Introducing, Helio’s Mitre.
Introducing, Flesh and Blood’s first “free” equipment: Helio’s Mitre!
The Helio’s Mitre (along with Phoenix Flame) explores a new avenue of limited format play. Instead of being bound to the rigid rules of limited deck construction established by previous sets, Uprising provides new ways to balance and enrich the limited play experience without diminishing the quality of the set as a whole.
How do I get a Helio’s Mitre in limited?
Helio’s Mitre is of token rarity and is found in the token slot of Uprising booster packs. These tokens are typically removed from the pack and shared in a pool of tokens to be used by all players. In this way, Helio’s Mitre is no exception. Any player may add a Helio’s Mitre to their card pool and use it in their limited deck even if they didn’t have it in their pack, like they would a token.
This means that all heroes in the Uprising limited can start the game with at least a Helio’s Mitre head equipment.
How does Helio’s Mitre work?
Helio’s Mitre has a single instant activated ability that costs 2 resources. When you resolve the activated ability, it generates two effects:
- An ongoing-prevention effect that prevents the next 1 (untyped) damage that would be dealt to your hero.
- A delayed-triggered effect that destroys Helio’s Mitre at the beginning of the end phase.
Helio’s Mitre can be activated any number of times per turn (as long as you can pay the cost), which means it can generate multiple ongoing-prevention effects that apply to a single damage event.
What makes Helio’s Mitre good?
It’s important to note that unlike a similar keyword introduced in Uprising, Quell, the Helio’s Mitre activated ability can be activated whenever you have priority and does not require the event of damage to be activated. This gives it a significant advantage in certain situations.
Dromai can activate this on-demand to pitch red cards which generate Ash to enable certain lines of play. Better yet, if Dromai doesn’t start the game, they can activate this on their opponent’s turn to ensure that they start with Ash when their turn comes around, even if the opponent doesn’t attack.
Helio’s Mitre can be activated multiple times and stack multiple ongoing-prevention effects to prevent damage on a single event. Unlike Quell which can only reduce the damage of a single event once; with Helio’s Mitre you can pitch two blue cards, and get an effective 3 (untyped) damage reduction for the next damage event that would apply to your hero. This is especially relevant with the prevalence of arcane damage from Islaynder with nasty on-hit effects.
Finally, a number of cards in Uprising have no defense value or are too high value to be used to defend. Helio’s Mitre gives you an additional avenue to prevent incoming damage without having to send a card to the graveyard.
Any final thoughts?
Helio’s Mitre (and Phoenix Flame) show that limited has many future possibilities and ways to experience the limited format of Flesh and Blood and the Experienced players will find Helio’s Mitre as a flexible and necessary piece of equipment that drastically expands lines in the limited format.
Crown of what now? Nah, I just need my Helio’s Mitre.