So I ended up playing several decks this weekend. A few games with nature, a few with war, and 2 variants of Magic: Control and Aggro. I finished 15/25 this weekend, which I don't mind because that's 6 core packs in addition to the legendary D.O. pack.

Aggro Magic

Even without Pallas' Wand or Ancient Texts, this was my best performing deck. I made several tweaks since my last post and ended up with the following deck:

Without Pallas' Wand, early versions of this deck simply couldn't rely on being able to draw fast enough to finish quickly. To compensate, having 2 Epiphanies for an extra 12 damage was really helpful. This was actually how I started the weekend but took them out trying to copy faster decks. Lesson learned. I also eventually slotted in Porphyrion after running into it a few times and realizing what a pain it was to deal with. It requires so many resources to clear.

Also, I got better with this deck as I played it. One of the key things was to realize that pinging with the god power and then passing was often the right play - even if that meant floating 3 mana. Putting a single creature out per turn is terrible (with the exception of Scryers). You're just asking for them to be removed a turn at a time. If you save up, you can usually take the board all at once, combo cards together, etc. It also means that Hatchlings get a lot cheaper to play.

With 5 games left, I swapped back to this deck needing 4 wins to reach 15. I assumed it wouldn't work out, but the deck worked well. Very well considering I went 2/3 against other mages.

Control Magic

I played a total of 5 games with this basic deck (tweaking cards as I went) and won 3/5. Some thoughts:

• Stormstress is amazing. For control magic, she is far superior to Guild Enforcer. The hardest thing for control magic to deal with is mass ward. Stormstress is a perfect answer.
• Lightning Talisman is great early, but once you start dropping frontliners, it falls off. Now that I'm done with the weekend event, I'm going to try pinging myself with the god power to see if it procs. Based on it's text, it should. This could help clear ward or hit hidden creatures.
• You basically can't have too much board clear. This deck is basically "Board Wipe Mage". A total of 9 cards deal damage to all creatures.
• Metamorphosis wins games. Favorite target: Labyrinth Guard. Once you've got multiple frontliners on board, upgrading him to a big creature that can attack is huge. Just remember that roar's don't trigger. Imagine the LOLs of delving a Fertility Idol that then copies your Defenders or Helian Elites.

It's an OK deck but slow. I'm thinking it might be better with 2x Sip of Elixers for Ramp instead of 2x Shaped Blast. Or maybe pull 1x Talisman and Vortimer. We aren't casting lots of cheap spells, so Vortimer is kind of 'meh'. For this weekend in particular, it needs to be faster. Mage has no heals, so most of my wins were nail biters.

Aggro War

I watched Villibesti beat Card Draw Magic several times by simply being faster. Here was his deck.

When I was watching, he was having strong early success. I gave it a try, but as you can see, I don't have several of the best cards in the deck. I went something like 1/3 and gave up. Glad I did, now that I see Villi's final stats with this deck was so poor.

Aggro Nature

I started off with an aggro nature deck that depended on Wildfires and Buffing creatures on board. Against magic this weekend, sticking creatures was impossible. I went 0/2, deranked to Diamon, and then shelved the deck. While playing card draw magic, my hardest match up (other than mirror) was control nature. Valewardens now give a tremendous amount of value and keeping their board clear was difficult. Soaking up Wyrmbreaths and Epiphanies to kill big creatures meant they couldn't go face.

Conclusion

Playing 4 different decks made this weekend bearable but just barely. Magic obviously needs to be toned down, but I'm also curious if people can find counters after a week of experimentation. Particularly as they unlock new CSR cards

• Control nature (with compost charms and AoN / Minotaurs).
• Control War with life leech and big relics + "I need a weapon". You can't kill relics with Starshard Bolt, and Card Draw magic really doesn't want to tech in relic removal.

I don't know, but let's hope.