Hey everyone. After a five month hiatus of moving to Minnesota and getting through my first semester of law school, I think I'm ready to start blogging again. I'm hoping to make an article at least once a week, though as the semester progresses they likely won't be nearly as long as they usually are (especially this one, which is pretty lengthy). I've spent a good portion of my break doing flashback drafts and Armies of Myth gauntlets, so the cards are fresh in my mind for me to write about some of the things that have worked for me and some that haven't.
I want to start with the Cleric Powers previewed in this week's update though, since with PvE hopefully nearing completion, we'll likely have information trickling out over the next couple months regarding class and race abilities as they are finalized. While I know some people in the community are worried that the talent tree has been neutered from the Warrior preview (only the first third is available, and racial traits look to be permanently reduced), there is honestly still a lot to unpack with the amount of info given, and it's gotten my deck building wheels grinding.
Cleric Starting Stats are 22 Health and 7 Card Starting Hand Size, which is about on par with most PvP champions now. Without the other classes, there's not much to compare this too (Warrior starting stats was 25 Health and 6 Cards).
Pray
Pray is the Cleric Charge Power, and one that prospective Clerics should be familiar with since it's all you will have at level 1. For two charges it creates two Blessings and puts them into your deck. If you started with 100+ cards in your deck it makes four instead. Blessings are free cantrips that gain you two life when they are played, essentially giving you a free health boost whenever you draw one. Starting with a 60 card deck means you will likely be shuffling two into a ~50 card deck, whereas starting with 100 means shuffling four into a ~90 card deck. The latter gives you a slightly increased chance of drawing them, which offers an incentive to eschew a more streamlined deck size. At early levels it's probably still more beneficial to trim your deck as low as possible so it's consistent, and that you are drawing the cards that combo well with Blessing.
Some of these cards that combo well with Blessing have abilities that trigger whenever you gain health, no matter how small. Righteous Paladin gets +1/+1 every time you play a Blessing. Paladin of the Necropolis will force your opponents to lose one health each time one is played. Incantation of Righteousness has good synergy with Blessing since it on a five-instance timer before they all transform, with each Blessing played getting you 20% of the way there. Further, because the Cleric has a naturally bulky starting life total, the Sentinel of Light ability will likely be active at the time it first evolves.
That's only one side of the coin though. Blessing is a free action, which means it combos with all the cards that trigger when you play an action. If you're an Orc Cleric, or any other Ruby blooded Healer, it is much easier to get a Kindling Skarn online with a free action to play. Along the same line, Sunsoul Phoenix can come out of your hand (and your crypt) much easier if you prove pious enough. If you're a Sapphire shepherd you can save your Blessings for Archmage Wrenlocke, who will draw you and extra card off every Blessing, allowing you to chain them together for some serious card advantage. And whatever shard you are inclined to run, Chimes of the Zodiac can copy both the health gain and the card draw.
Blessing Enhancements
There are three talents that solely deal with buffing your Blessings. The first is Life Essence, which costs one point and improves the health gain of your Blessings by 2. What's noticeably odd is that it says in parenthesis This includes blessings that don't normally gain health. This likely means it is referring to the subtype "Blessing" (which you can see on the card line after "Basic Action") rather than the card name. This hints that there are different kinds of Blessings beyond what we've been spoiled, possibly from Race combos or other cards that can generate different them, and that not all of them will gain health. If there is a "Blessing Deck" possible for Clerics, this talent and the others in this section will probably be pretty important. As far as the actual health gain buff, it's nice for more control decks keeping you out of range from annoying burn spells that could threaten a low life total, though this will likely depend on the dungeon encounters.
The second is Empowerment, which appears to require Life Essence as a prerequisite and costs two points. This improves Blessings by giving a random troop among those you control with the highest cost a permanent +1/+1 buff. This seems like it would be best for midrange decks buffing cost-efficient troops like Vampire Princess or Eldritch Dreamer. Since your Blessings will be gaining you four life that's likely enough to negate the damage from one or two opposing troops while upping the clock on your opponent. Control decks probably won't get as much mileage out of a buff and would rather put their talent points in more durability.
The last and most unique one of the bunch is Blessing of the Immortals. This is the only talent that is completely by itself, having no prerequisites and not being a prerequisite for anything else. It requires two talent points and buffs your charge power with a 10% chance to transform a Blessing into a Blessing of the Immortals (BotI) when it is created. In addition to regular Blessing effects, BotI allows you to play a card in your crypt for free. It then voids itself so you don't create an infinite loop with two to draw your entire deck.
