Keyword Highlight - Menagerie

February 22, 2024

Hello realm runners and welcome to another instalment of my Keyword Highlights!

Today I’m going into the other new keyword from Secrets of Spirata; Menagerie. So here’s the definition.

It’s a pretty simple concept this one; if you have 3 character types on your canvas then you’re able to trigger the Menagerie ability of your cards. Some characters count as two types by themselves, such as the Fairy Pixie Spiral Traitorius and the Mechanical Creature Surveillance B.O.T, which can allow you to trigger your Menagerie abilities sooner. You could also utilise Role Reversal to swap one of your weaker characters for a stronger one with a type you could never play in your palette like a Dragon or an Occultist.

The key thing to note though is that a Menagerie ability can be used at any point in your turn. This is important to remember as it means any of the abilities that gain you shards can be done outside of your resolve step, giving you access to more shards if you need them or even gaining you something if you’re planning on ramming them into an opponent’s character to take them out.

The biggest name for me that utilities this keyword so well I spoke about last week, here, is Hoffel Brown who can gain you a lot of shards if left unanswered whilst also giving you some prevent as well.

But there are several other cards that also have interesting abilities associated with Menagerie; Nella, The First Cured Pixie, Copper Joss and Kodama also give you access to more gain at any point during your turn, The Cured allows you to draw a card when deployed and Hue’s Laboratory doubles any triggers from Menagerie.

There are also some passive abilities that just require you to have the 3 character types on your canvas to apply such as Senna, The Cured Pixie who gives your cards that have Menagerie some protection from your opponent’s actions; Habitat 101 which makes your characters harder to take down in combat; and Group Huddle gives you a larger amount of gain per character if Menagerie is active.

Although the cardpool for Menagerie abilities may be small in relation to other keywords we currently have, almost all of them have some real strength behind them. They mostly also come with the benefit of being decent tech cards if your palette doesn’t focus on a single character type which adds to their flexibility. Due to this, I can see Menagerie being given a decent amount of use in a lot of circumstances, even if its part is as minor as a couple of Hoffel Brown, in a non-Fairy Teacher palette, to give you some extra gain or The Cured teched in as a simple 3 drop that draws a card when deployed.

That's all from me for now guys!

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