July 15, 2023 June 16, 2024
Beastmoon Forms
Summer 2023 Update
Have you taken a peek at the Beastmoon forms introduced in the Summer 2023 update? Today we will look at this interesting batch of forms: The Balance Pig, Ice Cyclops and Storm Minotaur. All three of these forms will be available in Beastmoon Hunt and Beastmoon Monster Mayhem.
Hover over a spell to find out what each spell does. For mobile users, tap on each spell to get more info.
Ice Cyclops
First up is Julius Freezer, the Ice Cyclops. As the final large Ice form, he is a force to be reckoned with. He offers various defensive utilities in addition to the shields typically associated with Ice.
Taunt is a very valuable on an Ice form with 600 health. If your allies can survive the first turn, you can start shielding them up. Alternatively, you can unleash a devastating attack following a taunt. The taunt conditionals on your 2-pip shark and 5-pip AoE give you damage on par with small glass cannon forms, which is incredibly scary to have on a form with this much defensive capability. It is important to note that due to how taunt duration is programmed, you can only achieve your conditionals on the turn after you taunt, unless you are taunted for an extra round due to the conditional effect.
If taunting and shieldng aren’t good enough, Ice Cyclops can deploy a Beastmoon version of the Brace aura to a friendly target. This type of aura is currently unique to the Ice Cyclops. Unlike previous auras seen on Balance forms, this aura is very strong. Ironically, a defense aura counters DoTs very effectively, despite the fact that DoT schools are supposed to be strong against Ice. School damage boost still goes through the aura, however.
Other spells in Julius Freezer’s arsenal are pretty standard fare for Ice, with a focus on weakness synergies and counters. At level 5 he gains access to a 3-pip troll minion. The Ice Troll minion has 250 health, and uses 0-pip 75 absorbs until casting a hefty 4-pip 200 AoE shield. Unfortunately, 3 pips for a minion that doesn’t put any pressure on the enemy is not going to see much use outside of a particularly slow fight.
One notable exception from Ice Cyclops is any form of stun block. Though he is certainly not the first Ice form to omit this aspect of countering Storm, it is one of the most important functions of a Storm counter. The reason that Ice Clops lacks a stun block is because the developers are reconsidering adding stuns to new forms. No upcoming Storm forms will have stuns, and thus no upcoming Ice forms will have stun blocks. Still, the prevalence of stuns in Beastmoon makes this a sore spot for the Ice Cyclops.
Overall, the Ice Cyclops might give Ice Colossus a run for it’s money. With more varied defensive utility, and the ability to protect it’s allies more effectively on the first few rounds. Ice Cyclops also features higher damage spikes than Ice Colossus. It can even counter overtimes from schools it struggles against with defense auras. If you are in the market for a tank with the ability to set up conditionals for massive damage potential, look no further than Julius Freezer.
Storm Minotaur
Here we have Nimborr, the Storm Minotaur. This Storm beastform has more of a support focus than others, while still having solid damage potential. He specializes in manipulating healing and healing over times (HoTs) and adding cards to his team’s decks.
Storm Minotaur’s main gimmick is adding damage cards into the decks of its allies. Akin to Death Draconian’s Needful Things, you can freely discard these cards. The cards that Storm Minotaur gives are simple 1-pip 125 Storm Damage hits. While impressive by itself, relying on drawing cards that you’ve added to people’s decks is not particularly reliable. Don’t even bother using Stormfront for any reason besides clearing an AoE DoT. Even with the 0-pip Brewing Storm, you are usually better off casting the 0-pip blade for guaranteed instant value.
There are certain circumstances where giving your allies 125 damage hits can be more beneficial than the 0-pip blade:
- If your allies are low damage forms (such as large Ice or Life forms)
- If your allies have no low-pip burst damage options (such as Storm Colossus or Death Draconian)
- If the fight will last long enough that you need the extra damage or you will at least use the cards multiple times
- For the conditional effect to clear a DoT for a blade
Nimborr also has some HoTs that he can subsequently activate with his 0-pip blade. While Storm Minotaur’s healing is not as efficient as Life healing or even Balance Minotaur’s healing, the ability to activate HoTs means that he can make better use of them than most forms. The rest of Storm Minotaur’s deck consists of 100 damage per pip attacks, including the first 3-pip 300 damage hit since Storm Wolf was nerfed. This means that Storm Minotaur can put out 375 damage by itself on turn 2, by blading before a 300 hit.
A lot of Storm Minotaur’s conditionals interact with healing in a way that isn’t super impactful in the current evironment of Beastmoon. It feels like Storm Minotaur has underwhelming payoffs for a synergy or counter. Most of the time you would prefer to have regular blades and weaknesses instead of healing blades and infections.
Ultimately, Nimborr has some interesting utility, but that utility seems a little too underwhelming at the moment. This is not to say that the Storm Minotaur is weak. In fact, I would say that Storm Mino is one of the better Minotaur forms. He may require a little more finesse to make the most out of compared to other Storm forms, but it will be interesting to see what players can do with Nimborr.
Balance Pig
Lastly we have the Balance Ninja Pig, Daring Daisuke. This Balance form’s specialty is traps and weaknesses, shown off with the signature double hanging effect spell. As with other Balance forms, this spell is extremely high value for the pip cost. In Daisuke’s case, 125 value for 0 pips!
Balance finally gets a version of Supernova in Beastmoon with a 2-pip 200 hit that removes an aura. Aura removal might seem useless, but both Balance Pig and Ice Cyclops introduce new auras. Balance Pig has a pip aura that appears ordinary at first but actually grants x3 pips per turn instead of x2 pips. If used on yourself, it provides a net gain of 1 pip after 2 turns, but it’s probably more beneficial for an ally.
Balance Pig also has a unique conditional that triggers if an enemy target has 4 or more pips. The pip conditional is meant to take advantage of your enemies’ pips after using a double pip global- which Balance Pig also has. The pip global functions exactly like the Tide of Battle from Balance Cyclops, but it costs 1 pip and is attached to a 50 damage attack.
Although unlike Balance Cyclops, Balance Pig’s deck does not seem designed to play particularly well with double pips. Whereas Balance Cyclops has multiple 3 and 4 pip single target spells, all of Balance Pig’s spells that cost 4 or more pips are AoE variants of its lower pip spells. Additionally, the inclusion of pip donation spells at ranks 2 and 3 is redundant when everyone is gaining double pips every turn.
Daring Daisuke can utilize its respectable damage output to swiftly defeat an enemy, then set up a double pip global to snowball the advantage in player numbers. Balance Pig functions well even at level 1, with access to a total of 4 2-pip hits via battlecards.
Overall, the Balance Pig seems like a solid form. With solid damage and high value 0-pip utility, it can hold its own in almost any fight, similar to the Balance Krokomummy. Although Balance Pig lacks the synergy and counter potential of Balance Krokomummy, or even other Ninja Pig forms. Still, Balance Pig might be one of the best Ninja Pig forms. At the very least, it is a very effective budget form as well as a beginner form.
