The stream last night showed us 12 shiny new spoilers from Rise of the Realm Runners. Let’s take a look. First up, the realmless cards:

Peorth and Kaunan continue the realm rune precedent set by Algiz and Isaz in that they are rare realmless actions that let you play a REVEALed card for free and give you +1 for each card with that Δ colour (yes, I’m using the Greek symbol delta, Δ, for shard) on your canvas. These are strong cards that are likely to see play in the right deck. I can already see myself including Kaunan in a fairy deck with Firetender and Lava Fountain. The slightly surprising thing here is that Peorth breaks the mould and is an achrom card with a gain effect rather than a drain effect like Achrom Breach.

Aquaeous Transition and Flora Overgrowth continue the realm rift trend set by Orium Fracture: legendary locations that give you a once per turn REVEAL, meaning you are playing with 1 more card each turn of the right colour, and you get a once per turn gain equal to the number of cards of that colour on your canvas.

The winner with these cards is probably achrom. Of the 4 realm rifts and 4 realm runes, achrom get one of each, while the rifts belong to dark blue, green, and pink, and the runes belong to red, yellow, and pale blue. Sure, chroma decks play a mix of colours. But it’s just much easier to stick to one colour when you’re talking about achrom. That being said, a clever build could really utilise the rifts to pull specific cards from their deck, by only including a handful of powerful cards with the target Δ colour, a trick that achrom can’t use because all their cards have an achrom Δ. More on this later.

Note that we have now seen 8 realm runners, 4 realm rifts, 8 realm relics, and 4 realm runes. This means that they have all been spoiled, though are still possibly subject to change before official release.

Now, moving on to the realm locked cards for Salum Planum:

Von Ruthro Teapot continues the REVEAL theme of the set, and this time it’s for a resource. Now, I can’t actually find a resource card at all, so I’m sure some more will be coming, as it was revealed on the stream that subtypes are going to be a bigger part of achroma moving forward. The fact it’s +1 for 1 and can find a card for you if you erase it, is pretty nice.

Occultist’s Stang is very similar, but costs 2 and has a -1. The REVEAL effect here looks for a spell or ritual. We’ve already seen one ritual in Otrix’s Conjuring (see the article here), and given this costs 2 instead of 1, I would expect spell/ritual to represent better value than a Teapot. Also, in case you were wondering, a stang is a pagan forked ritual staff, which is nicely thematic here.

Hex Clunker Parts! First of all, this card is very unusual in that it refers to a specific other card. I think the only other cards to do that so far are Leif of Lacringi/Lacringi Gardens, and Brisgavi/Lacringi Totem Worship. I like that this card is guaranteed to make Hex Clunker better because the Clunker tutors this card. However, if you do that you’re passing on the Clunker‘s ability to play objects of power for free, which is worse than playing it from your hand for free AND playing another object of power from your palette. It’s going to feel amazing when you have this in your hand rather than having to FIND it with Clunker.

I kind of feel like if this card didn’t say it could be played on Hex Clunker for free, it would actually feel better to play it with the Clunker ability. As it is, you have to not play another object for free that turn that you might have otherwise. That aside, this play makes the Clunker a +5 for 6Δ, and you’ll still get to use the Clunker ability (to FIND or DIG for an object of power and play it for free) next turn (if it doesn’t get claimed or erased). That’s pretty good, compared to +2 for 6Δ, plus this card guarantees you being able to play an object even if there’s no characters out, as you can play it on locations.

I find the presence of this card a little peculiar because Hex Clunker is already much much better thanks to some extraordinarily powerful realm relics like Cintimani Stone and Dyrnwyn. It is uncommon so you can at least include it AND the rare realm relics in your deck (though you may only want 1 copy in your deck as its heroic). While I’m on the subject of Cintimani Stone, that card has undergone a change since I wrote about it here and raved about how ridiculously powerful it was. Here’s the updated version:

This card is still pretty crazy. Open your turn by trading a big card, and you get that back for free with this, similar to the ol’ Occultist’s Den play. However, with the Hex Clunker, it’s still in a class above. You can use Hex Clunker to FIND (or DIG) Cintimani Stone, play it for free, and play another card, any card, from your dregs for free, and you technically haven’t even deployed a card yet. That makes Hex Clunker insane value even without Hex Clunker Parts. Unless you have no characters out on your canvas yet, I just can’t see why you’d be playing the Parts before this Stone.

