AZ2 Bounty 8: Elf Focus

When Mages Attack - elf version

Class: Mage

Talents
Unlock: Spell Sprites
Spry
Affinity: Mages
Learn Spell: Teleknesis
Learning
Open Mind
Worldly Knowledge
Secret Knowledge
Self Knowledge
Learn Spell: Chaos Missle
SP x2

Resources: (20 cards)
9x Ruby Shard
6x Sapphire Shard
1x Scrios Coins
1x Shard of Innovation
4x Well of Innovation

Troops: (30 cards)
4x Cerulean Sky Mage
3x Stalagmage
4x Highlands Magus
1x Ashwood Minstrel
4x Exalted Professor (+1 off action)
3x Runeweb Weaver
4x Voice of the Ashwood
4x Matriarch of Flames
3x Nagaan Lapidary (double damage)

Actions: (6 cards)
3x Crushing Blow
3x Conceal

Constants: (1 cards)
1x Forgotten Forge

Artifacts: (3 cards)
3x Spectral Acorn

Equipment:
Head for Matriarch of Flames: When a mage attacks create a random ruby action.
Chest for Stalagmage: mages that come later get Diligence - deal 2 to enemy champion.
Trinket for Exalted Professor: produced actions get cost -1 when you play a mage.
Gloves for Runeweb Weaver: other mages have flight
Weapon for Ashwood Minstrel: revert when this deals combat damage.
Feet for Highlands Magus: cost -1.

Mercenaries:
Spirit of the Triumvirate - 3x flight *and* speed, heck yeah!
Ashahsa - even more flight (2x on troops that don't already have it)
Clatterclank - extra charge from sprites


Strategy:

This deck puts pressure on quickly with lots of little threads each hopefully Stalagmage'ing and coming in for early damage.

Flight and speed from mercs along with Crushing Blow help keep the team attacking consistently.

The deck then wins either by:
- using Conceal / Runeweb Weaver for all those little threats to evade in for the last bit of damage OR
- off card advantage from Exalted Professor / Matriarch... perhaps followed by a big Lapidary hit.

The rest of the deck is designed to support those strategies... through mana acceleration, like from Ashwood Minstrel or his big brother Voice of Ashwood or card drawing from the likes of Thunderfield Seer or Sir Bernard.

Using your spellpoints wisely is important here because you have lots of tools available to you. If you need to smooth out your draws, do it, but starting with an 8 card hand should help. Otherwise, stash up points for a final assault, bouncing the big blockers and missle'ing down the rest.

Alternatively, spec'ing talents for the Magic Barrier (in place of the extra card) is a great way to ensure you make it to the long game... at which point a Lazgar's Vengeance provides a excellent counter to swarms or really any deck trying to slow you down.

Class: Ranger

Talents:

• (Call Class Pet/Train Class Pet)
  
• Pet Training: Ferocity
  
• Chew Toy
  
• Pet Training: Shared Exercise
  
• Pet Treats
  
• Hunting Party
  
• Bonded for Life
  
• Survival Skills
  
• Lay of the Land
  
• Ranger Class Gems
  
• Ranged Expertise: Leg Shot
  
• Ranged Expertise: Scatter Shot
  
• Ranged Expertise: Overwatch
  
• Eye of a Sniper
  

Decklist (60 cards):


Resources (15):

• 15x Ruby Shard
  

Troops (17):

• 4x Quash Ridge Tusker
  
• 4x Voice of the Ashwood (Ash Hood)
  
• 3x Skittering Skarn
  
• 4x Reginald Lancashire (Nimble Boots)
  
• 2x Xocoy, High Cleric (Ranger's Minor Orb of Knack, Major Ruby of Twinstrike)
  

Actions (25):

• 3x Crushing Blow (Kingmaker Gloves)
  
• 3x Seeing Red
  
• 4x Pyre Ceremony (Pyretic Vestments)
  
• 3x Crimson Clarity
  
• 4x Soul of Battle
  
• 4x The Crowd Roars (Bursting Bauble, Rending Hammer)
  
• 4x Gore Feast of Kog'Tepetl
  

Constants (0):

• (None)
  

Artifacts (3):

