Welcome to Altered’s third set’s spoiler season! From all of the Exalts team, we wish you some lucky pulls and a great prerelease event!
But we understand you’re here for the card reveal so without further ado, it is our honor to reveal an Yzmir card:
Evanescence – Common
noun. the quality of being fleeting or vanishing quickly; impermanence. dictionary.com
That’s right, we’re getting a very spicy disruption spell, as we’ve come to expect from the Yzmir witches and wizards. Though it has a lot of text, it is a fairly simple 2-hand cost or less removal and exhaust when played from hand. When played from reserve, it sends an opponent’s character of up to 5-hand cost back to where it came from (exhausted!), depending on how many spells you played when it was cooking.
Now that we’ve read the card in simpler terms, let’s see what this means realistically.
Evanescence has to compete with other powerful removal spells
The most obvious comparison is with Yzmir’s signature and most powerful spell: Off You Go! and Evanescence both send to reserve, and both cost 2 from hand and 4 from reserve. But unlike the former and like Freeze, Evanescence exhausts cards affected by the spell. And unlike Freeze and similar to Rare Off You Go!, it has a hard cost limit of 5.
In practical terms, Evanescence allows for removal of most of the Trial by Frost terror’s cards, Sigismar. Attorneys, Troopers, Legates, Tokens, all of them are going under!
But if you’re going to remove low cost characters, why not just play Off You Go! ? Well, Evanescence’s strength lies elsewhere, in its versatility. It is a lot more useful in a midrange meta where you’re sure to make use of the heightened hand cost limit.
Maybe you’ll be using it on a Spindle Harvester and an Aloe Vera? A Kadigiran Mage Dancer and a Flamel? It sure seems like its intended use.
An honorable mention is to Nilam, The Withered Tree and exhaust decks which gain a low cost removal and another exhaust trigger! Yay to exhaust decks! But, Nilam decks will maybe want to play…..
Evanescence – Rare
Bring out your witch hats, everyone! There’s a bit more reading on this one, and we’re expecting more than a few misplays if you’re not paying attention!
Aside from triggering 2000’s rock band memories and terrible jokes every time I play this card, there’s a lot going on here. Allow me to explain if you’re having trouble.
Unlike most cards released up to now, Evanescence’s rare version changes how the whole card works! You will be sending a 2 hand cost or less character to reserve the first time around, but when played from reserve, given enough Arcane Counters, you’ll be playing a pocket Kraken’s wrath! And a Kraken’s Wrath that exhausts at that!
While all targeted characters must be 2 hand cost or less, you will be able to target up to 4 of them, 1 being baseline and the max X being 3.
But that doesn’t matter when all you’re playing is Ordis, right? right…?
Pretty sweet wall of text isn’t it? Do you need more?
Well, we do have more!
Evanescence – Axiom Out of Faction
Lord have mercy, more text!
Naturally, if you’ve been playing Trial by Frost, you’ll have noticed that Exhausting cards is a keyword most commonly found in Yzmir and Axiom, and thus it comes as no surprise to the latter faction
It is mostly the same as the rare version, with the exception being the support ability! It is also an ongoing ability but with a more Axiom-y flavor
Instead of gaining counters through spells, it gains counters through one of the two modes, at noon. Note that the second mode triggers exhaust mechanics like the Nilam (again) and can be played through Vaike, Energy Pioneer.
Supposedly, if you want the full strength of Evanescence from reserve as soon as possible and aren’t running Vaike, you will exhaust it to gain 2 counters first, and will give it 1 more counter the second day to play it immediately
Outro
While we’re not sure to see this card being a staple due to it being highly meta-dependent and to Off You Go!’s sheer power level, it is very nice to see more removal options, and also nice to see synergy between sets! You will definitely want a few Trial by Frost boosters to play with this one.
While writing this article, news about the World Championship and Qualifiers dropped, and we hope to see you there! (But please let us have a player or two at the finals)
Peace out
