Hi all!
In my weekend ranked post, I mentioned I had put in a couple of reps with an Arcane Burst deck. I've played with it a bit more and tweaked the deck a bit. Somehow I've managed to stay in Mythic, so I've actually come across several arcane burst decks to pull inspiration from.
Mythic is full of expensive control decks. Demos in particular are so expensive because they are great at stalling the board and healing your god. Arcane Burst + Pyrrhic Knowledge is a 30-damage OTK from hand, and it doesn't care much about creatures on board. Demos aren't very strong against it. Ditto with lots of control's other tools for managing the board.
First of all, hooray for no longer being "??" on gudecks! I spoke to David, and he said just keep changing your name, and each time, play a few games. I'm currently Kstreet2, so I'll switch back and hopefully just be Kstreet again soon.
Code:
GU_1_4_BDWBDWGAVGAVCEoCEoIBmIBDIBDCEnCEnCANCANCEkCEkKAgKAgCFqCFqLAELAEIBsCBmCBmGAYPAmPAmPAfCAlCAl
Yes, this is another deck where 80% of the deck price is Hortuk, and he can be swapped out for other stuff.
In my last post, I had copied this deck:
I liked that it was a different take on Arcane Burst and had a lot of creatures in it. Wander Wagon felt like a meme, though, so I cut it. Another burst deck I played against had 2x Sip of Elixir, so I've decided to try swapping that in.
Sip is an interesting card. It's a spell <3 mana, so it helps increase Burst's damage up to 10. It also helps you get to 7 mana faster to play it. In control matchups, this can help you keep up with Ramp Magic or get ahead of other gods. Also, as you'll see in the gameplay video, you sometimes need more than 7 mana to combo due to things like Safeguard Incantation.
I'll definitely test Magic Inks also. Being able to copy a 0-cost pyrrhic is great. More options to get lethal. You can actually even do 40 damage against control nature.
Against aggro, my hope is that the extra mana gets me to 7 fast enough for Oni's and Hortuk. Additionally, the extra mana should give me space to combo multiple cards per turn as needed to clear the board.
I like to find cheap removal and card draw in the mulligan. Frenetic Bibliomaniac is an always keep. She is draw, but you can also use the token 1/1 bodies to help make trades and clear their board. Shaped Blast might be a keep as long as you aren't facing aggro light. If I only have 1 draw left and my other 2 picks are draw/removal, I'd consider it.
Just like CDM, draw is important even in aggro matchups. Pulling off the combo in one turn is less important, so you don't have to reduce Pyrrhic Knowledge to zero. If playing Aetherfox would help you contest board and reduce a helpful spell, then go for it.
Most likely, you can exhaust your opponent of cards. This deck has enough creatures to win using midrange tactics. Make it to 7 and play your Oni's.
For Burst, under normal circumstances, feel free to play it as soon as you can do 10 dmg with it (maybe even sooner). For instance, if you wind up with it and both 3-mana PKs in hand, just play it and then kill them next turn with both PKs. They usually can't heal or shield their face.
Card draw. More card draw. All the card draw.
The game plan against control is to draw through your deck as fast as possible. You need to find 5 cards.
Use your foxes to reduce both PKs to 0 mana. Then at 7 mana (assuming you have played 10 spells <=3 mana) you can go off for 30 damage in a single turn.
Along the way, you're going to have to play some cheap spells to manage the board, so that will just come naturally. If you find the combo super fast, you may have to dump some spells onto an empty board, and that's fine.
Chip damage is also important. We're drawing so many cards that Leyhoard Hatchlings are great. Against aggro, you're using them to control the board, but against control, you want to do face damage. Two leyhoards to the face plus 2 pings from your GP and now you only need to find 3 cards and do 20 damage. Note that in these situations, you don't want to leave a bunch of creatures on board for Demos/Onis to heal from.
This is a game against control magic. It's a cheap deck and has a dual win con of Flame of Second Shattering along with a Helian Elite. This is important because it impacts how I play the game, but honestly, against an unknown deck, I would have had to play the same (respect a potential FoSS finisher). The difference is I wouldn't have known from the start that it was control.
My mulligan was pretty bad. I used them all and wound up with what you see at the start of the game. Ouch. The hope was to start in on that card draw asap.
