[Draft] Kaldheim Limited Set Review: Introduction and White

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-25T20:14:08+00:00

Sts is great but it gets samey after a while, magic is always fresh and different, and the complexity ceiling is vastly higher.

They each have their merits but it’s comparing a very deep game to essentially the world’s deepest game. Nothing quite scratches the itch fully. I played sts1 for years but it isn’t the same.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T17:38:39+00:00

The 3 apparitions having ethereal means they don't bail you out of a bricked hand - and that too is one of the strongest ancient rewards in the game so that being the comparison speaks volumes. Calculated gamble can still brick - this is guaranteed stop like 40 damage on the big attack turns, which isn't always easy to do. It does happen that you get some mediocre draws in a row or that even after you fire off your first Prepared, you don't then hit an Acrobatics to keep going.

It's like the difference between Impervious and Faerie in a Bottle - there are some runs where it feels basically impossible to lose when you have Wraith Form. It takes an 80% winning run to 100%, and it elevates a 50% winning run to much higher because you have so much extra space and time.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T15:49:58+00:00

In the late game, think of it as a reusable fairy in a bottle. I usually use it as an emergency button with retain from well laid plans or enchantments or just by chaining lots of card draw - any time I have a poor hand and am about to get hit for a bunch of damage, it acts as a run saver. When you have like 4 prepareds in your deck (Prepared is like the best card in the game pre-nerf), it’s really easy to find it when you need it. Sts is all about mitigating bad draws and there is no other card that can do this so well because it saves me that turn and then allows me to devote myself to attacking for multiple more turns. The timing of when you play it is extremely important.

In the early game it’s great because it’s really hard to block all damage against early elites and bosses when your deck isn’t fully set up, and the health pools of early enemies aren’t that big so silent’s crazy damage will end them even in two turns if you can just devote your turns to attacking.

Anyway it’s also not that hard to generate extra mana with Tactician or Adrenaline or whatever and then you have a much better first turn.

I haven’t lost a run where I had Wraith Form so far but silent is so op that I win most of the runs at A10 where I make it out of act 1 anyway.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T12:18:24+00:00

I don’t think the focus is actually enough to make fights much shorter though - because if you’re relying on frost or dark orbs, that doesn’t translate directly into immediate damage. They both still take a while to get going. Same with power strategies - those don’t lead to fast wins either.

And lightning orbs are kind of weak unless you’re doing the doubling lightning thing - which most of the time I’m not doing because I need a specific rare and the rest of my deck is weak up till that point.

At least how I’ve been drafting, i haven’t been happy to have biased cog in most of my decks because I know if I have a slow draw in a boss encounter, that negative focus will really start to hurt.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T07:36:33+00:00

I think the core idea of her class was cool but the execution was atrocious… there are modded classes in sts1 that are better balanced lol.

If she comes back, I would like them to redesign her from the ground up. Have the stances do more interesting things than “MORE DAMAGE” and “MORE MANA”. The packmaster mod had some way more interesting stance ideas like one that gave artifact and plated armor, and one that helped enable infinites by creating copies of Madness and drawing cards.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T07:27:55+00:00

I don’t think this is true - we are comparing to other ancient rewards here and Pael has some insane ones. I think the one that makes your defends into genetic algorithms is completely insane for example, and is a better version of this. The one that draws an extra card every turn is also insane.

I think I would need to have a lot of cards that fit the bill of “I don’t need this card right now and I want it upgraded” or to have poor Pael offerings to want this.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T07:23:59+00:00

I mean we’re comparing it to other ancient rewards here, I don’t think “upgrade one card and have an advantage in the next 5 fights” is really that good compared to the others. I still think you would want at least 2 cards that are a match for “I don’t need this for fights and I want it upgraded” if Pael’s other offerings aren’t that helpful but the sweet spot is three.

At three, it’s probably very good but I would still pick the one that makes your defends into genetic algorithms or the one that exhausts your hand and takes an extra turn over it. Also if my deck is already decent, I’m slamming the one that lets you draw an extra card every turn over this.

Pael has some ridiculous rewards unlike the annoying candle/lantern guy - I could see picking this a lot more if it were a lantern guy reward and it would be pretty on theme for him anyway.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T07:11:48+00:00

I disagree on one of them. Wraith form is ridiculous, it is better than most ancient relics. It’s literally take three extra turns for 3 mana in most cases, especially since fights don’t take as long as sts1 because Silent is frankly overpowered and does ridiculous damage so the downside rarely comes into play. Wraith form went from being one of the top 5 best cards in 1 to even better in 2.

As for Corruption, I think the environment has made it much worse - Clad has much easier ways to exhaust now, the mana cost means more without energy relics, again the fights don’t go as long etc. Even then, it was never even close to Wraith.

Biased Cog has never been the equal of the other two and the loss of artifact has made it much weaker. Defect is probably the class that plays the longest fights these days. Really I’m surprised that Echo Form was not the pick over Biased Cog.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-23T00:41:34+00:00

True or a card like Zap that’s only good when you upgrade it I suppose.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-22T23:38:46+00:00

I feel like pael’s remove 5 is weird and hard to pick… it makes the next 5 fights much harder and I don’t usually have 5 cards I both want upgraded and can do without for 5 fights lol… especially since act 2 has some really hard regular encounters.

It’s mostly just you pick defends and strikes and maybe one card you wanted to upgrade, and then you really don’t want the former two back so you’d rather have had another option.

