Michael: Hello folks! Michael and Ben here, and today we have the very epic experience of reviewing the brand new Magic Gathered deck here. As we can see, it’s a strike deck, which is very cool as we don’t have enough of them in the meta already (that’s sarcasm). It plays more like a mastery imo, doing 100 different things, but why spoil it? Let’s get to the cards!
I know I said ‘why spoil it’ but a general summary of the deck: it focuses on a lot of different stuff. It doesn’t have a plot card, which is nice, but don’t take it as a weak deck. With this deck GW is finally breaking the 16 glory per deck convention which I love. Also, it seems some cards really want to work but literally can only be scored in certain warbands or decks unless you draw one card in this deck. I dislike this myself but oh well. In an unprecedented turn of events, card art has been reused, which we find a little weird. I hope they don’t continue on this path…
Before we finally start we are sincerely grateful for getting the chance to view this deck before any other content creators have even seen it, and hope to get this chance again. Now that our daily dose of thankfulness has been fulfilled let’s finally start!!!
Objectives
Goblin Surprise
Michael: Score this immediately after your action step if there are 18 or more fighters on the board. This one is quite situational but I do think it can be run in a Gitz meta, which it currently isn’t. One fighter dying however does mess up the card, and the only thing keeping it afloat is a future upgrade in this deck.
Grade: D-
Ben: This card is clearly designed to never be included in any deck. It requires a specific upgrade to even be conceivable of scoring and is even bad in the gitz mirror.
Grade: F
Rampant Growth
Michael: Score this immediately after scoring an objective not during an end phase. This is a nice glory ramp card, rewarding you for having scored glory already. Reminds me of Great Gains. Still, not a bad card, just a little luck dependent. In something like BA with lots of easy surges it’s very good.
Grade: B
Ben: I don’t think this card is that good, as drawing it off of scoring another surge doesn’t allow you to score it, so you need to draw another surge with it. However, if this does happen it is pretty much autoscored, so not terrible.
Grade: B-
Lotho, Corrupt Sherrif
Michael: Score this immediately after playing your second ploy in a power step. Pretty strong but if you hate Low on Options or Ploymaster (I don’t) you will hate this even more as it forces play. It does work well in a combo deck like Pingstorm though! Most power steps are also consisting of combo plays, so not a bad card at all.
Grade: B
Ben: This card seems really solid, as it only requires you to have 2 ploys and often times you will find yourself chaining a couple of ploys as well. Settle in + By the Numbers, Sidestep + Confusion or any other combo scores this. It does restrict you a bit, but if you can’t do this for some reason, just discard it in the EP.
Grade: A-
Rhystic Study
Michael: A new take on a surge, where you reveal this every action step an unless an opponent makes one of their glory not count towards upgrades you score it. I suspect people will just instantly let you score this making it a very strong surge. Also what in the writing on the card, more words here than on Thanatek’s warscroll.
Grade: S
Ben: This card is probably the best card in the deck, as it often can’t be denied in the first 2 battle rounds. It could be rough if you are killing your opponents upgraded fighters or draw it in the third battle round, but still seems extremly easy (also this triggers on your opponents and yours, so your opponent needs to remove 8 glory from his upgrade pool every round).
Grade: S
Thought Vessel
Michael: Score this immediately after drawing a card if you have 8 or more cards in hand. This is quite funny, being an inverse Low on Options (almost). You can definitely play for this card but it does usually require a Focus or two and Burnt Out from CtC. Luckily there is a bit of draw tech in this deck, making this not a ‘throw pick’. Also it can be great in Ylthari (final edit note in can’t cause Ylthari doesn’t draw cards technically)
Grade: C
Ben: This card seems a bit rough if your warband doesn’t draw cards, but if it does draw a lot of cards, such as Khagra, this could be extremely easy, especially when loosing the roll off.
