I want to start off by saying that I like what happened to a lot of the old runes. I believe in general melee has been made a bit tougher in the FW faction all around which is an added bonus. My favorite rune bladed corpse and his buddy abomination look like they had justice done to them. They almost feel like the original starter pack release beaters without all the OP extra attacks thrown in ( I miss pummel). The owls also surprised me with how well they handled the FW/ST split runes that were just hanging around in the rune checklist. I still can't for the life of me see the FW/ST synergy but I'm glad they are more fine tuned for the split. The racials seem to be a bit in pieces for all of the FW themes. With the exception of skeletons. Then again it probably would be hard to mess up the lovely bolster/ surge that skeletons have been blessed with. Perfect balance of range and melee support etc. I only wish other racials were able to establish something just as tight. Zombie Apocalypse is falling back into it's old dead end state with a 5 zombie requirement and only 1 zombie gets the swarm. It is almost as bad as the initial release where you needed all 5 zombies in a 5x5 formation to trigger, but at least they all got the effect. Elsarian coven looks pretty much the same. Honestly I'm not sure what was tweaked on it for the revamp. Ever since the revamp speed is far more valuable and curse is proving to be much more helpful. I can only see that as a + alongside stacking the coven. Also witches still get the aoe witching hour buff.Humans still need a proper link between their undead counterparts to make them a better fit in general. I assume this will happen during the spell revamp when Global engines like Foul rite and throw bones are addressed. My colossus feels fun again as do most of my other big summons. I think you are on the right track with 100+ summons. Big runes deserve big cost, and making those runes worth the cost makes for a very rewarding experience. If you can capture that big "Exodia" moment every time something big is dropped I don't think there will be any complaint. Mutants have turned out terrible for FW. In fact in general it's hard to get a leg up under this poor race. The first thing I was looking forward to was doing a zombie/mutant deck but I can't see anything worthwhile. Creep is here and there, while a lot of the good mutants became arthropods. I just don't know what to do with it. There's something really special that could be built up on if they were given the proper care. They could just be the thing to expand the Freak theme in general and shoot some more life into it. With zombies and mutants being able to pull from each other they might not feel so cut off at the knees forced to pull from lich or spirits. Less magic and more fleshy killing machines. I haven't messed with to many spirits yet, but it looks like they lost stealth aspects that helped keep them together. They look like a wanna be surge theme now. FW had some good support rune revamps. Thank you so much for taking evil aura off cleric of unrest. Collection of souls is also even better now giving FW a way to amp their champions easier. Lost Queen is also a good addition. The ample spread of soul collection is also very appreciated. I still think FW could use a few more runes converted to FW style support. The outliers in the stitched are to focused, in my opinion on the stitched theme, to be of use to the FW faction for most decks. Concluding I like the pace change in the game, and most individual changes look healthy for the game as a whole. Racials feel weaker than they were, and mutants are on the really short end of the stick. I also like how weaker debuffs have been made stronger with the decrease in stats and how big runes feel.
