[rdonj]

The temple guards definitely do encourage a bless, and having skink priests and the slann also as sacred gives even more incentive for a high earth bless. But I think the temple guard perform at least on par with something like S9/E6/N4, and with that bless all those sacred spawnings benefit and become a whole lot more interesting. It also gives them an S9 caster which they will otherwise have to spend a lot of gems empowering to get.

But I would also contend that Itza is completely viable even without a bless. Taking an awake research/site searching rainbow pretender could really help boost their magic to reach the dizzying heights of power the slann communions can reach on the battlefield more quickly. Playing without the temple guard does make expansion a bit slower, but saurus warriors and skinks do fine on most indies, and you have things like kroxigor and salamanders to ruin a player's day.