Hey all. This is a fun light deck that I've played for a while and even wrote a guide on previously. However, several major things have changed (most notably RIP prayer of the desperate), that meant this deck had to be reconfigured. On the whole, I think it's a better deck. I've got some gameplay vids to prove it, so you can be the judge.
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GU_1_3_BCYBCYCABCABCDFCDFCDlCDlHAFHAFCCsCCsCDoCDoCEdCEdCFbCFbICkICkKAXKDfICbICjKAYBGPBGPCBGCBGCBM
This is the deck to run, but I don't have Thestor. I don't feel like buying him yet. I'm speculating that his supply is going into 2x or more from here and aggro light has fallen out of favor, so his price should steadily decline. Can't wait to get him, though! Fun card and a perfect fit for this deck.
We're an aggressive deck, but instead of card draw, we have 3 cards that generate creatures for us. The rest of the deck is built around taking advantage of those cards and/or supplementing their weaknesses. Prayer of the Desperate was a big blow to deck, but the new formulation is better than the deck I was running before and doesn't need it as a crutch.
This deck will do well against creature-based decks and struggle against control magic and deception. Rapture Dance is particularly painful as we routinely have a full board. Unlike magic's board clears, our buffs aren't usually enough to save our creatures from RD doing 6 damage to each. Protective Benediction and Canonize are our outs, though.
The sanctum is a big part of this deck. Hitting face even with a 1/1 gives 3 favor. You'll see me opt for the favor against control light often in the second video. I then use the favor to punish him with sanctum cards.
Our summoners:
Madame is such a fantastic card for aggro light. Probably deserves a spot in classic aggro deck lists. In this deck, definitely hold her in the mulligan. Every time.
The addition of ward to Cleric made him playable. I don't think he's good enough to see play outside of a deck like this that is built around him. That's not a bad thing. We just had to find the right deck, which is half the fun.
Also, after playing this deck quite a bit. My word of advice is to generally not put more than one of these out at a time. There are obviously exceptions (Thestor hilarity), but being able to refill your board after a wipe is important. I make this mistake in one of the gameplay vids.
These cards are how we capitalize on all these free minions:
With a Battle Cleric on board, you can play Thestor and his echo. At the end of the turn you get another acolyte. Thestor becomes 4/3 with upside. His echo is a 2/2 with the same upside. Not to mention the Cleric and Acolyte you on board at a minimum.
Chaining of the Gods is another card worth discussing. I've come to like it a lot after first watching 
The remaining cards should be more or less obvious. It might feel like a lot of buff cards, but Asterius and Chaining double as a creature and a reaction card. Canonize only needs 1 creature on board. It's only 3 cards (2x RD and 1x PB) that we risk bricking with if we have no board. Additionally, our deck is designed to be pumping out creatures passively.
Light is notoriously bad at going second, so all of my light decks try to minimize this weakness.
Cudgel, Archer, and Axewoman are staples for light for a reason: they are excellent reactive cards that help us battle for board early.
I run Levy over Extortionist mainly because board space is a concern. In this deck, I'd rather have a single 2/2.
Militant Theist doesn't get enough recognition in my book. It's an amazing card for light. Like chaining of the gods, you can use it to press your advantage or to come from behind. You want to know what joy is? Theist a Guild Enforcer at 6 mana and then Levy it. That's joy. Killing a 3/1/1armor lurker? Also joy. Just as often it gives you a favorable trade by giving just enough strength/hp for one of your creatures to kill and survive. Statwise it's a 3 mana 3/4 but adds versatility at the cost of being bad to play on a completely empty board. That is an incredibly minor downside. I also like playing it on a 1/4 marsh walker and then letting my 1/1 skulkers cut it down. Can't say enough great things about this card.
Ward is a powerful mechanic for Battle Cleric, but if he's the only card with ward in the deck, your magic opponents are going to have an easier time clearing him. It's still fairly easy, but including other warded creatures is designed to soak more of their direct damage spells before 5 mana. I also chose Devoted Follower over Bright Mage. Cheaper mana and the mage doesn't have a lot of good targets to heal early game.
This is one of the best and most fun games I've played in a while. Glad it was against our friend 
Part of what I like about this game is he knows I have Light's Levy from turn 1 and I know (or at least am guessing) he has an obelisk. We hold both those cards until he has basically no other play. Key for this game was getting an excellent opening hand.
5 Mana
This is my happy place when playing GU. Battling for board. Seeing uncommon board states. Trying to figure out how best to react. I think I've lined up a devastating Asterius next turn only to watch him expertly play around it and even plan the sanctum out beautifully.
6 Mana
At 6 mana, he plays Sulphuric Rain, and this is the only questionable card that I saw in his entire game. Ragnarok is cheaper (in ETH) and doesn't give me card draw. Aggro decks love card draw, so I'm pretty confident Rag is the better card for a zombie deck. The card draw ends up giving us the win by drawing Canonize.
6.5 Mana
Not until 6.5 mana does the Obelisk come down as a last resort. What a well-played game. I levy it and then it's GG. I was about to flash it back! Here is the proof! GG!!
I chose this vid out of several options mainly because it highlights what not to do. Somehow I still won even after 2 critical misplays. Primarily, that's because his top end wasn't optimized (in my opinion).
1st misplay: Chaining of the Gods. I'd had played several games where it killed the opponent's creature, so I was thinking "great kill his buff mine". Unfortunately, it didn't kill, so it just buffed it back. The right play there was to debuff their creature and then +1/+1 to all.
2nd misplay: I played Battle Cleric on a board with Madame already on it AND when my opponent could pip into Lysander's Mercy next turn. So bad. So so bad. Don't do that.
Should have lost that game. Turns 8.1 and 8.2 were fun puzzles, though. Glad I found a way out.
This is a fun deck, and losing Prayer of the Desperate made me critically review it. I found lots of cards in my previous deck that I stripped out and replaced with much better cards (some of which I didn't own back then). This is an excellent deck to play for fun. When I pick up Thestor, the deck may have legs for competitive play. Hope you enjoy it!
