Empires of the Ascended LoR Card Impressions: Variety Pack (New Cards for Non-Shuriman Regions)

Day 9 of Empires of the Ascended (Mixed Region Reveals)

How’s it going folks? I’m Jordan “WhatAmI” Abronson and today I’ve got the variety channel of Empires of the Ascended for you.

All regions except for Shurima received at least two new cards.

We’ve time travel, we’ve got elephants, we’ve even got support for Vladimir. How much spicier can you get than that?

Here are the new cards from Empires of the Ascended:

• Destiny’s Call (Targon spell)
• Startipped Peak (Targon landmark)
• Lost Riches (Bilgewater spell)
• Loaded Dice (Bilgewater spell)
• Shadow Apprentice (Ionia follower)
• Field Musicians (Ionia follower)
• Production Surge (Piltover & Zaun spell)
• Concurrent Timelines (Piltover & Zaun spell)
• Crimson Bloodletter (Noxus follower)
• Strength in Numbers (Noxus spell)
• Shrieking Spinner (Noxus follower)
• Soul Spinner (Shadow Isles follower)
• Sea Scarab (Shadow Islesfollower)
• Dragon Chow (Demacia follower)
• Towering Stonehorn (Demacia follower)
• Ancestral Boon (Freljord spell)
• Spoils of War (Freljord spell)

Be sure to tune in every morning (around 9 AM PST), to see the cards revealed live on Mobalytics.

If you missed out on previous articles, check out the rest of the card reveals.

For even more analysis from our experts, check out Swim’s video below.

Destiny’s Call

• Destiny’s Call
  • 8 mana Burst spell
  • Text: Grant an Ally in hand +8|+8

First off, I’m going to assume that you get to choose which ally in your hand gets the buff as the word random is conspicuously absent here.

Next, I am going to confess that my knee-jerk reaction was to call this card Bad-Tle-Fury and move on with my day.

However, if we take a closer look we can get some pretty sick interactions going.

Most importantly we would want to play this on turn five and then play a giant beater on turn six with a powerful keyword like Overwhelm or Elusive.

Or, you know, we could play this on Nasus and immediately level him up on his first swing.

Or in the late game, we can set up a one-turn kill with Atrocity by targeting basically any small unit and being able to hold out mana up afterward.

I think eight mana may still be a bit too much for something that won’t affect the board until the turn after you play it, but if we end up in a grindy controlling metagame then I could see crazy combos around this potentially working out.

You’re going to cry every time you have it in hand and your opponent is playing even the tiniest bit aggressive though, so be careful trying to deck build around this tantalizing combo piece.

Startipped Peak

• Startipped Peak
  • 2 mana Landmark
  • Text: Countdown 2- Create 2 random Celestial cards that cost 3 or less in hand.

My inner Invoke fanboy wants to jump up and down and be ridiculously happy to test this card in every Targon list.

Unfortunately, big brother common sense is here to remind him that part of the reason Invoke is so good is the choices it gives you.

There’s no real choice here, just some hope that you’ll get what you need.

You can even occasionally get 0 units off this trigger.

Imagine waiting for two turns and getting given Moonglow and Moonsilver. *Blegh* I think the lack of consistency may be the doom of this particular card advantage engine.

Lost Riches

• Lost Riches
  • 4 mana Burst spell
  • Text: Draw a Treasure. If there aren’t any to draw, create 2 Treasures in your deck instead.

So you know that huge rant I went on about written in stars usually not being very good because four mana is way too much to pay to not do things?

Double that with an extra spicy side of deep-sea sauce.

I’m not sure I would want to pay 9 mana for most of the Treasure effects anyway even if this straight-up created one in my hand.

I think I am recommending losing these riches in the meme pile.

Loaded Dice

• Loaded Dice
  • 4 mana Slow spell
  • Text: For the rest of the round, when you damage the enemy nexus, Nab 1

This one makes every Powder Monkey in the building go “Ook Ook!” with the insane value and even tempo potential it promises if you have a Black Market Merchant watching on approvingly.

Unfortunately for those of us not living in Magical Christmas land, this card runs at direct opposite purposes to itself.

Any deck that can play and triggers this effect multiple times in the same turn is going to want to be extremely aggressive.

They want to burn their opponents out in blazes of cannon powder, not steal a few of their cards and kill them over the next four or five turns.

