Well after 6 weeks I’ve completed all the Gods with just Welcome and Core cards! This is my second Gauntlet type challenge, with my first being getting 15+ wins with all Gods using F2P decks.While some of the weekends were not the greatest I definitely had fun being creative and trying to figure out a deck for some of the Gods. Let’s see if my initial predictions were correct in terms of which Gods would do the best; here’s a reminder of what I said before starting the challenge:
Light > War = Nature > Magic > Deception > Death
And here’s what it actually came out to:
Light = Nature = Magic (15) > War (12) > Death (9) > Deception (8)
Note that there was quite a few balance changes since I made that prediction, and I think Light would be between War and Death’s level now; WelCore Light got nerfed quite a bit, War and Deception a little, and Nature barely. Magic I was quite surprised by, even if I went with a different build than I initially thought. Finally, I thought Deception would’ve done a little better, but it’s 1 game off from Death so it’s probably just luck. Honestly though, overall I was pleasantly surprised… 15 wins with just Welcome and Core Cards for HALF the gods! Some of the Gods I struggled to get 15 wins with without that restriction haha.
You can see the WelCore Weekend posts each of the Gods here: Light , War, Nature, Deception, Magic, and Death.
I’ve done this in their separate threads, but I’ll collect some of my thoughts here about the Welcome and Core sets with respect to the Gods, starting from what I think is the best then working my way down to the worst.
Nature
There is a reason everybody flocks to Nature when they’re starting to get serious about the game, and having a very strong Welcome and Core set definitely helps. They have strong midgame with cards like Managarmr, Lightning Strike, Staff of Roots, Singsong Satyr, Bladefly + Wildfire, Overgrown Rhino, Valuewarden Minotaur (yes that misspelling is on purpose :p),and more. This is in contrast to most of the other Gods that have a weak WelCore midgame (3-5 mana). And we all know they have an amazing early game with probably the best 1-drop in Marsh Walker, plus Black Jaguar and now Pyreshell Beetle. Not only do they have good creatures, they also have very good relics plus removal. The Hunt is one of the best WelCore AOEs. It’s no wonder that even top Nature decks still rock a lot of WelCore cards. This is one of the few Gods that I think could play Aggro, Midrange, AND Control (with Hevner) with just WelCore cards. With most of the other Gods I was struggling to find decent cards to fill a deck, but with Nature, it was deciding which ones to cut out.
Magic
Magic was the second God I got into when I first started the game, because at low levels when people are just spitting out creatures, Magic has efficient ways to get rid of them especially combined with their God Power. However, as you get into higher ranks and your opponents start spitting multiple creatures per turn, you’ll feel the lack of early decent AOE. That’s why the initial deck I thought would do well didn’t; Ramp Control needs a nice board clear around 4-6 mana, and Crystal Rain is just a tad too weak without decent Spell Boost. However, the 2-mana slot for Magic is magical, with the 3 different Bolts doing damage, and Time-Bomb doing a little pseudo AOE. Metamorphosis is amazing, and Wyrmbreath and Epiphany make for great face damage. Choralis Rune Moth is also a great value machine which isn’t often seen in WelCore cards. So by adding a few neutral cards to strength the midgame I came up with a decent Midrange Magic deck, which is a little unusual because Magic is mostly Control, Aggro, or Combo.
War
What is it good for? Well the Slayer God Power is a very aggressive tool and Aggro war was always a decent deck I believe. With good WelCore relics like Enduring Shield and Blade of Styx plus your blitz/protected you can gain/maintain early board control, then go face along with the hero power. A decent buff card in Redfume Serum can spell disaster for your opponent if they don’t have any answers. I believe that buffs is where War gets its value because the WelCore set doesn’t provide too many value options, although Runecaster of Auros is a decent addition from the Core Refresh. War actually has good midgame cards too like Raid Reveller, Tamed Mammoth, and Orcish Elite. You can actually make a case for Midrange/Control WelCore War. But I liked War for its fast gameplay and ability to decide games quickly, and I think it’s still decent at that.
Light
Light was on top of its game when the Core Refresh came out and before it got nerfed. It had good control tools in Wrong Path and Mace of Calling, and in the midgame you drop huge swing cards like Judge Envoy then Zealous March and it’s basically game over. Zealous March pre-nerf was one of the best 7-drops, and it’s WelCore! Of course you can still lose the game after your play it but a lot of the times it’s a game-ending play, plus you have 2 of them. However, with 4 or more of its cards nerfed, Light took a huge blow. Judge Envoy is untouched which is good, but with all the nerfs to the other cards it just wouldn’t fare the same. There are still other good cards in the 1 to 3 mana range, and Zealous March can still be a decent card in the mid to late game, but it might not be enough. With its usually lower stated cards it might not see much play by beginners of the game. The redeeming factor for Light is its versatile set of God Powers; I used all 3 when I played my WelCore deck.
