Call It Shadespire!

Unpainted Minis: In Defense of Rebound To paraphrase the greatest rap story-song of 2015, "I'mma say something that you might hate to hear."  Rebound is good for the game . We'll give you a minute to rage at your screen and curse our eyes.  Ok.  Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about why.   The biggest reason Rebound is good for the game is that it provides a universally accessible reaction that punishes attacks.  In the brief period where it was banned this kind of reaction simply didn't exist.  This erases an entire aspect of the strategy of the game, as it eliminates any kind of risk for attacking.  This encourages braindead attacking on every turn, which doesn't make for an interesting game. Rebound also provides a complementary benefit: a universally accessible reaction that can save your guy from imminent doom.    With the rotation of S1 universals, we lost not only Rebound but also Last Chance, Soultrap, and Tethered Sp

Unpainted Minis: The Brick There are very few things more frustrating in a game of Shadespire than drawing up a hand of Objectives that you can't score: a "brick".  Recently, friend of the site Tom Denyer asked about the chances of bricking your hand while playing Combination Strike and Opening Gambit. Prior to the 6-surge restriction, a lot of our decks here were running what we called "Trinity" objective decks: Combination Strike, Victory after Victory, Superior Tactics and 8-9 surge objectives.   Bricking was very rarely a problem at these ratios.  However, now that you're down to 6 surges, it can crop up more often.  Just how often you ask?  Let's find out. To start with, we'll be using hypergeometric distributions to determine card draw odds, along with some very light combinatorics.  Without going pretty deep into the latter, we won't be able to examine much after the first objective hand draw - but that's the one where bri

Decision: Should You Play Larval Lance? TL;DR: Mollog should pass.  Rippa's should definitely be playing it.  As for the other bands, most aggro strategies will benefit from packing Larval Lance, especially in larger warbands.  Factor: The Basics With each new season of Shadespire, it seems that there is destined to be an attack upgrade that stands out among its peers.  Sometimes (as with Shadeglass Dagger), the acclaim is well warranted and the card goes on to become a staple in almost every deck.  Other times (looking at you, Fated Blade ), the hype is quite overblown, and the card disappears back into relative obscurity.  Six warbands into Season 3, the Belle of the Ball certainly seems to be Larval Lance.  But will it go on to win Prom Queen?  Or like Fated Blade, will it be consigned to standing near the exit, staring into a cup of unspiked punch, wondering if the cheeto stains on its cheap rented tuxedo are going to affect its deposit? On first glance, Larva

Decision: Should You Play Restless Prize? TL;DR: If you plan on doing anything with objective tokens, you should play this.  Even if you're not, your opponent probably is, and you should play this.  You should play this. Factor: Home Alone Let's get something out of the way: Restless Prize is a good card.  We're going to look at it in a few different ways, but if you ever begin to have doubts about the overall theme of the article, refer back here.  Restless Prize is a good card. To start, we want to take a look at the things that Restless Prize can do on its own.  Obviously, it can move an objective out from under an opposing fighter or put one underneath your fighter.  If you're lucky, you might be able to do both at the same time, effectively swinging the held-objectives count by 2 in your direction.  There are a number of reasons to want to do this (we'll look at some more later), but for right now we're going to focus on scoring glory.  You