Cards from Light’s Verdict, Gods Unchained’s next mini set, have been unveiled. There are 12 new cards, some of which cover spotlight events in the lore. Each champion is getting a spell based on the story. The cards all have interesting effects and the chase cards are crazy strong. Some of them have been quite divisive, which means the set is going to shakeup the meta in big ways despite its small size.
You can find out how to get these cards at the buyer’s guide https://blog.godsunchained.com/2022/09/23/lights-verdict-buyers-guide/.
The Dearly Departed
3 Mana 2/3 Neutral Creature
Soulless.
Roar: Obliterate a creature in your opponent’s hand.
Afterlife: Add a base copy of the obliterated creature to the opponent’s hand.
Dearly Departed is an interesting tech card letting you remove a creature from the opponent’s hand and force them to kill it to get their creature back. The card has some uses like taking your opponent’s Demogorgon so they can’t play it on their next turn or you can reset the stats of something they buffed in hand like The Divine Coronet. If you play Dearly Departed, then return it to your hand with Toast to Peace or transform it with Reflection Elementalist, your opponent can’t get their obliterated creature back.
It only lets you see creatures in your opponent’s hand, so you can’t stop a spell from removing it. It also has low stats, so it’s vulnerable to being traded. 3 health dies to a lot of common removal in the meta, Blight Bomb, Canopy Barrage, Blade of Styx, or Tracking Bolt. Also, 3 mana isn’t the easiest to combo with, either you wait until you have enough mana to play both cards in the same turn or hope Departed can live a turn. Your opponent can get back both creatures from the afterlife if you decide to replay Dearly Departed after returning it to your hand.
Overall, its niche uses and weak statline will prevent it from seeing widespread play. Some people will try it out with it out with Metamorphosis or Reflection Elementalist to permanently obliterate a creature.
An Empire Reborn
4 Mana Epic Death Spell
Destroy a creature. Its controller summons two base copies of the creature that each gain soulless.
An Empire Reborn looks like a bad removal spell, 4 mana to destroy a creature, but its controller gets two copies to take its place is a bad trade, however it has strong synergies as a combo card with your own afterlife creatures. Destroying your own afterlife creature lets you trigger their afterlife, then summon more creatures for more afterlifes. You can destroy your own Siren of the Grave to sleep your opponent forever, Burrowing Scarab for tons of card draw, Fanatic of Khnum to ramp all day, a big frontline to double up, or get rid of your opponent’s big buffed creature and give them weenies.
4 mana is a lot to spend to destroy your own creatures compared to other cards, like Fleshbind, which heals and draws a card, or Untold Greed, which draws 2 cards. Conditional afterlife like Rockdrake Egg or Possessed Acolyte are hard to play with this since meeting their condition while having mana to play both cards is difficult, e.g. you need to have Rockdrake Egg on board or 2 more mana, and 6 other cards in hand with An Empire Reborn.
This card is most likely to see play in Board Wipe Death, which already runs all the aforementioned afterlife cards and has board wipes to offset the tempo loss from spending 4 mana to destroy your own creature. You could find room for it as the 30th card in Rockdrake OTL Death as the 5th self-destroy card.
Pyrrhic Knowledge
3 Mana Epic Magic Spell
Soulless.
Pull a spell to your hand from your void and obliterate cards from the top of your deck equal to its mana cost, then set the pulled spell’s cost to 0. Obliterate the pulled spell at the end of your turn.
Pyrrhic Knowledge lets you spend 3 mana to play a spell from your void, effectively getting to run an extra copy of any spell you have already played. You can get extra copies of spells like Flames of the Second Shattering for more late game burn, Shaped Blast for another board wipe, or Safeguard Incantation for more protection.
A neat trick is that you can play unempowered Unbound Flames for 5 mana to get it in the void, then use Pyrrhic Knowledge to add it back at 0 cost, so you can empower it and wipe the board for 5 total mana.
It’s a little awkward against aggro since you need to have played a useful spell already for this to be good. Obliterating the top of your deck doesn’t hurt most of the time since you won’t hit fatigue against an aggro deck and you can save it for late game against a control deck. Gleamweaver can obliterate your useful spells from the void before you get to play Pyrrhic Knowledge.
Being 3 mana, you want to run expensive spells so you get a discount on them when you play Pyrrhic Knowledge, making it fit better in Control Magic. Replaying a Starshard Bolt for 3 mana isn't the worst, but a 3 mana Ancient Text is pretty bad.
I can see it being a 1 or 2 of in Control Magic to get any spell you have already played. You wouldn’t jam this card into Card Draw Magic, since the deck doesn’t run enough spells you want to replay for 3 mana.
An End to War
3 Mana Epic War Spell
Pick one -
Remove protected and ward from a creature, the deal 2 damage to it, or
Obliterate a damaged creature.