Nothing worth doing, so pass. As you can imagine, these early turns are some boring gameplay, so let's skip ahead a bit.
Let's assume I couldn't see his deck. Ramp the previous turn told me he is control. Leyhoard + GP to the face now tells me he likely has FoSS in his deck and wants to get me to low HP. It's also possible he is playing an odd burst deck. Either way, even if I couldn't see his deck, I'm now on high alert for one-turn kills.
All of my draws so far have been bad. I finally find some card draw in Seeing Stone. Seeing stone is really nice. Foresee + draw means it actually digs 2 cards into your deck. Unless the next card is one you want.
While I want to save my Safeguards for burst protection, I also need to get digging! I opt to play one. I have another in hand, and if things get desperate, I can always PK another one.
Stormstress is mana efficient, clears their 1/1, and puts a threat on board they have to address.
They have a very poor answer. I am able to clear their stormstress with 2 spells that are <= 3 mana, which is just working towards Burst damage. I also get to go face and ramp. A great turn for me.
Talisman is a great aggro-control tool. I don't care much about it, but I do clear it before playing any creatures. Rune from the sanctum is also a spell <= 3 mana!
We have foxes, but nothing to play them on (yet).
Our opponent absolutely wastes an Oni here. Based on the cards I'm playing, he knows I'm control, so I suppose thinks he'll never get a better shot. That may be true. Knowing he has oni's, I'm not going to fill the board.
You see me check the void. I don't have 10 spells in there yet, so I use Form to clear the Oni even though I could have GP'd. It also helps that it does chip damage to the face and then I can still GP the face. <20 damage, and a deck peeker who sees my burst deck is getting nervous.
Another suboptimal Oni. This time I don't have a great answer. In hindsight, using the Form of Power last turn was a mistake. It's not like I had the combo in hand ready to go. Lesson learned.
Instead, I use shaped blast. I also use Safeguard because I can't afford a 10 HP swing in health against this opponent. FOSS is a nasty card.
Our opponent also knows how important a 10 hp swing is, and winds up using FOSS to clear the protected so he can hit. Think how much better off I'd be if I had held that Form of Power! Patience!
Drawing Hortuk in the 7 mana range always feels good. I play him right away. Opponent has to answer the leech.
Remember judging our opponent for sub-optimal Oni's? Well, we've got nothing better to do now either, so down he goes. At least we get 2 hp! I consider using my pip to get Demetrios down, but I decide not to. This game could come down to having that extra pip.
Our opponent was 100% looking at our deck, but in the future when he can't, playing Aetherfox is when we scream to him "we're going to burst you!" Holding on to them might be more important then.
Love Seeing Stone. The time for Hatchlings has long past. I will win the game the second I find Arcane Burst. He goes to the bottom of the pile. We do find the other PK, so now we don't care him healing - as long as we find that burst. Also, let's observe our opponent's behavior now that we've played two aetherfoxes.
He safeguards! 馃ぃ Smart man (or woman!), but we don't have it. Our burst is being incredibly shy.
I'm very tempted to just attack and then Oni this board. In hindsight, I think it was the right play. I was focused on what I drew, and when I saw Stormstress I didn't even consider my other cards. The heal from Oni would have been huge. He has another FOSS + PK, so he can do 14 from hand. He also has the wand equipped. I should have healed. (You can see me mouse over Oni when I realized my mistake not playing him.)
Look who finally decides to show! We win game on the spot. If we hadn't drawn it, I would have gone face with stormstress and then Oni'd my own board. That way I'm pretty sure I live one more turn (or more if he can't remove oni).
This also illustrates why getting above 7 mana is important against Safeguard. Having creatures in the deck helps, too. Of course, our chip damage had him under 20 damage, so we also had the spare PK that was also lethal.
GG!
While Wanderwagon was a meme card, I think Montrus is on to something with his creature-based approach. Midrange creatures and heavy removal should be able to manage aggro opponents, and of course, OTK combos are the bane of control decks.
This definitely isn't a fast deck, so don't use it to burn through your daily play and earn matches. It is, however, a fun change of pace. Also, if you're like me and just looking for 2-3 wins a day, this might get those faster (or as fast) in Mythic due to the higher win rate.
Sometimes, it's just nice to punish all these greedy control decks.
