Ben: Hi, Ben here! Today I will be continuing our new series Misrecarded where we delve further into a specific card, talk about every line in detail, it’s use cases and out of the box things one could use it for.
When I think of Blazing Assault I kind of just think of a “good stuff” pile, a deck of just generically good cards that are extremely powerful and can go in any deck. However, there is one card that stands out from this, Scream of Anger. I have been trying this card for a while now and am excited to show you what I think about it.
Time to Get Stuck In (pun intended)!
CARD TEXT ANALYSIS
Let’s go through the card line by line and see what it does.
Firstly, this card does pick a fighter, which could inspire a Spiteclaw’s Swarm fighter, but other than that it doesn’t really matter.
The first important line is inflict 2 damage. 2 damage is a very important number, as it allows you to temper a fighter with this card, which is extremely helpful in the EotK pairing. Also, you can kill your own Venomites with Jaws, so that could be fun.
Next we see that it removes a fighters move or charge token instead of just allowing them to activate as if they don’t have it. This is important, as it allows you to use it to deny cards that require charge tokens such as Unrelenting Massacre.
Lastly it also can target move and charge tokens, not just one of them. This allows it to be used when a charged fighter needs to charge, but also if a fighter that has moved needs to charge, giving more flexibility, which can help a lot.
Now that we have read the card and have a basic understanding of what it does, let’s continue with use cases this card has.
SCREAM OF ANGER OR SCREAM OF TEMPER?
Firstly, lets look at this card as in the EotK pairing. EotK itself has three cards that temper your fighters, in Dark Horse, The Uprising! and Running Riot, however the latter two are pretty situational or don’t last forever. That leaves only 1 real card to temper your fighters, which makes it pretty inconsistent whether you draw it at the right time or not.
Scream of Anger allows you to have a second card that tempers a fighter, which boosts consistency by a considerable amount. It also allows you to temper two of your own fighters without interacting with an opponent, which is important when trying to score Trial of the Tempered.
The downside is that instead of making your fighter tempered, it damages them, which could allow the opponent to kill the fighter. However, even then it is sometimes still worth using the card as the fighter is now dead, meaning that Trial would still be scored and usually you would play it after your opponents last activation meaning that they would most likely only die the next round.
AM I SCREAMING OF ANGER OR ARE YOU?
The next use case is as a tool of denying your opponents objectives.
If you expect your opponents to be running Reckless Fury or Raging Slayers you might want to just include this card to deny objectives like Unrelenting Massacre.
These type of cards is what I like to call a “sideboard card” as in games with a sideboard, Scream would be the type of card one would include in it. However, it is still good without the sideboard, as it’s baseline of getting an additional charge with a valuable fighter is still not terrible. Against the aggro matchup however, them knowing you play this is extremely irritating, as they can’t bank on scoring cards like Unrelenting Massacre or Arena Mortis, even if they see that they should be able to.
It’s also just worth it to see a Dromm player force you to charge and then you removing the token he gave you.
DIDN’T DROMM ALREADY MOVE/CHARGE?
Now we have come to the most obvious use case, which is actually in an aggro deck. This card has two major use cases in an aggro deck, which is allowing a second charge and making being out of range not a terrible thing.
Having a given fighter charge twice in a single round is obviously really good. Getting a second charge off of Gorehulk, Kro-Jax or Brodus is often worth taking two damage on the fighter, as they are all really tanky and can one hit most fighters with decently accurate attacks. The value these fighters get from charging far outweighs the 2 damage they take in most scenarios.
The second use case is getting a valuable fighter back into the fight. In aggro, it often feels terrible when a fighter has no targets within charge range and needs to move, as he can’t charge and that could deny you a lot of your own glory. This does not prevent that from happening, but it certainly makes it less punishing. You spend one activation moving your fighter and then play this card to charge in the activation after.
HOW TO SCREAM
Firstly, open your mouth Scream of Anger is an extremely risky card to use and can often result in your fighters untimely demise if used incorrectly, so here is a quick list of things you should consider before playing it.
Disclaimer: obviously there are cases where you should play Scream of Anger even if generally it is a bad idea. Use this only as a baseline and not as facts.
Firstly, you should probably use Scream either during your opponent’s power step, so you get to activate with the fighter before the opponent can try to kill him, or in the last power step before scoring to get the value of damaging or tempering a fighter while minimising the risk. This tip is pretty obvious, but make sure to think about it before playing Scream.
Secondly, you should probably not make yourself vulnerable with it, especially when facing against CtC or any other deck with pings that can kill. This is because it is way easier to kill a vulnerable fighter with ploys and him killing your fighter basically removed all the advantages of Scream and changed its text to “deal 2 dmg to a friendly fighter”, which would be pretty bad.
“Deal 2 dmg to a friendly fighter is a bad card.”
Thirdly, you should think about the cost and benefit to using it. If you deal 2 dmg to your Gorehulk (and that makes him die to 1 hit from your opponents fighters) and try to take out a fighter on 2 shields on guard in a cover hex with three health remaining, the damage you took is way more important than the chance of killing the fighter. The cost is too high for a marginal benefit such as that to be worth the card, therefore you shouldn’t play it.
Fourthly, this isn’t about playing it, but keeping it. Keeping Scream of Anger or not can be pretty complicated, however the basic idea is whether you think you can reliably still safely use this card and get it’s full value. If all of your fighters are already tempered, this card might be an easy discard, and the same if all of your fighters would die when being targeted by this card. However, if you have an important fighter still at full wounds that would enjoy a second charge or think you might still need to temper a fighter, this card might want to stay in your hand.
DEXAMPLES FOR THE SCREAM
Here are three different decks that include Scream of Anger and when you would want to use it in this deck.
Decklist
This is probably the most known deck with Scream of Anger, namely the deck Dan K used to get fourth at the Copenhagen Grand Clash. If you want to read more about this deck you can do so here, but for now I will focus on Scream of Anger and how it is used in this deck.
This list uses Scream of Anger to temper one of the Condemners and allow them to charge a second time. Both of these uses are well worth the card and as this deck has good use for both of these cases, the value this card brings to the deck is extremely high.
You might think that Scream of Anger should only be used in a deck where attacking is the main game plan, however you would be wrong. This deck can make good use of Scream of Anger as a tool to get an extra charge onto a token and an extra chance to drive back and overrun an enemy trying to steal the objective from you. Is there an argument to not include it, as 2 damage is actually a big downside for this type of deck, yes, but you can certainly try playing it as well.
This deck allows you to get a lot of value off of Scream of Anger, as it not just allows Gorehulk to charge twice in a round, stay enraged after healing it with What Pain? and it even gives 1 blood tithe. This is the type of deck where most people think Scream of Anger belongs, and it sure is good in it.
MISRECARDED OR BETTER DISCARDED
Scream of Anger is an interesting card that I believe should see more play. Using it as Dark Horse 2 is really good and making the local Dromm player hating you is not a bad side effect. Also, attacking a second time with Wielder of the Blade for 4 dmg is pretty nuts. And even while doing all of this, it is a pretty skill dependant card to use and very rewarding when used correctly. I think this card is misrecarded, not better discarded and should be seeing more play in a multitude of decks.
Thank you so much for reading this article! If you have any feedback on this article we are happy to talk in the Staggerers Discord Server. See you again soon:).
Michael: Thanks to Ben for writing this article. He is pretty new to the Staggerers team, so any and all feedback would be appreciated. If you enjoyed his writing style and tips, do let him know! With that, thanks for reading, and we hope to see you again soon! 🙂
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