NEWS: This week of Dragoborne has brought onto us a plethora of cards. We have almost every card spoiled, all trial decks spoiled, and now it is time to theorycraft a few decks. In the upcoming weeks before and after the set is released, I will be talking about many new decks and ideas that one could create. This could provide insight to new people, set a template for people who want to craft a deck, or bring up reasonable questioning in differences with the ideas of other deck builders in the community. I am super excited to start formulating an actual deck. So far leaning on a rush deck as I am a very aggressive player and love aggro decks in every card game I play, but we got some nice variety with what we see. Before we get started on that, let us look at the different trial decks and break them down. Be sure to check out my other articles. They also prove to be handy and nice. I will keep this blog updated more.
The trial decks do have cards that can prove to be potential for an actual deck, so check them out and buy one. They come with the respective dice which is handy, and I believe there is going to be a tourney for the trial decks. Whether we can mod the trial decks or not, and whether we can use a custom sideboard or not, I am not sure. If I find out I will inform anyone who asks. Now let us look at our first trial deck
Shadow Legion
Initial Thoughts
“Shadow Legion is a straightforward deck that takes the fastest route to finish the game. Play fast creatures and overwhelm your opponents with a barrage of attacks!”
With that quote being said, this deck will be aggro based. The fastest way to victory aka spamming low cost cards and beating your opponent before they can summon a heavy card. So, we have Yellow to keep your hand in check with draw, Red with very good ambushes and burst damage to help clear things, and black plain out destroys whatever gets in the way. Lets look deeply at each color. Starting with Yellow, Bountiful Angel makes a comeback from the demo deck, this time with an ability. You have 2 cards that provide draw power, something you need in a deck where you are able to play your entire hand out in 3 turns since having an empty hand might not be very good for anyone as of now. Then you have 2 decent vanillas, Sunscale Sage being an upgrade from the 3 cost demo deck version of Bountiful Angel, which is merely a 3 cost 3/3. Red, provides 2 nice ambushes that deal damage. The prominent demo deck ambush, Pyroblast, knocks itself a spot in the demo deck, and a nice new burn ambush creature, Ravian, Battlefield Shrieker. Pyroblast does have more potential as it can deal damage equal to the Red die, but Ravian is a consistent 2 which helps solve problems when your Red die hits 1. Then we have 2 cards that deal damage to Dragoshields and are cheap 1 cost cards, and a simple Red vanilla. Black is where it gets interesting. We have a summon fort burst, a cheap deadly, a nice hand fixer, and an interesting spell. Death trap could prove to be a card that can fail you, as it destroys an attacking creature. That might just be a simple small creature instead of a big one. Adraste’s Disdain can help you a ton when you are stuck dealing with hard to overcome, Dragocross cards. It also gives you a second effect with a Black 4-6 roll in which you destroy a shield too. For a 4 cost card, this proves to be very beneficial as most of your cards cost 1 or 2, so late game when they play a huge wall, you can get over it easily and push for game. Honorable mention to my Brother-in-Law, Cavalier Nosferatu. He does not just have nice artwork, but a great hand fixation effect. Grab a card in your discard pile that you need and discard a card you do not need. This helps you when you have a dead card in hand or something very important in your discard pile. Now, lets get to the core. Lady Valistra, Bloodlines Tormented. [AUTO] When this creature destroys a creature in battle, you may choose an opposing creature with the same color as that creature, and destroy it. Her second effect is [CONT] [Dragocross: Black] This creature must be blocked if able. So, she does well against mono color decks as she can destroy 2 of the same color creature with 1 attack. And she forces a block if able, so your opponent cant chose to lose a barrier over blocking her. Of course, crossing her is a must if your Black fort is down or such. You want her to be big enough to where she attacks without fear of being destroyed before battle, and enough power to destroy a creature. The ability is on battle, not on attack, thus meaning her effect lasts during your turn too. Personally, I think she is iffy. Yes, very good to play her as a 6 cost since her effect can lead to a double kill with 1 attack. Her only problem is cards that target destroy can just pick her and thus, your strongest source of power is gone. In this deck where everything is low cost, playing her is worth it late game since you probably can play her and 2 more creatures.
Pros vs. Cons
Pros:
Very aggressive, wants to end the game as soon as possible
Good board clear
Strong destruction, able to destroy big walls that you can’t normally with an attack
Cheap cards, you can play many creatures in 1 turn
Cons:
Loses to itself in a mirror match
Once late game hits, if you are unable to get over big cards, you can lose easily
Can run out of steam fast if you don’t draw into Yellow
Mystical Hunters
Initial Thoughts
“Mystical Hunters is a strategic deck that rewards players for planning their turns and plays. Lull your opponents into a false sense of security, then counter-attack swiftly!”