Grade: C+
Skullclamp
Michael: A reprint of Martyred, it’s nice for swarm warbands but that’s about it. Elites have almost no chance of scoring it. Also it’s counterplayed by your opponent just not attacking you, which means you can’t attack them, which means you lose glory… yeah not the best card around.
Grade: B-
Ben: This card is exactly the opposite of strong start, which I think is better, as we all know that our opponents dice are better than ours. This seems pretty good in a swarm, where you are fine with a couple of your fighters dying and you can control if your opponent dies by not attacking them for their full HP.
Grade: A-
Approach of the Second Sun
Michael: Score this in an end phase if you drew the same card twice in the preceding battle round. This one can be quite difficult, but it does reward a very hefty 9 glory making it an almost guaranteed win. Recommended deck: Realmstone Raiders for recycling old cards and then storing them. There is one card in this deck that helps but no spoilers!
Grade: C+
Ben: If you aren’t playing Realmstone Raiders, just forget about this card. It seems basically unscorable otherwise. However in RR this card is busted and is probably just going to get forsaken for that pairing.
Grade: D- if not in RR, S+ in RR
Milled Out
Michael: Score this in an end phase if you opponent has no cards in your deck. Very difficult, I don’t really like it even with the card support in this deck. It does give 3 glory so I know some people will try it but hey, let me know how it goes. Obviously an opponent spamming focus or losing the roll off will also help with this card, but i’ve not had much games where this condition is met.
Grade: C
Ben: This card seems a bit rough, as I, even playing Khagra with 21 power cards and by the numbers, am not drawing through my entire deck. It does give a lot of glory, but it still probably isn’t worth including in most decks.
Grade: C
Garrek’s Uprising
Michael: Score this in an end phase if one of your fighters has a damage characteristic of 4. First of all, as worded only the Bearer of the Blade can score it, which is stupid, as Grievous only buffs damage during combat an attack. As worded, it’s quite bad unless you are the Headsmen’s Curse.
Grade: D-
Ben: This card simply does not work as an end phase. If it were a surge that would check for grievous/lethal maybe, but like this it probably is a bad card and probably not even worth it for the Headsmen Curse.
Grade: F
Shroud
Michael: Score this in an end phase if none of your fighters were picked by a Ploy this round. Spiteclaw hates it and for one glory it’s very weak. I would maybe run it in a BA deck but it’s super card draw reliant and loses hard to WnR.
Grade: C+
Ben: This card is a 1 glory EP that requires you to play pretty unoptimally to score it. A lot of the best ploys pick your fighter and not playing them for 1 glory often isn’t worth it. If it were 2+ I might start including it, but for 1 it simply is too big of a downside to consider.
Grade: C-
Blasphemous Act
Michael: Score this in an end phase if fighters suffered 13 or more damage in the preceding battle round. For 2 glory, this is quite appealing! Luckily it does count damage in excess of health and your opponent can help score it. With the higher health totals recently this is a very good card, and pretty balanced compared to the rest of the deck.
Grade: A-
Ben: I think this card is playable, however it doesn’t seem to be incredible. Dealing 13 damage in total is doable, especially when playing an aggressive warband, however most likely requires cooperation with the dice and your opponent. For Dromm this seems very nice, but for everyone else this is descent.
Grade: B
The Millennium Calendar
Michael: What in the everliving game design is this. Some quick maths yield yields that you only need to roll 10 crits to score this, which is just as good considering it’s only worth a measly two glory. I’m pretty certain we complained as a community that we hate tracking stuff so it’s very of GW to release this unit of a card. It’s easy! But oh my gosh is it hard to track. If they start selling D1000’s then maybe but at the moment I can only play this with a calculator.
Grade: I have no clue, somewhere between 1-1000.
Ben: I don’t even know how R&D allowed this card to be printed. This card is impossible to track, but boils down to basically if you rolled around 5-6 crits in a game, which is possible, but not extremely likely. In the RS this card does seem pretty good though, so that is worth considering.
