[Gods Unchained] Custom Set #1 - Burn EDITION!

Hey guys! Welcome to the first edition of custom sets for Gods Unchained. This is gonna be just a little bit different than custom cards series where I try to make a set of synergistic cards possibly making a new archetype for the game. Today we gonna take a look at some cards that will be using a lot of Burn effects in various ways and just maybe show how a certain keyword can be expanded upon to create new styles of playing the game.

Before we start I gotta mention. All cards were made with this pretty simple to use custom cards generator. The artwork for cards was borrowed from Davesrightmind, a really talented artist if you like his work you can follow him on Devianart and enjoy his art.

Plagueflame Zombie

Let's start with the simple one. In almost every case I'd say that playing a 4/1 for 2 mana, especially on turn 2 would be kinda bad and easily counter by ping like effects. With this one, I feel like this issue is at least partially solved because if your opponent already has a creature on the board removing this guy with another card will just give that creature burn and 3 damage will most likely kill it, so going 1 for 1 with this card isn't too hard to achieve in the early game or even more on more developed board. Afterlife effect can be also triggered from the void with some Death cards and that might come in handy. Maybe it doesn't look too appealing now but it is an option some would consider after looking at other cards in the set.

Demonic Slug

With something like this, every Burn inflicting card becomes potentially a lot stronger. One card that comes to mind is Pyrrich Incantation (1 mana spell, give a creature +13 burn, your god takes 3 damage). You could argue that this looks even broken now but it's still a two-card combo where you get a 3/2 for 3 mana and you removed almost any creature for 1 mana that doesn't have Ward or Protected on it because both of these would stop this combo from working out, plus you take 3 damage yourself. 3 mana for a 2-ish mana worth body feels okay as it can follow up the curve nicely after Plagueflame Zombie to compensate it with synergy.

Molten Golem

Some creatures just want to watch the world burn, this one likes... to burn. A 5 mana 5/4 is kinda weak when compare to Helios Battlesworn a vanilla 5/6 but since it has "regen" I think it can somewhat compete for the spot. With additional health buffs, which aren't that easy to find with Death cards will be quite valuable to Molten Golem because if you can make this stick for a couple of turns it is going to bring you a lot of value. Unlike regen, burn effects are easy to come by, especially in Death since you have a god power that can do it also and putting even more burn on the Golem is something you will really want. Okay, I guess the idea is obvious, now imagine how hard it would be to get rid of him with Phase Touched Golem giving him Ward every turn.

Cursed Pyromancer

Probably it's obvious but just to clarify. The ability procs each creature's Burn and they damage as if their turn ended. Another important thing is that Molten Golem wouldn't take damage in this situation because as his text suggests, burn on that card is treated as if it's regen. Okay now, this card can be a great board clear with the right combination of cards, like for example with Ragnarok to deal 3 to all creatures or even or even Sulfuric Rain and already mentioned Pyrrhic Incantation. Of course, it requires you to play this card the turn before so that you can use its ability. That's why I think 8 health is suitable for his as not that many things can remove him right away but there is a potential to do it for free with trading because he has 0 strength, Ward and Backline will make this a bit harder to do though. I really like this one, it helps create a lot of different strategies for all of the cards in this set and also those that already exist in the game.

Hellish Siegebreaker

Let's turn up the heat for a moment with Hellish Siegebreaker. A 7 mana tempo bomb that can destroy any creature with burn, be it 1 or 13, doesn't matter to this guy but if that creature had a considerable amount of burn, the "spread" effect will be even stronger. It makes for a good combo with Cursed Pyromancer to remove other smaller creatures if the burn was sufficiently spread across. Overkill isn't usually a mechanic found on Death cards but on this one it looked so fitting to emphasize that a burning threat just arrived. 7 mana for an 8/8 is above-average but still, without any defensive keywords, it isn't too challenging to remove. I imagine this card will always be played when pushing for lethal on the next turn and if it goes unanswered it will be over almost 100% of the time.

Hellworm

Another good way to remove bigger creatures more easily would be with the help of this card. As a 3 mana 1/4, it doesn't present much in terms of damage potential or even any trade power but with the addition of Hidden for 1 turn, makes your opponent uneasy to play his stronger creatures if they aren't able to remove this first if you are playing with Soul Burn god power they won't even consider overdeveloping their board. The main function of this card would be to play it on a turn when you want to slow down your opponent so that you have time to prepare other combos or whatever.