Worse the Slow speed of this spell means they will always, always know it’s coming.

Imagine getting Ruinated, or even just Avalanched after casting this. *Shivers in sad monkey.*

Another one for the meme pile boys.

Shadow Apprentice

• Shadow Apprentice
  • 1 mana 1|1 follower, Elusive
  • Text: When I’m summoned give me +1|+1 if an ally has Ephemeral.

Spicy, spicy, spicy.

This little beater could fit in quite nicely in the mono-Ionia Elusive aggro deck, or into a more combo-centric Encroaching Shadows style deck.

I can’t say for sure if the Apprentice will graduate to become the teacher, but Fizz would like to remind us that early Elusive beaters are never to be underestimated.

Field Musicians

• Field Musicians
  • 4 Mana 1|4 follower, Attune
  • Text: Each round, once you’ve summoned 3 other allies, refill your spell mana and draw 1.

And speaking of spicy, ho boy is this one looking to enable some combos.

The problem is that three is an awfully large number.

Even with help from Eye Of The Dragon, this becomes rather difficult to fulfill the condition.

The first theory I can see is perhaps combining it with a deck full of Scrap Scuttlers to use your spell mana for more spell mana, chump blockers, and card draw.

The problem with that is that it violates the cardinal rule of deck building: “If you have to put bad cards in your deck to make your good cards good, they probably weren’t good cards in the first place.”

While no rule is ever inviolate and this could be an impressive combo engine, I’m not seeing it right now from where I’m sitting.

Who knows though, maybe if some crazy Burblefish/Ionia deck is possible then the musicians will herald its coming.

Production Surge

• Production Surge
  • 0 mana Slow spell
  • Text: To play, spend all your mana. Summon random Turrets whose total cost equals the mana spent.

I’ve got to say it, Thermogenic Turret here just isn’t doing it for me.

This is going to be such a random array of maybe chump blockers, maybe one big fragile unit, maybe an ice-cream sundae, that you can’t rely on it.

Randomness can be fun and all, but spending seven mana and getting a 7|1 barrier sure isn’t.

Concurrent Timelines

• Concurrent Timelines
  • 1 mana Slow Spell
  • Text: For the rest of the game, the first time you play a follower each round, pick 1 of 3 random followers with the same cost to turn it into.

Again, whoever decided that Heimerdinger got to be in charge of things might need to take another turn around Piltover University.

This looks like it could be a really interesting effect, but again it’s just going to be too random.

For every time you manage to play a 4 mana 7|7 there’s going to be five more where your deck is just suddenly full of bad cards.

If this spell read “Summon,” instead of Play I might be significantly more into it, as we could potentially try some interesting Heimerdinger synergies.

As is, I don’t think the potential upside is ever going to outweigh the card disadvantage and RNG factor.

Crimson Bloodletter

• Crimson Bloodletter
  • 1 mana 1|2 follower
  • Text: The next time you summon another ally, deal 1 to it and grant me +1|+1

I do believe I promised there would be Vladimir support today.

Well here’s Vlad’s new bestest bud.

He’s tiny, he’s adorable, he’s dangerously masochistic, and he’s ready to proc any crimson synergy you let near him.

Will this fuzzy little fiend be enough of a boost to let Vladimir/Braum Scargrounds make its way into competitive gameplay?

My gut says no, but when you add in the impressive potential of Ice Shard and Blighted Ravine my head tells me I should test it before dismissing it completely.

Strength in Numbers

• Strength in Numbers
  • 8 mana Slow spell
  • Text: Summon 2 Legion Marauders

I’m not going to lie, this effect looks cool. It looks really, really cool.

If it goes off you’re getting two 5|4’s attacking that if they live through the turn will continue to grow.

That’s a lot of pressure to apply on turn five.

It just goes up from there if you’ve gotten an attack off with a Legion Marauder before you drop this bomb.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time you won’t have, which means this eight mana spell gets countered not only by Deny, but also by Avalanche, which is an absolute Reckoning, pardon the pun.

On top of that these beefy men get happily chump blocked all day long by Spiders or stray Spacey Sketchers.

While the ceiling on this card is incredible, the floor is really, really low.

That means that it might be interesting to test out, but probably will not make its way into any top-level decks.