If you have 5 or more creatures in your void, do both.
An End To War is a solid removal spell for a god that lacks hard removal. If you have 5 or more creatures in your void, this card can obliterate any creature that has less than 2 armor. Either effect by themselves is a little overpriced for 3 mana. Getting 5 creatures into the void early to get both effects can be difficult, making it better used in late game, i.e. for Control War.
The first effect is very expensive, spending 3 mana to deal 2 damage isn’t worth it most of the time. Stripping protected and ward can have its uses. Best case for this is killing a Raid Reveller or softening a Highborn Knight, on the other hand killing a Dryder Sailweaver for 3 mana doesn’t cut it.
The second effect is very strong, but it needs some setup like a creature or relic to damage your target first to obliterate it.
It can target two different creatures with its effects, giving you a 2 for 1 in the right situations. You must use both effects, so you can end up killing your own creature if there’s only 2 targets on board.
It’s must run in Control War. The deck lacked hard removal other than Carnage Sweep, which you need for big creatures like Helian Elite. You could run it in Aggro War to kill big frontlines. 3 mana for conditional removal isn’t a slam dunk into aggro though.
Forge New Bonds
5 Mana Epic Deception Spell
Pull a creature from the board to its owner’s hand.
Set its mana cost with a creature in your hand that costs no higher than your current unlocked mana gems.
Forge New Bonds (FNB) is a strange card. Generally, bounce cards are used as tempo plays where you spend 2 mana to return their expensive creature to hand. You go down in card advantage but your opponent is set back and has to spend a lot of mana again to replay their creature.
FNB swaps the mana cost of what you are bouncing with a creature in your hand, so bouncing an expensive creature means you don’t get a big discount, conversely bouncing a cheap creature isn’t worth 5 mana. You can bounce your opponent’s cheap creature to discount your own expensive creature, but why not spend the mana on playing your own creature instead, aside from combos like copying or toasting your discounted creature. You have to swap costs, so if you don’t have an expensive card in hand you bone yourself, making your opponent’s creature cheaper and your own expensive.
Occasionally, your opponent will spend a lot of mana buffing a cheap creature, e.g. using Sudden Bloom on Marsh Walker, then you can have an incredible swing bouncing their buffed creature and making it expensive while making your own creature cheap.
The cost swap effect makes it a bad tempo card but could be used as a janky combo card. FNB doesn’t look like a good combo card though, since you have to spend 5 mana for whatever you’re doing. If you try discounting an expensive creature with your own cheap creature, you end up with a brick in hand.
There is potential as a meme combo with Deathwish Thanetar as a cheap creature, expensive roar creatures like Demogorgon, and Friendly Mimic to copy your discount Demogorgon. Play Demogorgon and stall your opponent. Use FNB to bounce your Demogorgon and swap costs with a 0-cost Thanetar. Then you can play a 0-cost Demogorgon and copy it with Friendly Mimic for a 2nd 0-cost Demogorgon. Thanetar will reduce its cost down to 0 again with its effect, so you won’t be stuck with a 7 mana 4/4.
Overall, Forge New Bonds won’t see play outside of degenerate combo decks.
Shines On Us All
2 Mana Epic Nature Spell
Target a creature, then delve a creature of the same tribe.
Each creature transforms into a base copy of itself.
Shines On Us All transform all creatures on the board into themselves, effectively getting rid of all buffs and debuffs, then delves a creature into your hand from the same tribe as the creature you targeted.
This is like The Cleansing, which sees 0 play, but this is a lot better and has some more use cases. It is cheaper at 2 mana. You can reuse keywords on creatures like resetting Ward, attacking twice with Blitz, or hiding your creature again with Hidden. It gets rid of debuffs on your own creatures like order and harmful effects, e.g. Eva’s Zombie afterlife. And it gets rid of buffs on your opponent’s creatures like armor, protected, and hidden.
Personal on-summon effects activate when transformed into, e.g. Underbrush Boar will attack at the end of turn. Also, you can use it like Recovering Sigil, make trades with your creatures, then use Shine to transform them back into full health creatures.
The effect is symmetrical so you will get rid of your own buffs and your opponent’s debuffs, reset your opponent’s protected/hidden/etc, and heal their creatures back to full.
I’m not sure what deck would run this. Control could use it to get rid of the opponent’s buffs. Aggro could use it to heal their creatures after attacking or get extra attacks with blitz, but it doesn’t work with your buffs.
3 Mana 2/2 Epic Olympian Creature
Frontline.
While this creature is in your void, after a friendly creature dies, pull it to your hand, and summon this creature with soulless.
