Last night, Realm Runner Studios revealed the final versions of their realm runners and realm relics. Great news from the stream was that all the cards have now gone to printers, so we won’t be waiting too long to have these cards in hand. There were not many changes to the cards that have already been revealed, mostly wording edits, but there were a couple of functional changes.

Firstly, Jamshid Orb now says that attached character cannot be erased, which is a slight step up from PROTECTION as it protects you from poisonous. Club of Dagda received a functional change which I don’t think was mentioned in the stream. It now only gives you +1 when you attack, instead of +2 (here’s the old version), which I think is a bit of a shame, but I guess in testing this turned out to be too strong with a +2. A bigger change though is Yana:

When I first looked at her in this article, she gave you +1 for every Δ, which was pretty ridiculous. Now, you have to pick a colour, and it can’t be achrom. This could still be pretty massive, but it’s no longer outrageous. I could see players who are building around specific colours in fairy palettes considering Yana in their build. A couple of Squad Leaders and a Water Fountain and Yana is +11.

We also got 4 new spoilers. First up, spirata planum:

Corruption Grenade utilises the DISPOSE keyword to great effect here, allowing you to erase it for -1 for each card with SQUISH on your canvas. The problem with this card is it doesn’t have any natural drain, it’s a one-time use, and there just aren’t that many cards with SQUISH. So far, there are only 3: Achrom Factory, Ravaged Elite, and Morag. None of the spoilers so far have this keyword either. I just can’t see myself using this card over the other solid pixie cards, unless we get more SQUISH cards.

Craven’s Katana is the rare object for spirata planum. It allows you to REVEAL an achrom card every turn so long as the attached character is attacking. This card has no natural DRAIN, and so again it’ll be difficult to justify the palette slot for this card, especially as its rare. Feeding your hand with cards is great, but it just feels like a lot of work to go to for a few extra cards.

Creature Comforts is a fun little card, if just for the artwork. Funguar, Imp, and Dracon are looking pretty comfortable. This card allows you to REVEAL a creature, which so far includes the above, plus Chroma Worm and Daydrifter. Slightly tricky to justify spending 2Δ on a tutor for one of those and still having to pay to deploy it, and there won’t be any more creatures in this set, but this could easily be a bit of a fan favourite. You could argue I suppose that having a card that tutors Funguar is pretty handy given that poisonous is the bane of PROTECTION. Of course if we see more creature support, this card becomes stronger.

Squad Formation on the other hand is a very competitive card. Painters include Copper Joss, Senior Painter, Dove Tail, Squad Leader, Wincey Rustwhether, Sprat, and Trainee Painter, while fairies are that list plus the Matron, Teacher, Librarian, Dr Hue, Spiral, and Firetender. There’s quite a number of build-arounds in that list, and even if this card doesn’t hit the perfect cards when you trigger it, it’s still 3Δ for 2 specific types of card in your hand.

Now, norso planum:

Brisgavi Feast is the rare action of norso planum and pushes the attacking theme of the brisgavi. To make this worth it you really want to be attacking with 2+ (ideally 3+) characters, or using RAGE/Club of Dagda for multiple attacks from one character, so it’s pretty situational as it depends on the opponent having enough targets. Since the strength increases, but the Δ value of the characters does not, this could easily be a last supper for your characters. With Samr Smash, Hulder Tail Whip, a number of great characters, and all the new realmless rares competing for the 4 rare slots, I can’t see myself ever including this card in a regular palette. It’s a lovely bit of theme though.

Brisgavi Axe however is amazing. It’s a much weaker version of the previously spoiled Factory Overalls, however I have a feeling that card may have seen a rework since it was first shared. This Axe has a natural -1 for 3Δ, but its strength is in its ability. Much as I said for the fated overalls, since it can ERASE a location through DISPOSE, which can be used during the opponent’s turn, you save this effect for when the opponent plays a location and immediately erase it before they get a resolve. That means their Monastery Nest, Rangled Wood, Fishing Dock or Vast Volitarus cost them 3Δ for absolutely nothing, meaning this card essentially nets you -3. It’s obviously less effective against cards with an ACTION, like Chroma Storehouse, but that’s a minor criticism. The only downside is if the opponent erases the attached character with an ACTION you lose the object too, so it’s by no means broken, but I’m sure it will be an annoyance for a number of decks.

Siv’s Shield is another nice way to up your SHIELD WALL, and is thematically and mechanically excellent on Siv herself giving you an additional +2 GAIN. It essentially gives the attached character an extra 5Δ of health, which is pretty solid, especially since they can now also DEFEND. The shield also has PROTECTION when defending, which means that it won’t get erased if its Δs were to be drained, meaning it’s going to be very hard to erase your characters with pure attack. This card will slot right into the Astrid’s Objective of Power deck.

And finally, Tufter’s Companion is another support for the creature subtype, this time for norso. We’ve got Cave Salamander, Glass Eel, Cave Spider, Velvet Worm, and Cave Snail. I like Glass Eel as it’s just great value, and the Spider has poisonous. But unless you already have a creature out when you play this, you net 0Δ and it cost you an extra card from hand, and even with one out already you’re only netting 2Δ for a card in hand, which is situational and a bit so-so given the creatures aren’t exactly great choices for most decks. I kind of feel like this card is just laying the groundwork for a creature archetype at some point down the line.