- 50% mana start for Dragons finally coming Mon May 17th on troop Essencia. Unfortunately, the troop this is on is straight garbage. It summons 1-3 Dragon Spirits and explodes 10 gems IF you have a Dragon Spirit on your team (already, before the ability). It also summons a Lightstorm at the start of battle. I would much rather have a Firestorm, but a Lightstorm pairs quite well with Ishtara or Divinia. However, the ability itself is just awful. If you aren’t running Dragon Spirit, and you haven’t lost any troops, Essencia does nothing. LITERALLY. There aren’t many, if any, troops that literally do nothing when you cast their ability, but this is one of them, because the first part of the ability tries to summon troops (which you obviously don’t need to do unless you’ve lost troops), and the second part only explodes gems if you have that troop on your team. Not only that, but let’s say you start the game without Dragon Spirit, but with Essencia for the 50% mana start. You lose a troop. Now you cast Essencia. What happens? It summons a Dragon Spirit and explodes ZERO gems, because a Dragon Spirit wasn’t already on your team. Truly one of the worst troops I’ve ever seen and I’m going to go so far as to say that it’s worth just not even using this for the 50% mana start. You’re better off using a troop that actually does something.
- Dragon Spirit itself isn’t anything special. It does basic Magic+8 scatter damage with a 75% chance to Enchant all Allies (similar to Demetraxia which deals Magic+9 scatter damage and 75% chance to burn all enemies, and Venbarak which deals Magic+3 damage to all enemies with a 75% chance to disease all enemies). There are many troops that enchant all allies: Mistralus on 4+ matches, Holy St. Astra enchants all humans, Medea enchants all Daemons, etc.
- Lycanthropy starts showing up on troops: 50% chance to convert purple gem to a lycanthropy gem at start of turn. Because the trait is literally called Lycanthropy, I’m guessing we won’t see other traits with similar functions but different mana colors.
- Lots of troops also with abilities that are boosted or have conditional effects based on number of lycantrophy gems.
- Next Mythic, Vernalis, on June 4th entangles and Faerie Fires a random enemy when matching green gems. This is a straight up better version of mythic Yasmine’s Chosen’s trait which only entangles a random enemy when matching green gems. However, Yasmine’s Chosen deals scatter damage and can easily loop (creates 10 green gems). This upcoming mythic gives Magic+3 attack to first 2 allies, then Magic+3 life to the 2 weakest allies, then 10 Magic to the 2 strongest allies. So it doesn’t create any gems or do any damage. It’s a support troop, in the most accurate sense. In that case, I think it’s appropriate that its trait is better than Yasmine’s Chosen, because Yasmine’s Chosen creates the same color gem that she needs to activate her trait. If Yasmine’s Chosen also fairie fired enemies on green matches, she would be quite overpowered I believe.
- Next Delve team is all about them skull matches. Two of the troops deal double skull damage to burning enemies. Two of them summon Hellstorms (red+purple I believe). One of them creates red/purple gems and curse/burn first enemy. The mlegendary deals damage to random enemies and curse/burn random enemy on 4+ gem matches. Now for the drawbacks… the troop with double skull damage to burning enemies is also the troop with immunity to burning. The other troop with double skull damage to burning enemies has Infernal Armor (reflects 25% skull damage). It gains Attack and Life with its ability. It isn’t immune to burning. So… of course we’d want to put this troop in first slot, because it can give itself more attack and heal a bit. However, it’s going to take the most damage from mirror comps because once it’s burning, it will take double skull damage. Conversely, we could use the other troop that deals double skull damage because it’s immune to burning, but it can’t gain attack/life. And then there’s yet another troop that has a 20% dodge chance. I never understood these. No one is going to put this one in front. It doesn’t do double damage to burning enemies. It can’t gain any attack/life. It isn’t immune to burning. So you basically have a 20% chance to survive a massive hit and otherwise you’re toast.
- There’s a new Adana human troop coming out on June 14th that supports mechs. It gives Magic+1 Armor to the first 2 allies, then explodes 2 gems plus 1 more for each Ally and Enemy mech. Then there are her baffling traits. Trait #2 is Invention: Gain 2 Armor on 4+ Gem matches. Trait #3 (which costs more than Trait #2, as it is…), is Repair: Gain 1 Armor on 4+ gem matches. Uh, what? I’m pretty sure these should be the other way around. Invention gives twice as much armor on 4+ matches, but it’s the second talent instead of the third.
- Sister of Nightmares is the next bounty troop and it actually looks like a fun one! She deals Magic+2 Damage to the last 2 enemies, then inflicts a random status to them, then poisons them. Of course it would suck if the random status was a poison, since poison doesn’t wear off and doesn’t stack. She has the Swift trait which starts her at 75% mana. She also has some firsts: she’s the first Rogue bounty troop and the first Darkstone bounty troop. She’s also the second Purple/Green bounty troop (after Agave, which no one uses). And she’s the 14th Striker bounty troop, woohoo! (We still have no Assassin or Mage bounty troops, and only 1 Warlock, 1 Warrior, and 2 Defenders… meanwhile 11 Generators and 13 Strikers, 4 Support, and 4 Warmaster.) I will definitely use her though (and not just because she’ll be the captain), because she deals damage to two enemies. No other bounty troops do that (the closest to double anything is Half-Mane which deals double damage if the enemy attack is higher).
- Legendary Beast/Monster, The Werestag, comes out on June 21st, and has the trait “Moon Fever” which inflicts Lycanthropy on a random enemy on 4+ matches.
- The next Mythic after the next one comes out on July 2nd: Mithrilion. It’s a Construct Defender. It explodes a 3x3 Block, then gains Magicx1.5 +1 Armor. Then it Barriers a random ally for every skull destroyed. It has the talent Insane Growth (5 to a random skill on 4+ matches) as its first talent (Insane Growth is the final talent on the mythic ‘The Worldbreaker’), 50% spell reduction on its second talent, and a NEW talent, Mithril Armor, as its third: Reflect 75% of Skull damage. Of course, it isn’t immune to stun, so it’s basically useless. Anything that inflicts Stun when attacking will bypass it. Other than that though, it’s pretty good. It can’t have Fortitude, even though it’s from Khaziel, because it isn’t a Dwarf. I would have greatly preferred to seen some kind of immunity to stun though instead of Insane Growth.
- The next bounty troop after Sister of Nightmares is Ice Orca. It will be the first bounty troop from Glacial Peaks, but it will also be the third Green/Blue bounty troop, the 7th elemental, and the 17th Beast. Yes, the 17th Beast. It will also be the 15th Striker. It’s pretty interesting though. It deals Magic+2 Damage to the last enemy and freezes them, but if they’re already frozen, it has a 20% chance to devour them. The interesting part is that it has Ice Armor (65% Skull damage reduction). The existing bounty ‘tanks’ are Ogress and Crysturtle which have 50%.
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