Undead King Novogus
Being the first Ultra-Rare card I got, Undead King Novogus is a personal favourite of mine. And, as you would expect from the Earth King himself, it is a pretty cool card.

The Undead King has some pretty good stats – 6HP and a 2 Attack Power Magic Attack make for a good combination of survivability and indiscriminating damage. As with most cards though, what really makes him stand out is his special ability.
Whenever Novogus damages an enemy, the Field your target is on is Fieldquaked. This opens up some very possibilities, both for support and outright offence roles. If your target has a Field Bonus, but the Field on the other side is the opposite element, Novogus can do 6 Damage thanks to the Fieldquake – very useful indeed. Even if the Fields second element isn’t the opposing one, they will still lose their Field Bonus, and all of this will even hit creatures with Perfect Dodge (not that there are currently any creatures with Perfect Dodge that have that much HP, but who knows what the future will bring).

Another more tactical way to use Novogus is removing a weak enemy card from the board, while Fieldquaking their tile, leaving an empty tile of the new element for you to use. This is a great way to help out cards such as Arelai the Protector that rely on the number of Fields of a specific element, while dishing out damage to your enemy at the same time.

The downside is that, like the rest of the Noble cards, Novogus has a pretty high Summoning Cost of 6 Mana. Additionally, his Fieldquaking power only works when he isn’t on an Earth Field, which means he can’t benefit from the Field Bonus either (although with 6HP, this is less of an issue than it might be with other cards). In most cases, this means it’s won’t be worth playing him on an Earth Field at all, but if, on the off chance you feel that you are going to need those 2 extra HP, the option is always there.

Tackling an enemy Novogus can be a tricky prospect. With decent HP, combined with the fact that because it has a Magic Attack, your opponent will probably try and hide it in a corner out of harms way, taking him out can be an arduous task. The slowest way to do this is obviously to just pick away at him with whatever Magic Attack creatures of your own are in play, although with 6HP this might take a while.
One good way of dealing with him (along with most things, really) is to use one of the Dragon cards. With their ability to strike at distant targets, with the right cards on the board you could take out Novogus in a single hit. Whether its worth spending this much Mana to remove Novogus from play comes down to your opponent though – if they are making regular use of him, it is probably worth the effort to get rid of him. However, if they’ve just played him and then forgot about him, there will probably be easier targets in play for you to take out, so you might consider worrying about those instead.

Another interesting thing about this card is that its Activation Cost of 3 Mana is only 1 more than it costs to use a Fissures of Goghile Fieldquake card. Deciding between activating Novogus and playing a Fieldquake depends on the situation – if the Fieldquake itself is sufficient to destroy your opponent (or if you just want to flip a Field for whatever reason), the choice is obvious. However, if you think that you’re more likely to just want the Magic Damage, and not the Fieldquake, it might not be worth taking this card at all – there are some better Magic Attack options than Novogus if Damage is all you are concerned about.


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Posted by drackmire on Mon, 17th Dec 2007, at 02:50
Future potential of this card is through the roof, I just thinl he's a tad expensive when there are other magic attack creatures that cost less. Partmole Fire Oracle is a very good alternative.
Posted by Pessimism on Tue, 18th Dec 2007, at 17:33
drackmire: It's his ability that makes him terrific though! Sure- magic attack is good, and useful, but the ability to fieldquake at the same time? This may not seem like much, but as pointed out in the review, this can take a simple 2 damage up to 6! AND- minos and Juno are completley obliterated despite field bonus... I get that partmole is cheaper, but it's easy to understand why!
Posted by Pessimism on Tue, 8th Jan 2008, at 16:48
Other thing to take into consideration is the fact that you can hit an enemy right next to you (assuming you are on a non-earth field) and have no retaliation to deal with... always a plus, right?
Posted by edgalor on Wed, 9th Jan 2008, at 23:54
a great card almost at any situation. It is either a card with damage and field quake and 6 hp, or a card with 8 hp. Either way it is very veyr hard to get rid of. on the side note, this card will be quite useless when you are against a biolith heavy deck, or someone who won't count on elemental bonus....but at the worst case it is a great place holder
Posted by Pessimism on Wed, 16th Jan 2008, at 17:33
edgalor: But turning over a biolith field to reveal an earth field.... may seem like nothing, but you just gave your earth deck a great bonus... and the fact that biolith has the summoning lock, well, extra time to consider your play style! All decks have their weaknesses, it's just a matter of exploiting that weakness!
Posted by Merco on Tue, 22nd Jan 2008, at 17:12
If Novogus destroys a creature, is that field still fieldquaked?
Posted by DaLancer on Wed, 23rd Jan 2008, at 00:44
Good defensive card, and its attack is handy against alot of things, but the Fire Noble is a oersonal favorite of mine (Please do him soon, he's the only Noble you haven't done yet!_
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