#Spoiler Alert - Tempted by Tempo

In advance of this week's ToUrNaMeNt RePoRt, a couple of cards caught my eye from upcoming releases and I thought I'd take the opportunity to pass swift judgment on them ahead of spoiler season where I will give my hot takes on all the new cards and see how right (or wrong) I turn out to be. I think for the time being I'm only going to bother trying to evaluate Rune and Elf cards because they're in my "wheelhouse" if I can even say that.

Review System

★★★★★

Format defining. Grown men will pay a fortune for these.

★★★★

Solid. Can be built around/is always relevant.

★★★

Decent filler for an established strategy.

★★

You're desperate if you're trying this.

★

Wouldn't feed this to my dog.

Wizardess of Oz

Fanfare: Summon an "Earth Sigil". Add 1 to your [Stack], Draw a card.

Quick/Activate: [Earth Rite]: The next time you would play a spell, this turn reduce 4 from its cost. This effect can only be activated once per turn

First up is the somehow legally named Wizardess of Oz, who is certainly bringing a lot to the table. Instead of a heart, a brain, and courage, she gives you an earth material, a counter on that material, and a card off the top of your deck. After that, she's helping you cheat on PP costs by reducing a spell by 4 on both your and your opponent's turn, as long as you can pay the costs, which she helps do.

 It's worth mentioning that the most impactful 4PP spell you can be playing on your turn is Golem Protection, which conveniently is already one of the better cards in the dirt strategy, so this has obvious synergy there, and you can tutor for Golem Protection with Merlin before turn 6. Not having to Act to use this ability also means you can attack with Oz and still activate the ability on either turn, which is pretty interesting.

Golem Protection

Summon 2 Guardform Golems. [Earth Rite]: Give all allied <Golem> followers +1/+1.

My reservations about this card are twofold. My main problem with this deck is that it feels incredibly clunky without much exciting stuff to do before turn 4, and while the PP reduction effect certainly helps churn the butter you aren't seeing that reduction until turn 6. This deck doesn't need another big PP value sink (lol what a sentence), but something interactive or something worth doing earlier in the game so that you can comfortably get to the point where you can start dropping Ozbombs.

The other problem I have is that I suspect it might be hard to get consistent value from the spell reduction effect on your opponent's turn. The Golem deck hasn't really been dabbling in such witchcraft up until now, and I'm not sure this is a good enough reason to do so. You just don't have space in the deck for a big spell package given you need to be playing the dirty amulets as fuel.

That being said, it's still very generously on-theme and the Dirt Deck doesn't have a 6PP card yet, so let's keep an eye on it even if it isn't particularly sexy right now. This card card really wants some Quick spells worth playing on your opponent's turn, and better ways to make it to the grindy mid-game, and if we get those in the new set then we'll have a new lens to view this card through.

★★★

Agnes Tachyon

Evolve (1): Evolve this follower.

Feed (1): This follower begins Racing.

Whenever you play a spell card, choose an enemy follower. Give it -1/-1

Agnes Tachyon (Evolved)

Evolve: Choose a spell card from your graveyard. Put it into your hand.
Whenever you play a spell card, choose an enemy follower. Give it -1/-1.

Now this, is a card. My entire gaming life has been priming me to want to build around this card. 2PP for a Follower with an effect that turns your obligatory dorky card-draw spells into board control as you increase your Spellchain count is what I'm here for. The Spellchain Rune deck struggles with aggro because aggro never gives you a chance to breathe, meaning anything that isn't removal feels like too much of a luxury in the face of constant pressure. With Agnes, cards like Insight and even cheap removal like Angelic Snipe feel significantly upgraded.

Insight

[Quick] Draw a card.

Angelic Snipe

[Quick] Choose an enemy follower. Deal 2 damage to it.

We haven't even mentioned the fact that evolving Agnes gives us a slightly larger body with the same effect, but also returns a spell to hand. In a more tempo-oriented version of the deck this could be used to recycle Trail of Light, removal, or even retrieve silver bullets you ditched earlier.

Trail of Light

When this card is discarded from your hand, draw a card. 

---------- 

Draw a card.

This card comes from the Uma Masume collaboration set, which as far as I can tell is like a horse racing anime, so it also has the ability to "start racing". You do this by adding Carrot cards to your Evolve deck, and then I guess you just jam them into the Follower the same way you would Epona in Ocarina of Time which gives them [Rush]. I've crossed it out because in a normal Shadowverse Evolve deck I think you're just ignoring that kind of horseplay, as anime-girl card games are serious business.

I'm not sure exactly how possible it is to play a Tempo strategy in a game that gives you PP/Resources for free, but I'm down to try. This is the style of play I was hoping to adopt when I moved towards Rune in the beginning of my journey and I can see it starting to take shape with the release of this card. It's hard to see this card being bad at only 2PP, but whether or not it becomes a mainstay in Rune lists I think is down to whether Spellchain spells gets enough support. Compared to Oz, I'm optimistic because the bar for useful support seems much lower and is certainly more clearly defined. 

★★★★

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