Genesis: Battle of Champions New Card Preview for Metamorphosis!

As Metamorphosis spoiler season gets into full swing, your beloved BG Dan (@TheCardGolem) has the pleasure of revealing a card!

Our preview card is red, maxes out at 8 chi, and is

somewhat

of

a….

brute.

Introducing….Archaic Brute!

Let’s analyze this a bit shall we?

To start off, 18 aura for a 6HP 8 chi card is already a pretty solid rate. Add in a swift 5 damage attack with not one but two elements, and an all-but-rear-adjacent awareness, and this is already as beastly as it’s Summon type suggests. The continuous ability, however, is where the real spice of this card comes into play. It has a Continuous Modify effect that states “While Archaic brute is at 3HP or less, its Dark Earth Attack [5] becomes Dark Earth Attack [8].

At low health, this is doing 8 damage, which would outright kill almost any summon. The balance comes in not being able to hit flying combatants and having to be at/maintain low health to really hit the high damage potential. There’s a lot of ways to mitigate or outright combo with the loss of health, so let’s see what we can come up with real quick.

When looking to older champions that would combo well with Archaic Brute, we want champions with abilities or effects that work with or by damaging summons so we can get to that 8 damage right away. Shoon is our prime pick for older champions, available in the Genesis Origins set (Kickstarter and Retail).

Shoon wants to be able to keep his own health increasing every turn while damaging our Brute and any nearby enemies just enough to allow for some sneaky plays (think forcing your opponent to pick between trying to wear your Archaic Brute down and taking only 5 instead of 8 – there’s no winning).

There’s plenty of other cards that fit well with Shoon’s “Drain” style of play, including Vampiric Kiss, Bite, Siphon Vitality, and Cobbled Amalgamate, even Fire Break. Vampiric Kiss, Bite and Siphon Vitality put extra pressure on your opponent while furthering our Drain plan to get the Brute low. Cobbled Amalgamate allows us to keep the drain plan going with another summon that can keep healing itself while damaging the Brute and becoming a healthy Drain target itself. You can even use Fire Break to effectively lock your opponent down or board clear while also damaging the Brute to the point of increasing the damage.

Upcoming Metamorphosis champion Odara, Queen of Rebellion seems like the perfect choice for the Archaic Brute, as her ability goes all-in on supporting her summons by damaging them to remove an exert token on them. Not just allowing for multiple chances to hit for 8 damage, but consider the impact that tactical choices can have about when to use the ability in a round.

Cards like Battle Cry, Instill Vigor, Word of Command, Adrenaline and Blood Blade. Battle Cry and Instill Vigor both pump up the damage potential of your Brute, and considering you can use Spur On on the last turn of a round to bring your Brute back to attack again, the damage potential is high. We also have Word of Command to get the Brute exactly where they need to, and coupled with Odara’s extended front awareness, it seems very easy to get the Archaic Brute’s where they need to be.

Let’s not forget that we have access to Red, so let’s throw in Adrenaline for some real shenanigans: stack damage on the brute, move it into place, attack. Then we Spur On for another attack. Then we Adrenaline to redo the whole cycle and remove the exert from Odara to Spur On again and again until we run out of attacks. Then we drop Blood Blade to seal the deal, killing the Brute outright to do another 6 damage. Your opponent will have to deal with a massive amount of pressure in a very short period, and no matter what they do, they’re staring down an absolute ton of damage.

Depending on how many other Beast Summons or interesting Summon abilities we see moving forward, I could even see older champs like Qureen or Yuvan, or upcoming champs like Tsung, being something the Archaic Brute could fit into a deck with.

I hope this Genesis: Battle of Champions Metamorphisis card preview was as exciting for you as it was for me! As always, make sure you check out