Use Annual Fair to Cast More Broken Spells

Sorcery: Contested Realm · by ForceofPhil · September 9, 2026

Let's explore the {Annual Fair}.

In Sorcery: Contested Realm (SCR), there are two primary mechanisms for balancing spell costs: mana and threshold. While there are considerations for proxemics in the Realm that can influence a spell's cost, the impact of those spells is contextual from game to game.

The most pushed spells in SCR have an effect that is more powerful than their mana costs. The balancing mechanism for undercosted spells is their threshold. For example, {Plague of Frogs} costs [1] mana but could not be played on turn one because it costs [water][water][water]. Only an outlier circumstance, such as {Deep Sea} into {Aquamarine Core}, could pull off such a feat to put seven Frogs on your home square on turn one.

The trade-off to that position is an extreme commitment to [water]. The same would be true for [air] for {Mountain Peaks} into {Amethyst Core} to cast {Browse}. Building a deck to naturally accrue the requisite resources to cast the more powerful spells requires luck and some amount of deckbuilding concession to not run into the position of a full grip of uncastables.

{Annual Fair} bends SCR's balancing mechanism.

Spells at the {Annual Fair}

It might seem like {Annual Fair} is innocuous, but its effect is unique, offering its pilot the ability to manipulate how they build their deck to maximize power level. Instead of caring about threshold, you need only care about mana cost.

I want to cast {Plague of Frogs}, {Browse}, {Morgana le Fey}, and other undercosted, high-impact spells that are bottlenecked primarily by their heavy threshold requirements. Looking at those cards through the lens of {Annual Fair}, they're still incredibly powerful on rate. For example:

[4] Frog Infestation
Summon seven frog tokens.
[4] Peruse
Look at the top seven cards of your Spellbook. Put one into your hand and the rest on the bottom.
[6] Morgana, le Fae ⚔️3
Spellcaster, Stealth
Morgana draws a hand of three spells, which only she can cast.

From my point of view, without any threshold requirements, these cards are extremely powerful. The first is strictly better than {Four Fat Frogs}. The second is a {Black Mass} for a specific card rather than volume. The third is an upgraded {Grandmaster Wizard}.

This is the lens {Annual Fair} lets you view cards through. As a result, you could build a deck that leverages extremely powerful and still relatively undercosted spells by adjusting how you view your curve. In a vacuum, if you played an Atlas that prioritized all of the sites that generate more than one mana, then the tax of {Annual Fair} could effectively be offset.

Colorless mana is far easier to come by than threshold. There are four sites that one-shot genesis additional mana regardless of position: the three towers and {Ghost Town}. There's the unique City cycle, each of which produce [2] every turn.

Even {Black Obelisk} is much more attractive when {Annual Fair} puts these spells in your Spellbook:

[4] Sacred Healing
Gain 7 life.

Circumventing threshold even offers crazy mana turns:

[4] Hemoglobin Mana
The next spell you cast this turn costs life instead of mana.

{Wiccan Tools} & {Four Waters of Paradise}

I've played enough {Wiccan Tools} to know how crazy a turn can be if threshold is absent as a restriction. The number of games I've had a {Philosopher's Stone} in the Realm, cracked a {Wiccan Tools}, and then cast {Plague of Frogs}, {Browse}, and then recycled them with {Pendragon Legacy} for a total of [0] is high and objectively broken every time.

Yes, yes, that's a lot of Uniques to have all at once, but yeah, that's the point. When you don't have to adhere to threshold (i.e., one of the two primary balancing mechanisms Erik's Curiosa uses to design the game), you can do extremely broken things more consistently.

Anyone who has played with or against {Elementalist} understands how backbreaking having a full suite of threshold can be, often worth two or more time walks (i.e., playing spells at least a full turn ahead of when they would otherwise be castable).

So, what would this look like in practice?

Annual (Un)Fair Elementalist

DECKLIST_START

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1 {Elementalist}

Minions (16)

1 {Highland Princess} [2][air][air]
2 {Earl of the Ivory Towers} [3][air][air]
1 {Morgana le Fay} [3][fire][fire][fire]
1 {Cerberus in Chains} [3][fire][fire][fire]
2 {Pudge Butcher} [4][earth][earth]
2 {Abaddon Succubus} [4][water][water]
1 {Scavenger Fiend} [4][fire]
1 {Asmodeus} [5][fire][fire][fire]
1 {Lilith} [5][water][water][water]
1 {Maiden, Mother, Crone} [5][water][water][water]
2 {Grandmaster Wizard} [6][air][air]
1 {Balor of the Evil-Eye} [6][fire][fire]

Artifacts (14)

1 {Aquamarine Core} [1]
1 {Amethyst Core} [1]
1 {Ruby Core} [1]
1 {Onyx Core} [1]
1 {Key to the City} [1]
1 {Philosopher's Stone} [1]
4 {Wiccan Tools} [2]
1 {Four Waters of Paradise} [2]
1 {Shrine of the Dragonlord} [2]
2 {Black Obelisk} [3]

Magics (27)

1 {Twist of Fate} [x][water][water][water]
1 {Blood Mana} [x][fire][fire][fire]
3 {Divine Healing} [1][earth][earth][earth]
1 {Dream-Quest} [1][air]
1 {Browse} [1][air][air][air]
1 {Plague of Frogs} [1][water][water][water]
1 {Immolation} [1][fire][fire][fire]
1 {Tithe} [1][earth][earth][earth]
1 {Pendragon Legacy} [1][earth][earth]
4 {Common Sense} [2][earth]
2 {Demonic Contract} [2][fire][fire]
2 {Return to Nature} [2][water]
1 {Disenchant} [2][air]
1 {Occult Ritual} [2][air]
3 {Searing Truth} [3][fire][fire]
1 {Bury} [3][earth}
1 {Drown} [3][water]
1 {Pact with the Devil} [4][fire][fire]
1 {Black Mass} [4][air]

Aura (1)

1 {Atlantean Fate} [5][water][water]
1 {Sow the Earth} [4][earth][earth][earth]

DECKLIST_END

Featured image: {Annual Fair} by Elwira Pawlikowska

Use Annual Fair to Cast More Broken Spells

Spells at the {Annual Fair}

[4] Frog Infestation

[4] Peruse

[6] Morgana, le Fae ⚔️3

[4] Sacred Healing

[4] Hemoglobin Mana