Speculating About the Heroes and Rarities of Everfest and Beyond

As the second supplemental set, the FAB community is thrilled for the upcoming Everfest release. The first supplemental set, Crucible of War, injected powerful cards for the available heroes into the meta. The latter is now, sadly, out of print.

One of the surprising things that CRU brought us were some unique Young heroes:

While Ira was already in circulation from the learn-to-play demo decks, her appearance in Crucible of War also brought her a crucial specialization card: Whirling Mist Blossom; these six Young heroes boasted full titles as well, indicating that we may not see their adult versions any time soon.

The Heroes of Everfest

Similarly, Everfest may bring us some Young heroes as well. The difference with this new set is that it is in a more specific location—the Everfest Carnival of Aria. Tales of Aria gave us the Elemental Talent for its three heroes. We could see some additional heroes with such a talent in Everfest.

My hope would be for an Elemental Wizard with the Essence of Earth, Ice, and Lightning. Cards like Flash, Channel Thunder Steppe, and Blink would allow a Wizard to burst out multiple spells per turn without Kano‘s instant ability.

We could also see a talentless Illusionist as well. That profession was mentioned in the Aria lore and seems to be an integral part of the Everfest Carnival itself. I am not married to this prediction anymore, however, as I’d like to also see some new professions in the game.

In Crucible of War, we were given a Shapeshifter Hero and a Merchant Hero. We could see some cards directly for these characters in Everfest. Either way, I could see this tradition continue. A lot of the FAB community online, myself included, were hoping for a Druid and or Bard class with the release of Tales. Instead, we received another runeblade in Briar.

Seeing either a Bard or Druid now in Everfest would be a welcomed treat. Here’s how I would handle Druid specifically:

Essence of Earth (You may have Earth cards in your deck.)

Whenever you fuse with an Earth card, you may choose to double the effect(s) granted by the fuse.

Once per turn action—Place a card from your arsenal on the bottom of your deck to place an Earth card from your graveyard on top of your deck.

Earth fusions usually bolster attacks or bring cards back into your deck. Both of these mechanics fit thematically with the nature-magic-infused Druid class. The action ability also helps this character keep their deck full of their most powerful effects.

I’ve had a lot of ideas for Bard characters, but I’ll mull that one over a little bit more before posting a proper prediction.

Fabled and Legendary Cards

Crucible of War and Everfest have the same number of cards in theirs sets (198), but let’s break down the differences.

The additional Legendary card as well as the increased Majestic and Rare card count make Everfest far more collectible than Crucible was. The collectibility concern that Crucible had was more in way of the availability of the product prior to its ceasing of printing.

Now, we have already been clued in from the Arcane Rising Out of Print announcement that one of those Legendaries will likely be a reprint of Arcanite Skullcap.

In Crucible of War, we received one reprint in the L-slot (Tunic) and 1 new card in Shiyana, the Young Shapeshifter Hero; with 2 L-slots still available in Everfest, I can’t wait to see what LSS bestows upon us lowly players of this great game. Two new Legendaries bodes well for the overall collectibility of this set as we chase these powerful new cards. Moreover, going up by nine majestics and five rares makes things significantly more exciting.

Before we break down the majestics between these two sets, let’s also talk about something else that is unique to Everfest. In what could just be exciting flavor test, the sales sheet for Everfest tells of a “carnival slot” in the Everfest booster packs. My hope is that this slot could provide the community with important reprints from the first three sets (now all out of print). Besides the skullcap, cards that could see reprinting include Enlightened Strike, Command and Conquer, Art of War, and perhaps other Legendaries from those sets. It’s possible that these previous majestic cards could be included in the increased majestic count for the Everfest set. However, it could be even more exciting if these cards are only possible to pull in the “carnival slot” which could just mean this set’s foil slot.

On the previously mentioned Sales Sheet, we can also see the Rarity Distribution—which doesn’t mention a carnival slot. It does indicate that the two rare slots are actually both rare, majestic, or legendary slots. Just imagine opening a booster pack with multiple legendaries—oh, the joy.