Grade: F- for game design, A- for strength
Ploys
Ancestral Recall
Michael: Draw three cards, or let an opponent draw three cards (for whatever reason). Pretty strong, we had these effects in V1 and they were always busted.
Grade: A+
Ben: This card is clearly an auto-include and can even help to score Milled Out by targeting the opponent. Probably one of the strongest cards printed so far.
Grade: A+
Farewell
Michael: Kill all fighters on the board and make them unraisable??? This is insane. If you pair this with something like CtC and Spread Havoc and play this turn 1, it’s a guaranteed win as your opponent won’t ever be able to score anything!!! Also I feel the no Raise specifically targets Thanatek. Jokes aside this card is busted and better be banned.
Grade: S+
Ben: This card probably wins you the game if you play it round 1, mostly wins you the game if you draw it round 2 and might win you the game if drawn round 3. You probably need to build your deck around in, but who cares because your opponent has 0 counterplay to you focusing until you draw it and then scoring Annihilation/any other card that autoscores from an empty board to win. Another card that is likely to get forsaken.
Grade: S+
Dark Ritual
Michael: Until the end of the next action step, you are considered to have 5 more glory than you do for the purposes of upgrades. This is kind of like Hexbane’s ability. It’s quite strong in Round 1 but that’s about it. Though imagine a turn 1 Haymaker + Keen Eye… anyways, keep in mind the upgrades do break after you lose the glory.
Grade: B
Ben: This card is actually somewhat balance, in contrast to the two cards above. Getting extra glory to turn your upgrades into mostly 1 time use ploys is nice, but if you score enough glory from your activation with them equipped you get to keep them. Definitely situational, but could be strong.
Grade: B-
Demonic Tutor
Michael: Search your library deck for any card. This is very strong. Really need that Sidestep? Demonic Tutor! Want to get some glory with Dark Ritual? Demonic Tutor! Need the Lure of Battle to force Strip the Realm? Yeah that means you are playing BA/PnP which doesn’t have Tutor in it, sorry. Auto-include for sure but there are times you draw in Round 3 and already have had all your good cards gone.
Grade: A
Ben: This card is just a second copy of whatever card you need, whether its Farewell to win the game, confusion to get on a token or whatever is strong in the current situation.
Grade: S
Counterspell
Michael: We finally got a counterspell! It does only work on ploys, just like the Krushas ability, but at least there is no dice rolls involved. Auto-include, imo.
Grade: A+
Ben: This card clearly is good, however it requires a lot of skill expression to use correctly, which I like. You can play ploys as “bait” to try to get your opponent to use this card or just play your important card immediately, hoping your opponent thinks you don’t need it.
Grade: A
Propoganda
Michael: A domain making enemies unable to attack you unless the amount of glory they have not dedicated to upgrades is more than your Save. This is very good, imagine being unable to attack Snirk unless you pay 3 Glory. Starblood Stalkers and Otapatl love this card for a turn 1 inspiration. It does fall off late game but a Round 1 Propoganda will swing games.
Grade: A
Ben: This card seems really strong, making your opponents entire first round slightly worse if they are playing hold or completely useless if they are playing some sort of aggro deck.
Grade: A+
Vandalblast
Michael: Break an upgrade, and discard 4 glory to break all your opponent’s upgrades. Discarding 4 glory is quite harsh but it can be game swinging. Luckily you aren’t required to spend the 4. This makes it a nice card for protecting fighters, like a pseudo Bladecatcher. I can’t really think of much upgrades currently that are worth blasting the 4 glory on but hey, some upgrades in this deck are quite op!
Grade: A-
Ben: This card seems descent, especially with a couple of strong upgrades such as Haymaker, Utter Conviction or a couple that are in this deck. It is a bit narrow though and sometimes doesn’t have good targets. Discarding 4 glory is a major cost, but could be worth it in some positions.
