Sleeper Card Spotlight: Emerald Awakener

Inspired by Riot's stated philosophy that every single card should have a home, I thought it might be fun and useful to look at some of the cards we rarely see in the meta, and maybe help them find their way.

Chosen completely arbitrarily, my first pick is Emerald Awakener!

I don't believe I have seen this one at all in constructed, apart from one intrepid deckbuilder who seemed to be leaning heavily into heals. (Turns out he didn't have enough offense to actually be any kind of threat.) In Expeditions, I've never selected it, and it always seems a little sad when my opponent has to play it.

A 3-mana 2/2 with Lifesteal isn't terrible, but it's definitely not good. A 3-mana 6/6 with Lifesteal is decent, but it doesn't seem like the kind of play you want to be making in the late game -- unless you can drop it with a few other big units for a massive push.

Would you say this is meant for a Karma deck? That would explain its scarcity, as we seldom see Karma, either. Would one or both of these cards need a buff before that archetype is viable? Is there some other Ionia control deck that maintains a big hand size where this would be a good fit?

If you've experimented with this card, please describe the deck(s) you used it in and how things turned out.

I was watching a streamer last night pilot a Lux / Karma control deck that featured this card.  He was running plenty of healing and the other Lifesteal cards as well: Radiant Guardian and Kinkou Lifeblade.  A well timed Judgment on one of those followers can really turn the game around.

It's definitely an underwhelming card at first glance.

A few prospects:

• Rushing to enlightenment (i.e., a Karma deck)--probably Ionia / Frejlord control deck.  I think this is where Riot envisions this card.
• Stat buffs--probably also Ionia / Frejlord thanks to Hearthguard and Omen Hawk, but you could try something like Demacia
• Frost biting the awakener doesn't take damage yet you heal for 2--again, this is Ionia / Frejlord
• Cloning via Parade Electrorig and Counterfeit Copies--Ionia / P & Z: this is the one strat I haven't seen anything of yet, and I think it has a lot of potential.  Unfortunately, I don't think Awakener is going to be its break-out hit--getting more 3 mana 2/2s just isn't too impressive, and if you do make it to late game even dropping a 3 mana 6/6s isn't jaw dropping unless you have cards to spend all that extra mana on.

Based on that quick analysis, I'd suspect a Ionia / Frejlord deck that tries to blend #1, #2, and #3--unfortunately, I think that starts to look more like a Karma control deck with Awakeners squeezed in than an Awakener deck that happens to include Karma.  Two HP is just so low!  This guy could really stand to gain the +1 HP that Kinkou Lifeblade lost: getting him to easily survive an early game block would give him a lot of potential millage.

Enlightened is overall a very weak keyword. There's very little value right now for building a deck around it. Even with Karma, it's still very gimmicky and tends to brick a lot against unit swarming.

Maybe if it granted +6/+6. Enlightened should be a type that gives you a crazy powerful ability late game, but forces you to choose between sacrificing units and spells before you get to that point.

Quote From Actin

Enlightened is overall a very weak keyword. There's very little value right now for building a deck around it. Even with Karma, it's still very gimmicky and tends to brick a lot against unit swarming.

Maybe if it granted +6/+6. Enlightened should be a type that gives you a crazy powerful ability late game, but forces you to choose between sacrificing units and spells before you get to that point.

I think this is exactly right. Apart from Karma and Anivia, there are very few cards that care about being enlightened, and they're all pretty bad:

• Feral Mystic and Emerald Awakener both suffer from the same problem - before turn 10, they're both understated with keywords that rely on high attack values
• Insight of Ages is basically a worse Flash of Brilliance before turn 10 - 2 mana get a random spell vs. 0 mana get a random spell.

The upshots of these cards is that they're good, cheap plays in the late game, and you'll be able to combo with them because you'll have mana open after playing them. But there are more consistently powerful plays you can make before turn 10 (e.g. Commander Ledros), and it's just not worth building your whole deck around late game combos right now, particularly when it means trading off this much early game value.

In the closed beta, Cloud Drinker had an enlightened ability to decrease by 2 instead of 1, and it was insane when combo'd with Karma. Granted you still had to make it to 10 mana, but once you did it was basically GG.

Maybe the trick here is to do something similar: i.e., find a unassuming follower and give it something like Enlightened: whenever you summon a follower, add a copy to your hand.  Or cast again this turn / "echo" if that's too much.  Basically: HS's Glinda Crowskin, but it doesn't work with champions. A late game 6/6 LS for 3 mana is unimpressive; but three 6/6 LS for 9 mana is another story--you heal to full if they all connect.  Same story with Feral Mystic and five 6/6 overwhelms for 10 mana.

Ironically: here's a new "spooky Karma" deck from Swimstream that runs 3x awakeners that he thinks will Tier 1 now.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bp6ut2hj7f7hvrhkhvh0

I think a major part of this card (along with its counterpart, Feral Mystic) is that you're not really getting much for the Enlightened effect. You're getting more stats, sure, but by default you're at 10 mana when that happens - there's plenty of big stuff you could play. So what you're really getting is tempo, but since card draw sources are pretty light in LoR so far your hand is going to be fairly limited by that point in the game anyway. The one thing it does let you do is combine it with a big spell on the turn you play it - but there aren't many decks willing to run a significant number of big spells right now.

