(!) Spoiler Alert (!) -- [Any Details Provided are Subject to Change] (Part 1)

Troop spoilers:

  1. Ankhnum: 1x boost ratio to 2x

Night Spider (Ultra-Rare)

Does whatever a Night Spider can…

Arcane: Venom
Base Rarity: Ultra-Rare
Troop Type: Beast, Rogue
Troop Role: Generator

Midnight Poison
Create 3 Blue Gems and 3 Purple Gems, boosted by Rogue Allies. Poison a random Enemy. [3x]

Mana Color: Green, Purple
Mana Cost: 13

Trait #1: Rogue Bond
Allied Rogues gain 2 Life.

Trait #2: Venomous
Poison enemies when doing Skull damage.

Trait #3: Stealthy
Cannot be targeted by spells (unless there are no other targets).

Will anyone actually use it? probably not. However, it can make up to 15 purple gems and 15 blue gems which is a lot. Stonehammer makes a mix of 22 gems for reference. Self-loops on the purple and has half mana start with Captain Macaw, which is blue.

NUTCRKR 1225 (Legendary)

He’s suite.
Friday
Dec 25, 2020

Arcane: Shield
Base Rarity: Legendary
Troop Type: Mech, Knight
Troop Role: Generator

Crack Those Nuts
Eliminate all Armor from an Enemy. Explode all Gems of the Enemy’s Colors. Then explode all Stone Blocks.

Mana Color: Blue, Brown
Mana Cost: 16

Trait #1: Mech Shield
Allied Mechs gain 2 Armor.

Trait #2: Impervious
Immune to all Status Effects, Devour, and Mana Burn.

Trait #3: Armor Supply
Give 4 Armor to all Mechs when matching 4 or more Gems.

If the Ghost Queen was a Halloween treat on the Adventure Board, this may be the same thing for Christmas.

It eliminates all armor from an Enemy and explodes gems. Strong looping combo. Then explode all Stone Blocks. is quite an interesting additional effect. Too bad Stone Blocks aren’t in the main gameplay. Would this explode first, fix the board, then explode the Stone Blocks? Could a player even rig the board with Stone Blocks to do anything?

It needs its art, so the next Update has to be before Christmas. They wouldn’t want a new Update during Christmas either, so maybe a week or two before.

3rd Trait is good for this troop. Part of me wishes this had Aegis Armor so I can slot it upfront like a Gorgotha. Still I think this troop is very useable and I do like it a lot, though I would like to see it as a front slot viable troop.

The Labyrinth faction troops: probably the most uninspired faction yet

Horned Guardian
Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.

Arcane: Beast
Base Rarity: Rare
Troop Type: Tauros, Construct
Troop Role: Defender

Guard the Maze
Gain [Magic + 1] Armor and Barrier. Then knock a random Enemy to the back.

Mana Color: Green, Red
Mana Cost: 11

Trait #1: Deep Shield
Gain 9 Armor when attacking Delves.

Trait #2: Thick Head
Immunity to Stun.

Trait #3: Stoneskin
Reduce damage from Skulls by 50%.

Can’t even do its job as a generic first slot since it’ll get knocked around.

Rhinotaur
He always gets his point across… in the end.

Arcane: Forest
Base Rarity: Ultra-Rare
Troop Type: Tauros, Wildfolk
Troop Role: Generator

Maddening Charge
Explode either a row or Column. Then knock the last Enemy to the front.

Mana Color: Green, Brown
Mana Cost: 13

Trait #1: Deep Vitality
Gain 9 Life when attacking Delves.

Trait #2: Bloodlust
Become Enraged when enemy dies.

Trait #3: Thick Hide
Reduce damage from Skulls by 20%.

Exploding a Row or a Column at random provides very little mana and the randomness of the explosion will cause backfires. Weak.

Mechataur
You can’t ride this mechanical bull.

Arcane: Storm
Base Rarity: Epic
Troop Type: Tauros, Mech
Troop Role: Warrior

Grinding Bellow
Deal [Magic + 3] splash damage to an Enemy, boosted my Armor. There are independent 30% chances to Silence each affected Enemy. [3:1]

Mana Color: Red, Yellow
Mana Cost: 13

Trait #1: Deep Shield
Gain 9 Armor when attacking Delves.

Trait #2: Invention
Gain 2 Armor on 4 or 5 Gem matches.

Trait #3: Armored
Reduce damage from Skulls by 25%.

The only real damage source. 180 armor with a boost ratio of 3:1 is only 60 extra damage and the only real way to boost this troops armor in this faction is a 2nd trait that gives 2 armor on 4/5 match.

Anyone get the feeling that paying for potions will win this faction for you?

King Minos
A formida-bull foe.

Arcane: Swamp
Base Rarity: Legendary
Troop Type: Tauros

Aerial Charge
Deal [Magic + 4] heavy splash damage to an Enemy. Stun all Enemies affected. Then jumble of the Enemy team.

Mana Color: Blue, Green
Mana Cost: 16

Trait #1: Deep Vitality
Gain 9 Life when attacking Delves.

Trait #2: Greedy
Gain 2 bonus Gold on 4 or 5 Gem matches.

Trait #3: Maze Master
Give 50% Mana to all Tauros Allies when battle begins.

Neritar put it best earlier:

The troop itself is very disappointing. The effect is a weak version of Tian Yi or the hero’s Orc King’s Club with a jumble the enemy team. This faction feels so rushed.