Grade: B
Opt
Michael: Raid, then draw 1 card. First of all, this isn’t in the RR deck so I’m not entirely sure what happened with the Raid keyword being on here. I guess it only works against RR…? Cause otherwise the plot card isn’t in play. Excluding this, drawing 1 card for no other effect is pretty weak but does help in stuff like PnP/DS where I struggle to get 10 ploys. It is an Emberstone Ploy as well so clearly the intention is to make RR better. There is a lot of synergy…
Grade: C+
Ben: I guess if the 9 glory EP wasn’t good enough for the RR pairing they also included this card that might be the second best Emberstone ploy in the game, as raiding is very important for that deck. In other decks it is probably not being included, but if you can’t find a tenth ploy to play this card could be included.
Grade: A for RR, C for everything else
Silence
Michael: I guess No Time is back because this is literally it. No Time wasn’t that strong last edition, and I don’t think that changed this edition. You can be very annoying with Silence though, such as by playing right before an end phase. It doesn’t even work with warscrolls as written.
Grade: C+
Ben: This type of effect often doesn’t do enough to see play, as the opponent can ofter just play the card they need to play a power step earlier or a power step later.
Grade: C
Overkill
Michael: I LOVE THIS CARD INSTANT S-TIER IT’S SO STRONG. Being able to one tap anyone on the board is super good and very balanced. Also it has a large number in it.
Grade: S+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ben: This card is not balanced at all, as it basically kills an enemy fighter. It does get countered by tough though, so maybe that card will be seeing more play after this gets released.
Grade: S+
Upgrades
Reanimate
Michael: Take 2 damage to put a card back in your deck, repeatable? This is pretty strong, despite it taking a core ability. It does help score Approach of the Second Sun as well, but even without it imagine recycling stuff like Haymaker??? Or… SUNDER THE REALM!!! Or Overkill, which will be funny. Crazy stuff.
Grade: A-
Ben: This card seems decent, but using an activation and inflicting 2 damage is actually a big cost. It does make Approach scorable, but other than that it seems pretty situational.
Grade: C+
Krenko, Mob Boss
Michael: DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF FIGHTERS ON THE BOARD???? WHO LET THIS PAST THE BALANCE TEAM? It does cost a very hefty 4 glory but oh my gosh it’s insane. I won’t be surprised for a day 1 Forsaken. Also sidenote the fighters can be resummoned in a feature token, lol.
Grade: S+
Ben: Ignoring the fact that this is obviously busted, how does this work. Do you just need to take like 4 copies of all of your models to every tournament? I think that is still (maybe) worth it for this effect though.
Grade: S+
Sol Ring
Michael: While this upgrade is equipped onto someone, you are considred to have 2 more glory for the purposes of upgrades. This is really nice considering it is only a 1 Glory upgrade, making it a super good trade up. I won’t run it personally cause of no effects outside of upgrade buffing, though.
Grade: B
Ben: This upgrade seems fine, but netting 1 glory and needing to already have 1 glory to equip it makes it a bit rough. Probably not going in my decks, but I can see it being playable.
Grade: B
Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice
Michael: This is a fairly strong card where at the end of each turn you do 1 Damage to each creature who already took damage while the upgraded fighter is on the board. I do think that fact that it damages your own guys makes it fair but imagine in a warband like Gitz or Blackpowder, where you either don’t take damage at all or have infinite health – it will be quite strong.
Grade: A
Ben: This card seems pretty strong, especially when combining it with CtC and Sunder the Realm. If you don’t especially care about the health of your fighters or they get one shot anyway, this is probably very strong for you.
Grade: A
Lightning Greaves
Michael: Become untargetable by ploys on top of gaining +1 Move. This is decent, it does shut down stuff like WnR but also disables your Sidesteps so be wary when playing it.
Grade: B-
Ben: This card seems fine, but there aren’t that many ploys that pick an enemy fighter. It is still nice though, as worst case it is just +1 move, which is somewhat playable. Make sure that you don’t accidentally ruin your gameplay by making them untargetable by your own sidestep though.
