Greetings, players of Shadow Era. It's Gondorian here, Shadow Era TCG Head Designer, and I'm back to continue our new spoiler series for Lost Lands part 2, which will be focusing on each of our seven classes in turn. Last time, we had a look at the Hunter class, and before that it was the Warrior class. This week, it's the Mages that we hope will enchant you.

Without further ado, let's take a look:


Popsickle - 2cc Mage Ally - Undead - 1ice/4HP - 0: Popsickle attacks target opposing frozen ally if able.

Subdue - 3cc Mage Attachment Ability - Attach to target opposing ally. That ally has Sustain 1HP and -2 attack. Allies adjacent to that ally have -1 attack.

Disarming Personality - 3cc Mage Ability - Target weapon with X base attack becomes a readied ally with X base attack, health equal to its durability and no abilities.

Leash of Life - 3cc Mage Artifact - While an ally is adjacent to your hero, that ally has immunity to enemy attachments and +1 health and its abilities cost 2 less resources to activate.

Living Ice Wall - 3cc Mage Artifact - While Living Ice Wall is a frozen ally, it has protector. 0SE: If Living Ice Wall is an artifact, it becomes an ally with 2 ice base attack and 5 health and it is frozen for 2 turns.

Tempest Runebearer - 3cc Mage Ally - 1electric/5HP - Ability damage to Tempest Runebearer is reduced by 1. While ability damage has been dealt this turn, Tempest Runebearer has +2 attack.

Suspended Animation - 4cc Mage Ability - Target item in a graveyard is returned to play under your control as an ally with 2 ice base attack, 3 health and no abilities: all opposing allies are frozen for 1 turn.


After looking over these cards, I hope you will agree we have come a long way in terms of marking out a clearer identity and direction for the class, with the idea of original magical spells becoming much more prominent. More specifically, three cards are focused on invoking transformations (joining Wand of Izikus and Transmogrification Curse) and two others represent localised bespoke ongoing effects (joining Consuming Fear, Incendiary Curse and Stoneskin).

Some might say that this could be a bad thing - that cards like Fireball, Lightning Strike and Supernova will always be the signature Mage cards and we should stick to making more cards like that. Whilst I agree those cards will likely remain popular for years to come (and I like how easy it would be to code other variations of X damage for Y cost!), relying on similar cards for class identity severely limits how much generically useful ability damage and negative effects can be given to other classes without blurring the lines between classes too much. There's also a potential balance issue of creating too much redundancy and consistency for ability damage cards. So it's for these reasons, and the noble cause of just being more interesting, that we've been pushing the idea that our Mage Heroes have progressively learned more inventive and varied ways to dominate the battlefield.

With all the magic out the way, we round out the seven new cards with two rather different allies: one that does ice damage and interacts with frozen allies; the other does electric damage and is intended to find its way into many Mage decks due to the combination of stats and abilities.

Random fact: Popsickle is the first Undead ally that Humans have access to for deck-building (outside of Meltdown mode).

If this doesn't seem like enough new allies for Mages to use, the aforementioned transformation abilities can get you quite a variety onto the battlefield! I don't know about you, but I really enjoy seeing some of our item artwork on cards in ally form (e.g. Thoughtful Investment, Tome of Knowledge). If this is the kind of thing that conjures a smile on your face, be sure to share your personal favourites and any you are looking forward to seeing when these cards are released.

As with the previous spoilers, I'd like to close by thanking you for your patience since Lost Lands Part 1 was released, and emphasise that we are revealing cards from Lost Lands Part 2 now without artwork to offer everyone a better opportunity to get involved with shaping their final form. Your feedback on how you think they will impact the game (whether that be their power level or fun factor or something else) and any ideas you have for their artwork are most welcome.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time, where we will be weighing up what the Rogue class has to offer us.