Guardians of the Ancient LoR Card Impressions: Blade Dance (Ribbon Dancer, Syncopation, and more)

Day 8 of Guardians of the Ancient Reveals

Hey guys NicMakesPlays here and I’m going to be going over today’s reveals! These cards are exciting and provide a new way to play using Ionia.

Blade Dancing is a powerful effect that can be utilized with cards that benefit from having extra attacks like Azir, MF, or Quinn.

The new Guardians of the Ancients cards will be revealed every morning at Mobalytics so be sure to keep up with the latest cards!

You can theorycraft new decks with these cards right now by heading to the Deck Builder.

Lastly, to keep up with our previous expert impressions, click here.

Here are the new Ionia cards from the Guardians of the Ancient expansion

• Ribbon Dancer (follower)
• Syncopation (spell)
• Coastal Defender (follower)
• Blossoming Blade (follower)
• Zinneia, Steel Crescendo (follower)

For more expert impressions, be sure to also check out Swim’s video!

New Keyword: Blade Dance

Blade Dancing is a powerful effect that can be utilized with cards that benefit from having extra attacks like Azir, MF, or Quinn.

If we understand it correctly, it appears that it will work as a separate phase, like Scouts.

Blades were revealed during the first spoiler day for Guardians of the Ancient.

Here it is again if you need a reminder:

Many of the cards in today’s breakdown will involve the mechanic!.

Ribbon Dancer

• Ribbon Dancer
  • 2 mana 2|1 follower
  • Text: Play: Blade Dance 1.

Ribbon Dancer is the cheapest mana unit so far that can Blade Dance.

Blade Dancing can be good in unison with Miss Fortune for an easy level up or Azir to summon Sand Soldiers.

Irelia may level up based on Blade Dancing x times and Ribbon Dancer is a good way to work towards that.

Syncopation

• Syncopation
  • 2 mana Burst spell
  • Text: Swap 2 allies.

Syncopation has insane potential in many different instances.

You can use this card during combat to switch your attackers or blockers to gain favorable trades.

It can also use this with Overwhelm units such as The Destroyer to push for huge damage by allowing it to attack a unit with less health.

Another good way to use this card is with cards such as Fizz to protect key units on the board.

For example, if your opponent uses Mystic Shot on Twisted Fate then you can swap Twisted Fate with Fizz and then Fizz will stop the Mystic Shot.

In general, this card has unlimited possibilities of where it can be useful and I could see it being splashed in all kinds of decks.

Coastal Defender

• Coastal Defender
  • 4 mana 2|2 follower
  • Text: When you summon an ally, give me +2|+0 this round.

Coastal Defender can easily gain huge attack points to push big damage.

With Blade Dancing, this card can gain upwards of 10+ attack with ease.

If you give this card Overwhelm with Zenith Blade or Elusive with Ghost, it seems like a great way to close a game.

Blossoming Blade

• Blossoming Blade
  • 4 mana 3|3 follower
  • Text: Play: Blade Dance 2.

Blossoming Blade is another way to activate Blade Dance.

It is a bit more expensive than Ribbon Dancer but it has better stats and Blade Dances twice.

Being able to Blade Dance twice from one card is amazing for a deck based around Blade Dance synergy.

Zinneia, Steel Crescendo

• Zinneia, Steel Crescendo 
  • 8 mana 3|5 Elusive follower
  • Text: When you Blade Dance, I attack with Blades. Play: Blade Dance 1.

Zinneia, Steel Crescendo attacks with the Blades whenever you Blade Dance.

This is a powerful late-game tool to push extra damage with each Blade Dance, as well as Blade Dancing itself.

In a Blade Dancing oriented deck this card turns all of your early game Blade Dance effects into stronger threats in the late game.

Potential New Decks

The decks these cards would work best in would be Miss Fortune/Azir + Irelia to utilize the Blade Dancing effects.

For now, we will wait to see what Irelia does and the potential these decks hold.

Syncopation is splashable in all kinds of decks as well.

What sort of Blade Dance decks will you be building? Head to our Deck Builder and then share it as a comment below!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask NicMakesPlays during his streams (usually 6PM-1230AM EST).

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