Shrieking Spinner

• Shrieking Spinner
  • 4 mana 2|5 follower
  • Text: Attack- Grant Spider allies +1|+0

We haven’t seen Spider support in an awfully long time.

Despite that in the last week or two Spider aggro has been making a resurgence, headed by Elise and a good deal of burn.

The two questions we need to ask are “Four mana is a lot, does this card fit in that deck?” and “If it did, is crowd favorite not just better in that slot?”

Those are both tough questions that demand actual testing, but I’m excited to see the results.

Soul Spinner

• Soul Spinner
  • 3 Mana 3|2 follower
  • Text: When I’m summoned, grant me +1|+1 and Fearsome if an ally died this round.

This card clearly wants to be included in a Fearsome Aggro deck or a Spider Aggro deck.

The problem that it’s going to run into in both of those scenarios is that they never want to give up an attack token, and you can’t reliably proc this card in those decks before attacking.

Maybe it finds some support in an Endure style deck, but as cool as running 6 copies of Kallista is I think the temperamentality of this particular soul stealer is going to have a hard time finding a home.

Sea Scarab

• Sea Scarab
  • 2 mana 1|2 follower, Deep
  • Text: When another ally dies, or Last Breath: Toss 1

Who’s a cute little deep-sea abomination of terror and murder? Is it you? I think it’s you.

All silliness aside I think this is probably going to be a worse version of the horny toad a significant portion of the time.

However, its upside is pretty impressive, especially if you can get it to stay alive alongside an onboard Maokai.

Maybe the dream of Turbo-Kai is finally starting to come alive, but I think that those who want to obliterate decks are going to have more luck turning to Lissandra than to our sea monster overlords.

Dragon Chow

• Dragon Chow
  • 1 mana 0|3 follower
  • Text: When you play a Dragon, it strikes me and you draw 1

It seems like all the pleas of Shyvanna lovers were finally heard by Riot.

The question as to whether they’ve been answered or not is definitely going to be out-standing.

The dream here is to play two of these before turn four, block some two power attackers, and have a Shyvanna that gets you both of your cards back and levels after her first attack.

In other spots, this happy little elephant here can get eaten by a Screeching Dragon or even Inviolus Vox for some small but quite real value.

Will this be enough support to put dragons on the map?

I’m going to say proooobably not, but it’s definitely going to be an interesting deck to look at.

Towering Stonehorn

• Towering Stonehorn
  • 6 mana 7|7 follower
  • Text: I don’t take damage from enemy spells or skills

On one hand, this tells regions like PnZ, Bilgewater, and Noxus to take a long walk off a short pier.

On the other, even against those, the lack of any evasive keyword means you’re paying 6 mana to basically get chump blocked forever.

Unless there are easy Demacian ways to get Overwhelm coming in the last sets of spoilers I think this guy is going to tower his way out of consideration for the competitive Runeterra scene.

Ancestral Boon

• Ancestral Boon
  • 2 mana Burst spell
  • Text: Grant the top ally in your deck +2|+2. Enlightened: Instead, grant all allies in your deck +2|+2.

Ok, so I’m going to need anyone who looked at this and said “Two mana Cosmic Inspiration,” to take a real deep breath.

First of all, the reason Cosmic is so powerful is that it comes down much earlier, often between turns six and eight.

Second, and possibly even more importantly, it hits your board AND your hand, where this most assuredly does not.

Maybe we can find some kind of home for this card in an All-In buff deck centered around Fizz and Starlit Seer?

But if that’s how far I am reaching we are definitely throwing this one into the meme boon, I mean bin.

Spoils of War

• Spoils of War
  • 3 mana Burst Spell
  • Text: Grant an ally +1|+2. Plunder: Grant +2
    +4 instead.

This one is REALLY interesting.

It’s a low-power combat trick if you cast it without Plunder, and also a high-power buff that you are usually going to have to cast post-combat.

Get this into a deck with things like Braum, Ice Shard, Ember Maiden, and Blighted Ravine though and things start to get spicy.

This has just a high enough floor that its ceiling might be realistically reachable for. I’m interested to see exactly what kind of brews we can whip up with these particular Spoils.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask WhatAmI during his streams (around 10AM PST basically every day).

WhatAmI streams at twitch.tv/xxwhatamixx around 10AM PST every day