Exciting New Keyword in Universus

While the spell keyword was first added to the game with the Critical Role Challenger Series decks, Heroes of Exandria (HEX), the newest Universus (UVS) set, fleshes out the archetype with 60 new spells! Traits in UVS don’t have a gameplay function by themselves, but often tie together different attack packages. 

Whether your character is a Mage, Healer, or Brawler, here are some ideas to get you casting mighty spells! 

The Best Spell Attacks

Harness Undeath – Backups really come into their own with HEX and a big part of that is Harness Undeath’s ability to count them in the discard pile. Backups overall have been a weak card type, rarely justifying their downsides as attack targets, so being able to benefit from uncapped burn damage based on the number in your discard pile is a great incentive to play them.

Sacrificing a backup to gain Echo, arguably the strongest keyword, is just the chef’s kiss for this attack. The card pool response functioning to refund the health cost of the bottom response is the cherry on top.

Lightning Blast – An incredibly simple stat stick, this attack gets huge fast. Wonderful in the early game before players have an opportunity to flip foundations in their stage, this attack often swings for over ten damage on the first attack turns without any additional support.

The card pool response punishing partial blocks is a nice bonus in close games but there may also be some sort of water throw deck in the future that really appreciates it.

Spellstorm – This is the most obvious payoff to the Spell archetype, and boy is it a doozy. A five-speed attack that rewards you with a card draw makes for a solid poke in the early game. Attacks that buff both their speed and damage make for excellent win conditions. Where everything comes together, though, is in the static ability, being able to flip spell attacks in your card pool in addition to momentum makes Spellstorm an absolute firecracker ready to go off at any time.

Look for ways to give this attack higher keyword ratings to make your life easier in the long run! 

Great Spell Attacks 

Gravity Well – This attack has two very cool utility effects. The blitz preventing cards from being flipped protects your cards from the Warden’s sub-theme of flipping your foundations and also prevents one of the most common costs in the game from being played. When you play this card, whether as an attack or as a block, the response can also prevent the rival from paying powerful costs to activate their abilities or protect your stage from popular destruction effects.

Committing two foundations to cancel is not a simple answer to this effect either, since the cost to cancel element means it won’t be a rival effect committing the foundations, so anti-commit cards won’t be able to protect their foundations. 

Nature’s Tempest – Speaking of the Warden sub-theme, this blitz ability is a great answer to a lot of the wall decks in recent formats. This attack ensures that you’ll only have to fight through one copy of a defensive foundation, making it a great lead-off attack for the final turn.

Moon’s Wrath and Might of Stone make for easy clean up once you’ve flipped the majority of your rival’s stage. 

Spirit Unicorns – This one might not live up to the hype in the end, because only one copy of this attack can see its full benefit from the blitz. But ignoring progressive with your first attack is a pretty incredible ability. If your plan is to string together as many Spell attacks as possible to boost a Spellstorm, I don’t think you can go wrong with this one.

Good partner keywords in Ally and EX:3 help a lot here, giving flexibility in play styles. The response to buff the next attack is pretty unique and plays surprisingly well with the number of commit costs you’ll want to compensate for with Spell synergies. 

Spell Synergies 

Mischievous Doodler – This card has a very simple effect, essentially committing a foundation to force the rival to commit a foundation during your spell attack. The mill component can be helpful for the multiple characters that tutor spells from the discard pile too!

This card is a big reason why I think spell decks will really love having the ability to ready their foundations to make this card feel like a free enhance and hope for more support to increase keyword ratings on these symbols. 

Spire of Conflux – Part of the Vestige cycle, this is such a cool asset from HEX. The static ability gives +1 damage to all spell attacks, and if you’re a Mage it’ll protect them from rival effects looking to delete them entirely.

I don’t expect cards like Cape of No Return or Genkai’s Guidance to go anywhere soon, so this should be a great pickup for Mages. The response also has a commit cost that rewards you with card draw the first two times your spell attacks deal damage which is a pretty sweet payoff. 

Collateral Damage – This card has all the makings of an underrated hero. De-building yourself and being a conditional on-hit effect makes this card look like a sideboard card at first, but hear me out. It’s tenacious, so the lack of a resource might not have much of an impact at all. It has a plus one block mod which is very rare for a foundation, making it useful even in games you don’t want to build it. If games go too long, the deadlock commit effect will quickly clean up all the assets in your way.

Give this one a try if you’re running the keywords its looking for already!

The Best Spell Casters

Mage – Allura Vysoren, Arcanist of Tal’Dorei gets my vote for the best of the Mages. While not beholden to the Spell keyword, the Mage trait and her momentum generation make her a perfect fit for Spellstorm decks that aren’t trying to risk overextending to get the stats needed to push for a win. This also means that Allura is the most flexible at combining the Spell synergies with value-driven strategies on the chaos symbol.

Void decks can also use Gravity Well as a block in conjunction with Hold Hostage to leave a rival’s attack permanently removed from the game if they aren’t willing to cancel the ability! Then remove Hold Hostage to get a momentum and your advantage should be through the roof. 

Healer – Jester Lavorre, Prankster Priestess from the Challenger Series decks gained a whole lot of targets for her top enhance in this set. Besides a plethora of great block mods in every zone on all of her symbols, the addition of Scanlan’s Hand makes Jester a really scary option for the defensive characters out there. It costs two momentum to add it to hand and also commit a character card with it, but this Jester thrives in late game scenarios where she can hoard momentum.

If you’re already playing a chaos Spells deck, try Jester and Scanlan’s Hand as a sideboard package for tough matchups! 

Brawler – Okay well, Devil Jin didn’t actually end up with the Brawler trait, but he is a fighting game character and the Tekken decks debuted the trait. Devil Jin might be the most obvious of the Spellstorm characters, being able to continuously add Spell attacks to the card pool every enhance. Not being a Mage however means that the EX:2 on Spellstorm isn’t available to you without help from Shaun Gilmore, who turns your character into a Mage.

You can also add the EX keyword to it with Surprising Strength and still flip Spells to pay for it. 

The Future of Spells in UniVersus

I have been excited for the Spell keyword more than any other trait that has been added to the game. It’s a versatile trait appearing on actions, attacks, and foundations. Spell cards have also given us my favorite card art in a long time. Healing spells, bolts of lightning, enchanted weapons, and so much more have been such a breath of fresh air and I can’t wait to see more! 

New to UniVersus? Here is A Complete Beginner’s Guide to get you started!