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Arsonist
Reviewed May 03, 2007
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Duncan
Wilson |
Alright, I'm
back, and I've got another review, this time for
the Chrysotic Plague piece Arsonist. I got
nothing for fun background stuff, other than to
say that he is VERY on fire, so let's go right
to the fig.
He's an uncommon, costs 6M, 2 power, 5 def, 11
life, and has 'Unmake' for one blade, which
banishes a enemy's local or adjacent location to
his reserves.
I'm not totally sure about him, to be honest. I
think he'd be a great thing to have on your
sideboard if Dreamblade did sideboards. He's mid
range, but his power is very lacking at just 2.
He still compares pretty favourably to the
Slaughter Boots, my baseline for location
destruction, being 2 spawn cheaper, giving up 4
power for a little more staying power, a lot
more survivability, and location destruction
that's more reliable (both for being only a
single blade and not taking out your own
locations), but not permanent. Strictly
speaking, the Slaughter Boots and the Arsonist
have the same 1 in 3 chance to activate their
abilities on their own, though the Arsonist
obviously gets easier to activate significantly
faster as dice are added. But only 2 power and
having such a limited ability gives me pause.
To a large degree, it's the fact that it only
banishes instead of destroying that worries me.
Unmake is still useful, because it means if your
opponent rudely put his Arch of Triumph in the
center cell where you wanted a Heartsblood
Temple, you have a chance - but only if you win
the next spawn phase - to make sure your Temple
goes down where it's supposed to. Making your
opponent lose tempo is pretty nice too,
particularily if he keeps putting his locations
down and you keep banishing them, which the
Arsonist is pretty good at, with a fairly easy
to disrupt but hard to kill 5/11. Compared to
the Slaughter Boots, the Arsonist is nearly a
tank. That you can hit adjacent locations means
he cares about being disrupted one move less.
But the fact that it's only banish means if he
gets killed or is constantly pushed out, those
buildings he burned to the ground are coming
right back up.
Overall, I think he could be useful and I'll be
comparing future location destruction to him.
There are a few locations that see a lot of
play, and if he's in the fight, even if the
frontlines aren't on the location you need to
get rid of, that location is going down. And
given that a lot of the most important
locations, like Pearlthorn, Heartsblood, and the
Arch work their magic in the spawn phase, your
opponent needs to consider spending spawn on
that location he could be spending on creatures
at a potentially critical part of the game. But
that 2 power practically makes him ONLY good for
location bouncing, and makes him need a hand to
do that reliably. If you play against a lot of
locations, and feel you're rolling enough dice
already, see how you like having a pyromaniac
around. Just remember that he needs someone to
light the place up after he drenches it in gas.
Duncan Wilson (vorebane PLACE hotmail
ENDOFSENTENCE com) vorebane on the pojo forums |
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