Incredible value card, 3 mana for effectively two 2/2 frontlines and you get back a creature. If you time this right, you can get back a strong creature like Highborn Knight or Tavern Brawler. It’s going to be hard for your opponent to play around you getting back a creature. The only way to prevent the effect is to keep it out of your opponent’s void through soulless, taking control of it, or removing it from the void.
You wouldn't play Martyr in every decks. 2/2 statline is weak for 3 mana, it gets traded easily, and it isn’t impactful.
This card is an easy pick for any value-oriented deck with good early creatures. Decks without early creatures like Control Magic or combo decks won’t be able to get the most use out of it.
5 Mana 4/4 Epic Anubian Creature
Once per turn, after a weaker enemy creature is destroyed, draw a card.
Roar: Destroy an enemy creature with 3 strength or less.
This card is overpowered as hell. Take bets on how long until it gets nerfed. It does so many things, destroys tons of creatures like Guild Enforcer, Stormstress, or Pyramid Warden, draws a card, on top of a 4/4 body, all for 5 mana. And if your opponent has to trade in multiple creatures to kill it or can’t kill it, you get more card draw.
4 health is on the small side for 5 mana, dying to some common removal like Starshard Bolt or Canopy Barrage.
This card will go in every deck that runs multiple 5 drops like Control or Midrange. Aggro decks don't really want to run multiple 5 drops that don't kill the opponent.
The Divine Coronet,
4 Mana 1/1 Legendary Neutral Structure Creature
Can’t Attack.
Roar: Gain +4 health. If this creature has 9 health or more, delve a 9 mana creature and summon it. If it has less, shuffle it into your deck.
You can read about my thoughts on The Divine Coronet and the new decks it will bring here @meltysquid/lights-verdict-spoiler-the-divine-coronet.
Tl;dr some gods can make decks that commit to getting out Coronet as soon as possible and summon a 9 drop as quickly as turn 4 but the 9 drop can get answered easily then the deck folds instantly.
The Light Seeks The Truth
5 Mana Legendary Light Spell
Obliterate an enemy creature.
If that creature had frontline, protected or ward, the Chosen One gains those keywords.
The most straightforward of the new expansion cards, just a strong unconditional removal card. Obliterate goes through ward and doesn’t trigger afterlife, so you can remove anything without worry. 5 mana is a lot for removal depending on the meta. Great for big warded creatures, terrible for anything small. The Chosen One effect doesn’t matter much, but you can occasionally get protected on a Demogorgon or something.
It competes for removal space in Control Light. Divine Judgement obliterates a creature with order for only 1 mana, making it a lot cheaper while the condition isn’t hard to meet with Censure, Inquistor Informant, and Sern to give order. While Imperious Smite can destroy hidden creatures since it doesn’t target.
Forged in The Light
2 Mana Legendary Light Spell
Draw the Chosen One.
Your god power becomes Lysander’s Justice.
(A 2 mana god power with Give +2/+1 to the Chosen One.)
Chosen One is back and this card won’t be enough for the deck to be meta relevant. It is another card that draws the Chosen One card alongside Fated Arrival. The god power Lysander’s Justice is decent buffing your Chosen One. Overall, Forged in The Light is another Chosen One card that gets you the Chosen One and buff it, but it doesn’t address the deck’s weakness of being reliant on one creature that can be removed.
7 Mana 6/9 Legendary Creature
Roar: Delve three Thaeric Cultists.
The Thaeric Cultists are 3 mana 2/2s with various roar effects. They all have strong roars for their mana cost.
Thaeriel, The Fallen is a strong midrange threat. It has a strong body and great value, adding 3 creatures to hand with impactful effects. The cultists all have strong effects that can turn the game around like heal yourself out of lethal, give order to get around a frontline or stall a threat, or disrupt your opponent's hand.
Thaeriel competes for space in 7 mana neutral creature against Demogorgon, Helmna, and City Planner. And each god has strong 7 drops too, Witherfingers, Unbound Flames, Lysander's Mercy, Hector, or Apocalypse Now. He doesn’t have immediate board impact, unlike those cards, making him hard to play from behind, so he doesn’t fit well into control. You need to live to the next turn to play the Cultists and get the value out of Thaeriel.
He could be used as the top end of a new midrange deck to delve the right cultists against aggro or control. Control Light could run it to have extra late game against other control decks by replaying Thaeriel with Radiant Embalmer or Inescapable Duty.
Whether he will see play will depend on how fast the meta is. Playing a 7 mana do nothing can get you killed, but the Cultists can win the game if you get to play them.
Light's Verdict brings a fresh meta of decks from combo to control with its 12 new cards. Coronet Turbo will win or lose games turn 4. Control decks get some new tools to handle the meta. Midrange decks could be viable with the new neutral cards that generate tons of card advantage. Aggro decks don't get any new cards for smashing face but they can experiment with the new cards.
