Bard
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Good (7/10)
High Investment Required
Epic Relics
Paid Relics
Bard offers a highly rewarding scaling playstyle that allows units to reach massive stats. However, his early game is notoriously slow, making him vulnerable to aggressive encounters. He requires significant investment in epic relics to achieve consistency.
Titanic Tempo
Provides an essential extra starting mana gem when the champion is Titanic.
Grants +0|+3, pushing Bard's health to the threshold required to activate Starforged Gauntlets.
Shuffles additional copies into the deck, maximizing the Chime generation from his Origin.
Strategy
This setup addresses Bard's primary weakness—his slow early game. Starforged Gauntlets provides an essential extra starting mana gem. Echoing Spirit shuffles additional copies into the deck, maximizing the Chime generation from his Origin. This allows for an immediate board presence and accelerates his scaling engine from the first round.
Stun and Scale
- Ensures consistent Chime generation by shuffling extra copies into the deck.
Provides immediate spell mana upon playing Bard, facilitating the use of his champion spell.
Stuns all enemies upon leveling up, neutralizing aggressive enemy boards.
Strategy
Designed for high-difficulty encounters where early survival is paramount. Echoing Spirit ensures consistent Chime generation. Hidden Tome provides immediate spell mana upon playing Bard, facilitating the use of his champion spell. Tempest Blade offers a critical board-wide stun upon his level-up, neutralizing aggressive enemy boards and providing the necessary time for his stat scaling to overwhelm the opponent.
Keyword Consolidation
- Fuels the Chime engine and reduces the cost of champion spells.
Allows Bard to consume a supported ally, absorbing its stats and keywords.
Creates an attacking copy of a supported ally to be consumed or used for extra damage.
Strategy
This aggressive setup focuses on consolidating stats and keywords. Echoing Spirit fuels the Chime engine. Spectral Scissors creates an attacking copy of a supported ally, while Corrupted Star Fragment allows Bard to consume that ally, absorbing its stats and keywords. This rapidly accelerates Bard's level-up condition and creates a single, overwhelming threat with multiple keywords, often securing Lifesteal for crucial sustain.
Budget Spellslinger
Generates a fleeting champion spell each round.
Ensures the spell mana is available to cast the generated champion spell.
Increases the number of Bard copies in the deck to trigger his Origin.
Strategy
A viable approach utilizing only rare and common relics. The Chameleon's Necklace serves as a budget alternative to Echoing Spirit, increasing the number of Bard copies in the deck to trigger his Origin. The Grand General's Counterplan generates a fleeting champion spell each round, while Archangel's Staff ensures the spell mana is available to cast it. This creates a consistent loop of unit buffing and Chime activation.
Other Relic Options
Provides Overwhelm to the board, preventing large, scaled units from being blocked by small enemies.
An alternative source of Overwhelm for the entire board to ensure massive stats translate to Nexus damage.
A budget option for early spell mana to immediately cast Bard's champion spell upon summoning.
Players disagree about the effectiveness of Stacked Deck on Bard. Some consider it a powerful tool for consistency and keyword stacking, while others find it anti-synergistic with Echoing Spirit, as the duplicated copies do not retain the deck-size reduction benefits.
Constellation
Bard's constellation upgrades are vital for accelerating his inherently slow game plan. Without significant investment, his early turns lack the tempo required for difficult adventures.
Caretaker's Blessing
When you summon an ally with buffed stats, grant it a random keyword.
Cosmic Presence
+1 Starting Mana. When you draw a card with chimes on it, plant two Chimes in your deck.Review
The interaction here requires careful management. Drawing cards with Chimes consumes the boons, whereas activating them via Bard's champion spell maximizes their value without depleting them from the deck.
Caretaker's Blessing II
When you summon an ally with buffed stats, grant it two random keywords.Review
This power provides a massive spike in utility. When combined with consistent stat buffs from Chimes, it rapidly distributes keywords across the board, significantly enhancing the combat effectiveness of average units.
Gameplay Tips
- Prioritize Lifesteal
Due to a slow early game, sustaining through initial enemy attacks is critical. Always prioritize powers or support units that provide Lifesteal to recover health while your units scale.
- Manage Deck Density
Chimes are planted randomly throughout the deck. Keeping the total card count low increases the density of Chimes per card, ensuring more consistent activations when drawing.
- Delay the Summon
Playing Bard exactly on curve can result in a severe loss of tempo if he cannot safely attack. It is often more effective to wait until he is close to leveling up, allowing him to immediately impact the board with his enhanced abilities or a relic like Tempest Blade.
- Leverage the Evolve Power
The common 'Evolve' power is exceptionally effective. Because Bard's kit constantly generates random keywords, this power triggers quickly, providing a permanent and significant stat boost to the entire board.
- Avoid the Switcheroo Mutator
Do not select Bard for adventures featuring the 'Switcheroo' mutator. Due to the order of operations at game start, his Origin will plant Chimes in the deck before it is swapped, directly benefiting the AI opponent.