Grade: C+
Spike, Tournament Grinder
Michael: Not sure why this is an upgrade but this card lets you as a core ability replace this upgrade with ANY other upgrade in the game. Obviously this is quite OP because you can get stuff like Fury of Aqshy or Utter Ignorance. We do need James, Rules Lawyer in here next because I have no clue how this works with plot-card dependent stuff like Utter Conviction.
Grade: A-
Ben: Once again, using an activation for this is a bit rough, but it can definitely pay off with Utter Ignorance or any other strong upgrade.
Grade: B+
Black Lotus
Michael: As a core ability, kill the fighter with upgrade to gain 3 glory. Hello???? What in the balance? Venommites have a purpose now, Spinefin can become super cool, and Otapatl deserves to be sacrificed more than the other two combined (no hate towards Otapatl he’s a great guy). Pretty much every swarm wants this and some elites as well!
Grade: A+
Ben: This card seems like a good card for so many decks, as every warband has a 0/1/2 bounty fighter to sacrifice to this, which nets glory. Also, if your opponent is using activations to kill a fighter, this is also a huge tempo swing, as they basically wasted their activations.
Grade: A+
Etali
Michael: A very fun card, where you get to play cards from your opponent’s deck! I like it personally. Imagine stealing your opponent’s Confusion to deny them Supremacy. The best part is you don’t have to show the card to your opponent so you can bluff them out as if you stole their Confusion while you are holding their Shoulder Throw.
Grade: A
Ben: What’s better than playing cards? Playing your opponents cards. This card is very fun and also strong, as your opponent can’t play the card that you played anymore.
Grade: A
Roaming Throne
Michael: This lets you duplicate your surge abilities from Power cards while the fighter with the upgrade is on the board. This seems super OP, and it would be if the words ‘from power cards’ wasn’t there, but at the moment can you name 3 surges you want to duplicate? I can think of Wings of War, Determined Effort, and Vicious Intent. You can definitely build a deck around this but I don’t think it’s as busted as some other people might say.
Grade: B
Ben: This card seems very good, as it mentiones Power cards, not ploys, so you can duplicate your Duelist trigger or Rock-Splitting Tread trigger. You do have to play cards that trigger a surge ability, but if you do this card seems quite good.
Grade: A-
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Michael: While the card effect is SUPER strong, the glory cost makes it very weak. I can’t tell if this was printed as a joke or not. 15 glory for one upgrade???? Even though the upgrade forces your opponent to skip their turns. I guess we will see some madlads building decks all around this but until I lose to one of those this card is fine.
Grade: C-
Ben: This card is clearly meant as a joke and not actually as a card that should see play. It’s effect is powerful, but getting up to 15 glory very rarely happens by the third round, and if it does you have to have 0 glory of upgrades equipped. It is a fun card though.
Grade: D
Michael: What a deck! Lots of ups, but also lots of downs. I can think of several warbands I would pair it with. Since Approach of the Second Sun is a wincon, Khagra is really nice for their card draw capability. Cyreni also has some good synergy with some of the cards here, such as Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice.
The surges are pretty strong but also include Goblin Surprise. The end phases are POWERHOUSES but also include some bad cards – you have to build around them. Some ploys literally read ‘win the game’ such as Farewell. Finally, the upgrades are consistently ‘playable’ – not as cool as the above cards but not weak by any stretch of imagination.
I see Realmstone Raiders as a huge deck to go with here, simply for Store being used on Approach of the Second Sun. Blazing Assault is also something to consider with being able to duplicate Surge abilities while also having Annihilation for Farewell.
Overall, this deck will definitely hit the meta hard if no immediate bans are distributed. I hope we get some soon!
Again, we are very proud to be the first blog to get info out about this deck. Thanks a lot for reading! Let us know your thoughts on this deck on Discord (such as the Staggerers discord). With that, thanks a lot for reading, and I hope to see you again soon!
PUBLISHED ON APRIL 1ST, 2026
Staggerers - A Warhammer Underworlds Blog 