First up is Peter Pan himself, this time in a tournament-legal form (RIP Learn to Play decks). His stats are pretty abysmal for a 3-drop, but he makes up for it in utility. Flying helps, making him harder to block, so some cheese damage with new Grimm's effect is easy, plus it's in-theme with his lore. The juicy part to his skill is the free +1 he gives, letting you search your deck for any 1-cost Fairy Tale and put it into play. There's already a nice number of those in the game (Like Tinker Bell from the Starter Deck), and he only gets better as more cards are released.
Partnering up with him is Wendy who, wouldn't you know it, is a 1-drop Fairy Tale. She's also one of the anti-Dual Stone cards we were promised going into Lapis Cluster. She isn't Special Stone hate in the form of punishing your opponent for using for using them, but rather a reward for you for not using them. She'll become a 4/5 1-drop if you control only basic stones, which honestly isn't all that great of an effect. She gets flying if you control Peter Pan, and she recovers herself whenever you play a Fairy Tale (i.e. a better Rapunzel). I feel like FoW Inc fell a little short here in trying to make incentives to run basic stones, since a 200 power boost is mediocre compared to access to things like new Thunder, or splashing green for ramp/negation. Her recovery effect is pretty strong though, especially if you have a lot of low-cost resonators you can play, and pump her up with something like new Grimm.
Or you could pump her up with Dreams of Flight. This card is just stupid good; Quickcast + remnant is a powerful combination, especially on a 1-cost spell. We all know how irritating Rapid Growth can get. This thing grants Flying AND a power boost, with a Force 1 check. Or Force 2 with Pandora out. This thing has a LOT of cheese potential, albeit with some luck involved.
Retelling Stories is cool too. It's only chant speed, and costs 2, but let's you refresh all the Fairy Tales in your grave and essentially adds 1 to your hand. But, unless you have a way to shuffle your deck, it means you'll be drawing resonators for days. I'd almost always want to use Horn of the Sacred Beasts, but this card does replace itself, and let's you have a more streamlined refresh.
Neverland is interesting, removing the top card of your deck and giving you the option to play it that turn if it was a Fairy Tale. Unfortunately, for being a 3-cost addition and still requiring you to pay for the removed resonator (If it was even a Fairy Tale to begin with), it's pretty meh. Has some neat application in a Lumia deck, but other than that, there isn't much to say.
Likewise for Fairy of Neverland. A 2-drop 5/5 is just under the now-standard for 2-drops, but she makes up for it by giving your 1-cost Fairy Tales flying. But with Tinker Bell having that innately, Wendy having easy access to it, and Dreams of Flight being a thing, I doubt this girl will see much play. She'd be cool in a 1-drop-heavy deck, but outside of that I think Dreams of Flight would be all-around better.
Lastly, we get some water stuff. Mermaid is pretty bland, being a 6/6 3-drop (Weeeeeak) that draws a card upon entering. Likely won't see play unless we see an easy way to abuse her, especially since Squire of the Ocean lady has the same effect, but for 1 less will.
The real MVP of this article is Captain Hook. He's a 10/10 5-drop, which is pretty standard, but can kill 2 stones upon entering. This is the kind of Special Stone hate I was hoping for. Your opponent is a greedy meta player and plays 10 dual stones? Get rid of 2 of them. Plop them right back on top of their stone deck, so they have to dig through them to get more stones. As icing on the cake, you can also just bounce 2 resonators instead. So if your opponent isn't playing special stones, or you think you can win this turn and don't need to spin their stones, he also has removal. Being a 5-drop, he's primed for Shion cheese with her Judgment. Imagine being on the play, flipping her Turn 4, and leaving your opponent with 1 magic stone going into their turn, staring down Shion and Hook. Might as well extend the handshake then and there.
Not part of the spoiler, but very relevant information. FoW Inc has FINALLY banned this cancer machine from tournament play in New Frontiers. Goodbye and good riddance. I've hated this thing since the day I started playing Force of Will. Playing R/R is like playing the game on easy mode; it just does too much. Sure, R/R mirror matches can be pretty skill intensive since both players have answers to each others' answers, but R/R vs. non-R/R might as well be a free win, since no other Ruler grants nearly as much utility as this card does. This mistake was an auto-inclusion in any deck, be it the main deck or side board, and you built your deck from there. That's terribly unhealthy for the game, and I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to do something about it. If 7/8 of every Top 8 listed this card as their Ruler, even after the errata-nerf, you know something's wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing what the top deck(s) will be now that this oppressive tyrant has been overthrown.
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