Dungeon of Ten Tyrants
Today we have the much coveted Dungeon of Ten Tyrants.

The Dungeon of Ten Tyrants is possibly one of the most broadly useful cards currently available to the Eye of Judgment. At the end of every turn, every Dungeon you have in play gives you an extra Mana point, increasing the Mana available to you at the beginning of your next turn. The value of this cannot be overstated enough – with 3 Mana coming in every turn rather than 2, the number and quality of the Creatures you can summon almost doubles. And with 4HP, it’s not exactly a pushover either.

There are a couple of downsides to this card, however. First off, being a Fortress card means that it cannot directly attack an enemy monster – it can only counter attack, and only for 1 Damage when it does that. Secondly, its Mana-generating ability is only active when it is not placed on an Earth field, which means it cannot take advantage of the Field Bonus, leaving its HP at 4. In fact, placing it on an Earth Field makes the card completely worthless – you may as well take a Se Hollyn Fortress instead. Finally, the Dungeon is destroyed if it happens to find itself on a Wood Field. Of course, all of these inadequacies pale in comparison to the pro’s of the Dungeon – gaining more Mana per turn is easily worth all of these issues.

However, these weaknesses become your advantage should your enemy play one of these cards against you. The easiest way to do this is to put it on a Wood Field somehow. If your opponent is foolish enough to play the Dungeon on a Field with Wood on its reverse side, a simple Fieldquake will finish it off instantly. Failing that, a Biolith Stingers or Elven Death Dancers (or a Wolf Ninja, if the Dungeon is on a Water Field) are all good candidates for moving the Dungeon. In a crunch, Call of Timeless Juno can be used to exchange its Field with a Wood one, but for 5 Mana, you can probably summon a Creature do to enough damage to finish it off normally.

The best way to keep your own Dungeon of Ten Tyrants alive is through the use of other Fortresses. Se Hollyn’s Fortress placed next to the Dungeon for the protection bonus, or an Aegis Citadel placed on an Earth Field to give it invisibility are both great options, and you could also use a Lesser Granvenoa to prevent the Dungeon’s Field from being Fieldquaked or Exchanged to a Wood Field. Without any of those, a Healing Shower will certainly help out, but you should definitely keep in mind that any sane opponent will try and destroy this card as soon as possible, and while 4HP is nothing to frown at, it won’t last 2 turns against a determined opponent (or even 1 turn, if your luck is bad).

The Dungeon of Ten Tyrants is an awesome card, and you’re likely to see a lot of them around (especially in Ninja Decks where that extra Mana is essential), so having some contingency plan to quickly dispose of them is a good idea. And don’t forget, you can have up to 3 of these in your deck at the same time – if you managed to get all 3 on the board at once, you’d probably be unstoppable.

