Diving right into it after a gut-wrenching joke, there isn't too many new things to talk about for wind. We got two spoiler articles for the color since this set supports both Gill and the new Wind Ruler, so we saw a lot more of green before the reveal than we did for other attributes. The largest chunk of these will be spells which, given the way Gill works, are what we want to see anyway. First up is Arrow Trap which follows in the same vein as Flying Drill in that its an anti-flying card. It has the disadvantage of only being able to hit attacking resonators, but deals double damage to fliers. 1200 is the real magic number, since virtually every meta relevant card with flying is 1200 or lower. The issue is that Gale Force has the same cost but flat-out destroys fliers and doesn't have to wait for them to attack to do it, making it superior in just about every way for removing fliers. What Arrow Trap has going for it is the ability to hit anything for 600, giving green some in-color removal against aggressive decks.
Faerur's Spell is, while not the most creative name, is actually my favorite card design so far. Cancel spells in Alice Cluster were really too powerful: Wall of Wind was an extremely cheap chant that, on top of being able to hit any card, punished the opponent for trying to play on-curve. Seal of Wind and Light cancelled things (again, anything) with no downside. Those two alone were too oppressive and flexible, and their existence alone kind of made Ancient Magic an obsolete mechanic on-release. We saw Millennia Bond as a more recent cancel spell that is only able to stop Chants, and Faerur's Spell is another step down that path. We're seeing that FoW has realized flexible cancels are pretty cancerous. Faerur has the benefit of still being able to cancel resonators, provided they have quickcast, but is unable to stop the large chant-speed spells like all of the Ancient Magic bombs, Final Battle, or anything that serves as a massive will dump. This kind of card design is what I like to see.
Speaking of expensive spells, we have Great Tornado. It's a total 7-cost, but you can rest a resonator to cheapen it by 1. This obviously sounds awful, since it doesn't have quickcast and forces you to give up attackers/blockers to use, but in an Elf deck you'll have more than enough tokens to use as fodder for this spell. At its cheapest its a 1-cost that will rest 6 of your tokens, but in exchange you will kill 2 non-magic stones. Keep in mind that this can hit J-Rulers. This is a great way to turn your field of weak tokens into some real advantage. As a side note, I like the "entity" card text as it solves a lot of issues we saw in Alice Cluster. We've gotten more Addition hate in recent sets, but having to side into addition-specific kill cards used to really suck, especially given how little of it there was. One of the most broken things about regalia was the lack of counterplay they had. This also future-proofs the cards against any other odd ball card type they may introduce in the future.
In terms of support for Gill, here are the big things we haven't already seen. Elemental Blast is a Spirit Magic, and since its a 1-cost you can essentially play it for free. It deals 400 damage to a resonator, and if you've already played another card it will deal 700 instead. Like Arrow Trap, this provides green some in-color removal. Lacking quickcast really hurts it, although being able to spring something like this on your opponent with all your stones tapped could potentially be a little too out there.
Wind Blade is another support card for Gill, but its an Elemental rather than a Spirit Magic, so you won't be playing it for cheaper. This is another in-color removal tool for green that scales up with the number of stones you have, a very in-theme card for green. My favorite thing about this is that it's an elemental with quickcast, so you can start building up your graveyard to fuel your spells later without having to force it with cards like Travelling Trader.
Wind Ferryman is the last noteworthy card Gill got. It's another first turn play for the deck that acts like a Percival, digging for Spirit Magic or Elemental and fueling the rest of your game.
As a whole, the Gill deck is looking pretty solid. It didn't get a heavy hitter or a Spirit Magic bomb in this set, but what it did get was a decent basis. Leaf Knight is a strong 2-drop that gives you another use for Elementals and can protect itself. Absolute Awareness allows you to turn the will from Gill's active skill into a whole magic stone. Spiritual Guidance isn't all that impressive, even with Gill allowing you to make it a 2-cost, since card drawing doesn't advance your gamestate, nor does life gain. It's still some good value for what you pay for it, and Gill's strongest suit is his card advantage engine. Gill himself can serve as a beater/finisher while his deck lacks one, and it has a solid engine between all the Elementals and the different Spirit Magics it has access to.
As for the Faerur deck, it definitely gives you more of a use for your Elves. He doesn't create tokens himself like Fiethsing does, but his ability to turn them into mana can accelerate your game plan incredibly fast, especially with cards like Spirit Caller Elf and Oberon, Lord of Elves, coupled with the mana dorks Elf has access to. With the ramping and swarming power that Elves has access to, I don't doubt that you'll be able to drop Faerur's Command a lot faster than your opponent would suspect. I've never been the biggest fan of elves, so I don't know what their exact card pool looks like nor the combos and potential they have, but Faerur looks like he's giving them a clear end game and a a path to get there. I feel that FoW finally hit the nail on the head this time, at least in some form or fashion.
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