Editor's Note: this article was meant to go live before Ascent Boston, but we had some technical delays. We feel it's still quite topical and are publishing it with only minor adjustments.

We are roughly one month into the Distorted Reflections format, and fire decks have exploded back into the meta! Let’s take a look at some of the key fire cards and combinations from the new set, and their use cases in current meta decks.

First off, let’s address the biggest breakout card of Distorted Reflections - Rile the Abyss! Rile is a 3-cost fast speed fire spell that draws you one card, with an additional effectof discarding up to two specter cards and drawing you an additional card for each card discarded. On its own, Rile is a neutral influence card to help you dig through your deck,.but with the addition of the new specter cards, you can go up to +2 in influence with its partners in crime Undying Dreams and Liminal Guide.

Undying Dreams ticks the two main boxes we care about: Floating Memory and the Specter subtype. As a generic fast float, it can be played on its own, but by discarding it to Rile the Abyss or Creative Shock lets us go +1. Since it’s a specter card, we can pitch two copies to a single Rile the Abyss, going +2. . The real power of this package is in Liminal Guide; on level-up, he puts himself on board as a 1 attack, 3 statline body that draws you a card, netting you a +1 and a free body to help control board. Since Liminal is a triggered ability, he bypasses negate cards like Frostbind or Cerulean Decree, and since the draw is part of that trigger he cannot be stopped by  Stifling Trap. Liminal Guide has extra synergy with Undying Dreams even without Rile;  since he comes in ephemeral, you can target him with Dreams to make him a 2 / 4  (3 / 5 for the turn). 

Most fire decks already run creative shock for a similar reason, and of these cards are ideal targets to discard for Shock as well! These three cards make up the “Rile Package”, letting you level efficiently, cycle, go + in influence, and even have bodies on board to contest the field too, all in virtually any fire deck! And if you’d like to up the consistency on Rile, you can run the other specters such as Vengeful Paramour, Infernal Templar, and Evercurrent Raider if your class permits.

Paramour and Incinerated Templar are a nice combo and probably the closest we’ll be getting to graveyard “toolboxing” for a while - discard Paramour via Rile, and her or any other specter in the grave can be revived in ephemeral form by Templar, meaning a minimum of 4-6 damage that turn. If you have another Templar in the graveyard, the Templar played from hand can chain revive the graveyard Templar, who in turn revives something else. Due to the Cleric / Warrior class bonus, there’s a decent chance this combo will show up in Fire Lorraine, Merlin, and aggro / midrange Cleric decks to give some extra reach or to contest board with an explosive combo out of nowhere. 

Evercurrent Raider serves a different use case, mainly serving as another float to discard for the decks aiming to reach level three with as much influence as possible. Since  it’s water, it can dilute consistency, so these decks will usually also play Hasty Messenger for extra sources of cycling, meaning that in-practice, you’re unlikely to brick on it. And for Lorraine or Merlin level 3 decks running Prismatic Edge, being Water is actually an upside since it helps you self-enable the water ability for Prismatic Edge. These Prismatic Decks have been around since FTC, but this is the first time we have an incentive besides Prismatic to play off color cards.

So, what decks have seen the most prominent success with the Rile Package so far? The biggest winners have been Crux decks, both Merlin and Lorraine, and Fire Aggro. While other decks have been making use of them too, Crux and Fire Aggro are doing so well because they got support beyond just the Rile PackageCrux as a whole got quite a lot of new toys: The Looking Glass (TLG), Fluffy Shopkeep, Sword of Shadows, Inert Sword and Votive Runeblade.

TLG is a peculiar regalia, it just sits there ominously from the start doing nothing, but it allows you to play the various distorted regalia. For the Crux decks, that gives you access to starting with Sword of Shadows or Inert Sword instead of Sword of Seeking, so you have a 2-attack sword to better contest board or push damage to face. Coupled with a Liminal guide, you can easily contest most bodies. This is a marked improvement over old Crux lists, particularly Merlin, where dealing with early 2-3 health allies was surprisingly difficult.

And because it's a virtually un-interactable regalia, you have an extra object for good ol’ Ghosts of Pendragon to return to draw 2 as well. Now you can hit 3 and immediately Ghost without having to lose your Sword, or even just play double Ghost! Some decks, are also using Cheshire Cat in conjunction with Inert Sword to have a 3 / 3 body, and if you also run Excalibur Reflected Edge, you can clone other regalia and to have extra toolboxing with your Material deck. 

Now for the other cards I mentioned: Fluffy Shopkeep and Votive Runeblade. Shopkeep is essentially a juiced-up Windmill Engineer, letting you draw an extra card into memory while having intercept on a 3-life body, at the cost of banishing two cards from your material deck. This card is nuts - for fire aggro decks, you can just banish the two baubles you won’t use in that game, and for Crux decks you can banish any swords to set up both Spirit Ruler and Crux Knight. And with the new sword Votive Runeblade, Spirit Blade: Ensoul is returning to the meta in style! Your Ensoul will pull all of your swords onto the field, so first you attack with and break all of your 1 durability swords. Then you attack with Runeblade, breaking a 2 durability sword (further pumping the power of Crux Knight) and waking back up. Then you do that again, and finally swing with your last remaining sword. 

Crux Knight has gotten so much new life in the past couple months: Clarent, Reimagined brought her back in the midst of Fractal format, with Jimmy Le making Day 2 of the North American Nationals with Crux Lorraine, her first real day 2 in 1.5 years. Seeing the return of Ensoul as well thanks to Runeblade is an absolute blast of nostalgia, and we even got another new card to help it along, Spellward Scepter. No more do you have to fear your game-winning combo getting stopped by a single Incapacitate!

As I mentioned above, Fire Aggro got some new tools as well besides just the Rile package:

With floats being the name of the game right now, fast cure is seeing heavy use in some decks, and Fiery Interference is a cheap fast spell to counter those heals, especially against Luxem (one of the decks making its return with the Rile package). And for Embercrypt, it’s notable as an anti-Rile / Float card with how prevalent the package is currently, helping to mitigate your opponent’s momentum. Another interesting card that saw play in new aggro lists is Three of Hearts. While mainly designed for Suited, she has the holy grail of aggro stat lines: 2 attack, 3 defense. But her cardistry effect lets you cycle through your deck and discard a float or liminal guide on your first turn, letting you set up for level 1 without losing anything important, and start preparing the aggression with a solid body on board.

Suzaku has seen the most success of the fire aggro strats, with the Quicksilver Cup’s Winning List adapting the Rile Package, the 3 new fire cards mentioned above, and it’s biggest new addition: Peppered Chef.

Chef has absolutely phenomenal synergy here: not only can  you can use it to sacrifice a Liminal Guide or Vengeful Paramour for a cheap 4 attack body, but sacrificing a transformed Suzaku will trigger it’s On Banish ability, reviving Suzaku to swing again for the total pain train of 12 damage, all from a single 2 cost!. Talk about explosive!

That wraps up my analysis of the Rile Package and some of the decks that are already taking advantage of it. I’m excited to see what else might be in the kitchen now that Ascent Boston is over; are teams going to continue focusing on abusing Rile, or countering it?