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Posted by Blublub on Tue, 13th Nov 2007, at 18:45
On paper I love this card. In the game, it seems to get wiped out quickly - usually even before it can start to generate mana.
Posted by Zumbilic on Tue, 13th Nov 2007, at 19:23
Blublub said it best. I try to use it but it is never worth the cost.
Posted by Crovax on Tue, 13th Nov 2007, at 23:13
I love this card, you get the first mana back instantly. I debated against this or moving isle of kadena. I think this card is muchmore useful. Worst case scenario you payed 3 mana for a distraction card. I've used to to force my opponent to drain all his mana trying to get rid of this which makes me end up with another 4 mana next turn. GREAT card.
Posted by thegman on Wed, 14th Nov 2007, at 11:42
I love the card. Played with it in my deck early yesterday and it never got wiped out. Try to put it in a corner really quickly and block it in. Playing the computer on hard mode and won 5 squares to 2 and the Dungeon had 2 HP left. I just love this game and this site, can't say enough about it!
Posted by ArcaneJMS on Wed, 14th Nov 2007, at 12:42
This card is ungodly annoying to play against, and placing one immediately pays off with the 1 mana tick which means it really only costs 3 mana in a way. It's the best mana generation card in the game because it doesn't rely on circumstance bonuses to gain its mana (such as freedonian wanderer or imperial biolith guard). Unfortunately it's tough to keep alive, and you can't often play it if you draw it late in the game because you've got to eliminate enemy creatures and the dungeon can't attack. Worth having in many decks, especially mana hungry decks.
Posted by Jesster on Wed, 14th Nov 2007, at 16:20
I think I'm going to have to strongly disagree on the value of this card. While I haven't actually tried it myself, I did just get through testing out a deck using Freedonian Wanderers, which suffer the same problem as the Dungeon. Its all about mana efficiency. A 1 mana cost creature inherrantly has a mana efficiency of 0. You pay 1 to summon him, you get 1 mana back when he dies. Net mana change = 0. This is, in general, the best mana efficiency you're going to get for most creatures. However, for a creature who's primary purpose is to generate more mana, I'd expect to be able to do better than 0 mana efficiency, but in practice, that will rarely happen. The Dungeon of Ten Tyrants has an effective summon cost of 3 mana (since you get a one mana rebate immediately), and when it dies, you get 1 mana back, so If your opponent kills it immediately on his next turn, that's a mana efficiency of -2. If it takes 2 turns to kill it, the mana efficiency improves to -1. Death on the 3rd turn means you've finally reached a mana efficiency of 0 (the same as a 1 mana cost creature). This card actually has to survive through 3 enemy turns before you'll actually start to see a net mana gain, and that just doesn't seem too likely with only 4 HP, a weakness for wood fields, and no other defenses. Really, the only way I see this card as being very good at mana gain is if it was summoned via a cubic. Personally, I'd say the best mana gain card in the game (if you can get a hold of it) is Inquisitor Koog. He costs 3 mana, and is almost guaranteed to get you at least 3 mana back when he dies (and often 4 or 5), and while he's still alive, he's a credible threat being able to attack in 3 directions for 2/3 damage.
Posted by HEC on Wed, 21st Nov 2007, at 07:37
>Jester: But you need to include in your calculations also the effort / mana spent by your opponent to get rid of the card which indeed is a bit more difficult than with 1 mana cost / 1 or 2 HP cards ... ;)
Posted by slarth on Sat, 24th Nov 2007, at 15:52
true, but 1 cost creature's on there own element makes them more difficulty to get rid of, personally i don't use this card though i can see why people would. the problem i had with it was keeping it alive although it did did come in handy on occasions and actually won me a match
Posted by wlhosch on Sun, 25th Nov 2007, at 11:15
I've tried the card, and I agree with Jesster that it is not mana efficient. IMO, a better card is the Moving Isle of Kadema. When placed on a non-water tile, you get 2 mana (don't summon if your opponent isn't sitting on at least 2 mana) back, so that you have a 4-hit point card for 2 mana, but more important, you swipe 2 mana from your opponent and he must spend mana to take out a decent place holder with a small counterattack (and no blind spot). In some circumstances, it can also be summoned to a water tile to hold for a win.
Posted by Pessimism on Wed, 5th Dec 2007, at 17:28
Moving Isle Of Kedena is an ok card- mana from the opponent, nuff said... but it's a ONE OFF. Yes, true it can make a bad situation turn around and is a good place holder on a water field. But lets face it, mana coming in EVERY turn, as opposed to a one off- I still put this little number as a higher priority than Kedena.
Posted by Icepick on Thu, 13th Dec 2007, at 07:25
There appears to be a bug in the game which somewhat devalues this card. If another one of your creatures dies during your turn (giving you 1 Mana), the Dungeon of Ten Tyrants doesn't generate Mana the way it is supposed to.
Posted by ShadowKoneko on Sat, 15th Dec 2007, at 19:57
Why do so many people think the Wanderer is 1 mana? Its 2 mana to summon. If it was 1 mana it would be great. The Dungeon is great since it has way more survivalbility.
Posted by krisfairholm on Wed, 26th Dec 2007, at 16:30
This card is good if you use along with another card like Verzar Canine to give it protection, or if you are lucky enough to have something like "Mercenary Savior Latoo (this card rules)" then just place it on a water field and give it dodge, I would only play one in a deck and unless i could use it with protection or dodge I would use it to discard if needs be.
Posted by biolithlord8 on Wed, 16th Jan 2008, at 12:17
A vey nice card. And it looks just beutiful.....
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