Ember

The full effect didn't fit in the card generator so here it is:

Give all creatures +1 Burn. The next time a creature dies from Burn before the start of your next turn, add Ember to your hand.

Obviously, for 3 mana it has a pretty low impact on the board but it has the potential to return to your hand, almost always. Giving burn to ALL creatures does somewhat cripple your own board but as we saw, there are a lot of cards that can take advantage of this so it is a fair trade-off. You can even guarantee that this card returns to your hand if you have a 1 health creature on your board or you amplify burn on a creature and proc it again with Cursed Pyromancer. There are a lot of ways to get this card back again and again, and even though the card itself isn't that strong it gives you a lot more opportunity to combo it with other synergistic cards in the set.

Fire Colossus

In case you wanted to see more Burn activators, here's one. In a lot of ways this creature is very similar to Cursed Pyromancer because with the same combos you can damage other creatures on the same turn, you just need to press the end turn button. 3/9 should be a decent stat line to keep it alive longer so you can control the board more easily while with only 3 strength it doesn't pose a huge threat to the opponent's god. Also, the effect excludes himself for the same reason, otherwise, Fire Colossus wouldn't stay on the board more than a turn in many cases. Maybe I should've worded this effect differently because my intention was that Molten Golem does indeed heal at the end of each turn from the Burn effect while Colossus is on the board.

Deathstalker

Before I even though about doing this set I thought about something like this, which basically then became a centerpiece for this idea. If this was a card presented in the game without the others, it wouldn't look too impressive because the question would be, how the hell do I meet the requirement? Well, with all of the above (and below) cards this becomes a lot easier. Once you meet those requirements and play this card you are getting a nice reward that can most of the time just finish the game. If not, at least clear the board and leave your opponent in a tricky situation.

6 damage is a moderate amount and since it's dealt to both gods as well, there will be times when you can't play this so you don't die, but on the upside, if you are able to kill both gods, and because it is your turn, you win the game. Basically this is a "win-condition" card of the set.

Apocalyptic Fireant

To be honest, I had a fair amount of giggles trying to name this card, and it ended up pretty alright I guess. Right? The role of this card is to help you meet the requirement for Deathstalker. It creates a nice combo with Ember so that you can get it back into hand more easily. Not only that, but Death has quite a number of cards that need you to sacrifice a creature to activate so this can help with that as well. 3/5 body is generous for this one, I though 3/4 might be fairer but went for this one later because I think that a lot of time Fireant will also burn so a bit of staying power makes sense.

Shakar

Those that followed my previous custom card series know this guy already, for those that don't, the full effect of this card reads:

Roar: Give Burn +6 to all enemy creatures. During your opponent's next turn whenever they summon a creature, give that creature Burn +3.

It's not actually a card in the set but since it does feature burn mechanic in a crazy fashion I just thought to drop it here as well. Just imagine dropping this bad boy while you already have Cursed Pyromancer on the board!

That's it for today's custom set. I hope you liked this one. There is a lot that can be done with keywords, not only Burn but with each of them. It all depends on the creativity of course. I think I will be doing more of these in the near future and maybe even create my own keywords. Do you think something like this would actually work in the game? If so, would it be broken or weak? Any combos with already existing cards? Please leave your thought in the comment section. What's your favorite card of the set? Mine is definitely a Cursed Pyromancer.

Gods Unchained Official Roadmap:
https://trello.com/b/GpDgnYPZ/gods-unchained-roadmap

Useful tools for Gods Unchained statistics, meta, deckbuilding, leaderboards, etc. :
https://unchainedstats.com/
https://gudecks.com/

Current List of Cards in Sanctum Decks:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GodsUnchained/comments/fhsqnl/sanctum_deck_update_13032020/

Markets:
https://gu.cards/
https://tokentrove.io/GodsUnchainedCards
https://opensea.io/assets/gods-unchained

Raffle:
https://www.mythictitan.com/raffle/?place=marketplace

Custom cards generator tool:
https://www.gucustom.cards/

Gods Unchained discord channel:
https://discord.gg/G8YAWcX

Thank you for reading!

,z3ll