Crystal Clans: The Stars Tell a Story
The Meteor Clan, Part 1
Last week, we began our preview of the Skull Clan. The Skull Clan has a unique look and feel, but will feel familiar to anyone who has spent time playing the undead armies of various battle games.
This week is a little different as we begin our preview of the Meteor Clan, which brings an altogether fresh theme and style. The Meteor Clan is a clan of scholars and thinkers. They do their homework look to the stars in their search for the crystals.
Just take a look at the Meteor Clan's signature ability, Predict:
So every battle card played during battle is either bold (steer horns), guarded (turtle shell) or tricky (fox tail). They have a sort-of rock-paper-scissors relationship. The Predict ability allows you to benefit from declaring in advance what your opponent will play. Intrigue!
The wackiest part of this ability is that you declare your prediction BEFORE battle cards are chosen. So you can use it to influence your opponent's choice! Your habit could be to name the battle type that you DON'T want them to play. Then it becomes a win-win for you. Either they avoid triggering your Predict bonus and you can ensure they don't get their stronger battle card effect, or they DO trigger it and they pay a heavy cost for getting the better battle card result.
And THEN you can play against this dynamic. Once your opponent senses the pattern, start predicting the type you DO want them to play. If you do this at just the right moment, you can gain a battle card advantage AND the Predict bonus.
Sound like just mind games? Well, that won't do for the scholarly Meteor Clan. They want some more certainty about the future, and they have some great tricks to obtain it.
The lensed scout does two things at once - you get to both PREVIEW your opponent's battle card options, and LIMIT those options at the same time! You may be able to narrow their choices to 1 or 2 battle types. Or you might just get the edge you need to predict correctly based on the situation.
OR you might make use of some Citadel Knights and, in combination with the Lensed Scouts, guarantee the result you want.
The synergy between these 2 cards is off the charts, and there are more Meteor combos like this that we'll explore in a future preview. But now that you've seen some of the more thinky Meteor cards, let me show you some of the muscle.
Wow, these knights have great stats, especially for their cost. They are expensive to activate, but if you can double them up or stack them with some Citadel Knights, they really get in step. Managing these Knight squads is a really fun puzzle, since both units need to be the top unit of a squad in order to activate their abilities.
If only there was a unit that was the best of both worlds...
Orion is our first previewed Meteor Clan hero. He has the strength of the Titan Knights, but the Predict ability of the Citadel Knights! A big stack of Meteor Clan Knights is one of the hardest squads in the game to take down.
Like I said, the Meteor Clan has an dizzying number of synergies. These are less than half of the units! They are definitely a clan for the thinking gamer. But their second preview is a few weeks away. In the meantime, get ready for next week, when we'll take our first look at the Flower Clan!
Past Crystal Clans Previews
Game Page, Announcement Article
Game Basics: The Battlefield, Initiative and Scoring, Squads, Summoning and Activating, Replenishing, Invading, and Reshuffling
Skull Clan: Part 1
Art Previews: Blood Clan, Flower Clan, Meteor Clan, Skull Clan, Stone Clan, Water Clan
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Posted by Joe Ellis |
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