• 3x Spectral Acorn
  

Equipment:

• Head: Ash Hood (Voice of the Ashwood)
  
• Trinket: Bursting Bauble (The Crowd Roars)
  
• Chest: Pyretic Vestments (Pyre Ceremony)
  
• Gloves: Kingmaker Gloves (Crushing Blow
  
• Feet: Nimble Boots (Reginald Lancashire)
  
• Weapon: Rending Hammer (The Crowd Roars)
  

Mercenaries:

• Clatterclank
  
• Baxoth of Korru
  
• Augustine
  

Details: Much like Big Spider, but uses other cheap troops to go wider. Turn one wins are possible (best cards for this are Voice of the Ashwood with Crimson Clarity or Fertile Ground into Gore Feast (or The Crowd Roars into Gore Feast), while turn 2 or 3 wins are the norm. The Crowd Roars both makes sure a Voice, Reginald, or Xocoy can get through unblocked (rarely even necessary with all the ways to remove blockers with Talents, but sometimes 50/50 chances don't work out) and enables explosive turns (especially when you get a cheap Gore Feast). I don't usually play the "always choose draw" that many Ranger players do, but it does make first turn plays of The Crowd Roars easier (but note how disappointing it is to draw double threshold cards with it when you don't have the second threshold yet).

Options: Could remove Reginald (and equipment) in favor of Blade Flourish (and equipment) and another Xocoy. Blade Flourish does less damage and draws less cards, but it gets one of its cards faster, can do more damage on certain targets (Xocoy, Tusker, a Soul of Battle troop), and doesn't get enhanced by Skittering Skarn (so other more important troops are more likely to be enhanced). On the other hand, Blade Flourish is usually worse if drawn with The Crowd Roars (though again the instant card draw could be better). Or could remove Xocoy in favor of Emberleaf Invoker, Boulder Toss, or Construct Foreman. This allows exchanging Ranger Class Gems for Every Piece of the Animal and Survival Skills. If I didn't want to keep my tradition of using Xocoy with a class gem in my Ruby Elf decks, my preferred deck would use Blade Flourish x3 and Emberleaf Invoker x3.

Consistency: Quite good. The low shard count, while beneficial when games rarely go longer than 3 turns and when shards are often poor draws with The Crowd Roars, is the most likely thing to cause a loss, as with enough shards your pet will defeat almost any encounter by itself.

Speed: Excellent. Games most frequently take two turns, a little less often 3 turns, and every once in a while 1 turn.

Flexibility: Can run any dungeon and defeat any encounter, though as usual, some such as Mad Aradam can be more difficult.

Thank you Kami for putting up this awesome contest and putting our gears to work.

Hello dear Hexers!

I just want to let you know that ALL decklists that have been submitted in Kami's "Focus" contests can be found at the
Wardens of Entrath website,
at the Adventurer's Companion section.
If anyone who has submitted a decklist may find that I may have not done a correct description of their deck's type (aggro, control, combo etc.),(note that I have done the best I could with the description given by you) feel free to message me so I can correct it.

Thank you again Kami for this awesome contest and thanks to everyone who has participated in this contest and helped to grow the decklist library for all the community.

Obviously not an entry into the contest, but in case people come here for elf deck ideas (or if AxelDWater wants to add it to the Wardens of Entrath website), this is what I would have submitted for an Elf Cleric if I had gone Ruby instead of Wild. (The Wild version I submitted was one I loved playing, but I vaguely remembered that the Ruby version I had was slightly faster. When I finally got around to loading it back up again, I found it was a Crowd Roars list that had been severely impacted by the nerf. So I decided to try out a new Ruby version and found that my Mage deck list formed a strong starting foundation... The biggest drawback to this version of the Cleric is that now my Mage AND the other Cleric version feel slow.)

