Welcome back everyone to our preview edition week of Card of the Day! I picked out five cards for us to review that will be released in the upcoming weeks, primarily from Dragonstrike Infernus! This set has a lot to offer the game and it’s without hesitation that it will change how the game is played significantly! Today’s card is Herald of Infernus, let’s get started!

Name: Herald of Infernus
Civilization: Fire
Type: Creature
Race: Armored Dragon
Level: 5
Power: 5000
Flavor Text: “Crush then! For the glory of Infernus!”
Rarity: Rare
Set Number:   41/55 l 6DSI

Abilities:
War Cry- Whenever this creature wins a battle, you may put a non-evolution Dragon from your hand into the battle zone.

I found it to be fitting to start off the week with a card that may foreshadow the future meta of this game or at least this set. Prior to Dragonstrike Infernus, Herald is a respectable card for an Armored Dragon. He’s able to potentially bring out bigger dragons like our first card of the day, Orion, Radiant Fury. However, now that we have seen what some of these dragons are capable of, Herald becomes a much more plausible option.

Herald’s biggest use is going to be to sneak or cheat big dragons into play; there’s plenty in this set! What’s even crazier is that when he does successfully activate his ability, the dragon that he brings out will be able to activate its ability! Every Level 9 Dragon that has recently been previewed has an Enter the Battle Zone Ability and they’re pretty ridiculous in themselves (Destroying creatures, shields, or even giving you shields!).

So what’s the best way to utilize this guy? Well, there’s plenty of combos that you can set up, it just depends on your play style. You could combo Herald with Hyperspeed Dragon to be able to attack right away, you could mix in cards from the Light Civilization to tap your opponents creatures, or you could use cards that will boost Herald’s power in case he needs to take down a larger foe!

Probably the biggest downside of this card is that he has to sit on the field for a turn (unless you run Hyperspeed Dragon) and he has to win a battle. Having 5000 Power can easily trade off with a lot of popular cards right now (i.e. Medusa and Neuron) but that doesn’t win you the battle; Herald has to survive. It’s likely your best bet is to let your opponent get an attack in with a weaker creature like Aqua Seneschal, Moonhowler Tribe, or random other creatures that have less than 5000 Power, and then swing in to take them down and activate Herald’s ability. The other downside to this card is that you have to have a dragon in your hand to be able to activate this ability. So if you’re running low on card advantage, you’ll likely have nothing to fuel Herald.

As the week progresses, I think you’ll understand why this card can be rather good in the right build. Being able to get a Level 9 Dragon out on turn five or six without any form of mana ramp in the deck in quite the feat; just imagine someone running ramp and using this guy… You could have Herald out potentially on turn three and one of the Level 9 Dragons by turn four!

Ratings:

Constructed: 3.00/5.00 (Realistically this guy will only put you ahead a turn or two but even that can make a huge difference with the caliber of some of the dragons we’ll be reviewing this week. He’s a little slow and requires some set up but in the right build he can cause some trouble for your opponent!)

Limited: 4.00/5.00 (Obviously the full DSI set hasn’t been released yet, however, I imagine this guy will open a lot of plays up in the Limited format where just about every card is a dragon!)

Stop out tomorrow when we take a look at the Dragon Master Collection Kit and what it offers to the dragons of Infernus; see you then!