DvN SPOILER: Kralathor, The Devourer

[sIKE]

I see this guy being hit by a bunch of Fireballs and a Fireshaper ring will have to go back into the kit.....

[ringkichard]

Yeah, even worse than the +2 burn chance, +2 dice is killer. Fire Wizard with ring and Hawkeye is so much fun anyway, with plants you're just tossing so many dice.

[Kharhaz]

I see this guy being hit by a bunch of Fireballs and a Fireshaper ring will have to go back into the kit.....

Much like shaggy if he gets out of control then you better just try to ignore him.

growth is powerful but so is the in school flexibility of cobra reflex, rhino hide, bull endurance, falcon precision, bear strength, lion sav (when charge enchant becomes a thing), or eagle wings.

Once Kralathor hits 3 growth tokens he is 7 melee attack die and 22 health with armor and regeneration.

[HomelessJoe]

And with that kind of potential power he's a no brainer for any nature book. That's a very easy 4 point decision.

[ringkichard]

Well, a lot of nature books currently play Valshalla, especially because of her great bonuses against Iron Golems. Kralathor competes for that strategic role of "big creature that gets bigger". They're very different mechanically, but does a book want to run both? If not, is Kralathor better/more efficient?

It changes the nature book from one that wants to run lots of creatures to one that wants the opponent to run lots of creatures. This may depend largely on what opponents are playing.

[DeckBuilder]

Nice comparison.

In most cases, I'd say Kralathor is better simply because of 4 vs. 10 spell points

But Kralathor is only good if opponent is playing Swarm (so is a Toolbox solution)
Valshalla is good because you know you are playing Swarm when you include her

You could also argue that Kralathor is a "win more" card as you grow by winning
While Valshalla is a "mitigate losses" card as it leaves opponent with a quandary

However the main reason Kralathor is better against an unknown opponent is...

Kralathor is your Big that you summon against Undead
Galador is your Big that you summon against Metal and Incorporeal

The fact Valshalla overlaps with Galador means that Kralathor is the better choice.

Well, that's my analysis anyway.
(Against Fire Wizard, you simply don't bring it out of your toolbox.)

The big winner here is Warlock.
Warlock can play Undead (non-zombie) with a few Demon Bloodreapers.
Kralathor is Scissors to Undead's Paper
But Warlock also has Fire, the Stone to Kralathor's Scissors.

Warlock can leverage most of the new Dark cards and the Druid's Fire vulnerability.
(We have to trust that this has been playtested)

[ringkichard]

That dynamic points to Beastmaster  playing toolbox bigs (Galador, Kralathor) instead of universal power bigs (Steelclaw). Which is interesting, because Steelclaw is so good it gets poached, but I haven't seen or heard of non-nature mages playing Galador.

Is Galador really that great vs. Iron Golems? I need to give him another try: when I included him I always just ended up summoning another steelclaw instead.

[DeckBuilder]

I found Galador pretty good vs. Golems because of range 0-1 and Golems are Slow, especially with Eagle Wings.

Still lost to Golem Pit but won against Golem Warlord (but doesn't everyone?).