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Abby, Raging Axe レイジングアックス・アビー Forestcraft Follower エルフ フォロワー |
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Unevolved Fanfare: Deal 3 damage to an enemy follower. Add 3 to the number of cards played this turn. |
Evolved Evolve: Deal 3 damage to an enemy follower. Restore 3 defense to your leader. |
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進化前 【ファンファーレ】相手のフォロワー1体に3ダメージ。このターン中にカードをプレイした枚数を+3する。 |
進化後 【進化時】相手のフォロワー1体に3ダメージ。自分のリーダーを3回復。 |
Abby and her bear partner, Bobo, are coming back to Shadowverse in the Heroes of Rivenbrandt expansion! These characters from the Rage of Bahamut universe are here as Forestcraft cards. In the Wonderland Dreams expansion, we had Abby the Axe Girl, a vanilla 2PP follower. That card didn’t see much play—this new version might be different, as the 4PP Abby, Raging Axe is able to provide a reliable tempo swing plus healing that can be really useful for midgame survival. On top of that, she also has an inherent effect that synergizes with combo plays: Forestcraft’s signature.
Abby is a powerful tempo-swing follower due to the following:
Those points of utility make Abby a worthy card to consider in any Forestcraft archetype that aims to buy time for a strong mid to late game. It would be a very suitable addition for a Combo/Control oriented playstyle that doesn’t need to build up the follower count. Abby will efficiently buy a turn and deal with opponents’ early aggression until we can play the powerful payoffs, such as Cosmos Fang or Carbuncle, Sacred Emerald.
However, Abby’s downside is that she is not a good card when you are already ahead on tempo: it doesn’t exert major board presence and is mostly a removal card. This drawback means that it is unlikely to see play in an aggressive Forestcraft archetype such as Fairy Forest or archetypes that rely on progressing the Forestcraft-followers count.
Most of Abby’s utility is also locked behind an evolve point and is usually only relevant during the first evolve turn, as her effectiveness decreases as the game goes on. Therefore, she might conflict with other cards that have strong evolve effects—especially those performed early—such as Metatron or Nobilis.
The most interesting part of Abby is her ability to add 3 to the number of cards played this turn (play count): she effectively counts as four cards played for 4PP. This effect helps a lot with cards that have the condition of “if at least X cards were played this turn,” such as Whirlwind Assault, or Condemned trait cards like Magachiyo—you can fulfill their requirement instantly with this single card. In fact, Abby’s synergy with Magachiyo deserves an entire section to discuss.
These are examples of cards that benefit from play-count additions. While cards like Autumn Leaf Man or Verdant Lieutenant only keep track of the play count of the current turn, cards like Magachiyo and Thicket of Gnarled Hands keep track of it for the entire match.
One important thing to note is that Abby doesn’t synergize well with cards that require an exact card played during the turn. The most relevant example in the current card pool is the Invocation effect of Rayne, Divine Smith: if you play Abby as the first card during the turn, due to Rayne’s exact requirement of “fourth card played,” Rayne will never get invoked, as Abby’s +3 play-count effect will skip the activation window for second, third, and fourth card played. So always be careful when playing with Abby.
Magachiyo Forest is an archetype that focuses on enabling Magachiyo, Barbed Convict in order to perform an OTK with Condemned cards. The deck aims to play at least 4 cards every turn starting from turn 4 (sometimes turn 3 with PP cheating from the likes of Winged Inversion) so that Magachiyo’s condition will be fulfilled by turn 7. Then, it will end the game on turn 7 with powerful burst damage together with Condemned cards such as Warden of Recurrence and Budding Initiate.
The archetype never really appeared as a dominant deck in the meta and was mostly considered a cheese strategy. But recently, it managed to win one of the most prestigious tournaments, the Ratings Cup, which was a surprise to everyone in the competitive scene.
The common problem for Magachiyo Forest is that you are kinda forced to actually play four 1PP cards in a single turn, which is a huge strain on your hand size. While it’s true that each of those 1PP cards usually cycle themselves, they are usually restricted by some kind of condition. This is where Abby feels like a card that is printed specifically for this archetype: with Abby, the only commitment that you have is 1 card, and it allows you to save your other resources for more important late-game turns. Magachiyo Forest will also lose Woodland Pest Control next season, which is a hit to their 1PP cycle pool. Having a single card that can fulfill the requirement is a welcome addition.
Other than the one-card commitment, perhaps Abby’s biggest upside is her tempo swing and healing ability. Surviving until turn 7 is Magachiyo’s minigame, and Abby is really useful to achieve that. Not to mention, Abby is a good evolve target, and the archetype doesn’t really have any other good evolve targets other than Rayne. So having Abby as another option would be really helpful for the flexibility of the deck.
On top of those upsides, Abby, Raging Axe doesn’t have any trait—which is huge for this archetype, as it won’t interfere with cards like Freyja that make Condemned tutoring even more consistent.
Abby, Raging Axe is, without a doubt, a strong control-oriented midgame card. Her effect isn’t flashy, but that simplicity is exactly what combo/control oriented archetypes need to survive. While Forest already has Benevolent Elf at 4PP, a very strong play on her own, the conditions for her effect might be harder to fulfill against a very aggressive deck. Abby might be a better option.
It will be very interesting to see how players will try to fit Abby into the deck. Other than obvious synergy with Magachiyo Forest, I think she is worth experimenting with in archetypes that utilize the number-of-cards-played mechanic, such as with Whirlwind Assault or even in a Thicket of Gnarled Hands deck.
