Sifu's Winter Wanderlands Buyer's Guide

Ho ho ho nerds! Gods Unchained has given us early presents by releasing another mini-set called Winter Wanderlands. It contains 20 cards of which 19 are available on GU-market places.

Compared to the last mini set - Lights Verdict - this time the entire set is rather affordable and with a good amount of grind, a F2P (free to play) player should be able to get their hands on most if not all cards.

Note that the cards are not locked as of this writing and the power level has been very on par with Mortal Judgement. If the Gods Unchained team feels like the meta hasn’t been shaken up enough, or they need to sell a bit more packs, they might very well buff some of the cards in the coming weeks. If that happens some of the card prices might skyrocket. For example, Blade of Whiteplane was selling for $80 during Lights Verdict and is now almost tripled to $225. Same with Martyr of Whiteplane ($45 -> $150).

But this is all just perhaps and using a bunch of money during a financial crisis is questionable.

So if you’re on a budget and don’t want to ape into buying packs or straight up the whole set from a marketplace like aqua.xyz, this guide will show you how to get the most bang for your buck.

This is the priority I would acquire the cards in if I hadn’t blown all our Christmas gift budget on shiny packs (sorry wife, send me your metamask address and you can have a Reinnapper instead).

That said, if you’re just building out one good deck, it doesn’t make much sense to go shopping for anything else than specifically what you need. But if you want to be competitive with all the meta decks on hand, this list will help you prioritize when adding to your collection.

Winter Wanderlands Value list:

1. Woodcutter Imp (Price as of this writing $3.03) This little fucker has had the most immediate effect on the meta. It is super strong, fairly cheap since it is rare, and fits perfectly into the already popular aggro War deck that so many F2P players like to play.

2. Frozen Rest (Price as of this writing $0.29) This card fits well in control Death. It’s not an archetype that is popular right now (especially if you’re on a budget and missing Apocalypse Now) but the potential of this card is great. At this price, it’s an easy pick-up.

3. Spirit Storm (Price as of this writing $0.40) Another Death card that doesn’t fit into the meta but is extremely likely to be good at some point. Again, at these prices, you should have it in your collection.

4. Thawed Heart (Price as of this writing $0.62) It already fits pretty well in control light but this is a card that will always be relevant if some void-dependent deck becomes popular. You don’t need it currently versus Anubians since you already got Eucos in Eclipse and Lights Levy, but against decks like Arcane Burst, it makes the matchup from a certain loss to a certain win.

5. Guiding Light (Price as of this writing $1.33) The Chosen One archetype has still to take off and if it does, this card will be included in the list. But even if it doesn’t this card will still be crazy at some point in a combo light deck. You can always play combo decks with just one creature and be certain that you draw that one creature that you need with cards like this. So in reality you’ll have 3x the amount of cards that give you what you need. Currently, you can play Coronet Light this way. Unfortunately, it’s only a meme deck, but fun nonetheless.

6. Winter’s Bounty (Price as of this writing $5.85) This card pretty much (and with a bit of help with the next card on the list) made control Nature viable. Suddenly you’re able to outlast control War, get to 7 mana against aggro, and be safe from certain OTK decks. Super strong and fun card.

7. Fir Tree’s Fury (Price as of this writing $2.36) This card might seem a bit weak at first glance but it’s surprisingly strong. It’s like a small The Hunt but way better. Being able to pip it out at turn 4 is huge. And the way it does one damage at a time is way better than The Hunt in the majority of cases since it can deal with Ward and Protection and still kill off the creature. The only downside is that it does nothing versus armor. The small bonus of leaving potential Frosty Fruits on the board is rarely relevant but quite annoying for your opponent to deal with when they do spawn. The Frosty Fruits have the wild tag, so this card might actually also see some play in aggro Nature at some point.

8. Candy Chain (Price as of this writing $0.71) This card is currently really bad, however, when you read this, the Unexpected Gift might have been given out and there’s a decent chance that control/sleep/mill-Deception could be strong. If that’s the case, this card might be really good and a win condition by itself. Right now it’s trash but it’s also super cheap so pick it up.

9. Snowshaper Pallas (Price as of this writing $24.06) This is another card that looks deceptively underwhelming. Isn’t this just a 6-mana Rarity in most cases? No, it’s actually really good. Let me explain. Having a body after the transform makes the card a 2-for-1 trade in a lot of cases. Now, in the rare case, they don’t have a removal ready, this card can just straight up win you games. That it comes at 6-mana makes it so you’re often threatening either Unbound Flames on a wide board or a Pallas on a big fucker. So normally they won’t have board control after you play this card giving you somewhat of a chance to have it stick. After playing around 100 games with it, I would guess that in around 5% of the games I played this card, they couldn’t remove it and the game was pretty much over then. Not a high chance but a pretty crazy upside to an already very strong effect. Furthermore, the 0/1 Snow Statue that you give your opponent is way better (for you) compared to the rat from Ratify. Since it can’t attack it’s a dead slot on their board for the rest of the game unless it’s removed. This can mess with a good amount of effects like Sudden Bloom or Ward given by Oni Spellblade etc.

10. Take the Reins (Price as of this writing $1.24) This card seems a bit off. It’s kinda hard to make it work in control War since you rarely have any creatures on board until late game. It can be good with the Empower option and give you win conditions in certain matchups (e.g. Hevner and Hippacria's Monster). So far, it seems to be a slightly weak card, but at this price, you should add it to your collection anyways.

11. Frost Queen Neferu (Price as of this writing $44.25) Alongside the Woodcutter Imp, this card is probably the most popular in Mythic of all the WW cards so far. It’s decent in most cases and insane versus certain matchups. It will at the very minimum do 2 damage to your opponent, almost always 4 damage unless they had board control. But against decks like Board Wipe Death and control Light, it can easily do 10+ damage before they can figure out how to deal with it. It’s pricey right now, but it fits in a lot of different decks and will most likely see play for a long time to come.

12. Merry Kadmos (Price as of this writing $24.08) A lot of good players thought this card was going to be insane, but so far it’s been pretty underwhelming. I think it’s fair to say that it’s strong, but far from game-breaking. We’ll have to work harder to find a spot for it in the current lists. I have hope that it could fit in almost all the popular Light lists - aggro, midrange, and control.

13. Sleight Master Valka (Price as of this writing $37.09) This card is a bit too pricey for my taste for what it does. It’s a great finisher for aggro War, but you can’t fit it in many different archetypes because of its difficult condition. It’s very strong but not insane and the only reason I think its price is so high is because of the popularity of aggro War.

Now the last 6 cards are garbage. The only reason to get them is in hope of them getting buffed (which is likely) or just because you like to have a full collection. It’s very unlikely that they will ever see play in the competitive scene as is.

That’s it for now, good luck in the arena fellow nerds. I hope to see you in-game in 2023 and that Gods Unchained will have a booming year with a bunch of new players and features.