The Everfest carnival has blessed us with all kinds of new options for all classes and some interesting generics. One of the special things about the set is the carnival slot, where we can find a range of carnival-related goodies – with a big focus on trinkets! Some are good, some are weird, but today I will focus on what I consider to be the three most underrated trinkets out of the bunch. Looking at one of each – talisman, amulet and potion – I’ll explain how these can be put to good use, even in highly competitive game play.
Before we jump in, I want to outline the differences between the three types of trinkets in Everfest. These are Talismans, Amulets and Potions. We’ve been familiar with Potions since the first set of the game, with cards like Energy Potion, Timesnap Potion and Potion of Strength. All three have been quite iconic and share a common theme – they pitch for three, don’t have a defense value and cost an action point to play out. Also, they have to be activated to use.
Talismans, on the other hand, tend to also pitch for three or sometimes two, but unlike Potions, these have go again. Another big difference is that they require a trigger to activate. This isn’t a choice – when the Talisman is triggered, it does its thing whether you like it or not. We’ve seen the first talisman introduced in Monarch in the form of the Talisman of Dousing.
Lastly, we have the Amulets. We’ve seen amulets introduced in Tales of Aria with each element getting its own amulet. These also have go again, but just like Potions, you get to activate them whenever you like.
Talisman of Tithes, although it has stunning art, doesn’t seem to be getting much love. It’s not surprising, as who likes taxes, right? The card on the surface simply trades one card for one card, which isn’t all that amazing in the grand scheme of things, so why play it?
There are a bunch of cards that are affected by the Talisman. The most common one is Sink Below. More specific targets include Crown of Seeds and Kano’s Tomes, such as Tome of Aetherwind. All of these grant some kind of benefit for your opponent. Sink Below helps to fix hands, Crown of Seeds prevents damage and lets opponents cycle through their deck quicker and tomes in Kano help them dig for powerful combos. The utility the card draw provides often smooths out their hands to create more powerful turns. Some decks are even built to win games with these kinds of draws, such as a very Tome-heavy Kano deck.
What talisman of tithes provides is a very subtle disruption to that utility that affects your opponents’ play patterns. Simply drop one of these against an earth hero with a Crown of Seeds and watch them double guess their activation. Chances are, they might not even activate it to play around and do it on their turn. Same with Sink Below. If your opponent is actively playing around it, you’re already getting value from it. The best thing is that if they do decline to use Sink’s ability or Crown on your turn, it stays in play until they deal with it, giving you permanent value, for what seems to be a single use item.
This one pitches for yellow, has a very specific activation clause and only adds one resource – why not play Energy Potion instead, you might ask yourself. Energy Potion is a powerful tool to accumulate resources over multiple turns, but it comes at a huge cost – an action point. More often than not, this means that playing a potion costs you a whole turn. Amulet has more of a niche usage, but it is a lot more flexible. You can drop it into play, then continue your turn. Some of the best targets to use this on are strong one-cost weapons. My favorite uses are for weapons like Death Dealer, Dawnblade and Rosetta Thorn, but this can also work for equipment like Crown of Seeds.
Even though Amulet of Ignition states that you can activate it only if you haven’t played any cards this turn or activated abilities, you can still activate it, play cards then use the cost reduction on an activated ability. So for example, you could pop it, play a Sharpen Steel or two, then attack with Dawnblade for zero cost. This Amulet is great at fixing awkward hands, when you might have a bunch of zero-cost pumps and zero-cost arrows, but do not want to sink in a whole card to activate your bow. Just like Energy Potion can get you out of some sticky situations, so can Amulet of Ignition. It’s maybe not as strong in power level, but it’s definitely easier to get out into play, especially when you have an aggressive game plan.
This trinket is not the easiest to use, but once you try it, it’s hard to not include in your attack action card-heavy decks. It primarily shines in control shells with lots of attacks because of how versatile it is in combat, once it’s in the arena.
First, it offers an on-board buffer to your attack action cards. With a four-card hand, it can turn each card into a four-defense piece, which is amazing if your opponent relies on big, breakpoint-based swings. Stop those pesky Snatches, Meat and Greets and Whelming Gustwaves with a single-card block!
Stopping big turns is nice, but the subtle reason why this Potion is actually so useful lies in its instant activation. Let’s say you defend a Fatigue Shot coming in for five with two attack action cards that defend for three. Your opponent plays out a Lightning Press (Red), adding three attack. You can pop the Potion at instant speed and raise the defense value by two, defending the eight attack with eight defense. If they continue to attack, you can keep throwing those powered up blocks at them. This is similar to how Art of War works on defense, but this stays in play.
This Potion, being a permanent, adds to the mind games with your opponent. Let’s say they’re attacking with a comboed Whelming Gustwave (Yellow) for three, they have breaking scales which could give their attack an additional one power, but you have defended with an attack action card for three. They know that if they pop those Scales, you can respond with the Potion. Same thing for cards like Ancestral Empowerment, Singing Steelblade and Art of War. Potion of Ironhide is an on board counter to many of these aggro-centric combat tricks.
These three examples are only the tip of the iceberg of the utility the Everfest trinkets provide. Many of them are very niche when it comes to their use cases, but when stars align, they are the ultimate tech to get an edge over your opponent. Some might not be that exciting on the surface, but they are all worth a try, because you never know when you’ll remember one to counter a specific play you’ve been struggling with. Try them, get used to how they play and one day, they might just come in handy.
