Barbarian Commander x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Battlemaster 3 - 72 Nora

Barbarian Archer x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp - 74 Nora

Favored Nomad x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 59 hp - 72 Nora

Barbarian Elite x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 50 hp, Blood Frenzy 3, Exertion 3 - 100 Nora

Veteran Barbarian x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 49 hp - 64 Nora

Houndmaster
Upgrades: 9 speed, 50 hp, Summon Beast 3 - 80 Nora

Barbarian Guardian
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Camaraderie - 95 Nora

Barbarian Shaman
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Heal Champion 2 - 62 Nora

Savage Shieldman x2
Upgrades:9 speed, 49 hp, Shove - 74 Nora

Impervious x2
Hammer Strike x2
Strip Armor x2
Earthquake x2
Desperate Heal x2
Righteous Deflection
Disarm
Glorious Charge
Visage of Ironfist
Ironfist Standard

Here is a simple racial theme deck for the barbarians. Barbarians have become significantly more viable in recent expansions with changes to Favored Nomads and the release of Barbarian Archers to handle ranged combat. The biggest strength of this deck is resilience, as barbarians tend to have a hefty amount of hp and defense, not to mention access to a bit of healing and defensive abilities. They also have the ability to provide some significant buffs to their army. Cheap double Motivate and Battlemaster 3 can produce very dangerous champions. The big weaknesses are low speed and lack of nora and mines might be a good substitute for some of the utility spells. However because miners don’t fit our theme the mines won’t be too impressive. Relying on the strengths of the champions and backing it up with a slew of good utility spells the deck can enjoy success at pretty high levels of play.

Each of the champions has something unique to offer in this deck. First is the Barbarian Commanders, who are some of your best combatants with high damage and enrage and also provide the excellent Battlemaster 3. Following up in the support area are your Veteran Barbarians - these guys are kept cheap to bring out fast as possible for motivate. Having both Veterans out significantly increases the killing power of your deck. Archers and Favored Nomads are your best sources of damage and with motivate they can really bring the pain. Nomads also offer an excellent sideways form of nora generation with all the cheap spells you can throw out. Savage Shieldmen bridge the gap between damage and support and while they’re not great at any one thing, they can help protect your range and fight against pure melee units.

The first of our more specialized units are the Barbarian Elites, who have the potential to be your biggest damagers if you play carefully with them and use spell support. They can really bring the pain under the right conditions. Next we have a Houndmaster, who offers excellent detection as well as some helpful long game potential. The dogs are also good with Revenge and Motivate, and the Houndmaster has decent stats as well. The Shaman offers an extra damage type not to mention healing, which is good for your elites or dealing with pesky Sonic Elementals. Finally, the Guardian serves as a walking discount for our army. He’s very expensive, but if you can get him out and protect him he will make his cost back. Nexus Aura is a good once per game turn changing ability, and scramble is very potentially powerful, though not often will it go off. In general the Guardian is a good early game champion for Camaraderie.

This deck makes use of a lot of spells to cover holes in the champions. Hammer Strike and Earthquake provide good spot damage and also help tremendously in controlling enemy champions. Desperate Heal, Impervious, and Righteous Deflection give you a good number of options for keeping your units alive however don’t be afraid to make use of Impervious freely. It can really change the course of a battle if an opponent has to let a champion live for an extra turn and the spell will come back quickly. Double Strip Armor makes good use of the high amount of physical damage. Glorious Charge gives the deck’s offense some range, and is especially good with Barbarian Elites. Disarm makes an appearance for standard reasons, as does the warbanner. Finally we have the Ironfist Visage. Clear is very helpful for a deck like this with no movement abilities, and the helm provides late game power to a deck that is otherwise lacking somewhat in that department.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Everyone knows what a game designers, artists, and programmers do but what about a community manager? A number of you have asked me this question over the past few weeks. What do I do for SOE Tucson, and more importantly how can I help you as a valuable member of the PoxNora community? Community Management is complex and varied enough that it’s difficult to find someone who hasn’t been in my shoes that understands what it entails.

My primary function is to help gather feedback from the player base in order to help the development team. They are capable of digging through hundreds of threads to find out what is on your hearts and minds. Wouldn’t it be better though if they were doing something like fixing bugs or enhancing game mechanics? It’s my job to know what all of you are thinking, or at least what most of you are thinking. Should this be nerfed? Should that be buffed? Is this spell bugged? Do you hate a particular rune and why? I read all this information, compile it for easy digestion and present it to the developers for their assessment.