Class: Cleric

Talents:

• Enhance Blessing (Life Essence)
  
• Enhance Blessing (Empowerment)
  
• Discipline of the Mind
  
• Blessing of the Immortals
  
• Hale
  
• Healing Aura
  
• Aura Aspect: Good Karma
  
• Blessed Birth
  
• Child of the Right Hand
  
• Premonitions
  
• Affinity: Cleric
  

Decklist (60 cards):

Resources (20):

• 20x Ruby Shard
  

Troops (23):

• 4x Kindling Skarn (Kindling Gauntlets)
  
• 4x Voice of the Ashwood (Ash Hood)
  
• 3x Skittering Skarn
  
• 4x Reginald Lancashire (Nimble Boots)
  
• 4x Xocoy, High Cleric (Minor Ruby of Zeal, Major Ruby of Twinstrike, Xocoy's Double-bladed Axe)
  
• 4x Cerberus (Cerberus Collar)
  

Actions (14):

• 3x Glyph of Ferocity
  
• 4x Pyre Ceremony (Pyretic Vestments)
  
• 3x Crimson Clarity
  
• 4x Soul of Battle
  

Constants (0):

• (None)
  

Artifacts (3):

• 3x Spectral Acorn
  

Equipment:

• Head: Ash Hood (Voice of the Ashwood)
  
• Trinket: Cerberus Collar (Cerberus)
  
• Chest: Pyretic Vestments (Pyre Ceremony)
  
• Gloves: Kindling Gauntlets (Kindling Skarn)
  
• Feet: Nimble Boots (Reginald Lancashire)
  
• Weapon: Xocoy's Double-bladed Axe (Xocoy, High Cleric)
  

Mercenaries:

• Clatterclank
  
• Sekki
  
• Tafford the Tireless
  

Details: This deck seeks to abuse Blessings to achieve swift victory.

Basic strategy: Much like the Elf Mage strategy I gave above. The Cleric version is generally even faster.

Deck differences: Xocoy couldn't be given the Mage gem, so he gets double damage gem. Since having that gem already used made Communion of Wax much less effective, it was removed. Since draw was less important than with a mage (Clerics don't have a reduced cost card in the top five), Jack-hat was removed. Since Clerics have a higher health total, they couldn't use a mercenary for creating a starting target for Pyre Ceremony, so the one cost Kindling Skarn was added. To make the Skarn more effective, as well as to enable attacks by Xocoy or Cerberus sooner, Glyph of Ferocity was also added. Sekki and Taffor were added to make starting Blessings even more beneficial and to put more Blessings in your deck.

Strategy differences: As opposed to saving your Embiggen spell for Xocoy or Cerberus, it's almost always good to use your Blessings to buff a Voice or Skarn right away instead of waiting. Skarns turn out to be extremely powerful when combined with Blessings and Soul of Battle (and especially with Blessing of the Immortals to cast another Blessing of Soul of Battle). Many wins come from a Skarn in just its second stage. Blessings are another source of ramp (especially when they buff a Voice), so Xocoy and Cerberus can be played even sooner. A Skarn in its second stage will always be big enough to survive a Pyre Ceremony as long as one other action is cast first that turn (or if it's been buffed by two Blessings). You don't usually want to kill a Skarn with a Ceremony, but sometimes it is the best move.

Ways the deck abuses Blessing buffs: A Blessing on Xocoy will (virtually always) be used twice in one turn, basically meaning quadruple (health-giving) damage. A Blessing on Cerberus does triple damage. A Blessing-buffed troop affected by Soul of Battle does double damage. A Blessing on any troop temporarily buffs a Skarn as well and contributes to its transformation to the next stage. A Blessing on a Voice of Ashwood can be used as extra ramp.

Consistency: extremely consistent, due to Premonitions, lots of draw power, multiple options for ramp and many excellent troops for Blessing buffs.

Flexibility: can easily handle almost all encounters, as this deck wins even faster than the Mage version. Ironically the encounters with the aid of the robot in the Graveyard can be slower than normal, as the robot "intercepts" the Blessing buffs if you don't use Pyre Ceremony on him first.

Speed: wins occur in 2-4 turns against the great majority of opponents. 2 turns is typical, 3 happens slightly less often, 4 feels slow but still happens a fair amount. Turn 1 wins are rare but fun. Taking 5 turns is probably even more rare against typical opponents.

*Happy Dance*

Those are some great decks!

Grats to the winners!

Thanks for the interesting ideas going forward.

Huge shout out and thanks to Kami for running these bounties!