Deck Doctor: Epic Edition Kevrosh
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Miguel Coimbra ‘Xienar’
It’s that time again! Time to take another crack at doctoring up Warlord’s alleged ‘have-nots’. Today we see if we can stick it to all those on the Beastmaster bandwagon, everyone riding the Tavis train, and all of the losers gravitating toward Ginerva! Today we take the age-old combination of dungeons coupled with dragons (okay, Kevrosh doesn’t technically have the Dragon trait) and see if we can put it all together in a way that wins Epic Edition games just in time for March’s Epic Edition Event!
Not Again!
I swear I’m not going through and picking on NirvanaTool’s excellent Epic Edition commentary (which you should check out here)! But once again we find ourselves working with a Warlord that made his ‘Ugly’ list. That makes us two for two on taking what NirvanaTool considers underpowered and attempting to bring them up to par with a powerful field.
In NirvanaTool’s commentary he mostly glossed over Kevrosh which makes sense. Kevrosh gives Monster trait characters some bonus ATK. Awesome! Neeeeeext! You can just imagine Kevrosh’s exit interview on one of the Ex-Men videos as he’s being fired by Professor Xavier. “Kevrosh… when Tavis retires… and at the same time we need a giant alligator to go with my Spiderman costume for Halloween… we’ll call. In the meantime, go back to the sewers and guard the rubbish.”
Seriously Though, What Are We Doing Here?
Okay, there’s more to Kevrosh than what’s actually on his text box. There isn’t a lot more, but I promise we have a few cards that make it worthwhile playing him over Tavis and over many of the other Warlords of Epic Edition. And I also promise the cards in question aren’t Damothien’s Dungeon and Hold Monster - despite how fun the Ancients combo is. Here’s some cards that I think are uniquely good in Kevrosh and our reason for considering him today:
While the general answer to what we’re going to be doing is ‘midranging’, we get some seriously good cards that don’t have much use elsewhere. Kevrosh’s Nightfall ability puts us on mostly wanting Monster characters in our deck and Lessari, Shadowlurkers, and Nadlon Dathar happen to be great additions. Malrog’s Lair is our dungeon of choice in most games which makes Lessari an Order: DC 20 to wound and spend within two ranks. Shadowlurkers gets to be one of the highest stat level 3 characters in the game (move over, Garak), and Nadlon is a sturdy level 2 Cleric body that we can use as a back-up spellcaster.
Malrog’s Lair, on average, is going to have a Challenge Rating in the 30’s. There’s basically no removing it from play once it’s down and if your opponent has 30 levels of characters in play… you’re probably in a bad spot regardless. Isle of Wind is a great silver bullet for Kevrosh and makes his search super handy. There are a number of decks that rely on ranged strikes. Remember, Epic is the format that brought us the Cartwright Set, Farglass, Nodwick, Collapsing Bow, Final Power, and Fiery Bolts. For the cost of one card in our deck we can completely shut ranged strikes out. Double Dathar start and a Shadowlurkers in play gives Isle of Wind a pretty high Challenge Rating. And if an opposing archer Warlord wants to direct their entire army to spend and remove the Isle from play, good on them. We just basically took their entire turn away.
Clerics are the Best Class in Epic
In one way it feels like a bit of a cop-out ‘making’ an underrated Cleric good. In Campaign Edition Clerics, on the whole, were the worst class by a mile. Tavis used like two or three Cleric spells, Lady of Mercy was mostly about abusing her starting army, and Albrecht is his own thing. Pound for pound, Clerics got the short end of the stick. But just like the downward pendulum swing from Saga to Campaign we saw with card draw and mercenaries, we see an upward pendulum swing among Clerics from Campaign to Epic. Seriously, just look at these options:
These are just… a few of their offerings. There’s plenty more readily playable cards that I didn’t list and, yes, I know a couple of the playables did carry over from Campaign Edition in Seize Life and Scourge of Dythanus. Veiled Passing also isn’t nearly as important in EE due to the lack of Exhaustion. But you get the point. Look through the Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard action/item suite and try telling me they’re just as good.
So Kevrosh has that going for him. But I think we’ll be skipping cards that require Kevrosh spend all-together and that we’ll probably also forego some of the more ubiquitous Cleric cards like Scourge of Dythanus and most notably Cheat Death. Instead we’re going to focus on controlling our opponents since I anticipate our character base being a little slow. And in particular there’s a single card that every Epic deck needs to be able to beat. I think putting 6 to 9 card slots toward beating this one card is actually appropriate. I’m talking, of course, about Shadan Alder.
