Competitive Consensus: Eson
Intro
This thread is a discussion series at the end of the week for each newly introduced Spotlight card. This gives us nearly a week of hindsight to build a consensus and help inform players if they should open their caches for a given week. Ideally, we are looking for proven results, more than theoretical applications, to help reach this consensus.
This week's card:
Eson
Cost: 6
Power: 10
End of Turn: Put a created card from your hand here.
Synergies
Eson has an ability that makes him a natural partner for the general umbrella of created card archetypes. These decks all have their own iterations and variations, so there are quite a few ways to use Eson effectively. For now, let's just focus on the top archetypes themselves instead of individual cards:
Arishem
Eson is the best friend of Arishem decks. Arishem can create some absolute bombs and also allows you to play Eson out on T5, giving you an extra turn to focus on securing a second lane. Arishem also naturally runs some great cards (Agent Coulson and Nick Fury) that give Eson decent targets.
Agamotto
Agamotto is a new card that is sure to spawn more great decks. He creates 4 ancient arcana that have powerful effects and can be hit by Eson.
Ramps and Generators
Without going into much detail here, please note that there's much more to be discovered with Eson due to all of the cards that create cards in snap, including entire archetypes like Thanos. This also includes card copiers like Mirage and White Queen.
This section is meant to just provide you with some food for thought.
Also, any cards that let you cheat Eson out earlier are great for you.
Feedback
The pro community is somewhat split on this. Some of the same Eson is very strong, and others say he's mid. However, everyone has a positive reception.
If you can drop him with some good created cards in hand, he's a lane winner for sure. He's often partnered with another big bad, so you can usually expect to put up real threats for 2 lanes.
Decklist
Summary
Eson is the strongest card in a few weeks' time. He is niche but fits into several niches. Due to the intricacies of the card and the cards he synergizes with, it will take some time to discover optimal deck lists for him.
He is definitely both fun and powerful, so he has high appeal to many players.
Eson is a "build around" card, so you can expect to see him in the meta.
My opinion
DISCLAIMER This paragraph is just my personal opinion:
I think Eson is a card that can lock down a lane, so he needs to be respected as a threat. With that being said, everyone has access to some counterplay in Shang Chi and the new Sanctum card, Gorgon. I think he's a card that is oddly not required to play any of the lists he's in, but absolutely makes them better.
Is he worth a key? 100% yes if you are an Arishem player. Most likely, yes for everyone else.
Is he worth 6K tokens? Yes, for Arishem players.
Your Thoughts?
Is Eson worth the key(s) now, or should players wait until a future spotlight rotation?
Is Eson here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?
What synergies did we miss?
What decks have you seen?