Deception
Midrange and Aggro Deception has some strong individual cards, but altogether the package is just not enough. Especially in the current meta where Nature and Magic dominate, Hidden Aggro just doesn’t work due to the random and AOE spells. It does have very strong Midrange cards like Rapture Dance and Witherfingers, though the latter did get nerfed and lost Hidden, and decent removal in Hunting Trap, Umber Arrow, and Uncanny Rouge. Its WelCore set does lack in early and midgame though, and provides no value. That is all fixed in Divine Order which gave Deception quite a bump in power. Plus its God Power is one of the best.
Death
Other than some good removal spells in Blight Bomb and Ray of Disintegration (and End Times if you can make it to 8 mana), WelCore Death is all over the place. There’s some self-harm synergies with Fickle Cambion and Faithbreaker but they’re a bit slow, plus there isn’t that good of healing in place to save you from Aggro or face spells. Implings are a very bad version of Zombies, and honestly, other than Zombies and Board Wipe Death (and lately 1-cost Anubians), there wasn’t much Death decks out there, and the bad WelCore base is a reason why. I did an Anubian deck for my WelCore deck and at least you can get some value with returning to board and a little bit of Afterlife, but it’s still not that good. This is probably why you don’t see much Death at lower ranks, and then you run into a Zombie deck and you’re like woah what??? And to make it even worse, it has 2 of the worst legendaries in the game. Thanakris Spell-Locusts and Animon, Pustulant Impslough; not sure what they’re thinking there.
There are certainly some class imbalance here from the discussion in the last section, and I wonder if the GU team has ever looked at lower ranked players to try to determine what to balance from these cards. While there is a case to be made that one has to be a good budget option (Nature) so that new players will learn about its weaknesses against other (expansion) decks so that they’re willing to buy packs and cards, I think tuning the other Gods up a bit wouldn’t hurt. Of course, Core Refresh did shake things up a bit and gave free/new players more options, but there are some Gods that definitely got the shaft on that one (Death…).
Another thing I wanted to note was that I dropped down some ranks when I was playing with Deception and Death, I think down to Auric Gold with the former and Solar Gold with the latter (maybe I got them switched around but the lowest I dropped was with Deception). Anyways, I noticed that 80% of the time I was playing against a player that is of higher rank than me. This is spread across two weekends and multiple ranks. Ie as a Diamond I played 4 Mythics and maybe 1 Diamond. You’d think oh maybe it’s because there isn’t enough Diamond playing so you get matched with Mythics, well, when I was in the rank below Diamond, I was definitely matching up with Diamonds haha. I don’t think if that’s normal because during the week as I climbed back to Mythic, I was 90% of the time playing with people in my own rank. So is there some weird matchmaking that is based on your starting rank or knows you just dropped a rank and matches you that way? If not, it can be quite disheartening to lower ranked players because they’d just match up with higher ranks all the time…
Finally, I’m not sure if I had anything to do with it, but I’m glad that I don’t really hear people talking about how the game is pay to win anymore. I’m sure the Core Refresh and new expansion helped, but there’s definitely a more diverse meta than before, and the options that free/new players have are much better. I started my first challenge to show that it’s possible to do well in Mythic with all Gods, and this last challenge wasn’t all about that, but the fact that most of the decks were under $10 and half of them got 15 wins, well, that’s really telling. And yes, sometimes it depends on luck of the draw and matchmaking, but as long as you’re constantly doing ok in Mythic on the weekends, your experience and your collection will grow.
I actually really liked the format I did with the WelCore challenge better than the first one, where I just played it for a weekend to see a result rather than stick to one God and try to reach a threshold (15 wins) with it, as there’s less pressure and more variety that way. So whatever challenge I decide to do next, I think I’ll do the same! This is actually a good weekend to end the challenge as I’m flying out to a bachelor party this weekend so I won’t be playing, and I’ll have some extra time to decide what I want to do next. It probably won’t be as “budget” as the last two because as stated above I think I’ve proven the F2P thing works now, but I do want to keep the GODS I’ve made for staking in the future. But if there’s some cards that will make or break a deck I’ll invest in them and maybe sell them after the weekend like I’ve done with some Core Refresh cards when it first dropped. Anyways, see you guys in a couple of weeks!