This is one talent in which having a 100 card deck is actually beneficial, since you double your chances of creating a BotI each time you use the charge power. The trouble then becomes having to wade through a much larger deck to find it. You also want to have something worth playing from your crypt for free, so this talent is again more suited for a control deck. One pretty devious option I want to toy with is using my charge power a couple of times and then playing Scheme. If you did create a BotI, you can then up the number of copies of in your deck to at least 5, and if you draw one you have the option of playing Scheme from your crypt for free to create four more. Enough iterations of this with the Life Essence Talent and you could easily be gaining twenty-some life a turn and bringing back all of your quality troops.
Healing Aura
The next section of the Talent Tree deals with Healing Aura. The first point allocation in this path is Hale, which gives a straightforward +3 Starting Health. Combined with similar talents in the final tree, Hearty and Fortitude, and you could start the game with 30 Health, which is a pretty nice buffer for control decks, especially against aggressive opponents.
The Healing Aura Talent comes next, and requires two points, allowing you to begin the game with a Healing Aura in play. Healing Aura gains you one health whenever you play a resource. This is solid in any control deck, since it will likely net you around eight or nine health over the course of a game (unless you get shard screwed). It's also important since each instance of health gain will trigger effects on Incantation of Righteousness, Paladin of Necropolis, and Righteous Paladin.
There are two branches beyond this that buff your Healing Auras. The first is Good Karma, which moves each Blessing in your deck one card closer to the top at the beginning of each of your turns. The benefit seems pretty negligible for a Talent Point, but the more you buff the blessings the more appealing this gets, and even more so if you have the Blessing of the Immortals.
The second is Animation, which for two points gives your Healing Aura a one-shot ability to create a Soul Vessel for three resources and put it into play. This can be a unique Talent to build around, since the Soul Vessel is stronger if you have a deck that relies on Constants and Artifacts. Healing Aura itself is a Constant, which means the Vessel (assuming it counts itself) will be at least a 2/2 for 3. This minimum becomes 3/3 if you start with Monument of Faith, and 4/4 if you are a Dwarf and have the Blessing Rod. Alternately you can focus on constants like Solitary Exile, Pact of Life, or Holy Ascension, which could be the makings of a nice control deck, turning your Soul Vessels into a cheap and powerful troop to clog the ground while you gain health. You can also use cards like Spirit Hound or Reversion to revert your Healing Aura. allowing you to create another Soul Vessel. Unfortunately, most reusable reversion effects like Filk Ape only effect troops, so tooling the deck to continuously churn out Soul Vessels could be tricky.
Defensive Talents
The rightmost tree includes many defensive talents designed to keep both you and your troops alive in dungeon encounters. Hearty is exactly like Hale, giving you a quick +3 starting health for a single talent point. This talent is also the quickest path to Fortitude, which for another talent point grants +2 starting health and an additional dungeon life. Bonus Health in general is good for control decks, and the extra dungeon life will help mitigate instances of bad luck in your draws. If you don't have a deck themed specifically for your Cleric, or if the Talent reset costs are low enough, bee-lining to Fortitude is a defensible way to spend your first two talent points.
Next come the troop buff Talents. Affinity: Cleric gives all Clerics that start the game in your deck (as opposed to ones generated by other cards) Lifedrain for one talent point. Lifedrain is an excellent ability to tack onto troops, particularly for aggressive and midrange decks looking to race. This ability isn't super valuable on all Clerics though. Construct Foreman, Scrap Rummager, and Phenteo the Brood Priest and all solid Clerics, but their low attack stats don't really benefit from Lifedrain. This talent wants Clerics that can get big, and plan on attacking consistently. Righteous Paladin is a pretty obvious candidate, but troops with rage like Quash Ridge Tusker and Gortezuma can really help swing the life totals in your favor as the game progresses. Wild Root Dancer can help pump your other Clerics in addition to being one himself. Legionnaire of Adamanth can get pretty big when paired with Inspire troops, and the Helm of Revelation equipment has excellent synergy with a deck full of Clerics.
The Righteous Path costs two points and gives you a Monument of Faith at the start of the game which gives troops you control Steadfast. Steadfast is a nice ability, particularly when paired with swiftstrike, since it allows you to maintain control of the field during both your attack and defense. Troops like Deathless Guardian or Golden Avenger would benefit well from Steadfast as the field develops. The Monument itself also combos nicely with Soul Vessel, granting it an additional +1/+1 by being an artifact, in addition to Steadfast.