Being the voice of the community isn’t my only job however, as I spend quite a bit of my time promoting different events. This can be as simple as letting all of you know about patch downtime and posting the notes. Other times SOE has major events like the launch of a game they want everyone to know about. Generally however it’s about making sure everyone sees things like the Weekly Rune Discussion Thread, the Player Spotlight, and anything else exciting happening in PoxNora. The Message of the Day and website news doesn’t update itself!

The lifeblood of a competitive game like PoxNora is tournaments and it’s my job to make sure you guys can beat each other silly on a regular basis. It might sound pretty easy to pick 16 players plus alternates, put them in a bracket, do announcements, officiate and observe all the matches, and write up the championship match. Ok maybe that doesn’t sound easy, but when you add it in with everything else, things can get a little crazy at times. There is comfort however when I see how excited many of you are to participate and I’ve watched some incredible matches just in the two I’ve run so far.

Finally we have the less glamorous task of chatroom and forum moderation. Yes there are days I feel like I’m a crossing guard with a big red stop sign and whistle. We do have a number of rules to and generally they are followed but every now and then, people have to be reminded to wait for the Walk sign. I’m lucky enough to have a few helpful moderators but for the most part I enjoy the time I get bantering and listening to all the players.

So there you have it. That is pretty much what I do in a given day, you just need to imagine it all happening at the speed of light.

If you missed last weeks casual tourney, it was quite a show to behold. Eight players of different factions went head to head with only one walking away as Grand Champion. The final match between high ranked DevilsRath and Sepulcher would take many twists and turns, but in the end one Avatar would fall. Fortunately for you we managed to put together a summary which gives a blow by blow of what happened and some strategies used in upper level gameplay.

Both opponents faced off in the K’Thir Forest map with DevilsRath having the first move. His first champion, a Battlemage, is matched by Sepulcher’s Jakei Elder, Norabeast, and Warbanner. DevilsRath begins his Nora gathering strategy by placing a Nora Mine and a Deep Miner. The next few turns have both sides spreading out but eventually Sepulcher takes the offensive. Advancing a Lonx Recruiter and Jakei Frostbow across the northeast bridge, he casts Ice Block to contest his opponents Nora Font. DevilsRath moves his Battlemage in obliterating the Ice Block but Sepulcher isn’t ready to let up and advances his Jakei Frostbow to reblock while deploying 4 snowcats.

With his font contested, DevilsRath is on the defensive and deploys a Barbarian Elite and Dwarven Sharpshooter to provide sorely needed firepower. The Jakei Frostbow takes heavy damage but the Battlemage takes much more and is reduced to a meager 2 hit points. If this weren’t enough, a Jakei Extinguisher and Elder cross the south bridge. This is now a clear press and it will take a significant turnaround for DevilsRath to hold Sepulcher back. He moves a Siege Engine into position and advances his Barbarian Elite hoping to keep the northeast font contested. Sepulcher now enjoys his advantage and takes the time to deploy more units including a powerful Angel of Perseverance. The Barbarian Elite manages to take out the Jakei Extinguisher before expiring, but Sepulcher moves to secure to the northeast font. In a desperate attempt to prevent total nora control, a Deep miner moves in to contest the font once more.

DevilsRath hasn’t had his Nora Font in some time and is under constant pressure at this point. Sepulcher brings out Tracker Gnark and in a surprise move charges DevilsRath’s avatar. There is nothing but a Siege Engine and a Warbanner standing between him and victory. In a more surprising move, DevilsRath plays Divine Dispersal buying himself just a little more time to regain a foothold. Sepulcher however still controls both fonts and immediately redeploys Tracker Gnark, 2 Jakei Elders, and a Lonx Recruiter. DevilsRath responds with the mighty Euan Ironfist and a powerful Groble Piledriver to hold his position. What happened next would surprise almost every member of the audience watching the game.

Instead of fortifying a secure position at the northeast Nora Font, Sepulcher continued his assault against DevilsRath’s avatar. Tracker Gnark moves in and gets off at least one attack while Euan proceeds to pound on him. He is stunned but not out of the fight. The two Jakei Elders make a rush for the shrine as well. Tracker Gnark gets off one more swing before Euan eliminates him and DevilsRath transfigures his avatar. It probably should have been over by now, but DevilsRath refuses to give up. Sepulcher loses a Jakei Elder but at this point owns all the Nora Fonts giving DevilsRath nowhere to deploy any other units. He’ll have to rely on spells and equipment now. The Angel of Perseverance returns and with him comes an ugly ally, an Ice Golem.

