I've seen quite a few mentions on these forums of Warpstone Excavation being used in decks. 0 cost for 1 power (and non-limited) is pretty solid in theory, but isn't Corrupting every unit you play in one of your zones quite a big cost? I understand its useful in duplicates, but in a game with a card limit of 3x running it just for this reason is surely questionable? I think one of the best uses for this card (and something I intend to try out when I get my sets) is to hold all copies of Warpstone Excavation that you draw until your first non-Battlefield zone is burning (your battlefield shouldn't get burned too quickly if you're an aggressive deck should it?) then play all of them to that zone for free, generating extra cards/resources.

Contested Village on the other hand looks pretty solid in my opinion, 1 cost for 1 power in either Quest or Kingdom is surely worth it? Limited is quite easy to get around thanks to the ability to slip a second copy face down as a development, and its unlikely you'll have all three in hand at once. Looking over the Corruption cards, I can't see another card that costs 1, provides 1 power and can be played to a zone other than Battlefield (however, for the Empire I can't help but find Huntsmen quite an interesting card.)

So, which of these (if any) are people planning to run in their constructed builds?

Speaking personally, my current deck doesn't run either at the moment. There's just too much other stuff I wanted to include so something had to go, and that something was Contested Village. It's still only a first draft though, so it may be back.

On the subject of Warpstone Excavation though, we had an amusing situation in one of my first games. Tallgeese played Dwarf Cannon Crew to his battlefield and the only support card in the top 5 cards of his deck was the Excavation so he had to play it. I think he wound up using Demolition to destroy his own support card. So although you might plan to hold it back until late game, your deck might end up betraying you.

ChaosChild said:

Yeah, I'm not sure if a card designed purely to grant extra resources/cards is useful if you have to wait until late game to use it and have to play around it while its still in your deck. There's always the "you can use it as a development if you draw it when you don't need it" argument, but I still don't know whether I'd actually consider running it over Contested Village in any build bar an extremely aggressive deck that could afford to leave a zone open and wanted the extra resources/cards for a quick win.

I don't know, I have a feeling that the Skaven might have a few mechanics that work around corrupting your own cards:

Forced: Whenever ~ becomes Corrupted target player discards a card from his hand.

Warpstone Excavation makes perfect sense in particular builds or as a weapon against specific builds. But you are generally correct, most people will not want to play a card that forces them to corrupt a unit in a deck that is all about being super aggressive or super defensive.

I might though... Think about it this way. If I'm going to be playing a very faced paced deck I need to get as many cards into my hand, as many resources into my pool and as many units in my battlefield as I can. Trying to do that and defend an dbuild all three zones is going to slow me down. Period. If I can toss a Warpstone Excavation or two into my Quest Zone if I intended to only use it for draw and the best Quest x3, it doesn't matter if the unit comes into play contested, he still triggers a resource for my quest. It is a one turn delay before he can defend, and if I'm instead building up my BZ my opponent is going to be left in a position where they need to think about which of their zones I'm going to hammer, or leave one of their zones under defended.

Putting it in my KZ makes even more sense in general games because I want more control over how many card I want draw and I want the ability to sacrifice or kill off defenders if necessary in the QZ to keep from decking myself. With these "free" support cards to give me resources, where there is little in the game to punish you for pulling in a lot of resources the only drawback is again putting a unit there and it being corrupted for a turn. Again using this card allows me to gain resources without having to invest heavily in doing so, which means my QZ and BZ can be built up much stronger, especially than my opponent who must stick his own units in all 3 zones just for protection let alone his trying to keep up with me and my draw and resources.

In a grinding control deck, meant to when by attrition, the cards are useful also. I can just keep them in my hand until such a time when a zone is burning (and if your opponent doesn't suck, eventually one of your zones will burn) and then lay however many of these you have in your hand down since you won't need to play new units there. Keeps your power in that zone up with no disadvantage.

Of course depending on your build you may find that you can build up your QZ of KZ to your satisfaction from a defensive standpoint just fine. If you get a unit or combination of cards that lets you heal or cancel damage then one or two decent HP charcaters can defend the zone by themselves. In this case Warpstone Excavation is just an extra card to draw or resource to pull with no meaningful disadvantage unless you are already getting screwed... but the extra draw/pull should help you prevent that from happening.

Summary - it isn't for the weak of heart, but the card definitely has its uses and certain types of players will make very good use of a card most people would never bother including in their deck.

remember, it doesn't corrupt support cards and also for units questing it dose not matter if they are corrupt or not.

I really like warpstone evacuation in my dwarf deck right now. I can stick them in my quest or kingodm and still have cards like A Glorious Death, Rune of Fortitude, and Keystone Forge played into that zone without worrying about corrupting. Plus with a splash for Blessing of Isha i can get around the 'horror' situations of having to play a corrupted unit or two (better in an Empire deck where you put it on one of the zone jumpers and they won't be corrupted when they jump into the zone).

Also, and especially in Dwarfs (heal/cancel/move damage to capitol effects), I like to leave one zone undefended so warpstone evacuation drops nicely there. And worse case i can it to a burning zone to get a quick resource/draw boost.

dormouse said:

Ah, thanks for this reply, you've actually helped me to change my mind a little bit about the card. I completely overlooked using it in any Order builds, as the term "Warpstone Excavation" immediately brought Destruction imagery to mind. I'd definitely consider running it in an Empire build that runs Quests, and I'll confess that I don't currently know how the flow of combat and playing cards into zones works during an actual game (got my sets today though, and should soon be rectifying this ) so it may be that zones are being left unattended more often than I currently think will happen. I think I'll make a point of putting it in quite a few decks that I play with tonight, just to see how it functions in those decks and how it interacts with each faction's theme for myself.