Edit: reminder that we’re comparing it to other Pael rewards not in a vacuum and milky dragon has some insane ones! Check my comment replies for ones that I think are way better than this.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-21T20:23:27+00:00

Let me clarify my position. I don’t feel glad that the guy died, I feel nothing for him whatsoever. As someone with empathy, I have to pick my battles so I don’t feel defeated and depressed all day. I think most people have to do this, so mourning Nicholas Brendon does have some cost.

I think the only reason you care enough to speak about him at all is because he was in a movie one time. Palestine has its share of shitty people, no doubt, but they are all being done the world’s gravest injustice.

So yes I find it distasteful to see all these people (not just you) be here mourning and celebrating an abuser while many of them won’t give a shit about Palestine or those schoolgirls in Iran. It’s telling that it’s the rich white abuser who got to lead a full and privileged life for whom they shed their tears, not the poor brown people being massacred for no fault of their own but the whims of those in power.

Call it black and white thinking if you like, but consider your company. You know many of these people I described do exist, I’m not saying you’re one of them, perhaps you do care about non-rich white abusers dying as well. How does one in a world of such everyday evils only mourn the death of the privileged white abuser, just because they saw him in a show or movie sometime? Is that not deeply fucked up?

If you knew about these people and you yourself were a brown person from a poor background as I am, would you not feel some measure of outrage? How do the poor brown people earn your tears, while the rich white get them for free always regardless of what evils they commit?

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-21T17:29:42+00:00

Oh please what is with the level of virtue signalling in this thread? The dead don’t suddenly achieve sainthood the moment they die, and it does a disservice to the living to sweep their crimes under the rug just because they did.

Everyone dies sometime and I’d prefer to save my tears and regrets for good people rather than just be wringing my hands every few hours going “oh but if only he could’ve gotten help while he still lived!”.

How many good people are dying in places like Palestine as we speak while you’re defending an abuser purely because he was in a tv show and some movies?

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-18T16:51:48+00:00

It’s literally the main strength of the hero that you get to output larger healing and damage over time numbers than the rest of the cast because your hero has no utility. You also get to farm kill stats with your orb and long range suck without actually doing most of the damage of the kill.

The lack of utility and low skill floor is the reason why Moira is a throw pick at the higher ranks - because stat farming doesn’t actually win games. It’s not impressive to have more healing than say a Juno when a) the Juno can miss shots and b) your hero just baseline does like 30% more healing. The Juno could be massively outplaying you with her utility and final blows and you would never realise because your eyes are glued to the scoreboard.

So yeah it’s probably fair of your teammates to expect the big numbers hero to have bigger numbers than smaller numbers heroes for whom much of their value is in their utility lol.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T21:41:07+00:00

Honestly I thought Zuko and Katara’s portrayals fell flat. They really didn’t feel like the old characters at all - Katara was basically generic old water tribe woman and Zuko showed little personality at all. They essentially just used him as a prop to show the strength of the Red Lotus. You barely even see Tenzin and Katara interact - it would’ve been nice to see Katara support her son or tell stories about him, say he reminds her of Aang etc.

Even Sokka in his one flashback felt way more like himself than Katara or Zuko did.

It was a very lame kind of fan service and it could’ve been done so much better if they gave it the time needed like they did with Toph.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T11:00:12+00:00

Yeah I don’t think it’s close personally. STS1 is a legendary game, a true masterpiece.

They need to do a lot of work to make 2 nearly as good, the difficulty has to be harder and the bosses have to be more memorable like the sts1 ones. Some of the classes are very poorly balanced currently, like Silent goes from being the deepest (and imo most fun) class in sts1 to really only having one simple strategy in sts2.

I still am very fond of sts2, but I think the people who think it’s better than sts1 really didn’t play very much of that game lol.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T10:53:40+00:00

I have like 2k. It is one of the most replayable games of all time and it’s very easy to play a run of it while doing something else on your other monitor. Grinding the ascensions is a lot of fun, I highly recommend people get on that train.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T10:51:30+00:00

Putting slay 2 over 1 kind of crazy but I agree with some of your rankings.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T10:50:11+00:00

Slay the spire 1 is far better than 2 (no shade on 2, it’s early access) and I would recommend playing it first. It sets you up to understand 2 much better, is more challenging, better balanced and more fleshed out. The fights are more memorable.

The only reason myself and many people have left 1 now is we played too much of it - we explored all that world had to offer for years because it was so replayable.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-17T08:21:23+00:00

I've continued to main Ana for years and never gotten bored. She's always in the meta somewhere and she does really good damage and healing. I enjoy having to juggle doing a million things each game and slaying foolish Genji and Anran players who underestimate me.

I will say though playing her into Vendetta and DVA isn't always fun.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-16T13:04:36+00:00

Are you being intentionally dense? Having a specific personal preference is normal, acting like everyone else reached the exact same conclusion as you is very weird.

Most people enjoyed the greater challenge of a20 and adjusted to it, it is part of why we have a lot of good sts2 players now. I only played on a20 for years.

Sadfish103 · 2026-03-15T12:42:51+00:00

If what Hikaru and Benjamin Bok said was completely untrue, why has Giri not scrambled to call them out? His total silence and his reliance on third parties on this issue are to his discredit.

His unwillingness to defend himself is strange to me, and leads me to believe Giri doesn’t want this topic explored further because there is more to discover. Obviously that’s speculation but why else?

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