For now it appears DevilsRath has held up against the merciless onslaught but Sepulcher continues the push on him from all sides. The fight was valiant and there were quite a few times the crowd expected at turnaround but the final victory goes to Sepulcher. Be sure to look for more tournaments in the near future where you can not only observe but get in on the action.

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Being an artist for PoxNora requires more than just pencils and paint, it requires the heart and soul of a true warrior.  Darcie has been working on PoxNora for about a year and has brought some of the more impressive runes to life.  Want to learn a little about what goes on behind the scenes?  Read below to learn more.

Mmmm… Sprites. No not the drink, but the little animated dudes you see battling in PoxNora. That’s mostly what I’ve worked on for Pox since I joined the company last summer. Idols like Rip Demon Alpha, Voil Windstriker, and Zarimahl (the FW avatar) are a few that I’ve done.

You don’t see many games these days using sprites for the characters. Most of my classes in college were all 3D modeling, 3D texturing, 3D animating and all that new stuff. Never did a real sprite before Pox, though I did have some pencil and paper animation experience. Painting and animating those little guys is lots of fun! It’s like making one of those skeletons you see in different poses on people’s doors on Halloween and animating it… well but smaller… and in Photoshop… but I’m sure you get the idea.

I’ve also done a handful of Rune art. Shock Toad and Blacklabel Brew are probably the ones I like the most. Mostly Shock Toad, cause creatures are fun. Can’t wait for the batch of PoxNora art stuff to work on! (No, really. I love my job ^__^ )

Now that my secret identity has been revealed!
/run away

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Acid Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Acid Bomb 3 - 85 Nora

Sheoul Demon x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 62 hp, Vulnerability: Frost, Horrific Aura 1 - 92 Nora

Nefari Dragon x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Vulnerability: Frost, Flamestrike 3 - 71 Nora

Draksar Rocketeer x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 42 hp, Ammunition 3 - 74 Nora

Skeezick Cannoneer x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 38 hp, Regeneration 1 - 68 Nora

Magma Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp - 67 Nora

Demon Lich
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Amplify Fire, Swarm: Deep Elf Skeleton - 89 Nora

Acid Dragoleech
Upgrades: 9 speed, 36 hp, Regeneration 1 - 59 Nora

Nefari Messenger
Upgrades: 48 hp - 72 Nora

Deep Elf Summoner
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Invigorate 2 - 70 Nora

Fireblast x2
Firestorm x2
Draconic Pulsar x2
Price of Victory x2
Draconic Benediction x2
Retribution
Sacrifice
Forbidden Fruit
Dragon Skull

An old standby. This deck is based around the inherent synergy of fire between these two factions along with some other useful tricks and generally powerful rune selection. The basic premise is simple - get out a Dragon Skull and do an awful lot of damage with spells. With 6 fire spells you can definitely do just that. Firestorm and Pulsar will hit for 17 and Fireblast for 15, a pounding that will crush groups without fire resistance. The skull also kicks up the damage of a large number of your units - Acid Elementals hit for 15, Rocketeers can shoot for as much as 20, Dragons Flamestrike for 20 + 5 char and the Nefari Messenger’s drive can kick things up even more. Aside from the skull the deck still has strengths - good long range stopping power and 4 AP generation spells among them. You won’t be able to get the Skull out every game, so don’t hesitate to use your AoEs - when you do get it out it is amazing as a stallbreaker.

Most of the runes in this deck are fairly self explanatory, being for the most part combat champions. The Leech is your only weapon against nora, so be cautious with it - it may be worth switching something for the second one if you have trouble. The Summoner and Forbidden Fruit are there to instakill big threats. It is very hard to stop the Summon, Fruit, Invigorate kill, so you can rely on it to remove at least one problem a game. You should not sacrifice the Summoner to get a kill off however, because you will be losing Nora most of the time. The Demon Lich’s swarms are another good target for the fruit, as their attacks cost 2 AP, the same amount granted by Draconic Benediction and Price of Victory. The Lich is also handy for his fire amplification and set ablaze, which will do around 20 damage with a Dragon Skull out. Sacrifice is the last somewhat oddball rune, as is great for reclaiming a Rocketeer that is out of ammunition as well as being your main form of sudden nora advantage, but you must be sure not to use it with a Leech out or you will shoot yourself in the foot.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Fan Faire is approaching, and while you could be sitting on the fence or even wooed by larger venues, today we’re going to tell you what you could be missing. In the past, I’ve had the good fortune to attend a number of shows including Game Developer’s Conferences, the Leipzig Games Convention, and even E3 (when it was awesome). I’ve also had the pleasure of attending Fan Faires, so it’s easy to explain the differences and why they are worth your hard earned dollars.

