Specific Card Analysis #8 (Suruzal, Emissary of Varna)

In the eighth or so edition of the SCA, we go over Suruzal, Emissary of Varna, one of the more shenanigan enabling cards in Solforge.

Suruzal at a first glance may not seem extremely powerful, after all, its body is at a pitiful 4/3, 8/7, 14/13, and her ability is hard level-gated. But when you consider the myriad of powerful 'enter the field' abilities that exist in Solforge, she suddenly turns into a circus ringmaster, effectively copying their come into play abilities.

Several other key things to note about Suruzal include:

1. She can also serve as a heal of sorts, refreshing damaged or debuffed creatures and putting them on the defensive.
2. She loves strong 'come into play' effects, talked about above, but really, she's at her strongest with them.
3. Her ability only activates when she enters the field from your hand, as opposed to just entering the field.

Synergies

Tarsus Deathweaver

Currently, there is a unintended interaction between the two, where if the reanimated Tarsus spawns in a different lane than its original, its gets its own buff twice. This happens because the original creature is not destroyed until after the new copy is created, resulting in a double buff on Tarsus. Also buffs whatever Suruzal reanimates.

Ebonbound Warlord

(Note that this goes for majority of the 'bound' cycle, and Xithian Direhound). With both a powerful effect and solid body that scales strongly, reanimating a 'bound' card at level 3 can have extremely crazy effects, such as giving a total of -9/-9 twice, leading to huge lead on board.

Shallow Grave

Suruzal on a creature buffed with Shallow Grave will spawn two copies of the target creature, and combined with the powerful come into play creatures I yattering on about, having two of them can be absolutely bonkers. Also free at level 3, which is a plus.

Ironmind Acotyle

While above or at 5 cards in hand, Suruzal essentially functions as Gnome 4-6, giving some much needed consistency to decks such as Kitfinity or the AN Shenanigans deck.

 Example Decklist

Creatures

3x  Grimgaunt Doomrider 
2x  Nefrax, the Soulweaver 
3x  Suruzal, Emissary of Varna 
3x  Tarsus Deathweaver 
3x  Xithian Direhound 

3x  Frostmane Dragon 
3x  Byzerak Spitemage 
2x  Cinderbound Barbarian 

Spells

3x  Nethershriek 
2x  Shallow Grave 

3x  Burnout

Edit: Credit goes to Aterocana, who came up with the list.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this week's SCA, as always vote for your choice of the next two SCAs at the side.