The new expansion of My Little Pony CCG is hitting prerelease on November 13 and going on shelves November 20, so it's definitely time to take a closer look at some of the new highlights arriving in High Magic!
We'll tackle two of the three biggest inclusions in High Magic in this article: the three new keywords, and the five new color combos. New keywords means you'll see new game text repeated on multiple cards through the set, reinforcing the theme of their colors, while the new color combinations on dual-color cards provide added ammo to multicolor decks in five different combinations.
Head down below the break to see a brand new card spoiler per keyword and color combo, eight in all including Daring Do, Diamond Tiara, Gilda, and more!
I won't leave you in suspense any longer: let's look at the three new keywords first!
Prepared is a keyword you'll find mostly on White and Purple cards, two of the more "controlling" colors in MLP: CCG. When an opponent starts a faceoff at the same Problem where a Prepared character is hanging out, you'll gain an action token. Keep in mind this includes Troublemaker faceoffs AND Problem faceoffs!
Hasty's a real game changer, seen primarily on Blue and Pink cards. You can play Hasty cards at any time you could play an "Immediate" card, such as during your opponent's turn, during faceoffs, during the Troublemaker phase... The sky's the limit!
Now when you hold back a few action tokens your opponent won't know if you're just saving for next turn, preparing some Events, or waiting to drop a surprise Friend into play at an opportune time... AKA a very inopportune time for your opponent. Prince Rutherford is a powerful example of this, letting you put 2 power into play AND frighten an opponent's Friend for just 2 action tokens even during your opponent's turn.
Persistent is a tenacious new keyword you'll be seeing on some Orange and Yellow cards in High Magic. Simply put, if a Persistent Friend would leave play through any means, you may choose to frighten it instead. Dismissal, banishment, put into hand, shuffle into deck? Nope, frightened instead! These ponies are here to stay. And with this specific example of Shining Armor, unfrightening your Friends lets you gain a +1 power counter to place on any of your Friends.
And now let's take a look at the five new color combinations on dual-color cards in High Magic!
Diamond Tiara learned a lot during her stint as a newspaper editor! With this card she can turn bad news for your opponent into good news for you: use one of Pink's many options to dismiss your opponent's Friend at the same Problem as Diamond Tiara, and then you can exhaust DT to gain an action token.
This new Dr. Hooves card can be a really flexible addition to some Blue/Yellow decks. His most obvious use is to turn opposing Troublemakers face-down, so that they don't block you from confronting that Problem. However, you can also choose to turn an opponent's face-down Troublemaker UP if you want to reveal it a turn early and challenge it!
The one, the only, Applejack's Hat! Well, more like "the one of many," but you get the idea. Any Friend can wear Applejack's Hat, and the Friend wearing it can exhaust themself at any time to permanently gain a +1 power counter and then add their total power to another Friend. Think of it as them doing a burst of hard work to help somepony else out, bulking up in the process.
Applejack's Hat synergizes incredibly well with Stubborn, an Orange keyword from previous sets that lets exhausted Friends help out at Problems and during faceoffs... and it's not a coincidence that Stubborn makes its return in High Magic!
Let's look at one more dual-color Resource card in High Magic, this time in the Purple/Yellow spectrum. Play this on a Friend and battify them, then throw them into the fray. If they're involved in a faceoff that you win, you can exhaust them to gain 2 action tokens, more than refunding the price of this card the very first time! If you keep using them to win faceoffs, there's potential for quite a big action token profit from just this one card.
And last, but certainly not least, here's Gilda representing the inclusion of Blue/Pink in High Magic. She's sporting the new Hasty keyword, so you can play her at very flexible times during the game, and she comes along with a Pegasus Token and an Earth Pony Token, which don't have to be played to the same Problem as Gilda! Cost efficient, flexibly timed, and able to spread out the power to where you need it most? Nice!
What are Tokens, you might ask? A whole new way to play Friends! If you're a veteran of other collectible card games you may already be familiar with Tokens, and if not don't worry - Tokens are the subject of next week's feature article on High Magic. Tune in then and we'll dive head first into Token cards, showing off six Tokens plus multiple cards that create and support them. See you then!