Kharybdis (Legendary)

Arcane: Blood
Base Rarity: Legendary
Troop Type: Beast, Giant
Troop Role: Assassin

Pincer of Doom
Deal [Magic + 4] damage to the first Enemy and last Enemy. There are independent 10% chance to devour the Enemies, boosted bt +2% for each Submerged Ally and Enemy. [2x]

Mana Color: Blue, Red
Mana Cost: 17

Trait #1: Aquatic
Submerge myself when I take damage.

Trait #2: Armored
Reduce damage from Skulls by 25%.

Trait #3: Titanic
Gain 10 Life when matching 4 or more Gems.

The bt typo needs to be fixed. It has a double devour chance like Doomclaw, but its % is so low that its not worth it. You can only reliably get 16% at most, which is super underpowered. (3 submerges, 4th one should fall off on cast). Most teams don’t run Submerge, so using this troop to counter submerge is silly (and overpriced on mana cost). May as well use Mosasaurus instead.

@Neritar Help! they duplicated the 3rd trait
Behemoth’s 3rd Trait:
Trait #3: Immense
Gain 10 Life on 4 or 5 Gem matches.

Kharybdis’s 3rd Trait:
Trait #3: Titanic
Gain 10 Life when matching 4 or more Gems.

**Quetzalma** (Mythic)

Arcane: Light & Plains
Base Rarity: Mythic
Troop Type: Divine, Stryx
Troop Role: Mage

Daybreak
Deal [Magic + 20] scatter damage, boosted by a chosen Gem Color (except Yellow). Then create 10 Yellow Gems and remove all Gems of the chosen Color. [3x]

Mana Color: Green, Yellow, Purple
Mana Cost: 24

Trait #1: Stryx Bond
Allied Stryx gain 2 Life.

Trait #2: Song of Light
Summon a Lightstorm at the start of Battle.

Trait #3: Eternal Dawn
20% chance to resurrect myself with full Mana when I die.

Its basically another Yasmine’s Chosen only with more loop potential, but no status effects. Yasmine’s Chosen’s damage output falls off later in the game, so despite being very yellow friendly, its not very good at damage…

That 3rd trait… I don’t know what I think. Its useless when you’re winning. When the AI is losing, at 20% … it’ll trigger 5 times in a row. The player? probably doesn’t exist. It comes back and does… somewhat low to average damage?

If this came out two years ago, this would be exciting. Now, doing 100+ scatter damage is only about 25 damage to all enemies (split unevenly), when I could use Atlanta to hit over 40 damage to all enemies unconditionally. shrug

Its better than Zilopochtli, but does that mean anything?

The Sun (Legendary)

Draw The Sun
Give [(Magic / 2) + 1] Life to all Allies. There is a 6% chance of an extra turn for each Yellow Gem on the board. [0.17]

Mana Color: Yellow
Mana Cost: 6

Trait #1: Inscribed
Gain 1 Armor when an enemy casts a spell.

Trait #2: Revered
All allies gain 2 random Skill points.

Trait #3: Good Tarot
Grant a status effect to a random Ally when I cast a spell.

What a weird troop. Is that 6 mana cost a placeholder or its actual cost? since 6 yellow mana would actually be an interesting design. Spell isn’t significant, but extra turn chances are good and a random status effect to a random ally is also potentially useful. The Heirophant hero class specifies “Positive Status Effect”, so expect the 3rd trait text to change. Unless they mean it can give negative effects, which would be really weird for something called The Sun.

The Scourge of Honor (Mythic)

Arcane: Forest & Lava
Base Rarity: Mythic
Troop Type: Daemon, Wildfolk
Troop Role: Mage

Vermin Plague
Deal [Magic + 2] true damage to all Enemies. Gain 2 Mana back for each Cursed or Diseased Enemy. [2x]

Mana Color: Green, Red, Brown
Mana Cost: 24

Trait #1: Immortal
25% chance to resurrect after death.

Trait #2: Omen of Nature
Explode a Green Gem at the start of battle.

Trait #3: Rat Swarm
Curse and Disease a random Enemy when 4 or more Gems.

I see Curse and Disease together and already feel tired of the pairing. I look at the actual troops and its not as common together as I thought. (Nefertani does Curse and Disease on cast, Scarab of Nefertani does it to 1 enemy). We’ve gotten a lot of Curse related items lately and some Disease, so maybe that’s why I feel the way I do.

The troop will fill the quick clear low level delves on Tuesday role. Otherwise, Curse and Disease is boring. Wake me up when its Curse and Freeze, or something.

Trait #1: Immortal
25% chance to resurrect after death.

I almost missed that on the first pass. Infernal King’s 3rd trait is now a 1st trait. Oh boy.

  1. Misc stuff: 2 Leonis Empire troops that haven’t been started yet. (KP 20 to 22)

For me, the new Legendary troops are more interesting than the new Mythic troops. How does that work?

Edit: One more for the road.

Ogress (Bounty)

Knock, Knock. Who’s there?

Arcane: Forest
Base Rarity: Rare
Troop Type: Giant

Knock Knock!
Pull myself to the front and stun the first Enemy, then explode 1 random Gem, boosted by my Life. [0.1]

Mana Color: Green, Brown
Mana Cost: 12

Trait #1: Bountyhunter
Gain 2x - 6x to Bounty Score, based on my ascension.

Trait #2: Stoneskin
Reduce damage from Skulls by 50%.

Trait #3: I’ve Got A Door!
Summon a Fortress Gate when I die.

An ok Exploder (more durable than Ridgeback?) and a strange 3rd trait that summons a Fortress Gate on death lol. The stun is helpful too on skull cascades. I actually like it? maybe?

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