Sol’s Hero Ability

Sol’s ability to spawn a Halua token only occurs after the player has passed, so the ability happens in the Afternoon after the player has finished playing which means that you cannot normally boost up the Halua token after it spawns. If you pass first on your first three days, then the earliest that you can spawn Halua is day three. This does mean that you need to play fewer cards and hope that your opponent isn’t trying to game you and stop you passing first by doing so themselves. 

Once you have Halua’s spawning turned on though, the Manta companion should spawn every turn barring a unique that can remove counters from your hero. This will mean that potentially days 3-9 you will always get a 2/2/2 later in the afternoon on the companion side and sometimes even a 2/2/2 gigantic token. This is actually stronger than Kojo, who only gets Booda 50% of the time and Booda never naturally becomes gigantic. 

Now this also means that if you pass first, then you are leaving your position in the expeditions as vulnerable. It will be easier for the opponent to know which side to play on and also to apply removal correctly to get a double advance. Now this is usually a problem for a lot of Bravos decks in general, however I think that it will be double the issue in this case. 

Current Cards that will Play Well

The first card that I’m looking to play with this hero is The Spindle, Muna Bastion. Like Atsadi, Sol is generally putting all her eggs into fewer baskets quickly, making her very vulnerable to removal. Now Atsadi doesn’t always play Spindle since much of the removal didn’t used to hit his characters (Off You Go was particularly weak to Atsadi), but with more midrange 3 and 4 cost characters I feel Sol is much more vulnerable. Having all your characters have Tough 2 will make small 1-3 cost removal spells much worse to play against you.

Cards with Tough built into them will also be good with Sol. Now that might make Achilles look to be a better inclusion in her deck as he will dodge a lot more removal and thus stickier in the expedition zone.

Giving Halua a boost is going to be very tricky once you have passed, so it’s going to be difficult to make the maximum effect from Halua’s gigantic ability. That’s where Rare Arcolano Milk comes in. The Milk can give Halua two boosts and it doesn’t matter if she has fleeting as well. If her gigantic ability is turned on, you are getting a free 4/4/4 gigantic which is 8 points of stats across two expeditions.

Ramp cards will be good in general with Sol, though Mighty Jinn will be a lot better than Tiny Jinn is. The rare Mighty Jinn can draw cards, ramp and use up your mana quicker, meaning that it will play well with Sol.

Ahklut will similarly play fairly well in that you can stifle your opponent a bit at the same time as putting stats on the board and using your mana up.

I also think that rare Gericht is another good option for the deck (as is Sun Wukong). He has recursion built into him and he can put pretty good stats on the board as well as interacting well with the rare Arcolano Milk.

Bravos has very little anchored in it, but what it does have (Parvati) could well be used with some of the stronger midrange characters to get more value from the cards you do have. It’s not a lock in, but it could be a useful addition to the deck.

Current Cards that Don’t Play as Well

Now there are some interesting cards that might not be quite as effective with Sol as they are with other Bravos heroes. It’s not to say that they won’t work, just that they won’t be at peak effectiveness.

The Mess is a great card for getting easy card advantage, however it relies on you playing a lot of cards per turn. Sol’s playstyle doesn’t want you to play lots of characters as you need to pass early, so whilst you’ll get a few cards from it, it won’t be as effective as with other heroes.

Low casting cost cards like Fire Rabbit that are good in other decks are probably not going to be the card you want in Sol. By doing a low cost early play you are risking allowing your opponent to pass before you and delaying getting your companion out early. So. whilst its not completely unplayable, its something that doesn’t synergize well.

Future Design Space

At Dusk abilities on Characters / Permanents. This is an area that they could really expand upon. The only At Dusk abilities that are prominent at the moment are sabotage effects which are fairly weak at this time. However there are a number of other effects that you could potentially see at this time that might be much better. A creature with At Dusk – target character gains a boost might be pretty effective. You could additionally have a permanent which had an ability that you can turn At Dusk to get an effect.

Since Sol and Halua are all about passing first in a day, why not have this as a trigger? You could have a standard card that gets a bit stronger (maybe an extra boost or some form of Tough) if you pass first. 

Another area where the design team could go is a balance mechanic on a permanent which gets a counter based on how many times an opponent plays after you have passed. This might be a cool way to build up counters on a permanent for a decent effect going off.

Uniques that will go well with Sol

I’ve been doing some thinking about what Uniques will go well in a Sol deck. Since the deck seems to be a very mid range deck, you really want to ensure that what you play actually sticks in the expedition. Therefore I feel that cards with Tough or that give Tough to other characters are high on my pick list. You really don’t want the opponent taking out your cards after you pass, so making it as hard as possible for your opponent is the way to go. Additionally you don’t want your companion Halua to be Off You Go’ed, so giving it some protection is wise, especially after he becomes gigantic.

The second group of uniques are good mid-range uniques that generate card advantage. Gericht, Sun Wukong and Hua Mulan Uniques are often in this mid range zone and give you power for your mana as well as being able to do some effect repeatedly. 

The final group of uniques are ones with good At Dusk effects that I described earlier. Now I’m not a fan of sabotage At Dusk, as it’s probably the worst time to do this, but other good abilities at dusk might be really strong with this hero. Now I don’t think that they’ve printed many yet, but an At Dusk ability to give a boost or two would be really strong.