First, this show isn’t in traffic congested Los Angeles or across the world in East Germany. It’s in glorious Las Vegas; home to everything fun. Do you really need an excuse to visit? Dozens of casinos light every street, the food is outstanding, and there are plenty of shows to take in if you have the time. The airport is only a short distance by cab and all the Fan Faire events are either held on site or within walking distance, so transportation costs are negligible.

Unlike every other event, Fan Faire provides almost non-stop activities the entire time you attend. Bigger shows do the typical 8am – 5pm where you can check things out but at the end of the day are left to your own devices. Of course you’ll see all the SOE products represented, but there is a banquet, at least one amazing party involving karaoke, and a silent auction for unique items. It’s like nothing else I’ve experienced.

In recent years SOE has used one night of the event to make major announcements involving their products. Just a few years ago I was there when they announced Legends of Norrath, and even caught a glimpse of EverQuest and EverQuest II expansions. This means you have the opportunity to see and hear about things that no one else has. It could be a new product or an expansion to an old one but being there live when they show it for the first time is exciting.

This brings us to one of the most important benefits of attending Fan Faire, meeting the developers. As seasoned media I can’t tell you how many interesting conversations I’ve had over a meal or drink during the show. There will be panels when you can ask very pointed questions which we’ll try and answer, but sitting down and finding out that we’re just ordinary people is a rewarding experience. Do you want to ask HawkFain what his favorite faction is or pitch PoxVega rune ideas? This is your chance.

So why haven’t you signed up yet? Airlines are desperate for your business and we’ve got some great rates for the hotel. We hope to see you June 25 - 28 in Las Vegas for the 2009 Fan Faire.

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Poison Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Lay Trap: Poison Cloud - 82 Nora

Massive Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 57 hp - 62 Nora

Firk Botanist x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 47 hp, Vulnerability: Magical- 65 Nora

Firk Sensorate x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 55 hp, Resistance: Magical 3 - 71 Nora

Firk Mindshredder x2
Upgrades: 43 hp - 54 Nora

Eager Cyclops x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 62 hp, Blood Frenzy 1 - 67 Nora

Moga Cannon x2
Upgrades: 54 hp - 71 Nora

Hyaenid Spearman x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 48 hp, Poison 1 - 71 Nora

Sonic Elemental x2
Upgrades: 53 hp - 69 Nora

Voil Transporter
Upgrades: 41 hp - 60 Nora

Avalanche x2
Unstable Ground
Poisonous Fumes x2
Marsh Song x2
Font Eruption
Cyclops Eye Belt x2
Slaver’s Whip

We have another gimmick deck this week. This deck revolves around setting up incredibly painful death traps for your opponent to walk in. With Poisonous Fumes, Poison Clouds, Unstable Ground and Sonic Elementals, we can potentially create spaces of terrain that deal 35 damage per space moved. This is essentially an instant kill when combined with knockback. Of course, this situation will basically never occur in a real game - however, it is very possible to get terrain up to 20 or so damage and then move enemy champions a few spaces through it with knockback or possession. Once you get to the point where it can set up a death trap effect, you’re in good shape, but there is a little to worry about early on. However, these two factions have a very strong early game when combined, so you can generally handle yourself well offensively until you can set up a massive damage knockback combo.

The key champions for your main combo are the Poison Elementals, Sonic Elementals and Massive Anurans. The Poison Elementals are key for clouds and charge, which massively increases your terrain damage output - they are also one of your most solid all around champions. The Sonic Elementals add to the damage of each space while serving as excellent early game units, naturally. The Anurans are your main source of champion-based knockback with the excellent massive leap, which can hit groups of enemies - nice when your terrain effects are all AoE. The Mindshredders find their way in because you’ll be able to control the enemy’s movement pretty well to ensure consistent pinging. The other units are generic combatants for the most part. They are kept cheap with a mix of ranged and melee, and can easily be substituted (Harbingers are a good choice if you have them for early game). You want to keep ranged units alive for Cyclops Eye Belting - Moga Cannons are probably the best here, with the highest hp and longest effective damage range.

