Hey! Michael here. So turns out something I completely forgot about the transition from first to second edition is to make a ping tier list. So it’s time for this year’s edition of the PING TIER LIST! For anyone who has played in V1, we all remember the end of Wyrdhollow where we had the majestic 5 ping decks for Ephilim and Domitan and thought that was bad. Later we were wishing we can come back to those times, with end of Deathgorge decks being able to hit 8,9, or (legends say), 10 pings.
In Embergard people aren’t complaining about pings nearly as much. So as an avid ping enjoyer, I aim to change that! In this article, I will go over how viable each ping is in Embergard as well as justify it’s position.
QUICK REVIEW OF PING DEFINITION
For anyone who has forgotten, a ping will be defined as:
Ping
/pɪŋ/
noun
A ploy card that does damage to an opponent, typically not during an activation, usually during a power step.
“Pings are not overused and deserve buffs.”
verb
The action of playing a power card that does damage to an enemy, typically during a power step or as a surge ability.
“I will ping your entire board with Sunder the Realm.”
The pings will be analyzed from a neutral warband’s perspective – I will try not to take warscroll abilities into account, unless specifically stating so. Additionally, the decks the pings come in will play a minimal role in deciding their role.
Sidenote – a major change from V1 to V2 has been that pings no longer ‘deal’ damage – they ‘inflict’ it now. Not sure if anyone saw this but an interesting detail.
Now to the list!
S TIER
Sunder the Realm – I have a small confession to make – this card played a huge role in me actually playing second edition post-Worlds. People who I play with often know that I am an avid ping enjoyer (my friends would say I am addicted and it’s a problem but don’t listen to them). This ping is everything I ever wanted – accurate, hits multiple targets, doesn’t need any friendly fighter to be alive to use it, discourages enemies playing close to you… the list goes on. Additionally, in the current meta, high fighter warbands are good (or so I’ve heard) and this card absolutely swings the matchup in your favor. The only thing missing from it is a Stagger and then it would literally be ‘Perfect’ tier.
Improvised Attack – For legal reasons, this card is a ping. And for not so legal reasons, it’s absolutely busted. First of all, it can kill. Second of all, it’s very accurate and can get more so with supports and cleave/ensnare. Third, it can DRIVE BACK. It’s like both elements of Damned if you Do! Fourth, it has an absolutely massive range – go put a model on the board and see how far a 3 Range attack can hit. All of these on top of the fact that even if it misses it can often push people back make this ping S-Tier. One noticeable issue with it is it sucks where most pings shine – against high Save opponents. Still, nothing a Cataclysm 3 + one flanker can’t fix. Like other Cataclysm pings it’s weaker in early game than late game but this one is definitely one of the more accurate ones at 1 Cataclysm Level, especially with a Stagger token!
A TIER
Total Collapse – This ping is BUSTED. It is one of two pings in the entire game that can snipe a fighter ANYWHERE on the board for ZERO reason in particular. Also you can do some creative things with it being able to damage your fighters. The things keeping from S-Tier are two: A), Improvised Attack fills a very similar role, being less range but more accurate and damaging. The range limit is not significant enough to make Total Collapse better. B), this card is practically useless in Round 1 and even Round 2 sometimes. It’s a game changer in Round 3 but with only one Cataclysm level it’s a huge gamble. Don’t get me wrong, if it goes off it’s amazing, but in pings we value consistency.
Damned if you Do – The card itself is genuinely great. The ping part, on paper, not so much. It can’t kill which is bad and you can literally say ‘no’ to it, which makes people consider it bad. The reason it’s so high up is because a lot of the time, if you play this card, you probably have a cheeky plan up your sleeve to displace the opponent, so often times opponents actually do say ‘ping me’. The ping part of the card conveniently has infinite range and no way to dodge. This makes it one of the highest skill ceiling pings in the game. While it cannot kill, which is a massive caveat keeping it from S-Tier, the fact that it is literally unavoidable damage if played properly is kind of huge. It does require expert skill to use properly and against certain warbands it’s pretty bad because they might not care about getting pushed. In the wrong hands, it’s B or even C Tier, but in the right hands, we can safely say A Tier.
Knife to the Heart – The newest ping and arguably one of the best in the game right now! The main thing gatekeeping it from entering S-Tier is the fact that it can’t kill and you have to be adjacent to a fighter you HAVE to charge into. Which means that fighter is very likely to.hit back next turn. Still, there are cases you can mitigate the risk of playing this card by using it as a ‘failsafe’ or by killing one enemy and Knifing another adjacent one. Removing Rage tokens is a big plus, but only if you don’t run any Rage objectives. Overall, it’s guaranteed, and very difficult to dodge, as well as having a not very strict requirement to play. This card will definitely see some play!
B TIER
Trapped Cache – Definitely a strong ping, don’t get me wrong. I would take it any day into any deck! It’s not in a plot-locked deck, so it’s very accessible, and conveniently the deck it is in happens to be the literal best deck in the game right now. However, several things hold it back. A), it can’t kill. In fact, it can’t deal damage to undamaged fighters at all. B), it has to target an enemy near a treasure token. While this isn’t bad per se, the fact that Delving is kind of strong right now paired with the fact that you probably want to be delving in the deck this card is in makes it a little limiting. Overall, a very consistent way to get damage out, but falls off a lot late game.
