It’s been a while since the last article, so I just wanted everyone to know we’re alive here. Now that the preview season for Uprising is well underway, I just wanted to give some thoughts to the cards inside. Unfortunately, this article is going to have some negativity basically all over it so if you’re sensitive to that, you might want to skip it or get ready.

Uprising’s pack structure will mirror Tyrants exactly. While it’s currently unknown how many draft rares will be in each alignment or how many champions to events to silvers will be in each, what is known is that the same dual tokens will be present among the 4-pack structure, each containing 12 cards. Getting 144 cards will again be the constructed goal and the pack prices are the same retail. It’s yet unclear if there will be any print complications as with Tyrants or if that has been permanently addressed. Now, on to the previews!

This is the complete spoiler list for Epic Uprising so that will conclude part 1. Part 2 will come when the full remaining list is revealed. The reactions above reflect the VMundi Epic community’s overall reaction, though not every individual’s. In fact, this is an opinion piece so it probably doesn’t reflect yours completely, either. Just remember: it’s not about power level!

Now to move on to something controversial. Chamberlain Kark was the first card previewed for Uprising. Note that he’s not in any spoiler above. That’s because Kark gets his own special paragraph all to himself! Kark has a tragic backstory: Immediately when he was previewed, several people got my attention and said they didn’t like the direction Epic was headed if you win the game design space was going to be included. I can agree with that. Often, companies know how ridiculous alternate win cards are and they have to depower them beyond all playability (anyone remember FINAL/DEATH in Yugioh?) and ultimately make it a niche card for niche combo players that just want the strange satisfaction.

Well that’s not how it is in Epic. Beyond the design direction concerns, it turns out Kark has additional problems. No, not his body nor his Loyalty X. Those all tended to be fine during testing. However, his you win the game gimmick was not fine. In fact, it was something that shook our faith in this game to its core. Kark is unlike any card I’ve experienced in any card game up to this point. I would draw the comparison to the Yugioh deck “TeleDAD” but at least that deck could occasionally brick and lose. To date, we have had three people test Kark against a slew of perceived Kark-killers to absolutely no avail. What I mean by that is: Kark has not lost in testing, while we are approaching the 80 games mark. That’s absolutely unheard of in any card game to my knowledge. I expect to some day edit this post or make a new post explaining that Kark finally lost a game (not match, game) but until then, this sentence stands.

Unfortunately, it seems as though this little card of death is a major controversy that has divided and polarized Epic players. For any other random card, people are typically able to respectfully disagree and discuss things calmly but not with Kark. That’s why I’m expecting at least a few angry comments or emails regarding these statements. It seems the harder “it’s broken” is to refute, the more divisive the subject. The decks he was in didn’t even seem to matter and unfortunately, splashing Kark into generic decks with very little lifegain works well against other Kark players. With so much silver lifegain in the game, it’s perfectly reasonable to gain something around 17-25 life out of nowhere before Kark’s Loyalty is even paid. This is why even when Kark was handled by the lesser-experienced player and even when that player was in single digit health, and even when that player faced very bad chance odds with their draws, Kark still won every game. It looks like we’re going to have an extremely bumpy future in constructed.

Kark so far has not created a problem in any limited format, so we look forward to trying him out in various drafts and randoms. It’s a tall order to make such bold claims, but VMundi is not a site known for shying away from the cold hard facts. Intense stalling with a Good deck, splashing in Evil control and Sage draw engines just makes for the most impossible to beat deck in Epic. Kark is at its center.

Another controversy! Man, it seems like all we’re doing today is picking on White Wizard Games. Before I get into it again, let’s focus on something positive: Epic Base set. The lucky people who got good-quality Tyrants packs. War Machine! Okay, back to the negative. You can follow along with the announcement here, but basically Epic’s first ever World Championship will feature pro players from Magic the Gathering…who did not earn their invites. That’s right, they didn’t qualify but they’re still going. Let me point something out: the minimum you can earn by going to Worlds is $500 USD. It only goes up from there depending on your performance. Many people are expecting the MtG pros to do very well, if not win. This has turned into a much bigger controversy than little ol’ Kark. Where I stand on this issue is: you don’t invite pro players from another game period for free, because it legitimizes their elitism. Now any arbitrarily accomplished player from any game, especially Magic, will feel entitled to throw their weight around to people who have been playing Epic much longer, and perhaps to people with a decade or more of general TCG experience too. This has already been happening, albeit on a smaller scale. The last thing we need is to legitimize this behavior from an official source.

However, that’s maybe not the worst part. These players are filling in slots for those that didn’t qualify. Players who played in qualifiers who didn’t win won’t be getting these invites. If you read that again, you’ll note the double standard. So why Magic pros but not actual Epic players? Because they’re basically paying for advertising here. Except in probably the most wasteful way possible. Many of these players might have taken deals around the $500 minimum for advertising and blogging about Epic, which would actually get the word out. Instead, these players are asked to come to a one-time event, maybe make back their air fare with a shot at more, and maybe they’ll tweet about it maybe not. They may never touch another Epic card again. Essentially, turning advertising into a gamble while estranging existing players. Unfortunately, we’ve already seen several people quitting Epic including one of the only bloggers. I know that for myself personally, this incident has made me take off the kid gloves with this game and I’ll now be writing whatever I feel at the drop of a hat.

There’s no good note to end on, sadly. This is the way that it is (as WWG staff has continued to starkly remind us all). Not that members of the community truly expected anything to change (they’re a company after all) but that we hoped things could’ve been handled more delicately. Things seem to be piling up lately and we’re all just weathering through it.

Let’s sit back and hope Part 2 of the Uprising preview has more positives! If this article left too much negativity in your mouth, scroll up to the previews again and check the cards we liked.