Card of the Day-Guard of Piety
Today's card of the day is the Warrior ability Guard of Piety. Guard of Piety is one of the staple cards in defensive Fighter decks. The card is a Light faction card. That means it can be searched with the Light quest Gift of the Keepers which is definitely a bonus for the card. It is also an ability with no level tokens. This fact cannot be underestimated. One of the main problems with trying to keep abilities in play is the fact that you have to keep other abilities in play to “protect†them. With cards like Abate Life that you want to keep in play, you need to have other abilities in play or you will end up having to apply your main ability at a quest. The Guard saves you from that.
The card is also a stance. This is probably to keep people from stacking multiples to accumulate two runes at the beginning of each combat which would be really unfair. It does mean that you can play extras to draw a card though which is always nice.
Guard of Piety only costs three power to play which is very important in tournament play. Tournament games can move very fast and be over very quickly. Since three is the amount of power you start with, it's important that the majority of your deck cost 3 or less, otherwise you could be blown out before you even get a chance to play your expensive cards.
The 3-cost combined with the fact that Guard of Piety has no level means it can come into play on turn 1 and be a threat for the rest of the game. This is a big bonus in the very aggressive arena of tournaments.
Runes tend to be one of the most underappreciated aspects of LoN. A rune at the beginning of every combat means that your opponent has to come up with damage bonus from somewhere to even do any damage. A lot of decks are focused on just attacking repeatedly and tying the combat at 0. Now, they have to come up with something extra to get any damage through. Against some decks Guard of Piety can soak up as much as 10 damage or more.
Guard is also an excellent answer to the infinite raid decks. Several of the iterations of this deck are not concerned about damage bonus knowing they will be able to keep up the attacks until the opponent just dies. Having a rune every combat can throw a wrench in their plans.
Overall, Guard of Piety is an excellent card at the center of defensive Fighter decks which have been solid decks for some time now.
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