Faith in Our Leader costs 2 talent points and buffs your Monument of Faith to grant troops your draw +1 defense while you have 25 health of more. Assuming you have taken Hale or Hearty, this might apply to the troops in your opening hand, since your starting health would be 25 and the Monument would already be in play for your initial draw. The bonus defense is actually pretty meager, but in aggressive decks it can be really key, particularly for saving a troop from annoying removal spells like Burn or Crackling Bolt. While each individual talent may not be super impressive on its own, a Cleric-centric deck with the troop buff talents could give them all Lifedrain, Steadfast, and +0/+1, making them a ruby mage's worst nightmare. Early leveling with such a deck might not be as viable since you won't have the talent points to spend right away, but if you focus your talents mostly on the right side, higher level Clerics will create very durable troops.
Divine Altar
Divine Altar is my favorite talent in the tree, and another excellent boon to Cleric decks. It requires one Talent Point and either Fortitude, Affinity: Cleric, or Faith in Our Leader as a prerequisite. It also appears as if you can also use it as a prerequisite for Fortitude if you want to skip Hearty. The same could be said of Faith in Our Leader, but that Talent is pretty useless if you don't have Monument of Faith to begin with. Divine Altar starts the game in your deck (you get 2 if you have 100+ cards). It's a two-cost artifact that rises one spot closer to the top of your deck at the start of each turn. While in play, it creates a copy of each Blessing and Cleric you play. I'm not sure if the Clerics copied by the Altar will get the Lifedrain from Affinity (if the copy retains keywords then they will), but the Blessings will likely get the buffs from Life Essence and Empowerment. The interaction with BotI is a bit more ambiguous. It's unlikely that copying a regular Blessing is the same as "creating" a Blessing to trigger the 10% chance of transformation from the talent. However it is likely that playing a BotI (already transformed) will trigger the copy ability, granting you two free plays from your crypt (which could end up being four Clerics). In the end this means that Divine Altar benefits more from the Blessing Enhancement talents than from a fully fleshed out troop buff ones.
While you only get a finite amount of Altars, they're a little easier to hunt down than Blessings. In addition to naturally rising to the top of the deck, cards like Gearsmith and Careful Rummaging can look through the top of your deck to find them quickly. If you want a work around to the 1-2 copy restriction from the talent, Dopplegadget can also copy the Altar when it arrives on the field. It can mimic a Soul Vessel or Blessing Rod (for Dwarf Clerics) in the interim, so even if you don't have a dedicated Artifact deck it isn't a dead card.
Final Thoughts
I'm actually a lot more excited about the Cleric class than I thought I would be. Even with only a baker's dozen of Talents to play with there is still a ton of versatility. While the effectiveness of the various builds will likely depend on the structure of the dungeons, there's still a load of archetypes to toy around with. Control decks will get a good health buffer and some free cantrips. A mid-range Cleric deck can create incredibly hardy and cost-efficient army of lifedrain troops. Archmage Wrenlock and Righteous Paladin can abuse both sides of the Blessings created by the passive, and there could be a unique "Scheme of the Immortals" combo deck that allows Clerics to cycle through their deck and gain an absurd amount of Health each turn.
Card Images from Hex TCG Database and HexTCG
This article was edited for grammar and rules clarification regarding Cleric copies.
Healing Aura
The next section of the Talent Tree deals with Healing Aura. The first point allocation in this path is Hale, which gives a straightforward +3 Starting Health. Combined with similar talents in the final tree, Hearty and Fortitude, and you could start the game with 30 Health, which is a pretty nice buffer for control decks, especially against aggressive opponents.
The Healing Aura Talent comes next, and requires two points, allowing you to begin the game with a Healing Aura in play. Healing Aura gains you one health whenever you play a resource. This is solid in any control deck, since it will likely net you around eight or nine health over the course of a game (unless you get shard screwed). It's also important since each instance of health gain will trigger effects on Incantation of Righteousness, Paladin of Necropolis, and Righteous Paladin.
There are two branches beyond this that buff your Healing Auras. The first is Good Karma, which moves each Blessing in your deck one card closer to the top at the beginning of each of your turns. The benefit seems pretty negligible for a Talent Point, but the more you buff the blessings the more appealing this gets, and even more so if you have the Blessing of the Immortals.