A slower deck that relies on building up in order to push for victory. This deck relies on ending your opponent with the rather big cards in the deck, yet keeping tempo with small cards… a mid-range deck if one must say. Yellow is your defense, Green is your offence, and Blue will be your control. Let us break down the colors for this deck. Starting with Yellow, 2 notable cards would be the 1/5 golem that gets summoned. It might be weak in power, but its EDR is high enough to withstand many small creatures and survive until the end of battle. Next, we have a nice Yellow card, Axion, Herald of Armies. With him, you can place him at a fort with 2 cards, making a triple. This gives you options as now you A- can have more than 6 creatures total, B- You have more options to attack/defend, or C- You now can block with 3 creatures before they go in to take out a barrier, making it very good as a card to defend your last fort. The second power allows you to move and stand the card at a different fort upon having a shield destroyed if he is crossed with a yellow die. This card alone can do quite the stuff if you use him with Angelica, The Light of Logres, but that is a story for another day. Green gives us nice cards for attacking. You have 2 vanilla cards, 1 summon ambush that gives you the option to rest a creature too, a nice 0/5 card that can defend multiple times, and the big card of the TD. Honorable mention to Guardian of the Forest. He can block and if your fort takes damage, restand him. Now if you give him the Yellow die, you get a draw every time he blocks. That means you basically can get 2 draws since he will be a 1/6, and that is something not many cards can destroy in 1 hit. Remus, Hunter Adept is a win/win card as you get an effect if you hit or miss a fort. When blocked you get a draw. If you hit, with a Yellow cross you can gain +1 life via barrier if you have 3 or less barriers, almost like a heal trigger from Vanguard. That places some pressure as you will either plus or heal, so your opponent needs to chose which will put him at a lower disadvantage. It is unlikely he will have an ambush that can destroy a 7/7 but that is a clear counter to this heavy costing card. Rest counters also work as you rest the card before it hits anything. Finally, Blue gives us 1…2…3 separate rest abilities to manipulate your opponents attacks. Check my analysis with the keeper in my previous article to see more on what it can potentially do: https://crystalcavernblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/a-table-for-2-and-some-promos-for-you-baltheos-devourer-of-hope-and-the-keeper-analysis/ Hidden Arts, Reverse Thunderstrike is a decent card that stands all of your cards and gives you a draw. Personally, I prefer E.M.P because I would rather rest the characters your opponent has than restand and block using my creatures instead of saving them for next turn. By your first block, your creatures should be almost dead, or dead. With this restand, you basically will have your cards destroyed with the second block. The good thing about this is if you have cards such as Guardian of the Forest, then you are set to plus. Hidden Arts, Water`s Edge Shuriken would be your finisher card, giving all of your creatures assassin as you use that effect to finish off the final fort.
Pros vs. Cons
Pros:
Good defensive cards
Lots of rest abilities to prevent damage triggering effects
Abilities to stabilize hand size
Uses cards that don’t die easily
Good finisher if you set up correctly
Cons:
Loses to target destroy effects from black cards
Can be rushed if you don’t set up properly
Needs to maintain efficient use of resource to play properly
No true source of clear, relies on rest rather than destroy effects
Alpha Dominance
Initial Thoughts
“Dictate the flow of the game with the Alpha Dominance deck and crush your opponents! Dominate the field, and victory will quickly be within your grasp!”
