@Potato Priest beat me to it, but here's the latest preview: http://www.cardhunter.com/2016/09/introducing-spirits/ Our story develops, more cards are revealed, and our heroic card hunters speed toward their final confrontation with Jovana!!
I love that you put in a worthwhile version of holy armor, and that it's even a common card. I am really excited to play with it.
Man, I wish this better Holy Armor was actually able to heal you off your own cards. No Firestorm MP buffs ;_; Other than that, I'm excited. Less so for expansion-themed cards (although burst immunity sounds amazing, it also is a nerf to already sad linear), but more so for the Sacred Robes, this lucky block (great idea, I really like that free card thing) and the newest spear thingy (more potential utility for warriors!)
I don't think it'll need to to be great. It's already on par with conductive plates for protection, and heals allies as well.
Nice to see a new type of (divine) weapon introduced, EttSC gave us whips and now we're getting lances! Warding Lance looks powerful under the right circumstances, just 4 attack at range 2 is decent for a bronze card but also having reliable protection against untargeted damage is a nice bonus. The card being a boost does seem inconsistent with Polearm Slash, but on the other hand that card being armor rather than boost often just means it's removed by armor removal. Daylight looks like a good blockchecker and counter to forms, plus we get the much coveted Holy damage! Though I suppose it wouldn't work against Spirits. I've always been fond of Holy Armor and wished there was a stronger variant, and it seems here it is. Better armor value, dice roll and healing at those cost of higher quality and lack of healing from self-damage is a good trade-off in my view. Nice to see it's common as well, it's easy to get lost in all the rare cards but oftentimes it's the common cards that you come to appreciate the most. Between Battleaxe Block and Lucky Charm I'm starting to pity poor old regular Block. Nice to see a block with Free Card, it's a pretty underused keyword and an interesting one as well, especially on a block where their main drawback is clogging up your hand if they don't trigger successfully. Looking forward to using it, and nice to see it's just Uncommon. I love Boo!'s card art and name. Frightening an enemy is a powerful effect, I'm definitely tempted to bring more purges into my deck, but it's interesting to see it also creates a Dash card in the opponent's hand meaning there's definitely a chance of it blowing up in your face if it's purges. Surprising to see it's common, it seems like it has all the makings of a Rare card. I like how the story details that the heroes love to throw fireballs, if there's one constant among any party with mages then it's a love of throwing fireballs. Ethereal Form looks really powerful, Leathery Hide could bock a lot of types of damage in SP, it definitely seems that just packing armor removal won't do the trick anymore for burst and burning mages. Hm, I was about to get excited that this might make Hot Flames better, but then I realized Penetration doesn't counter Immunity. It'd be nice if Hot Flames could get around Ethereal Form somehow. When I first saw Hex of Dissolution I thought it couldn't be that powerful if it requires 2 acid tiles for every point of damage, but then I realized Acid Spray and especially Jet can create a multitude of such terrain quickly, and Acid Leak hurries up the process as well. It even seems the card counters itself since it only says it needs Acid terrain, not player-controlled Acid terrain! Seems like Spirit cards are themed around accumulating great power from the number of cards discarded or number of acid tiles, so I'll be curious to see how they work out in practice.
^ This. Sacred Shroud, assuming it doesn't get any change in play testing, immediately becomes the best armor in the game for straightforward damage prevention. As Potato Priest says, it prevents the same average damage per an attack as Grounding Plates, which is already 33% better than Reliable Mail, but does so at the cost of Silver rather than Gold that Grounding Plates costs. Add in that when taking less than 4 damage from an attack you can actually gain health, its already on the top of the armor list. The secondary effects of other armors may still be more advantageous circumstantially, but there's no better standard damage prevention armor card in game currently (outside of maybe immunity armors). The idea of Boo! is great thematically! The only thing that would make it better is if it gave Wild Run. From a play standpoint, it'll be interesting to see how much it gets used as an offensive card. (Send a character in, have them unload their attacks, then play Boo! to allow them to Dash back out of trouble.)
My first thought with Boo! was a gimmick deck where you cast entangling roots, Boo!, then touch of death or punishing bolt for 12 damage each.
Thrilling! Seeing all this is really promising, and I suppose the game's going to change much more than it did after AI or the balance updates, which were the only ones I was around for (actively around for, at any rate). Fun new things to play with are always welcome, and there seem to be plenty of them. Daylight, oddly (and sadly) enough, doesn't seem all that good at dealing damage to monsters. Since it's not targeted, it appears that spirits are going to be immune to it entirely, and werewolves will take three damage at most, since their attachment includes two points of armour. I'd guess it's mostly intended as a decent healing card that can deal some little damage to werewolves and vampires who venture too close. Or I may be wrong. Hex of Dissolution is an amazing idea! I only hope it's going to appear on a staff or two, otherwise acid wizards would be locked into becoming ghosts to achieve their full potential. Then again, the card is possibly powerful enough to warrant that already. Seeing Boo! (nicely themed idea, by the way!) made me ponder the fate of attachments in general. That's one thing I'm a little worried about, to be honest; nearly everything I'm seeing in this expansion tells me people are going to bring generous amounts of purging cards, which have all been made non-selective; I'm not only thinking that opponents might purge beneficial attachments more often, but also that the players in question would often need to purge their own characters to get rid of something like Fright from Boo! or Vampiric Form from a Vampire's Kiss, removing their own attachments by extension, and it feels to me that frenzies and the like might be hit hard, but perhaps a little too hard; or perhaps we get a selective purging card at higher quality? Interesting. Please don't get this the wrong way, I'm not claiming to be an expert on balance or to have prophetic vision, I just mentioned a few things, seeking reassurance more than change.
We already had it from Misguided Heal, but more sources are good. (I think I still see the "New!" sticker on Adapted To Electricity, since I never use those attacks on chars adapted to it.) Hex Of Dissolution could use the "Immediately" keyword to shorten its text.
I thought that too initially, and then I remembered that "Immediately" means before blocks, which is different than just "before the armor can prevent damage."
