Epidemic, a powerful and underrated card

+
Epidemic, a powerful and underrated card

Epidemic is probably the least use bronze neutral special card, in fact I don't remember playing against someone who use it in a very long time. However recently I add it to my deck and this is incredible powerful card that should be use much much more and is counter to some powerful cards from all factions.

Monster passive, a good counter in case that you won the previous round, you could use it to destroy the card which stay on the board, good counter especially in case you face a highly buffed card (it also true in case of resilience).

Also useful to destroy dangerous cards with low strength, such as cow carcasses, water hag grave hag, Aretuza Adepts (and thus prevent the possibility of turning them gold) it also could destroy the spectral whale and the Lubberkin, although it's more problematic because both NR and SK could possibly have cards on board with strength lower than 3.
 
Last edited:
Ingsoc85;n8464440 said:
Also useful to destroy dangerous cards with low strength, such as cow carcasses, water hag, Aretuza Adepts (and thus prevent the possibility of turning them gold) it also could destroy the spectral whale and the Lubberkin, although it's more problematic because both NR and SK could possibly have cards on board with strength lower than 3.
Destroying Water Hag is pretty meaningless, because her body is not important as long as she spawns a Rain. Also, if your opponent plays a successful rain, then your epidemic probably wouldn't hit the water hag, as your siege row would have some 1-str units.

Epidemic is pretty bad because it's too situational and clunky. There are better alternatives than Epidemic for removing utility spying units like Spectral Whale and Cow Carcass. Dim Lock and Alzur's Thunder does the work pretty well, while also serving other purposes, such as destroying/locking value generators (Vran Warrior, Arachas Behemoth, Tuirsearch Axeman .etc). If you want to wipe out swarms like multiple Arachas or Aretuza Adepts, Manticore poison or Lacerate does the job better.
 
HuckFearthstone;n8465420 said:
Destroying Water Hag is pretty meaningless, because her body is not important as long as she spawns a Rain. Also, if your opponent plays a successful rain, then your epidemic probably wouldn't hit the water hag, as your siege row would have some 1-str units.

Epidemic is pretty bad because it's too situational and clunky. There are better alternatives than Epidemic for removing utility spying units like Spectral Whale and Cow Carcass. Dim Lock and Alzur's Thunder does the work pretty well, while also serving other purposes, such as destroying/locking value generators (Vran Warrior, Arachas Behemoth, Tuirsearch Axeman .etc). If you want to wipe out swarms like multiple Arachas or Aretuza Adepts, Manticore poison or Lacerate does the job better.

I think he probably meant grave hag.
 
Ingsoc85;n8464440 said:
Epidemic is probably the least use bronze neutral special card, in fact I don't remember playing against someone who use it in a very long time.
I will disagree with you here, I think blizzard potion is the least and more useless bronze neutral special card. Also Quen is very strange to see nowadays.

But your point is correct, Epidemic is a powerful and not so used card. Sometimes I played against opponents who used this card several times and it was hard. I also miss the old Pavetta, with two epidemics in a row, she was awesome (typically you would kill herself), now it is a 6 silver card with only a boring epidemic which makes her not so fun.
 
JohnathanHopkins;n8465450 said:
I think he probably meant grave hag.

I did, my bad.

HuckFearthstone;n8465420 said:
Epidemic is pretty bad because it's too situational and clunky. There are better alternatives than Epidemic for removing utility spying units like Spectral Whale and Cow Carcass. Dim Lock and Alzur's Thunder does the work pretty well, while also serving other purposes, such as destroying/locking value generators (Vran Warrior, Arachas Behemoth, Tuirsearch Axeman .etc). If you want to wipe out swarms like multiple Arachas or Aretuza Adepts, Manticore poison or Lacerate does the job better.

Manticore poison only limited to three cards, and my points is it a shame to waste Alzur's Thuner or D-shack on low level creatures when those card could be used for better things.

It also not limited by location, which work wonderfully when Isengrim spawn a crap load of Commando Neophyte.
 
Id like to see you Deck.
The only reason i can think of to play epidemic is playing a Weather Deck.
Ive tryed to build a Weather Control-Deck around epidemic, but it failed because of too many Special Cards.
But ... i have all Silver Weathers now ... :D
Maybe ill give it a try.

Edit
"Some time later"

 
Last edited:
I think the current meta makes Epidemic a bad inclusion to basically any deck, since the most common tactics/cards drastically limit it's use - especially Roach.
To give an overview and some examples:

Monster:
-Nekker
-Arachas
-Foglets
(The first also disallowes you to use Epidemic on their keep most of the time)

Northern Realms:
-Reaver Scout
-Roach
-Priscilla
-Siege Support

Nilfgaard:
-Vicovaro Medic
-Emissary
-Embassador
-Cow Toss

Skellige:
-Priestess of Freya (!)
-Roach
-KoB

Scoia'Tael:
-Neophyte Commando
-Roach
-KoB

All the mentioned cards limit the power swing of Epidemic more often than not to something like 0-9power which is not enough to compete with other specials like Alzur's Thunder or Manticore Venom. My beloved Pavetta is also completely useless post-patch, because single Epidemic has so little impact.


 
Epidemic might be useful if you have a carefully designed deck around it. It generally is only good if it can target 3 points units regulary. That means you need only 4+ units on your side of the battlefield.
But: NR has Reaver Scouts and Priscilla.
Skellige has Medics.
ST might have Neophytes so you can't run Isengrim.
Monster has foglets and Wild Hunt Riders and many 1 point unit spamming cards so you can't run any of them.
NG has Emissaries and Vicovaros.
 
I use 2 (not one!) epidemics on my Dorfs deck, and it's quite effective.

Basically I have a deck where all units are 5+ Str (not counting buffs), so I can almost always use epidemics without targeting any of my units.

Another deck where is use them is Pure Ambush (where most of the time my units are hidden, or on the opponent's board, or have 8 Str), though such deck ends being quite weak due to the lack of Str you muster.
 
...I'm fairly new, and honestly can't think of a reason to use it over Lacerate. Even if they play around it its hard for Epidemic to out-value Lacerate
 
Top Bottom