Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Three Dragon Ante Preview: The Dracolich & the Dragonrider


Three-Dragon Ante: Legendary Edition aims to replace the long out-of-print core set originally released by WotC in 2005. As explained in my previous post  on the contents of the new set, Legendary Edition is a mix of the original cards, a handful of Mortals from Emperor’s Gambit, updates of a few cards from the original set that have been revised with more interesting mechanics, and 17 entirely new cards.

Today I’ll show off an update of one of the original cards and one of the new Mortals.



Dracolich

Back in 2005, the Dracolich’s power read: Copy the power of an evil dragon in any flight.

That wasn’t the game’s worst power, but it wasn’t great. Occasionally you could pull off a combo with evil dragons you’d played earlier in a gambit. But not often. Usually you were somewhat reliant on the cards that your opponents had played. That type of reactive play wasn’t all that interesting, especially since a couple of the evil dragons in the core set had weak powers that have been slightly improved in Legendary Edition!

I didn’t think it was worth trying to hold on to the original ability. Instead, the new Dracolich, pictured above, wants to trigger its power when it’s played alongside other evil dragons. A bit like the Emperor from the Emperor’s Gambit set, the Dracolich is capable of boosting your flight’s Strength without giving the foe to your left a better chance of triggering their own powers. It’s obviously not much use alongside good dragons and Mortals, but if you can hold on to the Dracolich until you’ve got two other powerful evil dragons you should be capable of fighting above the evil dragons’ normal weight class.

It’s also worth considering as an opening bluff. Convince opponents it’s not worth fighting you this gambit and you may be able to take the stakes with middling cards.




Dragonrider

Illustrated by the wonderful Craig Phillips, who has now created all the illustrations for the game, this new Mortal can also play for Strength or for misdirection. If you can trigger its power in a flight with two strong dragons, you’re riding a winner. Played early in a gambit it can let you feel out the opposition. Is anyone going to rise to challenge? Or is an opponent clearly setting up a Druid, at which point you might even be able to challenge for the weakest flight!

In fact, one of the sneakiest uses of the Dragonrider is to team up with a Druid! Trigger the Druid and the Dragonrider alongside another Mortal and your 0-Strength Dragonrider can win through weakness!

The Rules

For more on Three-Dragon Ante: Legendary Edition, see the rulebook that WizKids has put up on Boardgame Geek.

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