Outburst – Not a common ping but a decent one. It can hit multiple enemies, can kill (which is huge), and is decently accurate late game if you are Underdog. It’s main drawbacks are the fact that you have to be adjacent to at least one fighter, which is typically unsafe, and the fact that it’s not very high chance if you aren’t Underdog. While it can hit multiple targets, you have to be in the middle of all your targets for maximum effect. And since you need to be in Round 2 or 3 to have a good chance, you probably don’t want to be running into a squadron of Gitz if you are Underdog. Overall, a good ping in theory. It’s let down by the fact that you have to play risky to get maximum benefit from it, and without maximum benefit, it’s hard to justify.
Fake Out! – This ping is plot locked to a pretty niche deck. However, it has several good qualities. First of all, it can kill while also having a pretty controllable condition. This alone makes it pretty good. Its drawbacks are that it’s not very accurate even if you are Underdog, and I wouldn’t gamble a game on those odds. Additionally, if you miss this ping, having an enemy fighter (who is probably angry!) adjacent to one of your tempered fighters probably doesn’t bode well for the tempered fighter’s long term health. The fact that this ping can kill and does damage pretty reliably pushes it high, and it’s dragged down to B Tier by its punishment if you do miss. A note on the 3 Health target condition – this is pretty reasonable, as most fighters have 2 damage – so it basically converts your two damage attacks into one shot onto three health enemies.
C TIER
Fault Lines – in terms of pinging this card is very good. Only one hoop to jump through, that being it has to hit an undamaged enemy. It also has a plethora of good things, namely being unavoidable (infinite range) and having no dice requirement. If you think about it, even the fact that you take damage isn’t that bad! So why is it so low? It’s the combination of the fact that A) you have to hit an undamaged enemy and B) your opponent gets to play the exact same ping, but better, against you. What keeps it afloat and above D Tier is that at the end of the day it’s your choice to play the card or not. If this card significantly disadvantages you, just don’t use it. Its potential power is really high though, as being able to put a wound anywhere on the board is. Just see Total Collapse!
Volcanic Eruption – this card is pretty strong if you play it the way that your opponent gets to choose whether you get to ping their fighter twice, not as strong if you play it the way that your opponent can choose to ping you. Community consensus (at least at WTC 2025) was that it’s the latter interpretation, making this card very warband dependent. At best, your opponent only has a 33% chance to ping you back, but that is rarely the case. In fact, you might even miss your own dice roll while your opponent might hit, which is a major feels bad! There are still a lot of redeeming qualities to this card. The biggest one is that it is an unavoidable ping, having an infinite range, while also being able to kill, which is absolutely massive. It’s also quite accurate against 3 bounty targets who usually are priority targets. However, the current meta is slightly plagued with one bounty fighters, making this card a pretty hard choice to justify. Its potential is very high and in another meta (or with a different ruling on how the card works) it can definitely jump several tiers!
Fortune Faded – an arguably worse version than Fault Lines. Why is it in the same tier then? Because you can choose which of your fighters gets pinged. Also, you don’t have to target an undamaged fighter. This makes it a consistent way to get damage out. A pretty big caveat is the fighter who gets sent to ‘fade the fortune’ of an enemy is dead to rights – and they will probably get punished for it. This card basically trades out a fighter, but it’s a little harder for you to get your end of the bargain than for your opponent. This keeps it in high C-Tier, very close to a B-Tier ping.
D TIER
Deadly Traps – D Tier for Deadly Traps. This card is quite unreliable and is literally only ever a consolation prize. It’s like, ‘you missed, but here have some damage anyway’. Additionally, whenever you actually meet the ‘drawn attack’ condition you always realize you don’t actually want to drive your opponent back. The cherry on top (or cherry on bottom) is the fact that it can’t kill. Yay. The main thing keeping this from F Tier is the fact that it can be used on any attack, not just melee, in combination with the fact that Ranged attacks are very accurate for no reason in particular. This makes this card actually decently reliable on them. Still, it can’t kill, and has about 60 hoops to jump before you can use it, earning it a nice spot in D Tier.
Ominous Rumbling – in any other meta this card would be C Tier, which isn’t a big improvement but an improvement nonetheless. While it seems similar to Damned if you do, its alternative to getting pinged is pretty weak. This, in combination with the fact that the meta is based on delving now so Staggers are NOT in short supply make the ping simply too easy to say ‘no’ to. What keeps this from F Tier is if your opponent does ask to get pinged, the ping itself is pretty decent and has infinite range. Yet, it still can’t kill, solidifying D Tier as the deserved tier for this card.
F TIER
No pings are in F-Tier this edition. Yet. For context, an example of an F-Tier ping from last edition was Pulse of Hunger from the Hungering Parasites deck.
Bane of Heroes was the ‘parasite’ upgrade, one that was always carried by a specific fighter in your warband. It Staggered all adjacent fighters and the bearer of the upgrade. Magic dice were a special dice, but crit odds were the same. This means that you had to have your STAGGERED fighter who has an upgrade crucial to your gameplan to run into a group of enemy fighters, and have a 1/6 chance to damage each enemy. On top of that, it damaged the wearer of the upgrade, as well as any friendly fighters. Wayyy too risky for not much reward. I’d much rather have Deadly Traps or Ominous Rumbling personally.
If you are interested more in last edition pings, and how busted they were, check out this article here!
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this year’s version of the Ping Tier list. Stay tuned for 2026’s version of it – hopefully we get more pings by then! If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or just want to chat, you can reach out to me on the Staggerers discord server. If you want some ping decks to suit your ping fancy, I recommend checking out our Nemesis Deck Repository. With that, I hope to see you again soon!
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