A Curious Journey Impressions: Yuumi

A Curious Journey LoR Spoilers Day 2

Hi guys Kuivra here, today’s reveals are very exciting, a new keyword, a new champion, new broken spells, and much more!

Here are the 9 new Bandle City cards From a Curious Journey expansion:

• Yuumi(Bandle City/Targon Champion)
• Prowling Projectile(Bandle City spell)
• Assistant Librarian (Bandle City follower)
• Mushroom Ring(Bandle City/Ionia follower)
• Quick Quill(Bandle City follower)
• Papercraft Dragon( Bandle City follower)
• Rainbowfish(Bandle City follower)
• Friendship!(Bandle City spell)
• Scholarly Climber(Bandle City/Targon follower)

NEW KEYWORD: ATTACH

Keep your friends close—and your best friends closer! pic.twitter.com/wI2cxZr5BH

— Legends of Runeterra (@PlayRuneterra) February 8, 2022

The first keyword we got this set is called Attach, it reads: Play me on an ally to give it my stats and keywords while I’m attached. When that ally leaves play, recall me.

This is such an interesting and flavorful keyword for Yuumi and her followers, cards with this keyword are units that can be either summoned alone or attached to a unit that counts as a buff spell.

The twist however is that silence cards like Equinox and Hush do NOT remove the buffs provided by the attached unit, this was confirmed on Twitter by RiotAleco.

Let’s get started with Yuumi!

Yuumi

• Yummi
  • 3 Mana 2|2 Bandle City/Targon Champion
  • Round start: Grant the unit I’m attached to +1|+1. Otherwise, grant me +1|+1 instead. Level up when I or the unit I’m attached to have attacked 3+ times.
• Yuumi level 2
  • 3 Mana 3|3 Bandle City/Targon Champion
  • When I level up or Round Start: Grand the unit I’m Attached to Spellshield and +1|+1. Otherwise, grant me Spellshield and +1|+1

Yuumi’s effect is very similar to what she does in League, she gets attached to a follower or champion and grants it +1|+1 each round start. This sounds great on a champion like Fiora, Zoe, Pantheon, or even Fizz especially since these buffs are not removable with Silence or Minimorph.

Yuumi levels up when she or the unit she’s Attached to attacks 3 times, when leveled, she becomes a Spellshield generator for the unit you’re attaching her to, which makes the unit very hard to remove with spells and through combat since it is still getting the +1|+1 stats.

It is worth noting that Yuumi has the Fae keyword that synergizes very well with yesterday’s revealed cards: Grandfather Fae, Gleaming Lantern, and Fae Aid.
Prowling Projectile, Yuumi’s champion spell, is a Fast speed 1 damage ping that can’t hit the nexus and grants one of your units +1 attack.

The overall power level of this card is pretty low and doesn’t offer anything new to Bandle City as a region since they’ve already got one of the best cheap 1 damage spells in the game, Pokey Stick and Group Shot.

Assistant Librarian

• Assistant Librarian
  • 2 Mana Bandle City Fae unit with Fated
  • Nexus Strike: Draw a spell that costs 3 or less

This is in the top 3 most powerful cards revealed today. The keyword Fated on such a cheap unit coupled with Nexus Strike is incredibly important. Blocking Fated units can be very scary since they’re almost guaranteed to win the combat trade when used with cheap burst speed spells like Sharpsight or Pale Cascade. Assistant Librarian also works with all the other Fae-related spells and units.

A 2 mana unit that needs to be blocked is a nightmare for aggro players, Spiders or Pirates for example HAVE TO block this card to stop the card draw that can be used against them (drawing Pokey Stick is huge vs aggro, etc…)

Friendship!

• Friendship!
  • 4 Mana Bandle City Burst speed spell
  • Give an ally Spellshield or Barrier this round

One of Bandle City’s main weaknesses is the lack of protection spells, Stress Defence can be useful in some situations to save your unit but it doesn’t do much vs hard removal spells like Vengeance or Ruination.

Now let me introduce you guys to the power of Friendship! A 4 mana Burst speed Barrier or Spellshield. This is probably one of the most versatile cards in the game, the ability to protect one of your units from damage during combat, from spells, and hard removal is extremely scary, especially in Bandle City, a region that already does so much (Card draw, value, removal, etc…)

This is probably the strongest card revealed today.

