Prism vs Neutrality Totality vs Possessed
Greetings Beasties, Casters, and Spooky spirits! Seance is here, and with it comes the 3rd Special Aura page that Metazoo has released. I think it’s about time we compare them each to determine which is truly the MOST SPECIAL of the bunch. Let’s start with breaking down each Special Aura’s effects and utility in the order they were dropped.
The first Special Aura that Metazoo released to the wolves was Prism Aura in the Wilderness Set. Prism Aura has a Spellbook limit of 2 per Spellbook and may be fatigued by its controller at any time to produce 1 Aura of any type. This was completely groundbreaking for Metazoo, which up until then had only seen mono (or single Aura) Spellbooks win tournaments due to aura limitations. It is extremely hard to find consistency in a multicolor Spellbook when you are essentially just hoping the Aura you need shows up when you need it. When Prism dropped, it single-handedly changed the entire Meta, and all of a sudden, spells like Dampen, Morpheus, and Growth were appearing in spellbooks that had no association with those respective aura types, and tournaments were being won by multicolor decks of all different sorts. That hasn’t changed in the past 6 months, and I don’t expect it ever will. Prism opens up so many doors for Spellbook builders it became an absolute necessity to have access to 2x Prism Aura in 90% of competitive Spellbooks, and if I were to give it a */5 star rating, it’s getting a solid 5 stars. The only drawback is that Casters are limited to 2, and if they are destroyed, you’re locked out of your “splash” cards, which usually rely on the versatility of the Prism Aura to contract them. On top of that, there are more ways to destroy Special Aura pages than Basic Aura pages, so they are potentially endangered.
Second in line was the Neutrality Totality Aura that was released in the UFO set. Also, 2x per Spellbook, Neutrality is NOT a neutral page (sorry, Gaasy), but it can be fatigued to generate 2x Neutral Aura at once, which can put a Caster “a turn ahead” on their resources IF they have contract costs that are part-neutral. For instance, Father Sam, BBQ Revolutionary, Call of the Storm, Chessie, and Chenoo are pages that have part-neutral aura costs, meaning that Neutrality lets you contract these pages a turn early in terms of resources. Adam Ackler and Powerup Red are entirely Neutral cost and are two of the best pages in the game imo; they can be contracted with simply 2x Neutrality Totality Auras! Up until now, getting ahead on Aura usually involved the use of Artifacts, spells, or Special Terra like Overgrown City, which can be a double-edged sword. Artifacts are easy to destroy, spells can be countered, and Overgrown City (which allows each Caster to fetch a basic aura page and place it into the Arena fatigued) helps the opponent as much as it helps you …more actually since they will get to use their bonus aura before you do. In other words, the Aura ramp was risky. Dropping an awakened aura that can immediately produce 2x Neutral won’t solve everything, but if your deck is built around it, it can really hasten the rollout. The drawback is that most Spellbooks don’t play enough Neutral or Part-Neutral cards to constitute using 2x Neutrality. Opening the game with 2x Neutrality Totality will not allow you to contract any of the aura-specific pages in your deck, and that means that the Casters who utilize Neutrality are only running 1x in their Spellbooks for now. That being the case, I’ll give this a 3.5/5 stars. As more Neutral pages become popular, Neutrality Totality will become more of a staple, but for now, it’s a specialist.
The most recent in the line of Special Aura pages is Seance’s Possessed Aura. Much like its predecessors, Possessed is 2x per Spellbook and carries a unique page effect that allows it to generate 1 Aura of any Aura a Basic Aura Page in the Arena can generate. This is, imo, a very interesting choice of words. Because we are relying on Basic Aura, Possessed Aura will not be very useful if it’s the first Aura in the Arena. You (or your opponent) will need a Basic Aura of the desired type to be present in the Arena in order to utilize Possessed for your aura-specific pages. This also means the more Special Aura you play in a Spellbook, the less useful Possessed Aura will become; it’s science. Based on these limitations, I have to give Possessed Aura a 3/5 stars. I respect its ability to help fix my Aura, but it will require other Aura to enable it to give me what I need. It’s definitely not a Prism, but it can become one in the right scenario, and that demands respect. More Basic Aura “fetch” effects would help this be more useful, or more effects like Prism Beam that allow me to change the Aura type a Basic Aura Page produces, but in the meantime, I think this card is still pretty good.
In the end, it appears as though Prism Aura is hands-down the best Special Aura page released in the game, with tons of utility and variability in any build. Neutrality Totality is an exciting prospect in the right Spellbook, speeding up resources and allowing you to contract that extra Bookmark or pay for your bigger Beasties when normally you’d be waiting for another Aura page to arrive. And finally, Possessed Aura is notably better than a Basic Aura page due to variability but will require the right game state in order to help and will almost never be dropped on the first turn. That brings us to a close! What do you think of Metazoo’s Special Aura pages? Do you dare to run all 3 in the same Spellbook?! As always, thank you for reading, and I hope this gave you some ideas. See ya next time!
–Moldy