I went ahead and factored in Nightfall, Beastmaster Eladric, and Brother Dominy bonuses for you. You are welcome. I think a lot of decks will sleep on combating this card, but not us! I could honestly just write an entire article dedicated to passing EE’s “Shadan Test” with tools like Stolen Destiny, Andeel Smrti, etc. Anyway, I think we lean heavily into controlling this card and its ilk instead of wound prevention. I’m always down for some Reflect (especially with Nadlon Dathar’s sweet +5 skill), but I’d rather run Whirlwind, Kor’s Patience, and Paralysis Ward over Cheat Death, Seize Life, and Scourge of Dythanus. I‘d rather slow down a wound-train like Shadan for two turns over stopping a wound. We’re giving up a few percentage points against Nightmaster Rress decks, but overall I favor heavy access to stunning.
So we’re going to clear a lot of room and buy a lot of time. We can stop ranged strike decks cold. We are handing out +5 ATK to our Monsters. What do we do with all this space?
The Monster Mash
We aren’t completely compelled to run Monster characters but the incentive is real. We could go with all level 1’s or quick striking characters who can take advantage of our control to close the game out in the second turn. We could run Lilah with Thunic Wyvern and Xantin, maybe add Stasia… but that sounds more fun out of Dorath. I think our element of control lets us go up the ranks and recruit some more powerful characters. And while I absolutely love Amoudasi’s Inferno taking +10 melee strikes at anybody who so much as looks in its direction, I don’t know that I want the whole Amoudasi package. Anyway, here’s kind of my short list that I’d combine with the aforementioned characters that work well with Kevrosh.
Wanderetch can come in alongside Lessari to offer some high DC control. I think a lot of people forget that Wanderetch has a text box, but it’s nothing to sleep on. That twice per turn DC20 is savage. Plus he’s a Meme. Antaelus can attach Reflect, Courage From Faith, and Kor’s Patience any of which is a great card to repeatedly use. Blitzer is always one of the best beaters and our win condition really is just getting high bonus swings in over the course of several turns with beaters so he gets a spot on the team. Xantin is good, but we’re settling in for a long game and I don’t think he fits; the same can be said for Thunic Wyvern.
Dungeons & Dragons
I think we’ve talked this through enough by now. We’ve got our schtick and we’re schticking to it! Also, how is Kevrosh not a Dragon? Or at least a flavor trait Sutek? Or a Ss-eleer like Nadlon Dathar? Whatever! We’re calling this deck Dungeons & Dragons (despite our not playing Malrog’s First Test or actually running a Dragon)!
3 Stolen Destiny
3 Courage From Faith
3 Kor’s Patience
3 Reflect
3 Paralysis Ward
3 Whirlwind
3 Acts of Faith
We ended up recruiting a couple of /gasp non-Monster characters. But everybody loves Oliver! And Bryanne is just the right kind of beatstick. Stun her forward, Courage From Faith or Clarion, Acts of Faith her the next turn to saw through Dwarven and Deverenian ranks. The rest of the cards we mostly covered in our discussions above. Courage From Faith is a fine card that I think a lot of people undervalue. If you’re running a lot of level 3-4 characters like we are, unstun is nearly as effective as readying from spent. You can’t use them exactly the same way, but Amoudasi’s Inferno, Lessari, and Wanderetch are all super happy just being spent. And turning a character one step closer to ready on a no-fuss level 2 Order is excellent. We opted for Brine Fiend over Regret’s Shadow, Stygian Wraith, or Amoudasi’s Candle for our starters. Where is your shocked face?!
The 10HP starting army is just what we had to do. We’re in a format of Spencer/Brother and Nightmaster Rress and we need all the help we can get. You’ll be glad for 2HP starters in the second rank against Fo'ttr'ak'ka and the extra HP on level 1 and 2’s lets you have the perfect expendable body to offer up for a Stolen Destiny. Speaking of, we covered our Shadan bases pretty well right? Paralysis Ward, Whirlwind, Stolen Destiny, Kor’s Patience, Lessari, Wanderetch - we really outdid ourselves here.
Wrapping Up
Play this deck if you like settling in for long games where you get to make a lot of important decisions. The better your decision-making skills, the better you’ll be at piloting this as you’ll have a lot of opportunities to make the right (or wrong) choices. And it’s not like the deck can’t turn the corner once you’ve accrued an advantage. The writing should be on the wall after a few turns when you have a massive army and tons of control. Avoid this deck, though, if you like playing super fast. Epic Edition has plenty of tools for that and really that’s what you’re here to go over the top of. Let the children have their Shadans, Brothers, and Nightmasters - we have Memes.
Let me know in the comments here or wherever if you think we did Kevrosh justice. Is there a draw engine with Richard Key and Troll’s Warren that I ignored? Am I flat wrong for not making this about Malrog’s First Test? Or did I just plain fail to make a functional deck? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Until next time, I’ll see you in the fields of battle in our Epic Edition Event starting in just a few days!