A particularly fun combo I like it using Hex Clunker to FIND this card and play it on an opponent’s character, then use the Stone to DIG for a Corrupted Muon Trap (or Otrix) and claim that character. Then I’m essentially giving the Corrupted Muon Trap 5Δ of health AND if they do manage to erase my Cintimani Stone or Muon Trap I can just DIG it with my Clunker and rinse and repeat next turn. I’ll definitely also consider Mystical Malfunction here to erase my own Cintimani Stone just to DIG it again, though that might be a bit contrived. Note you can do this midway through the resolve phase: resolve the Stone, Malfunction it, DIG and deploy it again for free with the Clunker, DIG and play another card for free from any dregs, and resolve the Stone again and whatever that other card was.

Worried about the opponent erasing your precious Hex Clunker next round? Worry not, because you can play Hex Clunker Engineer to pull Cintimani Stone from your dregs, play it, then DIG for the Clunker again and play it for free, then use its ability to FIND the Hex Clunker parts. Now you’re up to Steal 2, Gain 5, Block 1, though it did cost you 8Δ and you’ve used up 2 of your deploy slots. It only cost you 1 card from hand though to get those 4 cards on your canvas. Bonus.

The only problem with all these musings is that in at least half of games, that Clunker is going to be sitting in my deck undrawn. Unless, and I mentioned this earlier, I do some careful deck building and use the right realm runes. For instance, I could have zero cards in my deck with the red Δ colour except Hex Clunker. Then Kaunan becomes a second copy of my the Clunker, just like Murky Manor was for any achrom legendary. Yes, you only get a +1 from the rune, but you’re playing a 6 cost legendary for a net 3Δ, which is pretty nice. I guarantee that this kind of deck building contrivance will play a part in the competitive play scene.

Right, that’s enough about 1 card. Next, Chromatic Shield is a solid PROTECTION card for all cards on your canvas, making it more versatile but also more expensive than Defensive Position. Shoring up your cards for a round against an achrom deck could easily win you the game, and you can also use it to attack with impunity (so long as you’re not facing down a pesky poinsonous Funguar).

And finally, 4 more cards for Draco Planum:

Cursed Crystals of Arcus seems very similar to Crown of Thorns here, in fact it’s almost exactly the same: 4 cost and the character is erased at the end of the turn. However, the character cannot attack, and that makes it a much safer card to play. They still get to resolve that character, so it’s not exactly great value for a 4 cost, but if there’s more cards to interact with objects of power, it might make it worth it. Note that Crown of Thorns is getting changed before release, so most likely this won’t overlap so much and hopefully Crown of Thorns will now be playable.

Scorch is further support for sacrifice, and is essentially a Salum Spring but you have to sacrifice to get it. This would seem odd if it weren’t for the fact we have some very nice sacrifice supporting cards coming soon. If you play Stolen Dragon Egg and this, that’s steal 6 for 4Δ! If you play Bathed in Achrom then this, that’s steal 2 and erase any of an opponent’s cards for 4Δ! Huh. Drakes are looking better and better.

Battle Bo of Arcus is a fun object for RESEARCH decks. Once on the table, every time you RESEARCH, regardless whether you keep the card, this thing gets +1 strength. Given cards like Rummage exist which have essentially unlimited RESEARCH, and you’ll be researching quite a lot in the right deck anyway, this could get strong very fast, essentially giving you a character that can snipe any other character off the canvas. The fact it’s got a +1 and costs 2Δ feels fair.

And finally, I love Materno’s Egg. The ability to REVEAL a 3Δ or less dragon means you can feed your hand with the all important dragon hoard this archetype needs, and at any point you can DISPOSE it to play a dragon with a cost of 3 or less for free. Beautifully thematic, although we’ll get into a weird chicken and egg situation when players use this card to hatch Materno herself.

The curious thing about the timing here is that, say you want to wait a round before playing a dragon, maybe you’re a bit short on shards, and can’t play it before the resolve step, but you want to keep this object on your character to protect it from the attack of a Funguar. You can DISPOSE this card after the opponent’s attack phase but before your turn starts to play that dragon and still attack with it on your turn, as it didn’t enter your canvas that turn. Niche, but I like niche.

One final musing to leave you with: the only Draco Planum cards with a yellow shard are: Jade Dragon Pendant, Nue, The Lost Fairies, Impundulu, Monastery Gates, Darnacusk, Entombed Elders, and now Materno’s Egg, of which only The Lost Fairies, Darnacusk, and Materno’s Egg are top includes for a dragon deck. Another card with a yellow Δ is Dexter, Master of Dragons. It is not, therefore, a stretch to imagine a dragon build with the yellow rune Algiz, giving you a tutor event that can REVEAL your legendary or this Egg and play it for “free” (the Egg would actually cost you a net of exactly 3 if you did this). This sets up your once-per-turn free dragon into your hand, including Materno. The Dexter/Materno combo suddenly looks a lot more consistent. As I said before, I am confident that these sorts of deck building tricks will be big in the coming Spring.