Rankett: Proving Grounds

[Gondorian]

[Bazzel]

Good for elementalis and maybe mages such as aramia

[tman507]

Good for elementalis and maybe mages such as aramia

Except Aramia can't use this, as it's a Shadow Location.

[Index]

The game will be so much harder to play, will be calculating Shadow Energy every single turn! :/

[Bazzel]

Except Aramia can't use this, as it's a Shadow Location.

oh snap i just noticed , locations are separated by shadow and humans. i thought they were all neutrals

[Umbra7]

First id like to just say that I'm Uber ecstatic for all the spoilers!

Anyways, this card looks amazing! A lot of combos and such. Aside from all the obvious homunculus combos, there's also a lot of just in general shadow cards, like Lo Void Leviathan and Bloodthirsty. I'll do a proper write up later tonight

[Umbra7]

Alrighty, I'll start my synopsis with a "cards affected" list. Basically a list of all shadow available cards that trigger the activation condition
Cards affected
Elementalis, carniboar, ogloth the glutton, Pack Alpha (lol, no.), plate armor (seriously, dont use this.), rotling, death collector, lo void leviathan, Sun blighted one (if GB pulls him from the grave), zantonite, bloodthirsty, bloodfang (even if it is a terrible choice), plightbred runt, cleric of asyn, gravemonger, rampant krygon, voracious arachnid, grimjaw hydra, abomination factory, thunderstone golem, dread wolf, splicers crown, rilards buckler ( severely unlikely.), barenland gremlin (how useless is he looking now huh? Still would be nice if he could target opposing items too...), sword gobler.

Now, obviously a lot of these cards are not good choices to combo with this location, but they still can fulfill the requirments to activate it, so...anyways, 1SE to draw 1 card isnt enough of a trade off to include this in your deck, unless you have homunuculus allies to benefit from the growth. (though...i mean i guess it can be done soley for the draw, since the repercussion effect only affects homunculus. So i guess a shadow energy ramp aldmore deck with lo void could work...i guess I'll address it.)

Important Notes:
1) this is a shadow exlusive location. So no tala benefits :/ and no aramia abuse either.
2) the opposing effect reduces ALL homunculus allies health. That means this may be a hard location to regain control of, because in order to do so, you'll need to reduce your own homunculus allies health eveb further (total of 4 health reductions if location of this switches twice)

General Strategies/combos
So in my opinion, one of the most potent abusers of this is going to be voracious arachnid. Merely having him on the board when an ally dies is enough to trigger this location, which in turn boosts him further. So...very possible to have a 3/6 arachnid sitting fat and happy ( I've been watching alzorath too much, lol) on turn 3. So for that strategy, a suicide charge of a smaller ally may be in order (frostmare <3). Speaking of smaller allies, i think rotling is about to find a lot of use here in LL. A pretty easy and cheap activator for the location, simply play him and activate. Speaking of simply play it and activate... Gravemonger is a brute for sure. With 6 cards in a graveyard, and this location, he'll come out swinging as a 7/7 for 4 recources. More likely to be done on turn 5 or 6...that means youll also have room to fit another small homunculus ally on the board with him to also be buffed. Say...a turn 5 drop of rotling a monger. So...a 3/3 and a 7/7 out on turn 5.
We also have barenland gremlin. He is currently the highest health t1 drop on the market. He combos pretty well with a t2 crystal shards, which gives you a fairly solid ally on board, and draw set up all on turn 2. (If opponent decides to also use crystal shards, they only get to use it once since gremlin would eat one of the durability.) through this method, youll also be filling the graveyard quickly, to also be comboed with gravemonger. If weapons are discarded with shards, sword swollower makes a pretty decent drop for t3, which would leave room for a rotling to be played as well, and have all of them buffed by the locations activation
For a theoretical rundown of some ideal situations...going second.
T1: barenland gremlin (5 cards in hand)
T2: crystal shards, activate it. Use gremlins ability (now a 1/3 ally) (5cards in hand) *opponent uses crystal shards, and an ally is discarded*
T3: use shards last recource. *dagger of fate is discarded*. Play sword swollower and exile dagger of fate. Play rotling and exile ally from opposing grave. Play location and activate (4 cards in hand) (a 2/4, a 4/5 and a 3/3 ally on board)
This is of course best case scenario, and playing second means the opponent is probably dealing with them.

Now, i guess I'll adress the lo void aldmore SE ramp strategy. There are better locations for this I'm sure, but...i guess it can be used for useful draw. With darklight apprentice, you of course gain shadow energy for using it, and Lo Void Leviathan just grows whenever it's used. Both also activate whenever your opponent does the same (hero abilities dont count for darklight). Lo void will be the activator for the location, which in activating the location would also additionally buff Lo void. For a hero like elementalis, targetting him with your ability, and then activating the location, you would be left with a 5/9 ally for 5cc. Any additional ability activations by your aldmorian allies will continue to boost his attack and health. And if your opponent wanted to draw those two cards and take your location...then lo void continues to grow.

Anyways...Moving away from general, lets look at some class specific stuff!

Mage
These guys have a couple exclusive homunculus allies, as well as the abomination factory. Abomination factory will be the focus, as thats the easiest of the exclusives to activate this location. Going first, we'll skip a t1 drop. But place abomination factory down t2, and drop arachnid and the location t3. One can discard a brimstone devourer, and target arachnid with it. This is very likely to kill any 1-2cc drops the opponent may have played, and thus your arachnid will be a huge 4/7 monster, that the opponent has to kill, otherwise they wont be able to safely drop any allies at all.

Elementals:
Praxix to be specific. With all the discard benefit homunculus have, praxix is of course a perfect candidate. With crystal shards, he can very easily get 6 cards in the graveyard on turn 4, and let gravemonger come down then and there as a 6/6. The combos stated in the general strategies section are very ideal for praxix. Getting enemy allies and weapons into the graveyard is pretty easy for praxix, which means rottling and sword gobbler go well with him. Also splicers crown. The chances to discard brimstone or plightbred are pretty good for him, which makes things easier to get an accidental buff to your allies/ control the enemies allies. The downside to this location however, is that you'll likely only be able to fire off praxix's ability once during the battle. But, having him as the hero does give you additional options if you fail to draw the location in the first couple of turns

[Megatog201]

I'm not seeing the point of running any homunculus allies though. Looks good with any deck that focuses on pumping as an extra draw source.

[Umbra7]

I'm not seeing the point of running any homunculus allies though. Looks good with any deck that focuses on pumping as an extra draw source.

Because if you arent using homunculus, then youre basically just using a shadow energy to draw a card only. With the activation condition it already has, there are far better uses for your shadow energy, likely better location choices, and most definitely easier draw sources.