Time to spoil the second card provided exclusively to Hex Vault by the fine folks at HexTCG! Cloudwatcher, the Coyotle Mage, has expanded her magic use from Wild into both Diamond and Sapphire.
As you might remember from the Comet Strike card spoiler article, Entrath started out with just 2 native magic sources: Wild and Blood. After the Hex comet smashed into the world the native races suddenly found three more shards available to them: Ruby, Sapphire, and Diamond. The flavor text on the card tells this story pretty succinctly. Cloudwatcher is one of the few cards we’ve seen with an affinity for magic outside her threshold color:
Cloudwatcher
Cloudwatcher is a 1/1 for 1 resource with a threshold of 1 Wild – nothing particularly special there! However, she has a couple of abilities available to her that suggest an affinity for both the Sapphire and the Diamond shards. Right away that tells us that we’re probably not going to see Cloudwatcher in mono-Wild decks, and instead she’ll be more likely to find use in either Wild/Sapphire or Wild/Diamond decks.
Let’s look at the synergy of Cloudwatcher in Wild/Diamond decks first. For 1 Diamond threshold and 1 resource you can exhaust Cloudwatcher and give another of your troops Steadfast (the ability to attack without becoming exhausted such that the troop would still be available to block on your opponents next turn) this turn. A key use for this ability will be to grant one of your large troops (e.g. Legionnaire of Adamanth, Ozawa, Cosmic Elder, or Jadiim) Steadfast so that they can beat on your opponent this turn but also be available to defend on your opponent’s next turn.
In Wild/Sapphire decks you can exhaust Cloudwatcher to allow you to draw a card and then discard a card at a cost of 1 resource (and assuming you have a Sapphire threshold available). This allows you to more quickly find the cards you need in your deck and discard cards that are not useful given the current board state and/or time in the game, in effect thinning your deck.
What does Cloudwatcher bring to the table in PVE?
Cloudwatcher Gear (PVE)
Stormwing Breastplate (Uncommon) allows you to pay 6 resources (1 Diamond and 1 Sapphire) to return a card from your graveyard into you hand. Clearly there is obvious synergy with the Sapphire-based ability – you can freely discard cards into your graveyard and then retrieve them later as needed. I also wonder whether or not the threshold is supposed to be Diamond or Sapphire – I’ll check with the team and post an update.
The Storm Fan (Rare) allows you to play all Diamond and Sapphire cards for 1 less resource cost. That’s pretty good resource acceleration, and allows you to potentially speed up all of your drops past Turn 1.
I hope you enjoyed both of the exclusive card spoilers we’ve been able to share! I certainly enjoyed thinking about how they could be used and sharing my thoughts with you. I’d like to thank the HexTCG folks for providing them. Hopefully they’ll be the first of many! 