Fallen Phoenix: Hellfire Reigns
Rounding out Immortal Elien's deck
As we wrap up our Fallen Phoenix previews, now is a good time to make sure everyone is clear on how the Alliance factions interact with other cards in deckbuilding.
First, if you only play with base decks, you never have to worry about it. These are basically 8 new factions. Their cards all affect each and every card within their deck. Skip some of this text below and enjoy the previews! You'll love the Alliances set.
If you are into deckbuildilng with Mercenaries, you know that some cards call out their own faction to indicate which cards are affected. For example, Sneeks' Goblin Invincibility event only effects "Cave Goblin" units. This excludes Mercenary units in the deck from being boosted by Goblin Invincibility.
Alliance faction names are always a combination of two original faction names. "Fallen Phoenix" is "Fallen Kingdom" plus "Phoenix Elves." Along those same lines, a card referencing "Fallen Pheonix" units inclusively affects any card whose faction is part of the Alliance name, including Fallen Phoenix, Fallen Kingdom, and Phoenix Elf units. The reverse is also true; if a card references Fallen Kingdom units, Fallen Phoenix units qualify.
In 99% of all cases, the interaction is simple: If it's in your deck and it's not a Mercenary, it can be affected by whatever unit or event card you play.
For example, Marek's ability, which references "Sand Cloak" units, works on any non-Mercenary in her deck, period. The reason I call this out is that there are three cases in the Alliances set where the 99% rule fails. Two out of three are in Immortal Elien's deck. The first is Karthos.
If you put Karthos into Ret-Talus' or Mad Sirian's decks, no problem. Any non-Mercenary common unit can be raised by Karthos. Similarly, if you're playing Immortal Elien's base deck, any common unit is fine. But note that it specifically says "Fallen Kingdom" unit, not "Fallen Phoenix." So cards that are listed as "Common of the Phoenix Elves" do not qualify--their faction name is not referenced, not even half of it. So you can't raise Guardians, Fire Dancers, etc.
The other exception to the 99% rule in Immortal Elien's deck is the following event card. See if you can catch the way it works:
Once again, if you only play base decks, it's easy. Any unit in your deck can destroy something, and raise any of your common units. Once you start deck building, the card requires a Phoenix Elf (including any base deck unit) unit to trigger the card, and a Fallen Kingdom (including any base deck common) unit to raise.
By the way, I hope you noticed how awesome that From the Ashes event is. There are two copies of that card in the deck. (Purge has three copies and Forced Conversion has two.) If you're looking to use any of those events but they're all in your discard pile already, you can always make use of Immortal Elien's final event:
Sacrifice, resurrection, revenge, and precision. All themes that make their way into Immortal Elien's deck. Next week we'll move onto new factions. The poll was tampered with, so we'll likely go with what was ahead the first day and a half, which was the Deep Benders and Cave Filth. Until Monday...
Oh, wait, I guess you might also be interested in seeing this guy:
Summoner Wars Alliance Previews:
Sand Cloaks: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Fallen Phoenix: Part 1, Part 2
