Branca the Treacherous
2 Cost Fire Civilization Drakon
2000 Power
Today is a preview of a card from the upcoming Dragonstrike Infernus set that comes out next month.  This card is particularly great, but it is certainly not bad, as there are a 2 good Drakon evos.  Blastforge Captain and Laser Arm Drakon are the reason this card may see some play.  However, Cliffcutter and Drakon Weaponsmith are also 2 cost Drakons with effects, even though Branca is more stable than Drakon Weaponsmith due to DW’s +2000 Powerful Attack on a 1000 Power body. 
 
Constructed 3/5: He may be vanilla, but at 2 cost for Drakon, he may be what you need.
Sealed 3.5/5: All cheap creatures can rule a sealed tournament.

Upon first glance Branca the Treacherous is nothing more than a small vanilla creature for the Fire civilization. Most often, when creatures do not have an ability of one type of another they are easily overlooked and because of this it is rather easy for one’s first urge to be to dismiss Branca. However, in order to truly examine Branca’s effectiveness as a card we must place it in the context of A) the current available card pool and B) the current metagame of played decks.

With that in mind let’s begin with the current metagame of decks played. Branca’s “vanilla-ness” feature certain distinct advantages over many currently played cards. For instance, Cyber Trade has become a very popular 2 cost drop. While often the intention of playing this creature is to drop of turn 3 Emperor Nueron, in the real world this is not always the case. Sometimes Cyber Trader is played early in the effort of an aggressive push to get to the finish line early and thus swings in a as a mere 1000 powered creature. Other times the game has simply gone on longer than the Emperor Nueron player can abide and he needs to get a few more creature in for that final push. In either of these cases Branca out aggros Cyber Trader. Cyber Trader can’t defend its controller against Branca by trading into its ultimate demise in the discard pile and neither and is it able to defend should it be attacked directly by Branca following a swing for the shields. Either way, Branca wins.

Two popular and somewhat similar 1 drops are Cyber Sprite and Chasm Entangler. Both of these creatures are 1 cost, 2000 powered blockers. In this case Branca merely trades with either of these blockers. However, compared against other 2 drop Fire civilization cards he fair slightly better.  Lava Leaper is a 1000 powered creature and therefore perishes on the attack. Cliffcutter, without an evolution card already is play, remains a mere 1000. Drakon Weaponsmith, while a powerful 3000 on the attack, relinquishes that power immediately after the attack dropping to a mere 1000, leaving it vulnerable to the counter attack of Chasm Entangler. While I’m not saying the Branca is significantly better than it’s 2 cost predecessors, there are some considerations ones may not make upon immediately assessment.

And then comes the ultimate use for Branca. Being a Drakon allow this card to become evo-bait for either one of two impressive evolution cards, Blast Forge Captain and Laser Arm Drakon. While Cliffcutter and Drakon Weaponsmith both fit in the same cost spot as far as evo-bait goes, my own playtesting has suggested that while sometimes these creature abilities can be a boon, often they can turn on you like a grabbing a two headed snake by the tail. If you haven’t given these cards a try you really should. There’s definitely a degree of potential sitting within them!

Constructed Rating: 2 out of 5