Now, in Crucible of War, each class, and the Generic pool, received 4 majestics including 1 piece of equipment. Most of these included a variety of card types (typically, 1 attack, 1 non-attack action, and 1 instant).

For Everfest, the available 15 adult heroes cover 9 professions/classes, 1 more from Crucible of War. To me, this says that we’re getting 4 majestics for the following groups:

• Brute
• Guardian
• Ninja
• Warrior
• Mechanologist
• Ranger
• Runeblade
• and Illusionist

This list does leave out Wizard. At least for now, I am not certain that Kano and his potential future friends will get a full suite of 4 majestic support cards. So, if I’m right about the above 8 groupings, then we can currently account for 36 out of the 45 majestics in Everfest.

For the remaining 9 I could see the following distribution being possible:

• 1 for Wizard (surely a starry hat)
• 2 for Light
• 2 for Shadow
• 2 for Elemental
• and 2 Generics (likely Enlightened Strike and Command and Conquer)

LSS could opt out of supporting the talents with majestics here and instead bring in new generics instead of just reprints in this rarity slot.

In the initial 4 majestics for most professions, those could also be divvied up amongst the talented and talentless heroes (e.g. 2 for general Guardians, Bravo, and 2 for Elemental Guardians, Oldhim).

Fabled Expectations

I, for one, do not think that we’ll see an Everfest location card in this set. While I do think that the lore around this set will involve Aria being invaded by the evil they’ve been trying to protect and hide themselves from, I think the Fabled card from this set will take a different direction.

FAB sleuths of all kinds noticed this little mystery on Oldhim’s page prior to the official release of Tales of Aria. At this time, we did not know about the Legendary shield that we did receive in TOA.

Prior to Briar being obviously efficient and good, I think it’s safe to say that the community was most excited about Lexi and Oldhim. When I was at the world premiere of Tales of Aria in Las Vegas, I was certainly excited about what a shield and hammer Elemental Guardian could bring to the game, so when I cracked my sealed stack of 6 booster packs and pulled a shield, I was surprised to see this instead of Stalagmite, Bastion of Isenloft:

Why would LSS tease one shield and give another? Simply, Rampart is for all Guardians. Granting Bravo access to this golden beauty allows him to cancel out his disadvantage against Dash and incentivizes running one set of Nullrunes against Runeblade players knowing that excess pitch can be used to block with. Rampart bolsters the Guardian’s ability to out-fatigue their opponent simply by outpitching them throughout the game with hammer, shield, and Tectonic plating soaking resources throughout the course of battle.

For Everfest, I believe we will receive our second hero-specific Fabled card in Stalagmite, Bastion of Isenloft. This icy shield will surely act differently than Rampart. I believe it will have a Blade Break, Battleworn, or Temper mechanic with a powerful ability to use on defense or as a defensive reaction.

Ice effects tend to grant Frostbite tokens, remove cards from the opponent’s hand, or, like Blizzard, remove Go Again from an attack. I propose that Stalagmite will do two of these things will also add defense value for Oldhim. I would prefer for this to be a Blade Break effect to be used once per game. If that were the case, then Stalagmite could be on par with Carrion Husk as a combat ending stop to steal the tempo from your opponent.

Imagine a Blade Breaking block for 4 that also throws a frostbite token or 2 onto the opponent and removes Go Again from the attack. Thematically, I would also love if the shield also granted Oldhim the ability to switch to a 2H weapon after the shield breaks—The old warrior drops Winter’s Wail after releasing the shield and pulls out Anothos, Sledge of Anvilheim, or a new 2H Guardian weapon to increase his damage output during the latter end of the battle—that would surely make playing this fabled warrior a little more epic.

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What do you think about these predictions? What did I miss?

You can also look forward to these exciting things from me:

• D&D 5e subclass inspired by Lexi
• D&D 5e one-shot adventure set in the Savage Lands
• 3 boxes of Everfest opened on the Flesh and Bloodbrothers YouTube Channel upon release
• Unbeatable Briar-busting Bravo Blitz Build, Baby

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Thanks for reading,

YouTube: Collision Point; Curating Humanism