Last night on the stream, there was some big news, and some spoilers. I thought I’d go over what was revealed about Chapter 2, a little bit about the content of the Rise of the Realm Runners decks, which are available for pre-sale, and then take a look at the new spoilers.

First, the exciting news: the reveal of the poster image for the first chronicle of Chapter 2: A Conjuring at Curdle Cave.

Yes! As expected from the Easter Egg teaser, we’re getting a seafaring expansion for Salum Planum. It had been confirmed that Curdle Cove is in the same sort of area as Curdle Hill, so we might see some cross-over in factions. The ship in the picture appears to have a glowing pink power source, which is the colour of chroma ore, or orium as it’s called in Norso Planum. It’s also what most Magus Elite armoury is made from, so the suggestion is this is a Magus Elite or at least non-achrom ship.

The 6-strong crew we can see seem to be pretty nonchalant about the fact there’s a giant squid monster under their boat, so I might suppose that they’re on the same side, but that’s pure speculation.

Perhaps the most exciting thing of all though is the release date: 26th May. This is coming hot on the heels of the Rise of the Realm Runners. And talking of which, pre-orders of Rise of the Realm Runners decks are now available here (as well as the unlimited runs of Chapter 1 cards).

For those looking to pre-order RotRR, here’s some information:
All the Realm Runner decks are specific to a realm, and contain 2 of every single common from that realm (from this set), 1 or 2 of each uncommon, and 2 copies of one of the two rares from that realm. They also contain 4-5 realmless cards: 1 copy of the eponymous realm runner for that deck, 2 copies of a realm relic (a realmless object), and either 1 copy of a legendary rift, or 2 copies of a rare rune. These are fixed decks so you know exactly what you’re getting.

Here’s what you get in each of the realm runner decks:
Phisto: Salum Planum U/C + 2 Cintimani Stone + 2 Achrom Converter + 1 Orium Fracture (magenta rift)
Haruto: Salum Planum U/C + 2 Golden Apple of Eris + 2 Chromatic Shield + 2 Algiz (yellow rune)
Ray: Draco Planum U/C + 2 Dyrnwyn + 2 Ornithopter + 1 Aquaeous Transition (dark blue rift)
Mutans: Draco Planum U/C + 2 Serpent’s Ring + 2 Bathed in Achrom + 2 Peorth (achrom rune)
Hod: Spirata Planum U/C + 2 Mask of Mysterium + 2 Craven’s Katana + 1 Achrom Breach (achrom rift)
Yana: Spirata Planum U/C + 2 Jamshid Orb + 2 Awaken the Guardians + 2 Kaunan (red rune)
Niimi: Norso Planum U/C + 2 Club of Dagda + 2 Gisle’s Sash + 1 Flora Overgrowth (green rift) Hissano: Norso Planum U/C + 2 Brisingamen + 2 Brisgavi Feast + 2 Isaz (pale blue rune)

Given what I’ve seen so far, if I were to pick up some spare cards, Phisto would probably be the first deck I would buy a second copy of.

And talking of what we’ve seen so far, here are 8 new spoilers from the stream. First up, Salum Planum and Draco Planum:

Salum Planum gets Achrom Converter and Lost in the Woods.

Achrom Converter is one of my favourite new cards, though being rare it will fight for that all important rare slot in a deck. Steal 1 on an object should cost 2Δ, and erasing any card with a non-achrom Δ would at absolute best cost 2Δ, but 3Δ would still be completely reasonable. Combining these into 1 card is already great value, and the fact you can attach this to a location (which is generally a pretty safe card) and use its ability every round with no conditions attached (unlike something like Spirata Planum’s Achrom Corruptor which requires you to attack), puts this into extremely good territory. The obvious card to include this with is the oft-mentioned Hex Clunker. FINDing this and deploying it for free them immediately using its ability is just amazing.

Lost in the Woods is much worse than Silent Thicket or Curdle Woods in 1v1 as you need to have a location out already, the opponent chooses the character, and if the location you choose is erased the character is freed and you’ve lost whatever investment the location itself cost. In multiplayer however it’s pretty solid, as are all cards that affect “all other players”, and I think that while you’ll have all other players gunning for you, it’s likely your opponents will think twice before erasing the target location as they’ll be doing all other players a favour too.