Unstable Ground and Poisonous Fumes are your key spells for setting up your terrain damage. Backing them up is Avalanche, which allows you to spontaneously knock any enemy through a cloud, aura or over unstable ground. Following this main group is Marsh Song, which serves as your nora generation. Font Eruption is your last spell, and is essentially a wildcard - it helps with your early game, which can be pretty useful. The SP equips are all there to get you moving through the pain area. Slaver’s Whip can potentially do the most damage, depending on your opponent’s AP, and drive is nice with Eager Cyclops and your relatively low damage ranged units. The Eye Belts are more consistent if a bit harder to use, and can also be used to add 10 damage to hits with engagement in a similar manner to Gale Force, which can set you up for one-roundings quite nicely.

Hello all, this is Anthony Lopes. I joined SOE Tucson as an Artist last July when we were still Octopi.
Most of my work has been doing Idol animation (Savage shield Bearer, Bone Elemental, Barbarian Elite, Yeti Conqueror etc..)

Here I posted my first Champion Rune, the Lonx Striker. I’ve progressed as an artist during my time here at SOE and while I’m generally happy with this piece, there are a few things that could have turned out better.

Things that I didn’t like about the piece

• The form & shape isn’t quite as volumetric as I would have liked.
• The colors are a bit washed out
• The detail doesn’t work as well when shrunk down to card size.

Things that I did like about it

• Composition
• Basic character design

I feel my work on light & volume improved on my Alpine Cyclops (see above image), and look forward to doing more Champion Runes!

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Anthony Lopes Artist

Moga Trapper x2
Upgrades: 31 hp, Lay Trap: Fire 3, Lay Trap: Stone 3 - 40 Nora

Moga Trigger x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 41 hp - 49 Nora

Skeezick Trapper x2
Upgrades: Lay Trap: Fire 3- 49 Nora

Master Trapsmith x2
Upgrades: 35 hp, Grant Frost Trap, Grant Stone Trap - 69 Nora

Moga Slinger x2
Upgrades: 31 hp - 39 Nora

Moga Assault Team x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 64 hp - 59 Nora

G’hern Thrower x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 50 hp, Overseer: Moga 2 - 83 Nora

Varu Howler x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 45 hp - 53 Nora

Draksar Rocketeer
Upgrades: 9 speed, 42 hp, Ammunition 3 - 74 Nora

G’hern Taskmaster
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Overseer: Moga 2 - 68 Nora

Acid Elemental
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Acid Bomb 3 - 85 Nora

Avalanche x2
Draconic Pulsar x2
Firestorm x2
Draconic Benediction x2
Echo Chamber
Tribal Post

This week’s deck is a fun gimmick deck. It revolves around traps and the Moga Trigger’s ability to get seriously buffed by eating a lot of them. With 6 units that are capable of placing at least a trap per turn, you can easily get a trigger up to damage in the 20s-30s if given half a chance. This is not as hard to do as you might expect, because the traps are a good delaying tactic. Once you have him buffed, a thrower and a drive or DB lets him get in and maul some opposing champions. With all 4 basic trappers out for 3 turns, you can eat traps and immediately bump your trigger up to 40 damage (a setup like that only costs about 200 nora). It’s pretty satisfying to smack someone for 80 damage in one turn with a little moga. This isn’t exactly a practical competitive deck however, and it isn’t going to walk all over the competition. Expect it to hold its own in mid to high ranks but not dominate.

The Trappers and Trapsmiths are your key runes, giving you a good long game and letting you set up Trigger shenanigans. Basically, you want to get them out as early as possible and keep out of harm’s way - though they are cheap enough that in a close match you shouldn’t ignore their combat potential. The G’hern Throwers are key in allowing your trigger to actually get hits off, and make decent overseers in general - go to the Taskmaster first if you can unless you are setting up. The Taskmaster provides drive and is the optimal early game G’hern. Moga Assault Teams and Moga Slingers are great damage in the early game and come out fast - same for the Varu Howlers. The two Rocketeers are generally good units and also provide ranged knockback, which works excellently with traps - setting up a trap square and explosive shotting someone back onto it is very profitable. Finally, we have the Acid Elemental, who is basically a wildcard slot - a number of things can work here, such as a Sauropod for more traps or a leech for some nora advantage.

