give him access to Barrier Seal,
which helped keep the opponent’s pile of removed from game cards large, it also
gave him access to cards like Ryula, Alabaster Dragon Princess, which could
bring him back if Black Moonbeam hit him.
Unfortunately, Lapis’s biggest weakness is still his lack of draw as all
of the attributes that give a lot of draw are out of his realm, meaning
grabbing Ryula’s not always possible.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to worry about Black Moonbeam
anymore. Unfortunately, there’s still
other cards to worry about, such as Erasure and Lumia’s
Purification. Fortunately
again, thanks to Gill Lapis, Usurper of Maddening Power, he can
now easily pick up cards like Magic Sweets to keep himself alive and able to
keep reaping those removed from game cards.
Of course, several of the new rulers from Echoes of the New
World come with their own ways to survive.
Flute’s arguably the most straightforward, just pay three will to return
her back to her front side, thereby keeping her safe from any sort of J-Ruler
removal. This wasn’t possible with Black
Moonbeam, again, due to the “can’t be chased” clause but now there’s an
emphasis on when it’s safe to judgment her and how much will to have available
in case of problems. It essentially
encourages thinking more economically instead of just waiting for a
Wind-Secluded Refuge to show up.
Adelbert’s a tad more complicated but so long as you have a
quickcast wind resonator on hand, you can save him from just about any kind of
incoming removal by granting him barrier.
The most obvious pick is Schehezarde, Speaker of Yet Unknown Truths due to
her race as a Wanderer fitting in with Adelbert’s theme. Less wind will intensive though are cards
like Fiethsing,
the Fate Spinning Winds and Sorceress of Heavenly Wind, Melfee. Unlike with Flute, Adelbert encourages more
of a board building strategy where you steadily accrue not just a powerful
J-Ruler but many resonators at the same time, avoiding the usual pitfall of
using just your J-Ruler and getting blocked out every turn.
Diversity is Good
Those are just some notable examples. There’s plenty of other rulers that would
love to judgment in Lapis cluster, such as Fiethsing,
Master Magus of Holy Wind with the stat boosts she gives her elves, Zero, Master of
the Magic Saber who no longer needs to focus her entire game plan on
keeping her Familiar
alive, or even Mars, Dark Commander of Fire who can now flip,
deal 2000 damage using Invitation of Disaster and stay pushing the
offensive without worrying about getting randomly killed off without any
fanfare.
I don’t doubt in my mind that there will be plenty more
cards in the game that will be designed to fight back against J-Ruler oriented
strategies, after all, every strategy needs counter strategies, but without
Black Moonbeam around, there’s a whole dimension to the game back involving
choosing when to push your J-Ruler into the fray. Even that has consequences to it, including
the simple fact of having to decide to attack or call stones and the more
choices players have, the better. This
opens up so many different ways of dealing with threats to J-Rulers without
forcing everyone to run a single card like Wind-Secluded Refuge.
In short, having threats to J-Rulers that can be chased is a
good thing, as that means more opportunities for interactions between players
and, more importantly, letting people play their J-Rulers and keep them on the
field for an extended period of time.
And if nothing else, J-Rulers are one of the most defining aspects of
this game.
-Usht