The second is Animation, which for two points gives your Healing Aura a one-shot ability to create a Soul Vessel for three resources and put it into play. This can be a unique Talent to build around, since the Soul Vessel is stronger if you have a deck that relies on Constants and Artifacts. Healing Aura itself is a Constant, which means the Vessel (assuming it counts itself) will be at least a 2/2 for 3. This minimum becomes 3/3 if you start with Monument of Faith, and 4/4 if you are a Dwarf and have the Blessing Rod. Alternately you can focus on constants like Solitary Exile, Pact of Life, or Holy Ascension, which could be the makings of a nice control deck, turning your Soul Vessels into a cheap and powerful troop to clog the ground while you gain health. You can also use cards like Spirit Hound or Reversion to revert your Healing Aura. allowing you to create another Soul Vessel. Unfortunately, most reusable reversion effects like Filk Ape only effect troops, so tooling the deck to continuously churn out Soul Vessels could be tricky.
Defensive Talents
The rightmost tree includes many defensive talents designed to keep both you and your troops alive in dungeon encounters. Hearty is exactly like Hale, giving you a quick +3 starting health for a single talent point. This talent is also the quickest path to Fortitude, which for another talent point grants +2 starting health and an additional dungeon life. Bonus Health in general is good for control decks, and the extra dungeon life will help mitigate instances of bad luck in your draws. If you don't have a deck themed specifically for your Cleric, or if the Talent reset costs are low enough, bee-lining to Fortitude is a defensible way to spend your first two talent points.
Next come the troop buff Talents. Affinity: Cleric gives all Clerics that start the game in your deck (as opposed to ones generated by other cards) Lifedrain for one talent point. Lifedrain is an excellent ability to tack onto troops, particularly for aggressive and midrange decks looking to race. This ability isn't super valuable on all Clerics though. Construct Foreman, Scrap Rummager, and Phenteo the Brood Priest and all solid Clerics, but their low attack stats don't really benefit from Lifedrain. This talent wants Clerics that can get big, and plan on attacking consistently. Righteous Paladin is a pretty obvious candidate, but troops with rage like Quash Ridge Tusker and Gortezuma can really help swing the life totals in your favor as the game progresses. Wild Root Dancer can help pump your other Clerics in addition to being one himself. Legionnaire of Adamanth can get pretty big when paired with Inspire troops, and the Helm of Revelation equipment has excellent synergy with a deck full of Clerics.
The Righteous Path costs two points and gives you a Monument of Faith at the start of the game which gives troops you control Steadfast. Steadfast is a nice ability, particularly when paired with swiftstrike, since it allows you to maintain control of the field during both your attack and defense. Troops like Deathless Guardian or Golden Avenger would benefit well from Steadfast as the field develops. The Monument itself also combos nicely with Soul Vessel, granting it an additional +1/+1 by being an artifact, in addition to Steadfast.
Faith in Our Leader costs 2 talent points and buffs your Monument of Faith to grant troops your draw +1 defense while you have 25 health of more. Assuming you have taken Hale or Hearty, this might apply to the troops in your opening hand, since your starting health would be 25 and the Monument would already be in play for your initial draw. The bonus defense is actually pretty meager, but in aggressive decks it can be really key, particularly for saving a troop from annoying removal spells like Burn or Crackling Bolt. While each individual talent may not be super impressive on its own, a Cleric-centric deck with the troop buff talents could give them all Lifedrain, Steadfast, and +0/+1, making them a ruby mage's worst nightmare. Early leveling with such a deck might not be as viable since you won't have the talent points to spend right away, but if you focus your talents mostly on the right side, higher level Clerics will create very durable troops.
Divine Altar
While you only get a finite amount of Altars, they're a little easier to hunt down than Blessings. In addition to naturally rising to the top of the deck, cards like Gearsmith and Careful Rummaging can look through the top of your deck to find them quickly. If you want a work around to the 1-2 copy restriction from the talent, Dopplegadget can also copy the Altar when it arrives on the field. It can mimic a Soul Vessel or Blessing Rod (for Dwarf Clerics) in the interim, so even if you don't have a dedicated Artifact deck it isn't a dead card.
Final Thoughts
I'm actually a lot more excited about the Cleric class than I thought I would be. Even with only a baker's dozen of Talents to play with there is still a ton of versatility. While the effectiveness of the various builds will likely depend on the structure of the dungeons, there's still a load of archetypes to toy around with. Control decks will get a good health buffer and some free cantrips. A mid-range Cleric deck can create incredibly hardy and cost-efficient army of lifedrain troops. Archmage Wrenlock and Righteous Paladin can abuse both sides of the Blessings created by the passive, and there could be a unique "Scheme of the Immortals" combo deck that allows Clerics to cycle through their deck and gain an absurd amount of Health each turn.
Card Images from Hex TCG Database and HexTCG
This article was edited for grammar and rules clarification regarding Cleric copies.
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