It’s my favorite time of year: the slump-in-between-spoilers™! With Part the Mistveil in the rear-view mirror and Rosetta still a blip on the horizon, albeit an exciting one, it’s time for us content creators to really indulge all of our worst impulses and only talk about the kind of stuff we ourselves like. And if you’ve read an article by me before, you’ve probably guessed where this paragraph was going (if the headline didn’t give it away already). It’s time to talk about Riptide, Lurker of the Deep!

The Stats on Riptide

The Ranger class only received two cards in Part the Mistveil, but what cards they were! Longdraw Half-Glove is an incredibly efficient card that rivals the perpetual auto-include Bull’s Eye Bracers, and Murky Water iss the kind of specialization that can really jump-start a deck. Both cards have seen massive inclusion rates in Riptide decks, and for good reason.

Both cards help with two of the worst issues that Riptide decks faced. Longdraw Half-Glove helps improve consistency somewhat by giving you a free way out of the infamous Ranger hands – all arrows, no buffs. While hands filled with buffs still remain an issue, they are a bit less likely to begin with and can be played around with the likes of New Horizon, if you’re so inclined.

Murky Water conversely gives Riptide a much needed finisher, a way to reward the deck for playing arrows and traps as well as an actual payoff for running his signature bow Barbed Castaway. It’s everything that Reel In wasn’t: a proper card to build a deck and a strategy around.

These two cards open up a lot of options, which shows in some of the inclusion rates for cards in Riptide decks. First and foremost, both cards sit at an inclusion rate of above 50% (55% for Longdraw Half-Glove and a whopping 69% for Murky Water (nice)). Longdraw Half-Glove is now almost up there with Bull’s Eye Bracers (which sit at 59%), and while Riptide’s new specialization isn’t quite the draw that his legendary traps are, it’s up there with the common and rare traps, surpassing all of them but Tarpit Trap, which it’s tied with.

But what’s more, Barbed Castaway has been creeping up there and is at a respectable, if underwhelming, inclusion rate for a signature weapon – 34%, almost tied with Death Dealer at 39%, and it beats out its aim counter competition Sandscour Greatbow by a long-shot, which sits at only 9%!

Generics for Riptide

But what about the Generic cards from the last couple of sets? I’m glad you asked! The Ranger class is still pretty uniquely incentivized to not run many Generic cards, due to the arrow mechanic – if they mainly run Generics, they’re sorely missing a decent weapon. But there are two cards that find some inclusion in Riptide decks, one from Part the Mistveil and another from Heavy Hitters. And they’re not even (exclusively) meme cards.

Alright, they are still kind of meme-y, which is why they are both sitting at an 8% inclusion rate. Standing Order is the more reasonable inclusion of the two. Among the Rangers, Riptide is the one most likely to brick his own arsenal with a trap. Granted, you can always use your Trench of Sunken Treasure to cycle the trap out, but Standing Order gives you some added flexibility, becoming either a free attack for six to close your combat chain on or a slightly above-rate block for four. Neither is amazing value, but it can be nice to have the option if a turn plays out that way.

The more exciting of the two by far is Prismatic Leyline. When I first started out writing for FABREC, I falsely posited that Riptide might benefit from running more yellow cards than your average hero. While it didn’t pan out that way – in fact, the most successful versions of Riptide were almost entirely redline decks, oops – there are still some fun casual builds to be had with Prismatic Leyline, a potential six points of damage off of one card.

Here are just a handful of the cards that could enable an epic Prismatic Leyline turn, which are all commonly run in Riptide, Lurker of the Deep decks: Bolt’n’ Shot red (62%), Bolt’n’ Shot yellow (40%) and Bolt’n’ Shot blue (20%), of course, which have the added benefit of all getting go again off of the same card. But there’s also Intoxicating Shot (65%), Infecting Shot yellow and Infecting Shot blue (20% and 10% respectively), as well as Death Touch yellow and Death Touch blue (a mere 5% and 7%, granted), which are both still break-point attacks.

Where Do We Go from Here with Riptide?

For all that, Riptide is still pretty dang low on the tier list. Part of that might be meta-related, as Part the Mistveil just introduced another Illusionist hero into the meta, but surely that can’t be the only reason everybody’s favorite outsider is sitting at a lowly deck count of just a bit above 7,000? Most of the heroes from Part the Mistveil and Heavy Hitters have already surpassed him – and it’s not just him; Azalea, Ace in the Hole has had her intended glow-up overshadowed by Lexi, Livewire.

It’s no secret, the Ranger class has been a bit of a weird one ever since its introduction all the way back in Arcane Rising, and all the Codex of Frailtys haven’t changed that (barring the perfect storm that catapulted Lexi to Living Legend within months).

So with that, we Ranger players are looking forward to the release of Armory Deck: Azalea in early August to change all that. Even though the deck is intended for Azalea, there are without a doubt Riptide players out there who are working on the next big thing which might just do it. Line it up is looking like an all-star for our big green guy. Here’s hoping!

Further Reading:

The Best Cards for Riptide, Lurker of the Deep

Playing Riptide in Blitz

Taking the Tempo in Flesh and Blood

Jonah Lara

Raised on a steady diet of fantasy storys and video games, Jonah discovered trading card games at the impressionable age of 12 and has since spent over half his life and about the same percentage of each monthly salary on card games. If he's not brewing new decks or catching up on the latest FaB news, he's probably dead - or painting a new Warhammer mini.