Articles

Jaron Tomsky

Today’s Priest preview card is a Discipline Talent that simply asks for a bit of patience to gain the reward of any card-flopper’s lifetime. Yes, I’m talking about taking an extra turn. Chromie would be so proud.

I must first get one very important proclamation out of the way: no Demon heroes can play this…yet. Sorry, no love for you this time around Pinprik. Chromie don’t play that!

With that crucial order of business out of the way, I’d like to say welcome and I hope you are all enjoying these wonderful daily Crown of the Heavens sneak preview articles. My name is Jaron Tomsky (A.K.A. Vylokx or just plain “Demon guy”) and I write Tier Fun, the wacky weekly underdog deck-building strategy article for wowtcg.com. Once again, I have been given the tremendous privilege of sharing with you a new and exciting card from the upcoming set. On this occasion, I’m honored to show off a Discipline Priest ability that requires a fine balance of faith and courage to succeed. I know a thing or two about giving more subtly powerful cards a chance to shine, let me tell you, and how great it feels when a well-calculated risky plan comes together.

Before I discuss how best to utilize this ticking time bomb, let’s first recap the Discipline talent specialization and what other benefits it can currently offer for Core Constructed. Power Word: Barrier is one of the more popular talent cards these days due to both the extremely cheap cost and powerful potential prevention of multiple damage-packets. Luckily, you won’t have to forfeit that staple of most modern Priest decks in order to give Borrowed Time a try, but let’s explore what this card is capable of on its own merit.

The mechanics of this card are fairly simple: once you put this ongoing ability into play, for the relatively cheap cost of two, it will start with zero clock counters and at the start of each subsequent turn you’ll add one counter. Once a fifth clock counter has been added you may immediately choose to destroy the ability to gain an entire extra turn at no additional cost. Borrowed Time’s effect is clearly very potent, yet fragile. This is where the faith and courage to prevail come in. The more cynical out there might be thinking “The earliest this can happen is turn 7, but time goes by so slowly!” and my only answer to that is, “Yes, but time can do so much.” Are you faithful Priest followers still mine? Good, my righteous brothers.

While losing this ability to removal at the four-counter mark could most certainly be a devastating blow to our priestly psyche, we must always remember that Priests are the masters of mind games. Priests undoubtedly have access to the most effective discard suite of any class currently in the game, including Mind Spike, Bottled Mind, Oppress, and particularly Parexia, Herald of the Shadows for those representing the Horde. If our opponent even has the response right away, can he or she afford to use precious resources and a card in hand to dispatch of Borrowed Time the turn it comes into play and risk losing the rest of his or her hand? If our enemy chooses the likely route and waits to answer it later will they even still have the answer card in hand right before the clock strikes five? The lovely Parexia and her mind bullets would like to find out!

Even if this card doesn’t quite last long enough to give you that extra turn, it still may put your opponent into a desperate situation of anticipation. They may need to choose to skip a turn or two and attempt to draw into an ability answer and play it rather than risk you getting too far ahead, all while neglecting to drop threats of their own. Skip a turn now, or lose a turn later? These are the questions Borrowed Time asks, and may test the faith of even the most foolish of opponents.

And what if an suspecting opponent lets Borrowed Time go off? You end up with two turns without interruption. That's two turns of pummeling the opponent with massive allies, or two turns of ripping the opponent's hand to shreds. Borrowed Time will almost certainly make sure that an opposing hero's time is short-lived!

This card also seems as though it could have a chance to make a name for itself in the soon-to-be-updated Limited formats. Throne of the Tides was notorious for containing very few ability answers, so Borrowed Time may be very difficult to dispatch depending on what other cards are added to the pool with Crown of the Heavens. While “skipping” your second turn to play Borrowed Time won’t always the advisable play in a heated war of attrition, with the right power curve of allies to follow it up with I’m almost certain that taking your 7^th and 8^th turns consecutively will be all she wrote. Especially if those turns consist of Vylokx followed up with another Vylokx! (/end shameless vanity card name drop)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the great preview articles leading up to Darkmoon Faire Los Angeles. I’m looking forward to meeting a ton of new friendly faces there, and if any “freax” feel like asking me to sign any of your favorite Tier Fun (or vanity Demon) cards then I’d be more than happy to let you borrow some of my time.

You see what I did there? I think you saw what I did there.

Viva Los Demonios!

~Vylokx / Jaron Tomsky

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