Draco Planum has been given Search for Power and Sacrificial Ovoo, an Ovoo being a shrine in Mongolian culture, literally meaning “pile” (I confess I had to Google that one).

Search for Power is a nice way of trying to find a “good” card in a deck, but costing 2Δ just for 1 card, even if it is likely to be a good one, is a tough ask except in very particular builds. I think if this had said “… shard value 4 or more”, or even “…5 or more”, instead of 3, it would have been a bit more playable.

Sacrificial Ovoo is even more support for the SACRIFICE keyword (love it), allowing you to redo a SACRIFICE effect. This would be absolutely brutal with Ancient Rituals (discard 4!), but also good with Scorch (steal 4!), Ritualistic Notion (erase 2 cards), Sacrificial Ritual (each other player erases 2 cards), and even Ritual of Knowledge (draw 4!). It’s also a 2 cost object with steal1, which in and of itself isn’t too bad.

Now, Spirata Planum and Norso Planum:

Wing Clipper is another “cursed” object which you play on an opponent’s character. It has exactly the same effect as Muon Sphere in Salum Planum, for exactly the same cost, but I would say is probably slightly more playable in Spirata Planum.

Dr. Hue’s Lab Coat is a sort of anti-King Craven in that it prevents all draining or stealing, except that it only lasts 1 round (bad). However, after you’ve played it, it can’t be undone by erasing the card itself, unlike King Craven (good). This means you can play with impunity, safe in the knowledge your Δ bank is safe at least until the end of your next turn. Also, a 6 strength object is enough to make any character pretty damn scary. However, the thing that makes this card super-playable is it’s an uncommon that costs 6Δ! Spirata Planum is already blessed with expensive uncommons: Advance Scouting Party and Giant Prism are both 5Δ cost cards, which is unique in the world of achroma. To add a 6Δ cost uncommon to the realm means that fairy decks will be able to gain and trade their way to victory much more easily. I can’t wait for the first time I play Advance Scouting Party and draw this as one of my 3 cards. This one will definitely be going in my fairies deck as soon as it arrives.

Cave Expedition is extraordinarily good value in the right deck. For context, here’s all the Wishwell Quarry Locations in the game:

That’s a lot, and you wouldn’t want lots of these with Cave Expedition as it’s too random. However, build a deck with a few of the right ones, and you can give yourself some much needed additional consistency.

Traders decks can use this to pull Traders Pass, Wishwell Barrens or Fishing Dock. Even if you include all 3 in your deck, this card is a nice facilitator to get one of them on the table, and as they all cost 3Δ, you break even.

Lacringi Gardens would be a very nice card to hit with this event. It’s a saving of 2Δ on the normal cost, and you’re getting a +3 location with an on-play draw ability that will at the very least let you draw 1 card. The Lacringi can use this with Cliff Dwelling to FIND a Hulder Troll like Leif, Siv or Magnus, making those decks more reliable.

Brisgavi also get very handy use out of this; I’ll definitely be including this in my Brisgavi deck as Brisgavi Cave Dwelling and Brisgavi Falls are fundamental to the power of that deck. However, I’ll need to remove Brisgavi Shore from my deck first as its too much of a risk to hit it, which means dropping Brisgavi Negotiation too. Worth it though.

But my favourite play is including 2 copies of this with 2 copies of Lacringi Forge and no other Wishwell Quarry location to practically guarantee being able to FIND a crucial object of power, such as a realm relic like Cintimani Stone.

And finally, Riled Up is another nice event that supports the Brisgavi attack theme. You can use it to give one of your characters RAGE, but that’s a pretty expensive way to do so, especially since Brisgavi Fishing Spear is much better for that purpose. The most obvious play is to deploy a strong character, or a character with poison, and force your opponent to immediately attack them. However in that circumstance, Roll with the Punches is probably a better card in your deck as it can apply to multiple of your characters in a turn. I guess you can play this to essentially get a free attack, but that’s only worth it if you have a character that you want to attack with 3 times (assuming you have RAGE) which seems kind of unlikely. Ultimately, I can’t see myself playing it, but I’m not going to deny that it could be handy at the right time.

And finally, here’s an updated image showing all the spoiled cards from Rise of the Realm Runners in black, with unspoiled card names in grey. No more cards are going to be spoiled between now and release, so the light grey card names in the image will remain unspoiled until people have them in hand. Can’t wait.