Lookout is one of the abilities that is coming with the Rebellion set. This is probably the ability that I'm looking forward to see play out hence why I will be writing and focusing on this ability for this whole post. In my opinoin, I think this will be a meta changing ability and the strongest ability in this set. Yabapmatt has given feedback that there may be a fifth ability added but the details are yet to be confirmed and who knows if this new ability will change my mind.
According to the Rebellion blog post, the lookout ability
results in adjacent allies taking one less damage from attackers with Sneak, Snipe, and Opportunity. Give your team a heads-up when stalkers approach from the shadows. It's always a good idea to have a Lookout!"
In other words, the unit with lookout will protect the surrounding units and reduce one damage from sneak, snipe and opportunity attacks. It doesn't seem to matter what type of damage by the looks of it so it can reduce melee, ranged or magic damage by one. I wonder how this would work with taunt. Would it only reduce damage with units with those abilities or could it lookout for the taunt since the lookout should be able to predict enemy will hit the taunt unit. This also makes me wonder if my opponent played Pelacor Bandit in the first position would the damage get reduced by one if my lookout was on the second position.
I feel the meta now has a lot of lineups that involve units playing opportunity and sneak. You can see below I have taken a screenshot of five battles from one of the top champion modern players and you can see 4 out of 5 have some sort of opportunity or sneak monsters. Even I love playing opportunity and sneak lineups because it is so strong.
I also feel this is the reason why Lily Shieldpaw is one of the cards with high winrates because it counters these types of lineups most of the time. Mylor is also a great counter to the low mana sneak lineups but Mylor will be cycled out after Untamed is out.
Also take note, there are three rulesets and each one give opportunity strike, sneak or snipe. Lookouts will be super strong in these rulesets in my opinion because you are guaranteed to reduce damage from every attacking unit on the opponents team since the ruleset gives them the ability that will trigger lookout.
I think units with this ability will be super strong in the second to last position to counter sneak or near the low health units or unit that would get sniped. I think this strategy could be paired with a last position taunt unit. I wonder if this one less damage works with forcefield. Would this change the Jared Scar sneak strategy.
Imagine having a Jared Scar with sneak ruleset and the opponent had an Arkemis the Bear in the back with a lookout next to it. Would the Forcefield proc first reducing damage to one but the lookout will remove damage after which will bring a total to 0 damage.
I think it could be good in the second spot if you have a summoner like Lilyshield Paw that will force them to attack that first spot you can reduce all that damage by one on top of the shield/void your frontline could have.
I think lookout units could also be paired between two low health units. Maybe the ruleset gave all opportunity you could defend your two lowest health units to hopefully tank out more hits.
Lookout may change the meta. I think it will make people think a bit more before spamming opportunity or sneak lineups. I could be wrong though but this is mainly speculation.
Thank you for reading and supporting me. Do comment below your thoughts on the upcoming Lookout ability.
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