Top 5 Most Forgotten Freljord Cards (Which You've Probably Never Seen!)

Carrying on with the series of articles covering "forgotten cards you've probably never seen", today we'll discuss Freljord, one of the best regions in the entire game right now because of the quality of its support spells and its early game followers.

If you have never seen one of these articles: I always pick 5 cards from a region which are not necessarily weak, or bad, but have been forgotten by players and don't really make much of a difference in the game. If they ceased to exist, no one would notice they were gone.

If you want to see more articles covering forgotten cards from other regions, click here.

Please keep in mind this article was centered around the competitive scene, and ranked queues (I don't play Path of Champions, unfortunately). It is also based on my 4-year experience playing and casting LoR professionally

I invite you all to post in our comment section your own list of the top 5 most forgotten Bilgewater cards. Let's go!

Today, we start with a controversial card: Temple to True Ice. This landmark is controversial because it split players' opinions when it was released, during the "Heart of the Huntress" expansion.

This card was definitely played for a brief period of time during the first few weeks of this expansion, until we all remembered Jax Ornn was one of the few popular Freljord decks at the time, and also remembered this landmark didn't make sense neither in these lists nor in any other deck with this region.

Temple to True Ice is a relatively new card when compared to the other cards we'll see in this list, but it was certainly forgotten by players quite quickly.

Another factor that really erased this card from our memories is that, right away, in the next expansion (Fate's Voyage), Freljord was practically redesigned with Volibear's arrival, Titanic units, besides Elemental spells - which don't match Temple to True Ice at all.

This spell was released in the "Worldwalker" expansion, which was an experimental time for Freljord. Besides not getting any new champions, all Freljord cards released at this time were trying to reinforce an already existing archetype, or create a relatively new idea for this region.

Cracking Ice came to LoR as a support card for Ashe and her Frostbite decks, with either LeBlanc or Sejuani.

Keep in mind that, at this time, the game wasn't yet divided between the Standard and Eternal formats, and Freljord was going through a moment in its history in which its decks were, mostly, Control lists with Shadow Isles.

The few Midrange lists that we had were extremely "countered" by the Annie Jhin archetype, recently released, and this game style went into a hiatus for some time. This opened space for slower Control lists or decks that had many healing tools.

All these strategies really didn't match Cracking Ice at all.

Now that Freljord is once again relevant (after years as one of the worst regions in the game), we still don't have space for Cracking Ice because the Frostbite archetype evolved into two different deck variants. We have aggressive Ashe LeBlanc lists that abuse Frostbite to attack with Ashe (who'll disable enemy blockers), but that don't necessarily use Frostbites as their main strategy; and Control lists with Ashe, Shadow Isles, and "Rimefang Pack" cards, which match the "reviving" strategy this deck uses - Frozen in Fear and Rimefang Denmother.

Keep in mind, Frozen in Fear was revealed in the same expansion as Cracking Ice, which means we've never even had an opportunity or reason to use Cracking Ice in our decks. This card was erased from our memories a mere second after it was released.

This spell, believe it or not, is from 2020's Foundations set when the game was released.

Bloodsworn Pledge has been forgotten throughout the years for so many reasons. However, before I mention anything else, I must tell you this card has been in the game since its beta, and was certainly tested and tried since then. As this was 4 years ago, and as it has never been played in any relevant meta deck, it deserves to be in this list.

Actually, it only occupies our 3rd spot because some old players will remember it from beta.

The main issue with this spell is that granting health to units will never be better than granting health and attack, at the same time, to a unit.

In beta, Demacia's combat spells were much superior to Freljord's, which, in turn, as it couldn't compete with Demacia, focused more on Frostbiting enemy units and/or protecting their units. However, as you need to play units to control the board, your spells need to be cheap so you can still play your followers. And as Bloodsworn Pledge costs 4 mana, you'll never be able to bank enough mana to play units on your mana curve without using unit mana to play this spell, at least not naturally.

The example above is one of the reasons why 3-cost spells are much better than 4-cost spells.

This means, on turn 5, you must play a 4-cost unit to use Bloodsworn Pledge, if you have already banked spell mana.

If you really think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Bloodsworn Pledge to be a bad card, considering it grants you +0/+6 divided among two units for 4 mana. However, as Freljord has always struggled to develop its board early game during LoR's first years, besides this card not giving you any attack power, it was forgotten.

Now, after Freljord was redesigned when Volibear, all early game spells and units came along, it makes even less sense to use Bloodsworn Pledge.

Before I say anything: one of the main reasons why this card is one of the most forgotten cards in Freljord is because we tend to mix it up with Shared Spoils - which, besides having a similar name, also has similar artwork.

Spoils of War was released in the "Empire of the Ascended" expansion as a support spell for the Plunder archetype. However, "Empire of the Ascended" was when Lissandra was released in LoR, and she brought us one of the slowest metas of all time. "TLC" (Trundle Lissandra Control and its variations) is considered one of the slowest decks in all of LoR's history.

This means Freljord didn't care about dealing damage to the enemy Nexus, much less in activating Plunder effects at the time. So, we quickly forgot about Spoils of War.

The next meta in which Plunder cards were relevant (apart from some brief moments in which Gangplank and Sejuani popped up in the meta to counter a specific deck) was in Glory in Navori, when Samira came along. However, as we all know, Freljord wasn't this champion's pair, but rather Bilgewater, which originated Fizz Samira decks.

Freljord has just a few Plunder cards, and they basically only ever saw play in Gangplank Sejuani lists, besides a few players who used Wolfrider as mana ramp.

The only reason why this spell is extremely forgotten is that, usually, you activate Plunder after attacking and dealing damage to the enemy Nexus. However, it is during your attack that you want to use your burst protection spells. This means you'll rarely extract 100% of Spoils of War's effect.

As usual, the first spot in these lists is chosen through this method: I look at my collection and choose the card that I (after playing 4 years professionally and also casting LoR tournaments) can't even remember what it does, and I usually ask myself if I have ever seen it in my life.

I had no idea Woolly Snailmoth existed because it is truly an odd card.

This follower was revealed in the "Darkin Saga" set as a unit in Kayle's "Empowered" archetype, and Kayle is a Targon champion. Riot wanted Empowered decks to be Freljord/Targon decks so you could abuse protection spells from these two regions while you buff your units' stats.

But this wasn't what happened: Kayle wasn't relevant in the game until much later, and when she finally saw play in a meta deck, it was a Bandle City deck with a lot of Yordles. So, we completely forgot about Woolly Snailmoth.

Another Empowered deck that was revealed at the same time as Woolly Snailmoth was Pouty Poro, which is probably one of the best Poros in the game. The most significant difference is that there are many ways to build Poro decks, or decks that have cheap units (like Pouty Poro), work out, and are meta, besides being quite better than Woolly Snailmoth.

Another issue is that Woolly Snailmoth currently competes for spots in Overwhelm lists with Darius, as incredible as it sounds. Both cost 6 mana, but Darius can level up and gain 4 attack, and Woolly Snailmoth can't. Not to mention getting Regeneration through Empowered, maybe one of the weakest keywords in the game, is an extremely mediocre effect for a card that costs 6 mana.

If you read this far, thank you. I hope you had fun.

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