Well... that and the fact that the meta is still quite fast at this point. That doesn't help either.

Quote From OldManSanns

In the closed beta, Cloud Drinker had an enlightened ability to decrease by 2 instead of 1, and it was insane when combo'd with Karma. Granted you still had to make it to 10 mana, but once you did it was basically GG.

Maybe the trick here is to do something similar: i.e., find a unassuming follower and give it something like Enlightened: whenever you summon a follower, add a copy to your hand.  Or cast again this turn / "echo" if that's too much.  Basically: HS's Glinda Crowskin, but it doesn't work with champions. A late game 6/6 LS for 3 mana is unimpressive; but three 6/6 LS for 9 mana is another story--you heal to full if they all connect.  Same story with Feral Mystic and five 6/6 overwhelms for 10 mana.

This assumes Enlightened isn't fine as it is, and needs some level of fixing. In MTG, cards with a kicker are typically weaker than their non-kickered counterparts, but they are more flexible because they get more value later. Being a bit on the weaker end is an important part of that trade-off. If you didn't have that, you'd just auto-pick kicker cards over non-kicker cards all the time.

Honestly, I think Enlightened is the keyword that's hardest to balance because its condition is inevitable and uninteractable. (Returning to my MTG comparison, at least in that case you can go land dry, or your opponent can destroy your lands.) If the game goes long enough, you'll reach 10 mana gems, so non-Champion cards that benefit from the Enlightened keyword need to have more subdued effects rather than game-ending ones, or you'll see them in all control decks. So, these cards are probably fine as they are for now.

I've been running it in 2s, later in 3s since the beta launch in my Freljord/Ionia deck. It was a bit of a mish-mash at first, but I've molded it into Braum + Take Heart + Avalanche (plus some small followers) to survive the early game, then mana ramp and Karma + Anivia for the late game. I figured if I claw my way into the late game, the 6-point heal might be a lifesaver. But you're right, of course - I hardly ever play the card before turn 9. I'd rather let it sit in my hand as long as I can play literally anything else.

Quote From meisterz39

Quote From OldManSanns

In the closed beta, Cloud Drinker had an enlightened ability to decrease by 2 instead of 1, and it was insane when combo'd with Karma. Granted you still had to make it to 10 mana, but once you did it was basically GG.

Maybe the trick here is to do something similar: i.e., find a unassuming follower and give it something like Enlightened: whenever you summon a follower, add a copy to your hand.  Or cast again this turn / "echo" if that's too much.  Basically: HS's Glinda Crowskin, but it doesn't work with champions. A late game 6/6 LS for 3 mana is unimpressive; but three 6/6 LS for 9 mana is another story--you heal to full if they all connect.  Same story with Feral Mystic and five 6/6 overwhelms for 10 mana.

This assumes Enlightened isn't fine as it is, and needs some level of fixing. In MTG, cards with a kicker are typically weaker than their non-kickered counterparts, but they are more flexible because they get more value later. Being a bit on the weaker end is an important part of that trade-off. If you didn't have that, you'd just auto-pick kicker cards over non-kicker cards all the time.

Honestly, I think Enlightened is the keyword that's hardest to balance because its condition is inevitable and uninteractable. (Returning to my MTG comparison, at least in that case you can go land dry, or your opponent can destroy your lands.) If the game goes long enough, you'll reach 10 mana gems, so non-Champion cards that benefit from the Enlightened keyword need to have more subdued effects rather than game-ending ones, or you'll see them in all control decks. So, these cards are probably fine as they are for now.

I think you misunderstand me.  I'm not advocating we directly change anything about Emerald Awakener or Feral Mystic, I'm advocating that we create another card that gives it some combo potential.  It becomes more like an exodia package: if you happen to draw all the right cards and land them on the board while still defending your nexus, you basically win the game when you hit enlightened.  Meanwhile your opponent knows this is coming so they ratchet up the pressure, and you both have to make decisions about how much to sacrifice.  E.g., do you play an Awakener early just to use as a chump block?  Do put this yet-to-be-named card on the field and risk letting it get targeted?  I do admit, though: you wouldn't want to just put this card in Frejlord or SI because as you point out those regions have no problem fielding a deck that lasts until Round 10.  I was thinking more like Demacia to pull the existing control archetypes out of their comfortable region combinations.

Sort of like Parade Electrorig and the Elnuks package: they're OK cards by themselves that you probably would cut from most deck lists, but they multiple each others' power so you get a really nice synergy if you play them together.  It's not an meta-breaking combo, but its interesting and different and at least good enough to be novel.

Quote From OldManSanns

In the closed beta, Cloud Drinker had an enlightened ability to decrease by 2 instead of 1, and it was insane when combo'd with Karma. Granted you still had to make it to 10 mana, but once you did it was basically GG.

I'm glad you brought that up! Cloud Drinker is one of the very few examples of cards Riot has nerfed into the ground. It sees absolutely no play now.

We should talk about ways to fix it in another thread! Feel free to start one, or I may do it eventually.

 Emerald Awakener is staple in every Karma deck i've seem at Diamond+