The spells and relics in this group are mostly just basic choices. Draconic Benediction is standard, and works well with moga and on Trigger turns. Firestorms and Draconic Pulsars give you damage that the deck otherwise is not too heavy on in the early game. Avalanche is a standard good AoE, and the knockback is very powerful with traps - with two Moga Trappers and an avalanche you can do 50 damage to a champion in one turn by knocking them onto a stack of 4 traps. Echo Chamber provides contestation and distract when needed, and the Tribal Post helps out greatly with the low hit points on most of your Moga Champions.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Poison Elemental x2
Upgrades: 53 hp, Lay Trap: Poison Cloud - 78 Nora

Toxic Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 48 hp, Poison Cone 3, Ally: KF - 75 Nora

Boghopper Spitter x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 36 hp, Poison 2 - 71 Nora

Tidemaster x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp - 74 Nora

Massive Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 57 hp, Ally: KF - 60 Nora

Sporegill x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 36 hp, Poison Cloud 1 - 41 Nora

Garu Shaman x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Heal Champion 3, Poison 2 - 74 Nora

Ranger Elite x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 52 hp - 75 Nora

Elder Garu
Upgrades: 9 speed, 68 hp - 76 Nora

Poisonous Fumes x2
Marsh Song x2
Nature’s Wrath x2
Brambles x2
Thorn Collection
Herbal Antidote
Drown
Oaken Mace
Rejuventation Ring

(Note: All speeds listed include the KF half bonus)

This deck revolves around the inherent synergy of the KF and FS poison units. It gives you access to a ton of Ally units and a few very good targets for amplification, as well as a ton of map control. The main theme is obviously the poison synergy, and that can get pretty crazy - with 2 poison charges and all the amplification out a Poisonous Fumes spell can hit for 14 damage. Considering that you have 4 poison cloud champions as well as an excellent source of knockback in the Massive Anuran, you can do some incredible things on a major turn - Fumes + A cloud + 2x poison charge + massive leap will do about 44 damage to anything in the AOE 2, and only uses up 35 nora’s worth of expended resources. If you can stack clouds or Fumes on such a turn you can guarantee kills on multiple units at once. The biggest problem with this deck is poison resistance - it’s fairly plentiful. You have to be careful to keep some of your non-poison units out (you do have a good number), though you can usually still control Undead or Elementals with poison cloud abilities.

The Poison Elementals are your key champions, doing high poison damage with great stats and offering excellent AoE and board control from their clouds and traps. Their poison charge ability is also the best way to quickly boost the damage of your poisonous abilities and spells (it also adds 2 damage to the first tick of a DoT). The Toxic Anurans serve the role of your general all purpose champion - they hit pretty hard at range and up close with Ally: KF and their poison abilities, and aren’t too costly. They also do physical melee damage, making them very valuable against the many poison resistance champions you’ll face. The tidemasters are your prime amplification - they are fairly cheap and long ranged, so you don’t need to put them in harm’s way. They aren’t going to hit very hard (though you do have enough hoppers to get some surge), but the extra damage they give will add up. Tidal wave is also an excellent offensive AoE, and fuels your capability to drown.

The Boghopper Spitters and Garu Shamans are your main ranged attackers, both throwing down DoTs at range and hitting pretty hard with support out. The Spitters are fragile and have to be played cautiously - however, the Shamans are tanks, with solid defense (helped by the attack debuff) and the ability to heal they should be used on the front lines. The Sporegills are amazing for their cost, though they take a while to get into the fight. If you aren’t pressed, get them out immediately - they’re so cheap that they’re pretty much impossible to kill without them earning back their cost, and they amplify themselves and your other units as well. The final major component of the deck is the Massive Anurans, who provide knockback, which is super powerful when coupled with poison clouds and have incredibly cost efficiency with Ally (62 hp, 13 damage for 60 nora). The Ranger Elites and Elder Garu are essentially filler, and can be replaced by any solid champions that don’t do poison damage - their main role is helping out against resistance units and killing shrines.

Spellwise, Poisonous Fumes is your keystone, dealing potentially huge amounts of damage and controlling the battlefield excellently. K’thir Forest gives us access to a bunch of solid AoEs, which is very helpful when dealing with poison resistance and in general - also, with 2 Brambles and 2 Poisonous Fumes you have excellent board control. Herbal Antidote serves its normal purpose mostly - it can also give you poison immunity on demand, which can be very important if you’re blanketing the field in poison clouds. The Marsh Songs give us the nora generation to compete in long games. Drown is our final spell, and may seem a weird choice with no water generation - however, with Tidal Wave it is very efficient and you can deal with the dead slot if you cannot use your Tidemasters. Following up our spells are 2 equips, who are in for general utility - Oaken Mace also lets you do physical damage with a poison unit if necessary.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer