So I’ve been through the crafting menu trying to see what I should save up spirit for next when I noticed that a lot of good cards seem to be passed over. Sunsister Sterope, Mask of shadows, and Nether Summoning to name a few. I don’t really understand why I’m not seeing these more often. Is it a case of not being able to craft them, not having access to them (in the case of the seven sisters), or is it a result of the meta and everyone being more than a bit unwilling to play untested/unreliable cards? What do you guys think? And for clarity’s sake, saying a card is viable and having a deck for it is different from proving that it’s being used in the ladder.
Why aren't so many cards being used more often?
Mask of Shadows is low value, the other cards do see play, just not a lot, because you can’t guarantee value you Nether Summoning and Sterope often just isn’t good enough, although if it had a 4/5 body it probably would, but both of those are played.
Firstly the higher a card’s rarity the less it will be tested, I wouldnt say its the meta its more so that Popular players havent popularized the cards yet in a (S-Rank) deck. I dont really care about what is viable or not, ill use it if it looks cool. The main reason i think people are afraid to try cards is because lack of a casual mode so most players try hard and i dont blame them
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Mask of Shadow is too difficult to be used well. Yes, you may pull off a backstab or two with it, but the rest of the mask is too easily destroyed, especially when the mask has no attack value that normal minions can hit your general without being removed. Some cards, like Twilight Fox or Mist Walking, synergizes okayish with Mask, but they are all too clunky and situational.
I not sure why Sunsister Sterope is not popular. Maybe lacking an impactful instant effect? You risk getting her removed if you drop her too early; getting 1 True Strike doesn’t really help much; it would be too late to the most value of of her (looking at 7+ mana; and at that time multiple True Strikes may not be relevant anymore). At least she is top tier in gauntlet.
Nether Summoning is pretty busted, and I think it should see play more often. The main (and only) weakness of it is its inconsistency; you may pull some useless minions like Mystic + Shroud out of Summoning, but if you plan it well and your opponent doesn’t play around it, Nether Summoning is game breaking: getting one Revenant revive out of it is valuable enough.
I think its down to most people having limited resources (like spirit for crafting or gold for buying packs). Not everyone can or wants to spend all that time to craft a risky card their feel might not be worth having. But rather have cards that are widely known for being good and therefore worth having or using cards that they believe are good cards.
For Sunsister Sterope I think its down to the card effect not being that useful, even though the minion body is arguable good/alright as well as better cards for the 4 mana slot. True strike is an okay card but its not something people would want to be generating when there is outright removal cards instead of continually getting a 1 mana deal 2 dmg card. Sterope is a card I’ve only seen played once.
Mask of Shadows probably does see play somewhere since Twilight Fox exists as well, but its probably down to the fact its an expensive card and for Songhai depending how you want to play it there are other better expensive cards that are probably worth crafting first.
Nether Summoning is a card I’ve seen in a tournament stream and I’ve been messing around with this season. People probably don’t play it because there are other more synergistic cards within the faction worth getting first. But I will saying from playing it, it is a lot of fun and the effect is a lot easier to pull off than what people think, because of how rarely it is played.
I almost feel safe in saying this, but most cards that are not widely used is usually because the right deck isn’t found for them yet or are just a tech card that doesn’t need to be around. But having said that there are crappy cards as well, that probably won’t see the light of day.
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Opportunity cost, in a sense. Every card you put in your deck means another card you can’t use. The strongest decks have high efficiency, where each card plays an important part. It’s hard to easily replace a card and have it still work at the same level of strength.
I think it’s quite op. And pretty much every cassiva plays it nothing us rare about it. You can also use it on your own turn to guarantee good spawns and there seems to be no counterplay whatsoever to it (to suicide a shroud or something like that you actually need it on board and in range to attack something. too many ifs that you need to pull of to be able to counter it, slightly, either eay getting 2 minions for 5 can’t be too bad and that is the worst case for it). Just 5 mana revive revenant + minion that he killed.
Masfk of shadows is. Just bad, it’s a weaker version of obscurinvg blow.
Sister sterope does see some play. Her main weakness is your deck being filled with 1 mana deal 2 damage cards, not something you want to pull when topdecking.
Nether Summoning is a Cass staple in Diamond rank and above. You may not see it at lower ranks because of its rarity, Cass needs her first three revenants, the second three are a bonus.
Mask of shadows-is bad now especially that we have obscuring blow
Sterope is okay but it is in the most competitive slot in the game what are you playing Sunriser or Skorn, maybe Dioltas, Emerald Revjantor, Sunsteel,Suntide Maiden,Primus Shieldmaster, Spelljammer.That slot is so strong that stuff like Purgatos and Sun elemental don’t even get a second look. Also Spell/ artifact wise Trinity Oath, Arclyte Regila ,Holy immolation,1 copy of decimate,Heck Ironcliffe Heart is great card but it gets ignored.You can do better at the 4 slot.
Nether Summoning is used today and when game slow down like it has now,Then Nether gets used more.
Mask of shadows has been nerfed heavily. Now is high risk low reward.
Nether Summoning is situational. Needs good minions, most notably Rev. So Nether Summoning is quite a late game card and as such will be less seen. Also both Rev and Nether Summoning are legendaries.
Sterope cost a lot to combo. People like instantaneous effects, read other cards. Keeping a Sterope alive isn’t easy. When it does though it can give card advantage. Raining True Strike again and again also wins games.
I think cards that are unpopular tend to be as such because of how situational they are, or how hard they are to use.
Mask of Shadows requires specifically your general to be able to backstab, and is limited due to the artifact’s durability. Obscuring Blow may be prone to dispel, but it’s more flexible (can be used on any ally)
Sun Sister Sterope requires a healing proc as well as an ideal target for True Strike. Usually, if you can beat something with True Strike, then Sunriser’s ability would do the job with the same healing proc if not Tempest.
Nether Summoning’s strength varies with each deck you face. Faster decks with low-cost minions depreciate the value of this card, even if you can still cycle your own high-cost minions. The spawns are somewhat random (the scary r-word). If many minions were defeated in the previous turn, the consistency of this card decreases, and knowing what to expect BEFORE using your mana is very important. Trying to change course after investing 5 mana in a turn takes nothing short of a miracle. If you play a standard 5-drop, you at least know what you’re getting out of that turn.
I don’t think these cards are bad by any means. I love using underrated cards in competitive play (I recently finished my climb to S-Rank using a Zirix deck which utilized Bastion and Kron). It’s just that I think players look for consistency and predictability in their cards, making situational cards like the aforementioned ones less appealing. Don’t let that stop you from trying them out! 
There is also a rather significant “follow the leader” issue. If the most common decks run a card, this will put that card on the radar for everyone that netdecks. As a consequence, players do not test those other cards very often, despite that the card could be really good. Even amongst non-netdeckers, there is a tendency to use many of the same “goodstuff” minions.
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