There are two different ways to go about trying to incorporate new pieces into an existing game like this. The first is to look through new pieces and see which can be built around, which I’ve done in, Building Around Night Fusion. The other method is too start with what we know, and then look to see if anything can add to that. While Night Fusion has many powerful pieces to build around, it is important not to ignore lessons we’ve learned from experience in the past. All the pieces in previous sets that were worth building around are still present, and probably still worth building around. I’m going to look at the Top 8 from the 50k, which I haven’t done so far, with an eye to updating those bands to play with Night Fusion.
The first place band was Ben Stoll’s “Yaus!” more commonly referred to as “Chaos Wells” (with Hellbred). For reference, he played:
Ian Stickland, who also made top 8, played the exact same pieces. The list of pieces that I’d consider incorporating into this band is: Skull Punk, Chronosphere, Eggspewer, and Demon Capo. Skull Punk is more expensive than Pariah at first, but additional Punks help pay for Stormwatch Siren. Stormwatch Siren wasn’t in this band, but it has been in bands like it, and with an additional way to pay the aspect it might make a return. Chronosphere’s ability is extremely powerful in a band that cares as much about initiative as this one, due to Unwishing Wells and Crypt Worms. I like Eggspewer in this band because I feel that the early game is a lot more about positioning than attacking, meaning most of your early turns will be spent shifting, so you won’t roll a lot of attacks. This piece is better than a normal body when you’re not shifting, which is a huge asset. Also, more ways to move enemies in a well band are always more than welcome. Demon Capo is another piece that I think only really gets added if Skull Punks are finding their way in, because otherwise there aren’t enough passion pieces for his blade ability to do anything. It’s nice to have something good to do when a 7 is rolled while you have a Screamer in play though.
It’s always hard to cut pieces from a tuned band like this. I would probably be inclined to cut one Cannibal Pariah and one Chaos Puppeteer for 2 Skull Punks, which shouldn’t change the opening spawns too much. That lets me add the other passion pieces, which I’d do by replacing Voodoo Manipulator for the similar, but now cheaper Stormwatch Siren, and I’d replace either Ekkyon Wayfarer or the Second Crypt Worm (to taste) with Demon Capo to keep the number of pieces that you want to play with Screamer the same. This leaves the option of cutting Lord Slobber, Cyclopean Sprite, or Jack of Blades for Eggspewer. I’d hate to lose any of those, but Eggspewer is awesome. I’d say that question is very much one that should be tailored to individual play style and local metagame.
The second place band was Matthew Hoffman’s “Why Pay a Little When You Can Pay A Lot” which, considering that I believe I saw him pay 7 for a Heartsblood Temple in the finals, seems accurately named. It contained:
This is a traditional “Goodstuff” band with Blademiller+Hunter-Killer and Crypt Worm+Unwishing Well combos. I personally hate paying a lot, so I don’t like how clunky the aspect costs are in this band. Once again, Skull Punk to the rescue! Copper Bloodcat, Sun Titan, Dragonship Golem, Nightfire Giant, and Kendra Vale are the other pieces I’d consider. Without Skull Punk a band like this would never be able to play Kendra Vale, but with it it might just get there. I don’t like Blademiller and Hunter-Killer in bands like this, and I feel like they get worse with Night Fusion, so I’d be cutting those as the first step in reworking the top end of the band. The first fix that comes to mind is to cut the Hunter-Killer, and the Blademiller for a Skull Punk and Kendra Vale. This change dramatically lowers the totally cost of the band. I’m not sure if that’s a problem, if it is, the solution is probably to cut Pearlthorn Castle for a high end passion piece from Night Fusion. Looking through it more, The while the Skull Punks do help, they aren’t enough to smooth the opening the way that I’d like, but all evidence points to the conclusion that Temple bands just can’t afford to have enough different cheap pieces to allow the kind of opening I’d be happy with. I think it just takes a willingess to play the kind of band where you’ll sometimes be tempted to pay 7 for a Heartblood Temple to play this kind of band.
Jason Scarborough finished in 3rd with “Spellbound Speed” containing:
This V/M swarm with a passion splash was practically begging for Runner with Scissors. The 4 cost is a little rough, and I think it requires cutting a Warcharm, which just becomes another Clawclan Scout to help smooth the curve again without losing too many blades, especially considering the increase in power. The only other piece I’d really want is Stained-Glass Angel. I’d also look into replacing World Eater with Copper Bloodcat, Sun Titan, or Nightfire Giant. Overall that would be –1 Scarab Warcharm, -1 Spellbound Scissors –1 Lunar Handmaiden, -1 World Eater, +1 Runner with Scissors, +1 Clawclan Scout, +1 Stained-Glass Angel, +1 Copper Bloodcat. These changes dramatically lower the total spawn cost of the band, but I’m trusting that the Runner with Scissors will eat a very large amount of spawn in long games.
