If a card successfully defends against an attack, nothing happens - no player takes damage or loses any cards
See Callous Sell-Sword, the Cultivate from Fallout , Desperate Farmer, and Stern Scolding
Hitting any card type while having two card types itself for delirium gives it a noticeable edge, though I can see the Connoisseur being the better card in decks that exclusively care about creatures
This is a card Id be playing without consideration of how to mitigate the damage, but an obvious combo is with The Wanderer
Generally speaking, your deck should be able to make good use out of all of the modes on an escalate spell before you consider adding it to your deck
Wonder Pick full-art starter: Squirtle Starting deck : Rapidash Fire-type deck We do not recommend picking a Pikachu pack first unless you really like Squirtle as Arcanine EX is the weakest of the free EX cards available and doesn't have a deck built around current meta