This is my personal favorite, and what I believe I can call, a late game monster. With this deck, you will do poor early game, but it has the best late game out of the 3 TD. That being said, you need to be extremely careful early game because you will lose to the other 2 TD if you play greedy early. Let us take a crack at this one now. We have Green for tempo, Blue for slight manipulation, and Red will be out power core of this TD. Starting with Green, we have a big on summon fort burst, a card that gets strong based on the different color cards you have on the field, and 2 cards I want to talk about specifically. First, Fleetwing Sprite. This card is a MUST HAVE in your starting hand due to the early resource plus it gives you. Yes you lose a card in hand, but overall, you are 1 resource ahead now. This is key to such decks like this as your core revolves around high cost cards. I love how this card screams ramp, a very nice mechanic seen in games such as MTG. With ramp mechanic, the idea is to play cards that give you resource. This way, you can summon huge creatures very early which places lots of pressure on your opponent. She also has a fort burst, meaning she will never be a dead card in your deck at any given point. Next we have Nature’s Touch. This card gets the honorable mention of this set as it will be a very useful card when the actual set comes out. You can use it to re-summon many creatures that are helpful, so expect to see this card in Green decks in the future. Laelania`s Call can be good to have in your starting hand if you have a big green card like Primeape Javelineer. A good combo you can do with this TD is turn 1, use that card to summon Primeape Javelineer, then use the last color resource to summon Highlands Rogue. The fort burst is good but very iffy. It does best if you do manage to have Izarco in hand, which we will get to later. Now we have 4 Blue cards. If you want to hear about All Guns Blazing check my article here: https://crystalcavernblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/lethal-push-a-first-look-at-all-guns-blazing-and-gluttony-of-albert/ Rejuvenate keeps you in check by giving you draw and resource if your green die is 1-3. Dramph Tommar, Kingpin manipulates your dice, so you can make sure you have the correct number on your green die for Rejuvenate. You can also use him to exchange numbers to increase the value on your remaining shield. Say you only have Blue fort left, that means you can only use the Blue die as your shield. You roll a 1 on the Blue and a 5 on the Green. Swap the 2 values so that way, you have a 0/5 defender and your Green die can trigger rejuvenate. A very swell combo you can use on your opponent. If you roll all low numbers on your dice, you can cross the catfish with the Blue die to increase the values by 1. Finally we have Red. Carefree Orc has its own separate article on my blog so be sure to check that out. Most other cards are demo deck cards so players should have some sort of knowledge about their potential. The main focus will be on 2 new cards, Stormfeather Screecher and Izarco-Tvash, Born of Magma. Stormfeather Screecher would do better in a R/U deck as you just need to disable the defenders and clear any ambush/dragoshield. Then you can smash for 2 damage. The second effect is not necessary, not many cards can get over a 7/7 and your goal when attacking with this card is to deal damage to the fort, not a creature. Now for probably the most talked about card in Dragoborne so far: Izarco-Tvash, Born of Magma. [AUTO] When this creature is summoned, choose one of your dice, and change its value to 6. Then, choose any number of opposing creatures, and deal 6 damage divided as you choose among those creatures.
[AUTO] [Dragocross: Red] When this creature is destroyed, choose any number of opposing creatures, and deal 7 damage divided as you choose among those creatures. So, you get a nice 0/6 dragoshield or a die you can use for a specific effect when it is 6. You deal damage to clear all the weak creatures or just to take down a certain big creature. And you get an effect when you cross it that lets you deal 7 damage. The key that makes this good is divided damage. That means you can ping all the 1-2 cost creatures your opponent has, or just use it on a big card. So you do that 2 times, when summoned and on death. This forces your opponent to make sure the card does not die. The only downside to this is the cost. 7 cost means you gotta spend the resource for a whole turn on this 1 card. With the ramp card in this deck, you can summon this as early as possible, but it is still best to summon it with extra resource so you can play a spell or another small card. This is what I was meaning early, you need to ramp as fast as you can or suffer.
Pros vs. Cons
Pros:
Super strong late game
High burst potential
Very nice ramp to give you resource you need to play big cards
Very good finisher with All Guns Blazing
Dice manipulation
Cons:
Loses to rush decks easily
Not much draw potential as the other TD
Ambush doesn’t stop attacks as well as the other TD
High costing cards can brick your early hand easily
Probably the hardest to use TD due to the thinking needed but the most rewarding
Conclusion
A long one huh? It took me a few days watching this but I managed to finish it in time for EVO finals. Hopefully this article gives you a good look at the 3 decks so you can pick which one best suits your play style. Remember, they are all good, none of the TD would be classified as garbage. This game does seem to have a high skill curve in compared to other games, so a good player can do good with many decks compared to a poor player. If you want to talk or argue a point, feel free to contact me or leave a comment. I will be glad to answer you shortly and refute or explain a point. Also be sure to keep in check with this blog. Now that we have a more clear understanding of the cards in this starting set, we can break them down and formulate decks. My first deck article will be a surprise, but here is a little hint: Weenie. Also be sure to check other content creators. I am not the only one and it is best to hear the viewpoints from other people so that way you get a nice analysis on what is good and bad. They spend time writing or creating videos, so be sure to thank the hard work they put into creating the content. Until next time, adventure on.
The Crystal Cavern 