Jon Tschida played “Tomorrow Morning” exactly as I played it in Manchester, which was:
Updating this band definitely involves getting Kendra Value in, which means playing Succulent Creeper over a Clawclan Scout and cutting Lunar Handmaiden. I still like Jack of Blades or Cyclopean Sprite in its place. I’m also starting to think that with the format being a little faster because of the power level of Night Fusion and because of Zungar Winddancers running around that Rainforest Shaman is no longer effective. I’d cut it for Chaos Puppeteer or Maul Rat, probably Maul Rat to Maximize Kendra. Knight of the Bronze Horn might be playable over Hawk-Eyed Instigator, but I wouldn’t, just because I don’t really like paying spawn for things. Although, come to think of it, I’d actually be playing Stormwatch Siren in that slot anyway. Other than that I’d just cut either Dragon (Probably Ragedrake) for Kendra Vale. As I’ve mentioned before, it is also probably correct to cut Heartsblood Temple for Immortal’s Resting Place in bands like this, which might mean you want to cut Noble Dragon or Angel of Sunrise to make room for Buzzclaw due to it’s awesome synergy with Kendra Vale.
Kendra’s ability to get straight to the action makes me wonder whether Angel of Sunrise is still correct in this band. Angel was the piece that put it over the edge, but it was introduced primarily to beat Hunter-Killer, which given its absence from the top 8 at the 10k is probably no longer much of a concern. The increased popularity of Unwishing Well is another good reason not to play the angel, as wells tend to lead to an empty board, which is exactly what the angel wants to avoid. The importance of the inclusion of Buzzclaw also might make Lunar Handmaiden worth leaving in the band.
Michael Ayar’s band was very similar to Ben and Ian’s Chaos Wells with Hellbred. His list was:
This has Infernal Preacher and Horrid Poltergeist instead of a second Chaos Puppeteer and a Lord Slobber. The changes from there are all very similar. For the record, I like the Preacher more than the Poltergeist, which I would definitely cut. The Preacher is very matchup dependent. He will be excellent against some bands and very bad against others. I think he’s probably quite good against other well bands, which makes him very reasonable to include. The Horrid Poltergeist is reasonable in this band because this band does plan to strike often, but it doesn’t really plan to do it until the end of the game, usually with most of it’s pieces together in a way that will somewhat minimize the effectiveness of the Horrid Poltergeist. At this point, I’m pretty sure that space can be better served by something else.
Trey Gibson played “Stag Party,” a Valor/Passion band with Trey’s trademark Stag Zealot. His band was:
This band is very similar to Tomorrow Morning. It plays the Whirlwind Dervish+Unwishing Well combo instead of Noble Dragon to deal with large threats (it also drops the Rainforest Shaman) and he has Stag Zealot over Lunar Handmaiden. I can’t suggest the exact same changes for this as I would for Jon’s band, because It wouldn’t be a Stag Party update if I cut the Stag Zealot. With the Stag Zealot in I like having the two early Valor pieces, although, unlike Lunar Handmaiden, Stag Zealot doesn’t really like to come out early. I think Kendra+Buzzclaw is just a better verion of Whirlwind Dervish+Unwishing Well, so I’d cut Well and Dervish for Kendra and Buzzclaw. After that I’d leave the rest as is or cut Angel of Sunrise and maybe Unsated Ragedrake, counting on Kendra to do those things better, and I’d add another high end piece, probably one like Totem Lord or Sun Titan that doesn’t have a blade ability to help justify the Stag Zealot. I could also see adding a second Stormwatch Siren.
Jeffery Wong played Spiker, which I’m excited about, because it’s a band that gets a lot of new options with Night fusion that I don’t feel I’ve written about sufficiently. His band at the 50k was:
This is a heavy fear band, so Eggspewer is an option, but it has minimum synergy with the rest of the band, which is focused more on powerful attacks, so I probably wouldn’t try to force him in. Grave Spiker is an extremely interesting question in this band. It clearly has huge potential with Corpsebuilt bands, but it really doesn’t like working with other aspects. There is an option to minimize Valor (probably going down to just 2-3 warcharm/clawclans), or to cut Valor entirely and focus on Fear blade abilities. If one of these is happening, then it’s worth taking another look at the Eggspewer. Bladescape Vampire also deserves consideration if Valor is being removed as you’ll be looking for more uses for blades and the triple fear cost will be less prohibitive. This also opens you up for Silhouette of Death, who, unfortunately, conflicts with Carrion Hulk very directly. The last piece that works with this strategy is The Sweeper. Playing multiple of these pieces gives a huge number of blade abilities to do enormous amounts of damage.
The fear based version of the band would looks something like:
Butcher was substituted for Carrion Hulk as the Corpsebuilt piece of choice here to make room for Silhoutte of Death at 8 and fill the spot left by the Lunar Handmaiden, The Sweeper took Eater of Hope’s place as the big finisher and Grave Spiker took it’s place as an Appease piece. Jack of Blades and Lady of the Fang came in to help make up more decreasing the number of movement blades and because expel is extremely powerful when you have single pieces that can do as much damage as Silhouette of Death. I removed Toxic Sludger because I expect fewer Heartsblood Temples because Kendra decreases the cost of the top end of Passion bands. The Toxic Sludger could easily be played over any of Lady of the Fang, Boogeyman, Silhouette of Death, or The Sweeper if you’re afraid of Unwishing Well, which is entirely reasonable. The Valor based version of this band, incidentally, changes very little with Night Fusion.
Those are the top 8 bands from Gencon. As most players seemed to predict, we didn’t really see anything wildly new. Wells clearly came out on top, but most of the major archetypes we saw throughout the year were represented. Now go talk about this on the forums.