Papercraft Dragon

• Papercraft Dragon
  • 5 mana 2|2 follower with Attach and Double Attack

This is one of the 4 Fae followers revealed today, it’s a 5 mana unit that can attach to a follower or champion to grant it +2|+2 and Double Attack.

Double attack is a very rare and scary keyword, when coupled with Overwhelm these two keywords can easily OTK the opponent since the first strike removes the unit(while dealing overwhelm damage) and the second strike hits the nexus for full damage.

This is very similar to how Lee sin works with Overwhelm and can help you steal games that would seem unwinnable.

I’m expecting to see this card played in some all-in-fun OTK combo decks!

Rainbowfish

• Rainbowfish
  • 4 Mana 2|1 Bandle City Fae unit with Attach and Elusive

Rainbowfish is the third Fae follower revealed today. It grants elusive and +2|+1 for the very high cost of 4 mana.

Compared to other cards like Sumpsworks Map(2mana) and Ghost (1mana), Rainbowfish seems very expensive. It can also be very clunky since it has to be played at Slow speed, giving the opponent a chance to summon an Elusive blocker or even stun the unit Rainbowfish is attached to.

However, something very important to note is that buffs from Fated units cannot be removed, meaning that the Elusive keyword provided by Rainbowfish Cannot be removed with Silence cards.

Quick Quill

• Quick Quill
  • 2 Mana 1|1 Bandle City Fae unit with Attach and Quick Attack

Quick Quill is absurd. Attaching it to grant a unit +1|+1 and Quick Attack is unbelievably strong. It can be used on champions that need to attack like Lulu, Fiora, or even Shen, and when coupled with cheap combat tricks like Twin Disciplines or Sharpsight, it guarantees that the unit Quick Quill is attached to cannot lose any combat trade while attacking.

If we compare this card to Young witch, a 2 mana 1|1 Elusive that gives Quick attack and +1|+0 to the unit it supports during an attack, it becomes clear that the base power level of Quick Quill is incredibly high, unlike Young Witch it cannot be threatened with a ping and goes back to your hand when the unit is removed.

Scholarly Climber

• Scholarly Climber
  • 4 Mana 5|4 Bandle City/Targon Yordle unit with Spellshield

At first, this 4 mana 5|4 Spellshield yordle doesn’t seem like it enables any new archetypes or creates new explosive combos but the spellshield keyword on a cheap unit shouldn’t be underestimated.

Granting Scholarly Climber Overwhelm with Might or Zenith Blade can be extremely hard to deal with for the opponent.

I’m expecting this card to see play in some sort of reputation deck since it has that premium 5 attack for a 4 mana unit.

Mushroom Ring

• Mushroom Ring
  • 3 Mana Bandle City/Ionia Faeunit with Quick Attack

Last but not least, Mushroom Ring. A 3 mana 2|2 quick attack Fae that gains power equal to the number of other Fae units on the board, including the ones attached to other units.

Mushroom Ring seems like a win more style of card to me, having multiple Fae units on the board is already such a good position to be in, and Mushroom Ring doesn’t help maintain that position or even finish the game.

I do not believe that this card will see play even in all Fae decks but it still is undoubtedly the cutest card revealed today.

Bonus deck: Yuumi Fiora

Deck Code: CECAIBIKCQOUFJQBAMAQACI2FUAQGAAOAECAAAQDAIAQADI5AICQVDIBVYAQCAQAAEBACBIKO4BACAAREU

[See Yuumi Fiora deck details]

With the number of buffs and new protection spells like Friendship, Heroic Refrain, and Yuumi, all in Fiora decks might make a comeback in this set’s meta.

Even though all the units with the Attach keyword seem very strong value-wise, they still need to be played Proactively. This is very important since keeping mana for trades during combat is much better than pre-committing a buff. So when directly compared with Burst speed buff spells like Troll Chant or Sharpsight, these cards can be slightly more intricate to use.

Overall, today’s reveals are very inspiring and I cannot wait to make many more decks with all of the new cards. If you want to check them out or have any questions about LoR, my Twitter DMs are always open!

Thanks for reading! For more impressions, check out the rest of our reveal articles for A Curious Journey.